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He grips me tighter still, and my eyes widen. “I’m afraid that soon you won’t be able to hide this.” He glances up at the border between ténesomni and my inner light.

A weight lurches in my heart, like an anchor has been tossed over its edge, pulling it down into the depths of my being.

He cares for me,I think. And it wakes me up, snaps me to the thing that needs answering more than the mystery of my gift.

My hands find his for a change, and I clutch them between us. “Belwyn, I need you to help me.”

His eyebrows, which hitched upward when I touched him, fall back down and shadow his eyes. “Of course,” he says.

I swallow, wishing this moment could last, wishing we were anywhere but here, any time but now.

“I need you to help me find my father.”

Confusion flits over his features, but after considering me for a moment, he nods almost imperceptibly. I bite my lip, then continue.

“Because I think he might be in even more danger than me.”

24. Belwyn

BELWYN

HOW DO I SEARCH for a man I’ve never met?

Amyrah came to me. She soughtme. I don’t know what prompted her to do it. Maybe she didn’t mean to—maybe it was a primal reflex for comfort. But my heart tells me otherwise. When she caught my eyes, I thought I saw something deeper than that. It was more like ... yearning.

And when she came to me, when she filled more than the void between my arms, I was supposed to be the strong one. For her. Yet, it felt like I had been the one on the cusp of danger.

The girl I haven’t been able to stop thinking about for weeks came to me. And though my thoughts about my own father are complicated, I see how earnestly she loves hers. Her only family. And she trusts me.

I can’t let her down.

There’s one obvious solution, but knowing I will have to face my father again makes my skin crawl.

I can hear the shouting blocks before I’ve made it home.

“Who does he think he is?”

A large crash adds speed to my steps.

“Where did he come from? What gives him the right to challenge me like this?”

When I’m about to turn the knob of the front door, my intestines twist. I will be sick. I almost turn back right there, but imagining my mother or brothers on the other side of that door prevents me.

Upon entering, I find my father tearing up the room in a fit of fury. A small table lies in splinters against the far wall.

My eyes dart from side to side, and I exhale. My brothers are nowhere to be seen, and Mother sits calmly in a chair pulled close to the fire, a blanket hemming her in. A mug issues swirls of steam as she cups it between her thin fingers. It is the best she’s looked in a long time.

Who got those things for her?

The latch snaps shut, and Father spins to face me, his tirade cut short. I avoid his eyes, looking instead at his hands. They have traces of dirt in the crevices.

When I meet his gaze, a wild look dominates his eyes. My heart lurches hard in my chest, and I swallow to keep it from escaping through my throat.

“Where have you been?” he asks, cracking his knuckles out of habit. It makes me cringe.

I regret the reaction when he notices and strides toward me. His hissed words increase in volume. “I asked you where you’ve been.”

Fighting to appear unruffled, I slip off my jacket and hang it behind the door. “Just at the market.”