The Wish Granter (Ravenspire #2)(14)

He walked past the couch and checked the tiny room that doubled as a makeshift kitchen and bedroom. It was empty.

The ache in his chest eased. His father was still in Balavata. If there was any justice in the world, he’d never return.

“Who’s there?” his mother asked, her voice husky with sleep and the lingering effects of apodrasi.

He moved into her line of sight, and she pulled herself up to a sitting position.

“Come to rob me?”

He sighed, a headache beginning to spike. “I never come to rob you.”

“Ungrateful boy, leaving me just like your father.”

It was ridiculous that even after years of shoring up his defenses against her, she could still find a way to hurt him.

He held up the sack. “I brought food for the week.”

“Did you bring coin too?”

He turned to unpack the sack’s contents into the single cupboard that hung over the slab of wood that served as a countertop.

“I asked you a question.”

A question he was sick of answering. “No.”

He ignored her string of curses and put the bread, figs, lamb strips, and potatoes into the cupboard. The oranges went into a cracked bowl on the countertop. Then he turned and interrupted her tirade.

“If you didn’t buy apodrasi with any coin you got your hands on, I might bring you some.”

“You know nothing.” She gave him a smug little smile and shoved her tangled gray-black hair out of her eyes. “Your father makes sure I get what I need.”

His hands clenched into fists, and his heartbeat roared in his ears.

“Does he?” Sebastian snapped. “Is that why your cupboard has nothing in it until I bring you food each week?”

She recoiled from him and bent to fumble along the floor for the pipe she’d dropped. When she sat up, she was holding her pipe and a tiny glass vial with a few iridescent drops of apodrasi left inside.

Mumbling something under her breath, she upended the apodrasi into the pipe and reached for the candle. When she discovered that there was no flame left to light her pipe, she turned beseeching eyes toward her son.

Sickness crawled up the back of his throat at the need on her face, and the answer to the question she’d always refused to answer was suddenly clear.

“Teague takes some of Father’s pay and gives it to you in apodrasi, doesn’t he?”

She lifted a shaking hand toward him. “Candle?”

He worked to unclench his fists. To draw a breath past the band of tension that felt like it was crushing his chest. When he was sure he’d erased all outward signs of anger, he approached her, blinking against the stench of her unwashed body mixed with bitter pipe weed and the sickly sweetness of apodrasi.

“You need help,” he said quietly. “A new place, far from here. Some time to come down off the drug and start over fresh. Hiding from your life in the bowl of a pipe isn’t the same as making a true escape.”

Her lips quivered, and her voice lashed out bitterly. “Like you did? Like Parrish? Leaving me here. Never coming back. Just like your father.”

He closed his eyes and crushed the fleeting longing that once—just once—she would speak to him like he mattered.

“I’ll be back next week. Don’t forget to eat.”

“What about a candle?” She lunged off the couch as he strode toward the door, her voice rising. “Sebastian! A candle? Please?”

He closed the door behind him and closed out the sound of the vicious words she hurled at him as he hurried down the stairs and out of the building. His hands were fists again, his stomach jittery as he walked toward the gate. Why was it that even after eighteen years of learning to expect nothing better, he was still disappointed every time he saw her? What was wrong with him that a tiny piece of his heart clung to the devastating need for her to see him as someone worth loving?

It was useless to think about. Useless to let it burrow under his skin and slice him raw. Instead, he had to focus on getting through east Kosim Thalas in one piece so that he could show up at the palace in the morning, apply for a job, and hope the king gave him a chance.

Picking up his pace, he moved through the city and tried to convince himself that by the time he reached the stables where he’d been sleeping, the memory of this visit with his mother would no longer ache.





SIX


IT HAD BEEN nearly five days since Sebastian had been hired as the palace’s new weapons master, and the job was nothing like he’d thought it would be. All he wanted was to manage the king’s arsenal of weapons in peace and quiet, saving his coin until he could afford a solitary cottage somewhere far from Kosim Thalas on a cliff overlooking the Chrysós Sea. Somewhere his father would never find him.

Instead, he was trapped inside the training arena on the palace grounds, polishing swords and listening to a cluster of nobles in fancy clothing speculate about which jewel-encrusted dagger would match their summer wardrobe best.

Not trapped, he reminded himself before his lungs tightened and desperation to fight his way out of the crowded space pushed every other thought from his head.

He wasn’t trapped. He wasn’t caught between the monster who’d raised him and the viciousness of the streets outside his front door. He was performing the duties of his new job—a job a boy like him was lucky to have—and he could walk away whenever he wanted to.