From Ashes to Their Luna novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Cup on the Table

Kieran told me about Margot on the way to the bridge.

He told me all of it: the creek, the makeup on her palm, the paper in her hand, and the word "hate."

I walked beside him and did not say anything until he finished.

Then I put my hand on the brooch at my collar.

"She gave this back to me," I said. "She stood at your gate and cried."

"I know."

"And I let her braid my hair."

"Nessa."

"I'm all right." I breathed out slowly. "I'm going to see my father anyway."

He was quiet for a few steps.

"I can't cross with you," he said. "Your father has invited you, not me."

"I know."

"I'll be on this side of the line. If you want me, say so, and I'll be across that bridge before you finish."

"You'd break the treaty."

"I broke every rule I had the night I stood on that bank." He looked down at me. "One more won't matter."

I almost smiled. I walked across the bridge alone.

My father's bedroom was at the top of the pack house, in the room I had never been allowed to enter.

It smelled of camphor and old sweat.

He lay on a wide bed with a grey face.

His big hands lay open on the quilt, thin and still.

Margot stood by the window. She had washed her face. The bruise was gone.

She did not look at me.

"Nessa," my father said. "You came."

"What do you want?"

"To see you." His voice was a thread. "To tell you the truth, before I go."

"You don't have a lot of that to tell."

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