“She killed her brothers and sisters and her father?”
“Well, in all fairness, he did execute the man she wanted to marry.”
“Why?”
“He was trying to check her power. She was becoming too popular with the army.”
I rested my chin on my fist. “That’s a heartwarming story, Dad.”
“You called me Dad.” Roland smiled.
“I wouldn’t read too much into it. Were any of our family members ever famous for doing something nonviolent?”
“Your great-great-grandfather cured the Plague of the Godless. It was a very virulent strain of influenza and it threatened to wipe out the human population on the entire continent.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Of course, he felt obligated to do it, because your great-great-granduncle had unleashed it in the first place.”
I just stared at him.
“History provides us with vital lessons,” Roland said. “For example, I have no plans to murder Curran.”
He couldn’t murder Curran, not as long as our agreement held. “Why, you’re afraid I might take your throne?”
“No, I don’t want the heartbreak of having to kill you, Blossom.”
Mm-hm. “Heartbreak.”
“You don’t trust me,” he said.
“No.”
He smiled, and I realized that was what parental pride looked like. He was proud because I had enough brains to anticipate that he could entrap me. I wished he’d come with some sort of secret manual, so I would know how to deal with him.
“So how shall we move forward?” he asked.
“You could teach me here and now. I need to know about the ifrits.”
He paused for the briefest of moments. It took half a blink, but I was watching him very carefully. For some reason he really didn’t want to tell me about the ifrit.
“Very well. We might as well make good use of the time my future son-in-law is so kindly providing to us. Answer one of my questions and I will answer one of yours.”
Nothing was ever simple. “Okay.”
“When Hugh came to kill Voron, he found no sign of a child living in the house. You had gone into the woods, but where were your belongings?”
So Hugh and Roland had a long chat before the Preceptor was exiled. “Hugh didn’t look well enough. Voron knew a clairvoyant.” Her name was Anna, she was the ex-wife of my dead guardian, and she no longer returned my calls. “I think he must’ve been told to expect something bad to happen when he sent me out of the house, because whenever I went into the woods, I packed my duffel bag and buried it under the pines on a hill behind the house.”
“But there had to be other signs of your existence,” Roland said. “A child’s life doesn’t simply fit into one bag.”
“Mine did. A week’s worth of underwear and socks, two pairs of jeans, five T-shirts, a sweater, and two pairs of boots. My knives, my belt, and sword fit in there as well. Toothbrush, hairbrush, a favorite book, and that was it.” I could pack it all into my bag in ten minutes and it was as if I had never existed.
Roland looked at me, his expression odd.
“You may ask a follow-up question,” I told him.
“Toys, makeup, jewelry, dresses, cute shoes, a kitten, perhaps a puppy?”
I laughed at him.
“Not even a pet.” Deep regret reflected in my father’s eyes. He was actually bothered by this.
“Pets teach children empathy. Voron was trying to turn me into a psychopath. Besides, we would often take off without warning. We couldn’t be tied down.”
“A child’s life should be filled with joy. It pains me to know you lived like that.”
“If it had been up to you, I wouldn’t have lived at all.”
Roland exhaled.
“My turn.”
“As agreed. You may ask one question. Think carefully. Most of the battle to get the right answer depends on asking the right question.”
There was so much I needed to ask. One question didn’t even begin to cover it. I had to ask the most important one.
“If an ifrit is trapped in an ancient earring, what would he hope to achieve by granting three wishes to the owner of the earring, turning said owner into a giant and rampaging through Atlanta, and then repeating this process?”
“How do you know it’s an ifrit?”
“I saw him in a vision.”
“Did he wear jewelry?”
“Yes. Gold with large green stones.”
“Emerald or peridot. So we have a sultan, then.”