“It’s a poem. A beautiful, exquisite love poem to your mother and you, written in the old tongue, in the high dialect, and fit for a king. The scholars of Shinar would weep from sheer joy and the poets would murder themselves out of jealousy. He tells your mother she is his life, his sun, his stars, the life-bringing light of his universe. I’d translate for you but your language is too clunky. He goes on about all the sacrifices he would make for her and how much he adores his beloved and how you are the ultimate expression of their love.”

“He still killed her,” I said.

“Yes, he did. Lovesick or not, he’s still your father.” She shook her head. “He inscribed all this on you while you were in the womb. The skill required to accomplish this without injuring the child and with such perfection . . . Your father truly was the jewel of our age. He is a horror, but still a jewel. Here is the important part.”

My aunt pointed down at the piece of paper.

“And all the princes of the land would kiss the earth beneath her feet—that would be you—and should she fall, I will fall with her, for we are as one, and the despair would dry the spring of life within me. Do you understand? You are bound together. He can’t kill you. If he does, he will die with you.”

My brain screeched to a halt. There was no way.

Curran laughed.

The two of us looked at him.

“It’s not funny,” I told him.

“It’s hilarious.”

“Will you cut it out?” I sat down in my chair, trying to process things. My brain was having real difficulties digesting this.

Curran’s grin was vicious. “I’ve been wondering why the hell he invested all that time into Hugh and then threw him away. Hugh almost killed you. Your dad was sitting in his Swan Palace feeling himself inch toward death’s door as you died of exposure, and he got so scared, he got rid of Hugh so it wouldn’t happen again. It was a knee-jerk reaction.”

“This can’t be right. I almost died more times than I can remember.”

“No, you’ve been hurt more times than you can remember,” Curran said. “Mishmar was the closest you’ve come to a physical death. Nasrin didn’t think you would make it. She told me to make my peace.”

“I almost bled to death in a cage when the rakshasas grabbed me.”

“No. You passed out, but Doolittle said there was a solid chance of recovery from the start. Mishmar was the worst.”

“Is that what you do?” Erra asked. “You keep track of the times she almost dies?”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to find yourself some shapeshifter heifer and have a litter of kittens, rather than deal with all this?”

I thought we were over this.