Chapter 14: Words Are Not a Retraction

Garrick came to the gate that afternoon on foot.

He had walked from the station, and the snow on his boots had turned to mud.

The guard called up to the house, and I went down alone.

My brother stood outside the iron bars with his hands shoved in his coat.

He had not slept in two nights.

"Open it," I told the guard.

Garrick came through and stopped three steps from me.

"I need to ask you something," he said. "And I need you to not say no because of who I am."

"Ask."

"Is it true?"

I thought about lying to make it easier for him.

I did not.

"Come inside."

In the study the midwife sat by the fire with Odette beside her.

Corwin stood by the window, and Garrick looked at him once and looked away.

"I'm not here for a fight," Garrick said.

"Good," said Corwin. "I'm tired of fighting you."

The old woman did not wait for an invitation.

She opened her ledger and turned it to my brother, and he read both lines.

His lips moved on the times.

"Eleven forty-eight," he said. "Katja."

"Yes."

"And this is Mom's note."

She handed him the paper, and he read it standing, with the hand holding it shaking harder every line.

He sat down on the arm of the couch, and then he put the note on his knee and covered his face.

My brother is a big man, twenty-one and broad in the shoulder.

His shoulders began to shake.

"I saw it," he said into his hands.

"Saw what?"

"The Stone. At your Awakening. I was in the front row, and it went white under your hand."

He lifted his head, and his face was wet.

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