The Cerulean (Untitled Duology, #1)(88)

He was in the dining room at home, sitting next to Agnes, declaring that he would accompany his father’s men to the Knottle Plains. Xavier McLellan smirked at him. “Perhaps you’ve got more of me than your mother in you after all,” he said.

He was standing on a glass dais, staring out at the vast and endless stars dotting the impossibly black space before him. He raised his arms, blood streaming from two cuts on his elbows, and fell.

Leo screamed, his body jerking, and he came back to the present, startled to find himself kneeling on the floor of the stage. Sera had her head in her hands, and her palms were glowing blue. “What . . . was . . . that?” he panted.

He could still feel the sensation of falling, and the mix of emotions from all those memories, both old and unfamiliar. His grandmother’s gravelly voice, the envy of Robert’s mother, the yearning to be what his father wanted . . . they were all mixed up in a longing he didn’t understand, and a friendship he missed but had never had, and a fear that had shaken him to his very core, along with a courage he’d never known he possessed.

“We couldn’t have blood bonded,” Sera was murmuring to herself. “We couldn’t have. I didn’t touch him, I didn’t . . .”

“Did you . . . did you see everything I saw?” Leo asked, mortified.

“Of course,” she said, rubbing her temples like she could erase the memories.

He sat back hard. “Those were private.”

“I know,” she snapped, looking up. “You saw my memories, too. You think I wanted to share those with you? To share anything with you?”

He deflated. “No,” he admitted. He was still trying to catch his breath. “Who was that girl, the one who gave you the necklace?”

Sera pursed her lips, and Leo knew he would have to offer more.

“It’s just that . . . I have it. The necklace, I mean. It fell out of Kiernan’s bag when you tried to run, and I picked it up and kept it. It didn’t feel right, giving it to my father. It’s yours, isn’t it? It’s yours.” Leo felt like he was talking in a dream.

“You have Leela’s necklace?” she gasped.

He nodded. “I should have brought it. I’m sorry. I wasn’t . . . thinking.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. The images from those memories were so sharp, so vivid. “I haven’t thought about my grandmother in a long time. She died the year after she gave me that kit. I forgot how much she hated me.”

There was a long pause.

“Why did she hate you?” Sera asked.

Leo sighed. “Because I look like my mother, and she hated my mother.”

She pursed her lips, considering. “What is a grandmother?”

The question caught him off guard. “A grandmother is, well, she was my father’s mother.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t have grandparents?”

“No.”

“What about those three women I saw?” he asked.

“Those are my mothers,” Sera said.

“You have three of them?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t get a chance to ask exactly how three women could make a child together because Sera was turning the topic back to him.

“Your father is cold,” she said. “Compassionless. But I did not see your mother. Where is she?”

“She died,” Leo said, and for the first time, it seemed to him a sad thing. Sera’s face softened.

“I am sorry,” she said reluctantly.

He shrugged. “I never knew her. I forgot how jealous I used to be of Robert’s mother. I’ve been jealous of Robert for so many things, I guess I lost count.”

“Your memories are all filled with shame and envy and hurt,” Sera said.

“You took the measure of my father,” he pointed out. “Cold and compassionless. That was the house I was raised in.”

“How awful,” she said.

Four days ago, Leo would have scoffed at this girl. I am a McLellan, he would have said. I don’t need anyone’s pity. My father is rich and revered, my family name one of the greatest in Old Port. I can have anything I want with just a snap of my fingers. I have a closet full of the finest clothes and servants who are at my beck and call and friends with wealth and connections. I don’t need anyone’s pity.

But now he saw how worthless that all really was.

“I wanted to impress him,” he confessed. “That’s why I took you. You saw the way he looks at me, the way he’s always looked at me, all my life. Like he wishes I’d never been born.” The lump in his throat was making it hard to breathe. The truth of those words was a brutal blow. “When I found you, all I could think was I’d finally done something to make him proud. That maybe . . . maybe now he would love me.” It sounded so pathetic when he said it out loud.

“You should not have to take away someone’s freedom to earn love,” Sera said.

“No,” he agreed. “I shouldn’t.” Stripping away the idolization of his father was alarming—it was making Leo see his whole life in a new light. “I thought if I could be just like him, my life would be perfect. He told me once that I had to decide which kind of man I wanted to be. And now I think I chose wrong.”