Page 170 of Dance of Thorns

I wanted to run again, taking both of you with me, but your mother told me it was too dangerous. Cesare was sharper now and had eyes on Dove constantly.

So we didn’t run. We stayed, so I could watch over you both under one roof, which is what I’ve done for the last sixteen years.

You haven’t seen your mother since that night on the beach in Maine. But she’s watched you grow up from a distance. Through photographs, and drawings and schoolwork of yours that I’ve sent her when I can.

Your mother loves you, Lark, as she loves your sister. She loved you so much she was willing to sacrifice her own life to keep you safe. That hasn’t changed.

My hope is that by the time you get this letter, you’ll already know all of this. It will mean Cesare is dead, which hopefully means your mother has left the shadows to embrace you and your sister in the light.

But nothing in life is certain. So that’s why I’ve written all of this down for you.

So that you know who you are, where and who you come from, and that you are and have always been loved more than life itself.

I realize as I come to the end of this that I have rather "outed" myself as not really being your grandmother. But it’s my hope that you’ll forgive my lies and half-truths and continue to think of me as that anyway.

My biggest regret in life is not telling you this to your face, but here it is: the best thing that ever happened to me was watching you and your sister grow into the beautiful young women that you’ve become.

I love you so much, Lark. I hope you find all the happiness in life you deserve.

Love always,

Grandma

49

DOVE

The last weeksdon’t seem real. They can’t be.

And yet, here I am.

Reunited.

With mymother.

I’ve probably asked her a million questions since the day she saved my life, and Bane’s. About who she was before my father. About her decision to run to keep Dove and me from him. About the night he shot her and left her to die in the mud.

Lucky for me, she’s been waiting twenty-four years toanswer them.

Mom should have died that night. But she didn’t. Instead, the Obsidian Syndicate agents who were supposed to whisk her and Dove away found her, after being delayed by a downed telephone pole across the road leading to the cabin..

They didn’t think she’d last the night, but she did, because she’s abadass.

She spent the next year in a wheelchair, and then killing herself in physical therapy to learn how to walk again.

But the real battle came after, when she spent the next seventeen years watching Dove and I grow up from a distance, living with the heartache of not being able to hug us, or brush our hair, or tell us that she was alive, and loved us.

But that's what she did forseventeenfucking years, taking comfort in the fact that we were safe and cared for.

Whilebiding her time.

That was the hardest part of our reunion: hearing about the night she tried to take us back, only to see it all turn to ash in her hands.

It turns out that Mom had another friend and ally aside from Agatha in our father’s house, when she was a scared young bride.

A quiet and somewhat reserved but kind young man. He’d bring her little gifts to cheer her up and run subtle interference to keep my dad away from her when he could. He sympathized with her situation and became her friend and ally.

So much so that when Dove and I were seventeen, even though this man was no longer working for our father, Mom contacted him to help her take us back.