Within These Wicked Walls(74)

I rushed down the stairs, stumbling to a stop in the middle.

Jember sat in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb, halfway in the heat of the outside world and half in the icebox of the castle. He’d removed his leg, and it lay on the floor beside him. I took a deep breath and tried to walk casually down the rest of the stairs.

“What are you still doing here?” I asked as I approached him, my tone not betraying the fact that I was inwardly leaping. “You made it clear you wanted nothing to do with this place.”

“I just had a horse fall on me.” He nodded at his knee, the tender, bruised, sick-looking skin exposed to the freezing air. “Have to numb up before I can stand that peg.”

I looked at my fingers, the ones that had been sliced open during that encounter with Saba. Whatever she’d put under the wrapping that day, I hadn’t felt any pain, and the scars were white now. They were never going to go away … but I guess I was used to that. “They have medicine here.”

“Not for this,” he said, leaning the back of his head on the wood.

“It’s better than nothing. I’ll go ask Saba—”

“No.”

“She was anxious about Magnus, that’s all. It won’t be so, you know, hostile this time.”

“I don’t want to see her again.”

“Why not? What are you afraid of?”

“Mind your own business, girl.” He glared up at me. “I’ll be gone in a few minutes—”

“You’re already here. Just talk to her.” Jember picked up his peg leg, and I stepped out of range of getting hit by it. “Tell her what you couldn’t in that letter.”

He ignored me, positioning his leg to strap it on with a wince.

My stomach began to cramp up with anger … unless I was just hungry. I hadn’t eaten since dinner last night, and living in this house had gotten me used to regular meals.

“She loves you, you know.” I put my foot on top of the wooden part of his leg, leaning my weight on it only slightly. “God knows why.”

“Break this leg and I’ll kill you.”

“No acknowledgment,” I said, throwing up my hands in annoyance. “You’re too heartless to care about anyone but yourself, aren’t you? Most people raise their children because they love them. I’m not even yours, so what were you getting out of it?”

He lifted his leg to knock me off, and I backed away out of his grasp as he held on to the wall to stand up.

“And maybe you could love,” I went on bitterly, “before the Evil Eye sucked the soul out of you. Maybe you loved Saba. But that’s all over, because now you don’t know how. You’re just an empty shell of bitterness and anger.”

Jember grimaced from his own pain, merely scowling at mine as he pushed himself away from the wall. “Andromeda—”

“I should be the angry one!” I snatched out my knife, pressing the tip to his stomach before he could step any closer, freezing him in place. “You’re a miserable old man and you took a five-year-old in to drag her down with you.”

There was a tense silence. He moved. I didn’t have to. A small stain of red began to spread on his shirt from the tip of the knife.

“Were you miserable growing up?” he asked finally.

The short answer?… No. And it didn’t shock me to say it. We had good moments. And when it wasn’t good, I made the best of what I could.

But what slipped out of my mouth was, “You were cruel to me.”

“I’m not cruel by nature … if that eases the pain of it.”

“It doesn’t.”

The silence that followed felt like a needle point creeping slowly beneath my skin.

“You were a sweet little girl. Always wanted hugs and kisses, even when we were still strangers. Do you know how painful it was to break you of that habit?”

My hand trembled. The stain of blood spread further, running out and downward, like a disturbing magnifying glass. “Then why did you do it?”

“Well, first of all, hugging strangers is a poor survival habit.”

He had a point, but I wasn’t going to acknowledge that now. Not when I needed him to admit that he was wrong. “If that’s your explanation, it’s not good enough.”

“You know why, Andi.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

Jember laced his fingers behind his head, taking a deep breath as he looked at the ceiling for a moment. He swore and then looked at me again. “Because it hurt, that’s why. Every little kiss and nose rub was like a new tear beneath my skin. Loving like you do hurts, Andi. So I broke you of the habit, along with any other habit that would make you seem weak to our environment. So that you could survive in the outside world … and so that I could survive living with you.”

I looked at the knife in my trembling hand, tears blurring my vision of it. “Why didn’t you just give me to someone who could love me?”

“No one was looking for another mouth to feed. And I tried multiple times to take you to the orphanage. You kept running back to find me.”

“I don’t remember all that.” I laughed, despite my budding tears. “I was a stupid child.”

“No, you were a survivor. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” He looked down at the knife, then shifted his eyes back to mine. “I might as well tell you I’ve decided to help you with the hyena.”