Chapter 45

The moment I opened my suite's door, I knew Merrick was inside, waiting for me. The air was charged by his presence and filled with the light, sugary scent of a cake too sweet.

I paused for a moment on the threshold, feeling the absurd and pointless urge to flee. Where could I possibly go that my godfather could not? With a deep breath, I entered and shut the door behindme.

"Hazel," he greeted me from somewhere in the parlor, and for a moment, I couldn't make him out on the plump black divan. When he stood to greet me, it seemed as if the chair itself had sprung to life, a horrifically large shadow of jumbled angles and moving parts. "Happy birthday."

"You came."

I knew I should go and embrace him, let him dote upon me, but my feet were stuck, unable to move, as if I'd wandered into a patch of tar.

"Of course I did."

I noticed that Merrick made no motion to move closer either.

It stung, but I'd brought this distance upon myself. I'd burned something sacred between us the moment I'd dared to go down a path different from the one he'd wanted. Whatever familial bonds we'd forged, however tenuous, however unlikely, they'd been severed, and I wasn't sure they'd ever be repaired, no matter how many years I had before me to try.

"Your pup seems bigger than ever," he noted, gesturing to Cosmos, who was padding happily about the room, wagging his tail like a fool. He had always preferred my godfather to me. Merrick gave better belly scratches.

"He's gotten fat." I smiled, not feeling it. "The cook here dotes on him."

"And you…you look so—" He stopped short, tilting his head as he studied me, taking in every change the year had brought.

"Tired?" I supplied.

"Stylish," Merrick finished. "So very grown up and lovely. Life at court suits you, Hazel. Far more than the cottage ever did."

"It's what you always wanted, isn't it?"

He cocked his head, his eyes winking curiously.

"When you first gave me the gift, you said I'd become so great that kings would ask for me by name."

The edges of his mouth rose in a bittersweet smile. "I did."

"Now they do."

"That's good."

I pressed my lips together. He wanted my contrition, wanted me to keep begging for his forgiveness, a little girl scared of punishments that might be meted out against her. All I had to do was take up that role again and play my part with every bit of the earnestnessrequired.

The trouble was, I wasn't that little girl any longer.

I glanced down at my hands. They felt ungainly without a task to occupy them. "I smell cake," I finally said, desperate to find a neutral subject. "What kind did you make this year?"

Merrick frowned as if knowing he was being cajoled. "Chantilly cake with berry compote. Mascarpone frosting," he added reluctantly.

"It sounds delicious," I lied. It seemed the easiest kindness I could offer. "Would you like me to cut it?" I wandered over to the credenza where the towering confection rested, keenly aware of how Merrick stayed behind, swaying from foot to foot.

"Are we truly not going to talk about it?" he called, making no move to come closer. "This past year. The…incident that led to this estrangement?"

"Estrangement," I repeated as my fingers danced over the knife and serving wedge.

"I haven't seen you in an entire year, Hazel."

And whose fault is that?

The words balanced on the tip of my tongue, but I kept them back. It wouldn't serve either of us to have them said aloud.

"I didn't know you wanted to see me."

"Of course I did." He wrung his hands in an anxious gesture so ill-befitting the Dreaded End that I nearly smiled. "I've missed you, Hazel," he admitted. "You're the only one I…It's been a very long time to go without seeing my goddaughter."

"Then why did you stay away? It's not as though I can go afteryou."

"I didn't think you'd want to see me," he pointed out in a near echo of my excuse.

I wanted to laugh. Merrick had never once taken my desires into account. He'd whisked me here and there on whims he never bothered to explain. He decided when to visit, never wondering if it would be convenient for me. He'd laid out the entire course of my life before I was born, even ensuring that that life would go on for as many extra years as he wanted.

I wanted to scream all this at him, wanted to let the accusations burst from my chest with thunderous force. I was right, I knew I was, and I just wanted him to see that. To admit that.

But I could feel his mood darkening, setting my blood on edge, and I swallowed every trace of righteous indignation.

"Cake?" I asked, taking up the utensils. "It looks like your bestyet."

He made a grunt of acknowledgment and finally stepped closer.

"No candles this year," I observed, then winced at my stupidity.

"I couldn't watch you blow them out. Not after…" Merrick sighed.

His honest admission was painful to witness.

