Page 71 of Cold Curses

I nearly retched from the barrage of magic that echoed inside my body like a scream, bruising me from the inside.

Dad knelt beside me. “Lis? What’s wrong?”

I had to wait to speak, and then let myself sob while monster, either out of magic or awareness that its chance had passed, slipped down again, lonely and miserable.But alive,I reminded it, and turned my attention back to the room.

And once again, I lied.

“I thought, maybe with a different weapon, I could beat the demons. And then I came down here and realized how ridiculous that was. I’m sorry,” I added, and wiped away tears. “I’m having a bit of a breakdown.”

And my heart is beginning to collapse from the weight of so many lies.Although, like the others I’d told, there was at least a kernel of truth in this one.

Dad nodded to the guards in the doorway, and they left us alone, closing the door. Still in his suit, he sat on the floor beside me and looked around this room of latent violence.

For a moment, I thought I was in the clear.

“Your mother worries about you,” he said.

I had only a second to decide whether to let the tears flow again or to soothe his fears.

“I’m managing,” I said, pulling myself together. “It’s just a lot right now. I’m glad she’s going to help with the demons.”

“I didn’t mean the demons,” he said quietly, and I felt monster’s attention again. But it had spent the magic it had collected in Lulu’s room, and could only watch and wait.

“Then what did you mean?”

“We don’t know, Lis.”

But they’d talked about it together. About what they believed was wrong with me. And that was a new kind of pain.

“Not Connor,” Dad said, “whom we know and trust. Not work, because you thrive at it. It’s your mission.”

I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I didn’t think he was wrong.

“You and Lulu aren’t fighting, at least as far as we know.” He looked at me. “So, we are out of ideas.”

I felt more relief than I should have that my parents were baffled and didn’t understand my problems. Because I didn’t want them to understand.

I cleared my throat as the silence stretched on. Dad, a strategic and patient man, had four hundred years of experience in waiting out humans. He’d keep waiting until I answered the question one way or another.

“I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”

Dad was also really good at controlling his expression; he’d given me his patented chilly stare more than a time or two, especially when I was a teenager. But a flash of surprise widened his eyes before he schooled his features again.

“Are you sick?”

“No,” I said quickly, as I didn’t like the anxious magic that accompanied the question. “I’m…” I cleared my throat. “I’m just working through some things. But I’m safe and healthy.” I put a hand on his. “You don’t need to worry.”

I could see his frustration. Both my parents were fixers. They weren’t passive; they attacked problems. If something was dangerous, they eliminated it. If someone was hurting, they healed them. But this wasn’t their problem, or I didn’t want it to be.

“Is this one of those things I have to let you handle, even though I don’t like it?”

I smiled at him. I loved Mom, but Dad understood me in a different way.

“Unfortunately yes,” I said, and took the handkerchief he offered me, wiped my eyes, pushed back my hair, and tried for something close to “composed.”

He smiled, but his expression was tight, and his magic still seemed wary. “Then that’s what I’ll do. Even though it goes very much against my nature. And your mother’s.”

“I know.”