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He kissed the tip of her nose. “Let’s do this.”

—

Darien knew he’d promised to be there for Loren through the whole dinner, awkward conversations and all. But goddamn, was this awkward. As the seconds dragged by at a pace that was torturous enough to make him want to impale himself on his fork, he started to wonder why Erasmus had even bothered inviting them.

They were seated at the dining room table, the squeak of knives and forks on fancy dishes the only sound to break the heavy-as-fuck silence. A ridiculous amount of food was spread before them—bowls of salads and vegetables, platters of chicken and ham, mashed potatoes, a pyramid of dinner rolls, and a fruit-flavored gelatin dessert. That dessert jiggled every time Darien bumped the table or tried to play footsie with Loren, who was seated across from him, to help with her nerves.

Loren and Erasmus had said next to nothing to each other since the moment their greetings were over and done with, and the limited amount of conversation that had taken place in the hour afterward was the small talk between Darien and the rabbit messenger, who’d introduced herself by the name of Cyra.

Without the mask covering her face, Cyra looked nothing like he’d imagined, though he never gave much thought to the identities of Darkslaying messengers. Guessing a person’s physical age wasn’t always easy, but he thought she was in her late twenties, early thirties. A hellseher with thick strawberry-blonde hair, a lightly freckled face, and eyes that couldn’t decide if they were blue or green. At first, Darien wondered if she was related to Erasmus in some way, but none of her features backed up the possibility. Nothing about her really stood out, aside from the scar below her jaw, the same scar Darien recalled seeing the night she’d offered him the job to find Loren out front of the Pit.

The fact that Cyra was a hellseher raised a lot of questions. Hellsehers didn’t typically work as rabbit messengers. And besides that, why hadn’t she used her own Sight to track Loren down? Why send a Devil on a mission that could’ve ended in tragedy?

Darien shook the thoughts away and forced himself to focus.

Every once in a while, Erasmus would make eye contact with Loren, only for the both of them to swiftly look away from each other, as if they’d witnessed something horribly embarrassing.

Darien cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to be blunt, but this is fucking awkward.” He set down his fork. “Did you plan on talking to your daughter, or staring at your food the whole time? The potatoes can’t be that interesting.”

“Darien!” Loren hissed, kicking him in the shin under the table.

“What? It needed to be said.”

“No, he’s right,” Erasmus sighed. “I’m s-sorry, you two. This is…well, it’s embarrassing.” Another sigh made Darien’s fingers twitch with the need to reach into his throat and rip out his words. Erasmus’s speech impediment caused him to stutter, usually every second sentence, occasionally every third. “L-lily—”

“Loren,” she interrupted stiffly, hand tightening on her fork. “I prefer to be called Loren. I barely know who Lily was, and I’m not Lily.”

The clock hanging on the wall ticked loudly. Cyra was still eating, but she froze then, jaw stilling.

Darien clapped his hands together twice. “Great!” he encouraged. “You’ve learned one thing about her. That’s a start.”

“There’s a lot to learn,” Erasmus said around a huff of nervous laughter. “If I’m b-being honest, I don’t really know what to ask.”

“I actually have some questions,” Loren said, “if you don’t mind.”

Erasmus wore the same expression his daughter had worn when they were standing outside: a deer frozen in the glow of headlights. Still, he swallowed and choked out, “Ask away.”

“Where’ve you been?” she began. “How long have you been alive? How did you start aging again?” The words tumbled together. “Do Roark and Taega know you’re alive? How can you be sitting here right now when your skeleton was found in a grave in the National—”

“That’s a l-lot of questions,” Erasmus tried, but Loren kept speaking.

“Does the real Well still exist?” she pressed, her heart palpitating in her chest. “Why did you leave that scroll in the Old Hall? Why did you even write it?”

“Lily,” Erasmus tried. When he caught his mistake, he quickly amended, “Loren—”

“If you’re mortal again, then what happened to the Well? Wasn’t it a part of you before?”

“P-please,” Erasmus stammered, “slow down.”

“Did you miss me at all?”

Silence. Everyone had stopped breathing, stopped chewing.

Loren’s face was burning up, her gaze intense. “Or did you forget I existed the moment you dumped me at the temple?”

The awkward and heavy silence that followed her question was worse than the one that had preceded it.

Finally, Erasmus spoke, his voice strangled. “I did it to protect you.”