Page 64 of Evermore

The only feeling in my whole body was the flesh of my cheek, where a tear slipped free. And when I closed my eyes, it wasn’t the Maestro I saw there, it wasn’t even Alastor. It was the blank face of my father, lost in his opium haze. And this time, I wasn’t sure if my mind had given up and I’d fallen asleep, or if Alastor’s Remnants had attacked again and I was too numb to feel it.

After seven years, the doorman no longer stopped me. The smell of opium in the air didn’t bother me as much either. But the stares, the blank faces of troubled people lying along the velvet couches as they let the world pass them by would always be my breaking point.

“Hey Papa,” I said, kneeling before him. He sat on a purple couch, legs spread apart, head tilted back, with his eyes closed.He could have been sleeping, if not for the way his fingers clutched the end of the hose feeding out of the glass vase sitting on the table beside him.

At least he didn’t smell of vomit this time.

“Treasure?”

“I thought you might like to come home. I made soup.”

“Soup?” he peeled his eyes open, and though it made no sense at all, I felt a wave of shame. I didn’t want to see him like this any more than he wanted me to.

“Mushroom and onion.”

“Put it on the table, Treasure. Your mother will be back soon. I bet she’s hungry.”

“No, Papa. Mama left. It’s just you and me now.”

“Just you and me.”

I slipped my hand into his, breathing through the smoky haze of the room as I closed my eyes and remembered how it used to be. When sleeping in an alley wasn’t scary and the only worry I had in the world was my next meal. Such mediocre things when faced with the distancing relationship of the only person in the world that was supposed to love me. He did though. He still called me Treasure. He remembered our stories.

“Come home, Papa,” I begged, swallowing the lump forming in my throat. “Come home and I’ll take care of you. You can get better.”

He missed my mother. That was what he always said whenever I tried to ask him why. He claimed he loved her so much his heart no longer beat like mine did.

My papa sat forward, sliding his thumb across my cheek to remove the tear. “What’s this?”

“It’s nothing, Papa. The haze burns my eyes, that’s all.”

“Emotions are nothing more than barricades.”

I waited in silence as he brought the edge of the hose to his mouth and sucked in a deep breath, breaking every last piece of my heart. I knew how it would go from here. I’d lost.

His eyes rolled into the back of his head as he blew out a thick puff of white smoke.

“Don’t forget your soup, Papa,” I whispered, kissing his cheek. Another tear fell as I walked away.

“If I have to watch that despicable mortal for one more second, I will have to find a way to end myself.”

Alastor’s words were muffled, as if my head were underwater, though I was quite sure I was breathing. But at least this last vision had given me something to hold on to, even if the god hadn’t meant to do it. I could draw my power forward when desperate enough, sure. I’d done it before. But, regardless of his attempts, I’d left desperation behind a long, long time ago. Unfortunately for him, resignation was far more comfortable. That was until Winter appeared in the room with us.

21

Thorne

Islammed another useless fucking book onto the growing pile beside my desk. Centuries of knowledge, and not one mention of breaking a god’s binding without killing the mortal. The lamp’s flame guttered as my power lashed out, responding to my frustration. Golden threads of memory magic stretched between my fingers as I wove them into yet another pattern, searching for a path I hadn’t tried. But the second I thought maybe there was a new trail to follow within the tendrils, my fucking power sputtered out. Again. I waited. Minutes went by before it returned.

The Parlor’s walls had disappeared beneath my work, charts mapping every bargain ever struck with Alastor, diagrams showing the complex web of oaths that bound gods to their domains. Books upon books of the fragility of the mortal mind and how deep her suffering might’ve been. Red ink marked dead ends, black marked possibilities, and gold… gold marked the paths that had killed her in other lives. There were too many of those.

“You’ll burn out if you keep pushing like this,” Tuck said from the doorway.

I didn’t look up from the complex knot of power I was untangling. “Then I’ll burn.”

The magic responded to my touch, ancient and familiar. This was what I was, the Keeper of Memories, the one who wrote the stories of gods and mortals alike into the fabric of reality. But for all my power, I couldn’t find the one thread that would unravel Alastor’s claim on her.

“Have you slept?” Tuck asked, moving closer to study my latest attempt.