Solomon shook his head. “I never told her. I was scared of what he might do. To both of us.”

“She burned his car—”

“Easy, Ash,” Solomon said, and chuckled. “I know my mom. If she had any idea what really happened, she’d be in jail for murder right now. I don’t know what he did to her, but he deserved whatever she did in response. And worse.”

“I wish she had killed him,” Connor said, and slid off his rock and buried his head in the crook of his elbow, the way you do when you sneeze, but he screamed instead. I rubbed one shoulder. Solomon rubbed the other.

I grabbed Solomon’s hand.

“I’m going to be sick,” Connor said, doubling over, pressing his forehead into his knees in a very Solomon kind of gesture. I felt bad, to have split his world down the middle like that. What would it do to me, to know my father was a monster?

But I’d rather know, than not know.

“No wonder you wanted nothing to do with me,” Connor groaned.

“You look like him,” Solomon whispered, but the wind was strong and I wondered if maybe Connor didn’t hear him. I hoped he hadn’t, because I had, and that four-word explanation had gutted me.

Solomon looked out across the river. His eyes widened. I turned, and gasped at what I saw. Flying through the air, two animals: as big and long as trains, glinting in the sunset.

“A water dragon and a fire dragon,” Solomon whispered. “Dragons wander—they never nest or build a home. And when two meet, they have a dance they do. A different one for every two elements. It’s a super-rare sight.”

Connor looked, but then looked down at his feet again. The way you do, when someone describes something that must be a figment of their imagination. Or their madness.

But I could see them. Serpentine creatures, Eastern-style dragons instead of the winged long-neck lizards of Western folklore. They coiled and looped together in an intricate, gorgeous dance. So complex I worried they’d get knotted together. The weird world Solomon lived in was so much better than this one. I almost envied him, that he got to live there all the time.

My meds were working, mostly, but I wasn’t cured. I’d live, but I would never be cured. Not of this.

Solomon said, “I just . . . I had to get as far as possible from everything that reminded me of him.”

“I can’t believe I never knew,” Connor said. And then he opened his mouth and said, “I’m—” But then he stopped, because what could you say? I’m sorry was insufficient, almost insulting. He shut his mouth.

“Words are bullshit,” Solomon said understandingly.

Impulsively, with the urgency of a frightened child, Connor leaped forward and hugged his brother.