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Darien smiled. “If you decide to spy, let me know if you find anything out. I would love to know what that guy gets up to in his spare time.”

“I will. We’ll call it our Rock Hunt.”

“Great code name.”

“I try.”

Darien’s smile faded. The sudden absence of humor didn’t go unnoticed by his old friend.

“I get the feeling you’re here for some advice,” Arthur said.

“Not advice. Just to talk.”

“What would you like to talk about?”

Darien leaned back against the table and pushed his hair out of his face. “I think I’m going crazy. My Surges have never been this bad. I’m having one nearly every day, sometimes more than once a day.”

“Your dad struggled with them too.” What a surprise. Nothing Randal had left him had brought him any joy. Arthur continued, “At least, he did in the beginning. He suffered from them terribly. Your mother had a way of consoling him the same way she consoled you, which I believe was a large part of the reason why he fell for her.”

Darien shifted on his feet. “Do you believe he truly loved her?”

Arthur considered his question. “Yes,” he began, somewhat apprehensively. “I believe he did love her. In his own way.”

Darien scowled at the shelves of books that were pressed up against the back wall. “She deserved better.”

“Not everything that came of their relationship was bad,” Arthur said softly. Darien glanced down at him. “She got you and Ivyana.”

Darien returned to scowling at the shelves. “I was a shit son.”

“Your mother didn’t think so.”

“I promised myself a long time ago that I would never have kids.”

“And why is that?”

“I’d make a terrible father. I mean, look at me.” He gestured to all of him, because it was all of him that was broken.

“I’m looking,” Arthur said patiently. “And I see a man who is very self-aware, one who strives every day to be a better person than he already is.” An understanding smile played on his lips. “That’s why you should have one. One day, when you’re ready. You have to learn to love yourself first.” Easier said than done when he was the type of person not worth loving. Arthur sat back in his chair and laced his wrinkled fingers in his lap, the wedding ring he never took off, even all these years later, shining like new gold. “Does Loren want children one day?”

Probably. And she deserved them—she deserved whatever she wanted, the most beautiful life she could get.

Darien shrugged. “We aren’t talking.”

“Not talking,” Arthur mused. “I find that difficult to believe.”

“I don’t. I had a feeling it would happen eventually.”

“Is she not talking to you, or is it you who’s not talking to her?”

“I’m giving her space. She…walked in on something I didn’t mean for her to see. I was…collecting.” That was the cleanest way to put it. The sight of her horrified face when she had walked in on him flashed through his mind, the memory churning his stomach. “And what excuse do I have, really? That I have to do it because it’s my job?” He shook his head in disgust. “Fuck, my job…”

“She knew you were a Darkslayer the moment she met you. She even knew before she met you. It’s not like you were keeping it from her.”

“No, but the only side of me that I ever allowed her to see was the better side, the hero who saved her. Not the man who kills because he can’t sleep at night.” He sighed. “I’ve lost track of the number of lives I’ve taken, Arthur. That’s how many there are.”

“Is the world not a better place because of it?”

“Killing is killing, no matter who it is. I might be cleaning up the streets of some bad people, but in doing so, I’ve become bad myself. Some days, I feel like I don’t have a soul, if I ever even had one.”