We couldn't go on like this, slicing each other with daggered confessions so sharp the cuts weren't felt until the blood began tofall.

Merrick wouldn't be the one to change. He'd spent countless millennia being exactly who he was, uncontested, undisputed.

It would have to be me.

I pressed the tip of the knife into the table's surface, marring the wood. It hurt too much to continue with the sham of a celebration, but I also couldn't forfeit the pretense altogether. "Merrick." I swallowed. "I owe you an apology."

He sniffed.

"I never truly thought about how my actions affected you. I never considered everything you went through to get those candles. My rejection of one must have seemed like such an insult."

He licked his lips but said nothing, letting me flounder in my misery.

"What…what did you have to do for those candles?" I dared to ask.

He looked away from me, out the window, and the afternoon light played off his two-toned eyes, causing them to refract light like those of a predator slinking in the dark. "There was a trade," he said after a long moment. "With the Holy First." He allowed himself a very small smile. "After your father's refusal of her, she almost didn't grant my request, but I was quite persistent."

"What did you trade?"

Merrick let out a very long hiss of air. "What I deal in best."

"Death?" I guessed.

"Lives," he corrected me flatly. "The point at which lives end." When I frowned with confusion, he sighed and continued. "We see things very differently from mortals. You perceive everything around you in a linear fashion. This happened, so this happens, which will cause that to happen. But the gods…" Merrick waved his long fingers in a giant cyclical gesture. "We see every version of every choice, every effect every cause can trigger."

I remembered my small taste of the godsight with a queasy stomach, then felt a sense of déjà vu wash over me. I was certain we'd had this exact conversation before.

But not about the Holy First.

It was about…

"The First wanted me to save lives," I said, putting it together. "Not just as a healer, but…"

"She is the reason you see the deathshead," Merrick confirmed. "It's her will you're meant to carry out. It's never been mine."

"Oh." I stared at my fingers, still clutching the knife. I didn't know what this meant, what it meant for me, what it meant for him, but my chest ached. "Was it her choice or yours that I become a healer?"

He shrugged, the body of his robes hefting up before wafting down into rippling shadows. "At the time, it didn't matter to me what you did. You'd not even been born yet. I only knew that I loved you, that I'd want all those extra years for you. I didn't care much what needed to be done to get them. I never considered the toll it would take on you."

"Was she…was she very upset about Marnaigne?"

He nodded.

It was difficult to imagine an angry Holy First. In all the stories of her, she was made out to be a benevolent, motherly figure who was far more likely to leave you smothered in guilt over all the ways you disappointed her than to ever raise her voice. But…

"I think she took my gift away," I admitted.

Merrick frowned.

"I can't see cures any longer. Not since…not since that day in the cavern. It doesn't feel like it's ever going to return."

He made a pained noise. "Probably not. I suppose it's a good thing I made you read all those books, then."

I smiled, as if he'd made a joke.

He grabbed the knife from my hand and I flinched. "Give methat," he said. "You shouldn't have to cut your own cake."

Part of me wanted to sit back and let him serve. We'd eat it in stilted silence and it would be horrible, but it would be the first small step to getting back to the usual rhythm of us. I just needed to keep my mouth shut and let him celebrate my birthday.

"Merrick?"

I wanted to pinch myself. All I had to do was stay quiet and this disaster of an afternoon could soon be at an end. But it was like an aching tooth. I couldn't not poke at it. I had to keep testing the pain, seeing if I could handle it.

He grunted.

Don't do it, Hazel. Don't do it, Hazel. Don't—

"Do you ever regret making me your goddaughter?"

The knife fell through the cake as easily as a guillotine. "What?" he asked.

I winced. "Sometimes it feels like all I do is disappoint you, and I just…I've always wondered."

"Always?" he echoed, sounding hurt.

"When I was little…when you didn't come for all those years, I thought it was because you realized you'd made a mistake."

"All those years…Did it truly feel so long?"

"Merrick, I'd been waiting my whole life for you."

He stared at me with shock and sadness, looking impossibly ancient, looking every bit the god he was. "I never thought of it that way." Merrick shook his head. "I've never regretted that moment. Not once. And I never will."

He set the knife aside, leaving the slice of cake untouched.

