I sighed. “Forget it, Da. I’m not going to hassle you anymore. I’m giving up.”
“Wait, Hunter,” he said, using my common name. “I know you won’t believe this, but you, Linden, and Alwyn were the most precious things in my life, after your mother. You three were our love personified. In you I saw my strength, my stubbornness, my wall of reserve. But I also saw your mother’s capacity for joy, her ability to love deeply and give freely. I had forgotten all that. Until just now.”
I rolled over to face him. He looked old, beaten, but there was something about him, as if he’d been infused with new blood. I felt a more alive sense coming from him.
“I liked being a father, Gìomanach,” he said, looking at his hands resting on his knees. “I know it may not have seemed like it. I didn’t want to spoil you, make you soft. My job was to teach you. Your mother’s job was to nurture you. But I was happy being a father. I failed Cal and left him to be poisoned by Selene. You and your brother and sister were my chance to make that up. But then I left you, too. Not a day has gone by since then that I haven’t regretted not being there to watch my children grow up, see your initiations. I missed you.” He gave a short laugh. “You were a bright lad, a bulldog, like I said. You were fast to catch on, but you had a spark of fire in you. Remember that poor cat you spelled to make the other kids laugh? I was angry, you misusing magick like that. But that night, telling Fiona about it, I could hardly stop laughing. That poor cat, batting the air.” Another tiny chuckle escaped, and I stared at him. Was this my father?
“Anyway,” Da said. “I’m sorry, son. I’m a disappointment to you. I know that. That’s bitter to me. But this seems to be where my life has brought me. This is the spell I’ve written.”
“Maybe so, up till now,” I said, sitting up and swinging my feet to the floor. “But you can change. You have that power. The spell isn’t finished yet.”
He shook his head once, then shrugged. “I’m sorry. I’ve always been sorry. But—you make me want to try.” These last words were said so softly, I could hardly hear them.
“I want you to try, too, Da,” I said. “That’s why I’m so disappointed today.” I gestured at the circles, smudged on the floor, the salt crunching underfoot.
“I really was trying to help you,” he said. “I didn’t trust Justine. How is she acquiring the true names of living beings? Of people?”
I frowned. “She told me she inherited some of them from her mother. Others she found by accident. Two names have been contributed by their owners, in the interest of her research.”
“Maybe so,” said Da, not sounding convinced. “But she also gets a lot from the shadow world.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t contacting Fiona this time,” Da explained. “I have no wish to harm her further. But the shadow world does have its uses. One of them is that people on the other side have access to knowledge that not many can get otherwise.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, afraid of where this was going.
“Justine acquires many of the true names of living beings, including people, from sources in the shadow world,” Da explained.
I blinked. “How do you know this?”
“Sources in the shadow world. Reliable sources.”
I was quiet for several minutes, thinking it all through. Obviously if Da’s sources were correct, I had to come up with a whole new game plan. The situation had developed a new weight, a new seriousness that would require all my skill as a Seeker. Da had gotten this information for me. He had risked his own health—not to mention the irresistible temptation of calling my mother—in order to help me in this case.
Finally I looked up. “Hmmm.”
Da examined my face. “I have—a gift for you. To help you.”
“Oh?”
He went to the room’s small desk and took out a sheet of paper. With slow, deliberate gestures he wrote a rune in the center of the paper. Then, concentrating, he surrounded the rune with seven different symbols—an ancient form of musical notes, sigils denoting color and tone, and the odd, primitive punctuation that was used in one circumstance only. Da was writing a true name. At the end he put the symbol that identified the name as belonging to a human.
I read it, mentally transcribing it as I had been taught, hearing the tones in my mind, seeing the colors. It was a beautiful name, strong. Glancing up, I met Da’s eyes.
“She is more dangerous than she seems. You may need this.”
The paper in my hand felt on fire. In my life, I had known only five true names of people. One was mine, three belonged to witches whose powers I had stripped, doing my duty as a Seeker, and now this one. It was a huge, huge thing, a powerful thing. My father had done this for me.
“I have an idea,” I said, feeling like I was about to throw myself into a river’s racing current. “I think you need to get away from Saint Jérôme du Lac—far away. It has bad memories for you. Not only that, but Canada is too bloody cold. You need to start fresh. I think you should come back to Widow’s Vale with me. Sky and I have room, and I know she’d be glad to have you. Or we could get you your own place. You could be around other witches, be back in society. You need to rejoin the living, no matter how much you don’t think you want to.”
For a long time Da sat looking at a blank spot on the wall. I prayed that he had heard me because I didn’t think I’d be able to repeat the offer.
But at last my father’s dry croak of a voice said, “Maybe you’re right. I don’t know how long I can resist the pull of the bith dearc. I don’t want to hurt your mother anymore. I can’t. But I need help.”
I was amazed and wondered what I had just gotten myself into. I would have to deal with it as it came. “Right, then,” I said. “We’ll leave tomorrow, after I clear up a few matters with Justine Courceau.” I looked again at the true name and memorized it. “We’ll stop in Saint Jérôme du Lac, get what you need from the cabin, and be in Quebec City by nightfall.”
My father nodded and lay down on his bed with the stiff, jerky movements of an old man.
13. Confrontation
It isn't often that someone truly surprises me, but Hunter did this morning. First he surprised me with that ridiculous report to the council and then by running off like a scared rabbit after I kissed him. I don't understand him at all. I know he wants me, too-all week he's been looking at me like a lovesick puppy, whether he realized it or not. Did he run just because he's a Seeker and I'm the one being investigated? Granted, I'm sure there are protocols in place; I'm sure it would be frowned upon. But according to whom? The stupid council! I don't acknowledge their dominion over me, so why should they stop me from having Hunter? And I absolutely want to have him. He's so compelling, such a portrait of contrasts. He looks young, but acts much older. There's a world-weary air about him, as if he's seen it all and hasn't been able to forget enough of it. And theres that intriguing scar on his neck, almost like a burn. I want to know the story behind it.
He seems reserved, but he's funny, passionate about what he believes in, a worthy adversary, and an equal. He has deep, smouldering sensuality behind his eyes. I want to see those embers ignite. The one problem is his devotion to the council-was I just imagining it, or is that devotion wavering? Given his age, he can't have been a Seeker long. I'm sure it's not too late to show him what the council really is, how insidious they are, how poisonous. In my family alone they've stripped three women of their powers-and that's just within the last fifty years. They're threatened by anyone and anything, and they retaliate far out of proportion. If Hunter understood that, he wouldn't want any part of it.