Page 6 of Lana Pecherczyk

But where Cloud might be.

Why was Clarke delivering the coins?

He left them hanging in her hands.

“Interesting timing,” he said carefully, studying her pale, freckled face for hints she knew more about his true agenda. Her psychic visions had an inconvenient habit of stripping everyone’s secrets bare. Guardians didn’t share feelings. Feelings got them killed.

The only person River had told the truth about who’d fried him to a crisp after the battle five years ago was Ash. And even that was a mistake.

“There’s something else going on,”Ash had mused darkly.“We owe it to Cloud to find out.”

“You owe it to him,”River had countered.“I owe him nothing but pain.”

Agonizing, nerve-frying pain.

Nothing could stand between River and his vengeance.

Before Clarke could answer, her gaze turned distant. “Oh no. I’m about to have a fancy. Watch the girls?”

“Absolutely not—shit.”

White mist swallowed the blue in Clarke’s eyes. Her grip slackened, and the coins slipped from her fingers, tinkling downthe steps. River lunged as she swayed. He caught her shoulders, steadying her trance-locked body while the twins slid down their mother’s legs, landing on the wooden porch with a thud.

Once sure Clarke wouldn’t topple, River scooped up the fallen coins. Holly’s thumb popped from her mouth, and her eyes brimmed with tears as he tried to step past.

“Tell us a story, Uncle Wivva!” Her sticky hand grabbed his leg, leaving a wet smear on his monster-gut-covered leather.

“That’s disgusting.” He scrunched his nose.

“Please?” Hazel begged.

Her voice wobbled, triggering protective instincts he’d rather deny. His gaze drifted to Cloud’s empty bedroom window upstairs. A longing for simpler times weighed heavily on his chest.

“Fine.” He crouched to their level. “Here’s a story. Once upon a time, there was a little goblin girl who couldn’t stop sucking her thumb. When her dad told her to stop, she told him to flock off and then shook her butt in his face like this.”

He demonstrated with exaggerated movements, sending them into fits of giggles.

“Dad wouldn’t like that,” Holly said.

“He’ll growl at us.” Hazel nodded.

“You could always stab him,” River shrugged, and feinted a dagger strike.

Their jaws dropped. For a heart-stopping moment, he thought they believed him, and they’d actually go and stab their father. He was about to remind them that the story was about goblins, clearly not them, but then Holly asked, “Can we look at your shinies again?”

Just like that, they moved on.

If only life were so easy.

“Maybe.” He flipped the coins across his knuckles, their wonder fueling his grin. “These have secret messages for crows only.”

He vanished the coins, then produced them from behind their ears.

Their squeals softened when he tilted the glass to catch the UV light and offered one to each of them. “I’ll give you three seconds to look. See if you can decode the secret.”

Clarke gasped, the vision releasing its hold.

“Oops. Too late.” He snatched the coins back. “Your mother’s back.”