"Gods don't want for anything. Not truly. But before you…there had been an agitation building inside. This burr that poked at me, this sense that something wasn't whole, wasn't complete. I didn't know what would fill it. I didn't know how to stop its ache. But when I heard your very foolish parents making those very foolish plans, I realized I'd found what I'd been searching for. I'd found you. I felt you. I could feel who you were. Who you'd become…You captivated me, Hazel."

My chest felt too heavy to breathe. "You've never told me this part of my birthday story."

"I suppose I should have…. Once I found you, I was selfish. I made the trade with the Holy First and she granted me three candles. Three lives with you."

He made a pained noise and crossed from me to the fireplace. He ran a finger over the mantel, tracing memories.

"It was agony waiting for you to arrive. I didn't know what to do with such an interminable length of time. So I waited and I planned. I planned everything . I knew you'd have blond hair and deep blue eyes. Your mouth would pucker into a little rose. I imagined your smile, your laughter, the sound of your voice. I pictured our lives together, all the things I'd teach you, the things you'd show me."

As he spoke, I pictured how his words might have played out. I saw myself take my first steps holding tightly to the Dreaded End's fingers, watched as we whiled away childhood afternoons in a sun-drenched meadow, playing at tea, then checkers, then chess.

Regretfully, Merrick shook his head. "I was wrong, though, about so many things. About everything, I suppose," he reflected.

Merrick's admission stung. "What a disappointment this freckled, dark-haired creature must have been."

He turned back to me, his eyes bright with emotion. "Never a disappointment. Always a wonder." He reached out and touched my cheek. "Today I look at you and wonder what you might have become if I'd not saddled you with dreams of only my own making."

It was the closest thing to an apology I'd ever heard from my godfather, and I wasn't sure how to respond. I felt as if I should say something to absolve him, but I couldn't find it in me to ease his guilt.

"I don't know what I would have been. I suppose I never will," I admitted honestly. I offered him a smile, but he didn't return it. "Let's eat," I said, holding out my hand to draw him back.

One hug. One embrace would erase the hurt and frustration and disappointment, and we could go back to muddling along together, an unlikely pair that somehow worked.

"I'm not hungry," Merrick said. I'd never heard him so sad before. "I…I think it's best if I leave you to your celebrations, here, in your new home. At court."

"Just like you wanted," I pointed out, my voice light, hopeful he'd find enough pleasure in that to smooth over the moment.

"Just like I wanted," he agreed. He crossed to me then and pressed his papery, dry lips to my forehead. "Happy birthday, Hazel."

He was gone before I could answer, slipping through a void of his own making. I sank down in the nearest chair, feeling a strange pain across my chest. I felt as though I was about to cry, though I couldn't see the point in it.

Merrick was unhappy—with me, with himself, with the situation we were in—and there was nothing to be done about it. I couldn't soften his pain, I couldn't find a way to make him smile and forget about it. After years of tiptoeing around his changeable moods, doing everything I could to keep him light and happy, I felt a complete failure to be so helpless now.

I wondered when I would see him again, if another year would go by before he returned to me. Or two, or three, or an entire decade. How long did it take for a god to make peace with their shortcomings? How long would he stew upon this? And what was I meant to do with my time while I waited?

There was a knock at my door and I rushed to answer it, foolishly thinking it might be Merrick come back. But when I threw it open, breathless, as I anticipated seeing my godfather there smiling, shy and contrite, I was only disappointed. The hall was empty save for a serving cart.

On its top tier, perfectly situated in the center of a golden charger, was a white plate bearing a square of dark cake studded with slivers of walnuts. It warmed the air with cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg and smelled like my childhood.

A single lit candle had been stabbed into the cake, wholly unassuming, plain and white, and reminding me uncomfortably of the one I'd given away.

Curious, I brought the cart into my suite.

I picked up the fork resting alongside the plate, marveling at how Leopold must have persuaded the kitchen staff. I was certain it wouldn't be right, sure that Cook had added fistfuls of brown sugar or candied ginger to punch up the flavor, to create something intriguing and playful for the palate.

He hadn't.

It was simple and nutty, a recipe far too rustic to ever be served to this court.

It was the most perfect cake I'd ever eaten.

And Leopold had been the one to give it to me.

I pictured him as he'd been in the garden, more serious and thoughtful than I'd ever guessed possible, and remembered how the sunlight had played across his features, warm and radiant, and my heart jumped within my chest, feeling almost like a wish.

With a wistful smile, I blew out the candle.