Sword and Pen (The Great Library #5)(113)

Jess’s mouth was open, but he didn’t really know what to say. He just watched this woman he’d always loved but never known change before his eyes into . . . someone else.

A person. A real, live person instead of a silent statue.

“My dear, you can’t really think—” Callum was trying a new technique. Wheedling. It didn’t work.

She stalked past him to the door and opened it for him. “Leave,” she said. “Now. We’ll discuss this later.”

“You can’t—”

“She can.” Jess kept his voice level, and he was surprised to find it hardly hurt at all to feel the rage coming off his father like a mist. He’d grown a shield against it, finally. So had his mother. And he felt that Brendan would have liked that. “The High Garda will escort you back to where you belong. You can wait.”

“I’m not going anywhere!” Brightwell roared, and raised that clenched fist.

A black shadow flashed through the doorway, as if it had been waiting, and caught his father’s arm. Shoved him back with such force Callum Brightwell hit the wall, stumbled, and fell flat.

Jess’s mother didn’t come to her husband’s defense. She crossed her arms and glared down at him.

Scholar Wolfe stood over him, smoldering like the coals in a barely covered fire, and said, “Get up, you miserable bastard. Don’t come back unless Jess asks for you. You’re lucky you’re not in chains, but I promise you, it can still happen.”

“He’s my son!” Brightwell shouted, and scrambled to his feet with his fists clenched. “Mine, not yours!”

“Wrong,” Jess said quietly. “On both counts. I’m not your property. And I’m more his son than I ever was yours.”

Callum Brightwell was at a loss for words, finally. And he seemed small, and bewildered. A bully robbed of victims.

He left without another word.

Jess’s mother drew in a deep breath and extended her hand to Wolfe. “Thank you,” she said. “For loving my son as much as I do.”

He kissed her hand and held it for a moment. “I can’t imagine the strength it has taken you to get to this moment,” Wolfe said. “And I’m glad I saw it.”

“So am I,” she said. She smiled. “I don’t think we’ve ever been properly introduced, Scholar Wolfe. I’m Celia Brightwell. Jess’s mother. And I intend to be a true mother to my boy from this moment on.”

Jess didn’t altogether trust it, this fragile feeling blooming inside. He’d been living in a desert so long that finding a rose in the sand seemed impossible.

But he said, “I love you, Mum.”

And when her arms went around him, he knew he meant it.



* * *



—

Brendan’s body had been carefully preserved, and he almost looked alive. Almost. Jess didn’t touch him, though he pulled up a chair to look down into the mirror of his own face. He thought how close he’d come to occupying a bier beside his twin, and some part of him still thought that might have been right. But he could almost hear his brother’s reply. Plenty of time. I’ll wait.

“So, Scraps, do you want to go home? Let Father bury you and raise up some monument in your honor? Pretend like he ever cared about either one of us, except for what we could do for him?” Jess asked the question, but he knew he’d have to answer that for himself. “Yes, I suppose you would. You’d like to be back there, I know that. And getting Da to waste his money on a monument? You’d enjoy that, I’m sure. The larger, the better.”

He half expected Brendan to turn his head, laugh, tell him it had all been a brilliant prank. But his brother was gone, and he needed to finally accept that.

It was going to take a lifetime to understand it.

He’d been sitting for a while when he heard footsteps. He didn’t turn. He’d heard other visitors come and go, murmurs and whispers. None of them had disturbed him.

“You should be in bed,” Thomas said from behind him.

“I know,” he said. It wasn’t just Thomas who’d come. It was everyone. Dario, dressed in darkly glittering richness. Archivist Khalila, holding a small bunch of English violets. Wolfe and Santi, standing together with clasped hands. Even Glain in her sharp High Garda uniform, hands clasped behind her back.

Everyone present but Morgan. The spot where she should have been felt like a new wound, and he looked away, back to his brother.

“He’d be honored,” Jess said. “To think all these important people have time to come visit him.”

“And visit you,” Khalila said. “I’m sorry it took as long as it did.”

“Well, you were signing treaties and negotiating the return of France,” Jess replied. “I think he’d forgive you. I know I do.” He stood up. For a moment they all simply looked at him. No one seemed to quite know what to say.

So of course, Khalila went first.

“I brought these,” Khalila said, and handed him the flowers. “I hope they are appropriate—”

“He’d like them,” Jess assured her, and put them on top of his brother’s still chest. “Thank you. All of you. You didn’t need to come.”

“We did,” Glain said. “Don’t be daft.”