“Wait,” I said, the feeling of apprehension growing stronger. “Avery.”

My sister reached for my hand and pulled me into the house.

“This way,” she said. “Father doesn’t have much time.”

The lodge was nearly empty at this hour, and she led me to a small room at the back. The air was heavy with the smells of smoke and herbs, and Aspen lit a candle to illuminate the sickroom and the man sleeping on the narrow bed against the wall. My stomach turned. This was not my father. This was an old man, with hair the gray of dirty snow and his back bent beneath the weight of tragedy. His skin, even in the warm glow of the candle, looked ashen, and his eyes, when they opened, were cloudy.

“Father,” I said, falling to my knees beside him.

“Rowan?” His rheumy eyes searched for me in the darkness.

“Father, I’m here. I’m safe.”

“Rowan. I am sorry for all the trouble I have brought you.”

“It’s all right,” I said, fighting back tears. “I am safe. I am happy even, except to see you suffering.”

“It’s all my fault, child. All my fault. The rose . . . a rose for my Rowan, I thought, but . . .”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“Couldn’t have known?” His voice hardened. “Everything I touch is damned. First your mother, then my ships, and then my daughter, all taken from me, all cursed, all gone.”

“No.” I squeezed his hand. “I’m here now. I forgive you, father.”

“You look so much like your mother,” he said, once again wandering into memory.

“She would want you to live. We all want you to live.”

“Live. How can I live, without my Rowan?”

“I am here,” I tried again, but he did not seem to hear me.

“The rose . . .” He broke into a fit of coughing.

The rose.

I placed my hand on my father’s thin chest, feeling the rasp of his breathing, and spoke, my voice carrying echoes of a power rooted high up on the mountain. “I forgive you, father. I was angry at you once, but the Huntress was right. A rose for a rose, a thorn for a thorn, only it didn’t mean what she thought it meant. You can’t have a rose without thorns. It wouldn’t be a rose. You can’t have love without loss or happiness without sorrow, and I didn’t understand that. You gave me that rose for a reason. The Huntress let you go for a reason.”

The rose stirred in my hand, putting out vines.