I kept the memories out of my voice. “In the woods. He’d dropped me off in the wilderness three days before.”

“Canteen and a knife?” Hugh asked.

“Mm-hm.” Canteen and a knife. Voron would drive me off into the woods, hand me a canteen and a knife, and wait for me to make my way home. Sometimes it took days. Sometimes weeks, but I always survived.

“He left me in the Nevada desert once,” Hugh said. “I was rationing water like it was gold, and then there was a flash flood during the night. It washed me off the side of the hill and into the ravine. I almost drowned. The canteen saved me—there was enough air in it to hold me over when I went under the water. So I crawl out of the desert, half-dead, and he looks at me and says, ‘Follow.’ And then the bastard gets into his truck and rides off. I had to run seven miles to town. If I could’ve lifted my arms, I would’ve strangled him.”

I knew the feeling. I’d plotted Voron’s death before, but I also loved him. As long as he was alive, the world had an axis and wouldn’t spin out of control, and then he died and it did. I wondered if Hugh had loved him in his own way. He must have. Only love can turn into that much frustration. Still didn’t explain why he was in a sharing mood.

“I found his body.”

“I’m sorry,” Hugh said. Either he was a spectacular actor or this was genuine regret. Probably both.

Screw it. “You should be. You ended my childhood.”

“Was it a good childhood?”

“Does it matter? It was the only one I had, and he was the only father I ever knew.”

Hugh rubbed his face. Voron was the only father he knew as well, and he’d left Hugh to rescue my mother and me. I suppose in a strange way that made us even.

“Did he ever tell you why?” Hugh asked.

“Why what?”

“The man I knew had a steel core. He would never have betrayed the man he’d sworn to protect. The Voron I knew wouldn’t steal his master’s wife and their child and run away with them. He wasn’t a traitor.”

“You really don’t know?”

“No.”

It had to be a lie. Roland would’ve told him. “Why don’t you ask him?”

“Because it hurts Roland.”

Let’s poke a wasp’s nest with a stick and see what comes out. “Afraid your commander and chief will do away with you?”

Hugh leaned forward. “No. I don’t want to cause him more pain.”

Was that genuine or was he playing me? Fine. Let’s play, Hugh.

I came closer and sat sideways in the smaller throne, my back against the armrest. “How much do you know about my mother’s magic?”