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"I think she loved Himureal," Zeph says, crossing his arms over his head. His ivory shirt rides up a little, and his soft stomach, coated with curls of red hair, is on display. "There are plenty of entries that seem to suggest he was heavily involved in the lives of Lucinda and her children."
"Damn, Lucinda, too?" Tulip says, eyes still trained on the door, staunch refusal to turn around radiating off of her.
I know she's waiting for Morrow.
Since losing his arm, he's obviously been going through a grieving period. I can tell Tulip wants to be there for him, but for some reason, she's holding herself away from him.
"Himureal said it was meant for it to be a descendent of Lucinda," Mace interjects, his spine straightening. "'Comes from the curse of loving the dark.' What if that is not just a descendent of Lucinda, but of the child she had with Himureal?"
"You think she was pregnant?" I ask, turning my body towards him. "That a child she had with him was the curse of loving the dark?" Chills wrack my body. Did this woman, my ancestor, really refer to a child as a curse? I don't want children but even I wouldn't call one a curse.
And if this is true…
"You're actually descendedfrom Himureal," Zeph says, reading the wide-eyed expression I must've had and interrupting my thoughts.
"Most fucked up family tree ever," Tulip says, laughing.
"This can't be right," I say, refusing to accept this leap in logic. "We have no proof that Lucinda was pregnant and that I am actually related to Himureal."
Mace's purple shirt is a new one he must have picked up in Feria, the color rich and enhancing his green eyes. He smoothes it as he stands up from the table in the empty dining room and begins to pace. "It would make a lot of sense, Viola. How you were able to curse Max before you touched the Witch's Ladder. How the magic responded to you so readily." He stops pacing and pierces me with his bright green gaze. "With Godly ancestry, I bet you've always been able to pull devotion to some degree, and that's how you were able to unlock the Witch's Ladder."
I always assumed "daughter" was a reference to being a child of his magic. But it appears there may have been more to it than I thought.
"Okay, let's pretend, for just a moment, that I am the result of a child the two of them had centuries ago. Does it change anything about how we approach this?" I ask, resting on my elbows with my hands wrapped around my neck. I close my eyes and breathe through the grief I feel towards the life I should have had. "This is just further proof that I didn't have any choice in my fate. This shit was always going to find me, wasn't it?"
Tulip looks over her shoulder, resting her chin on her bluelinen shirt. Her hair is wild today, creating a halo around her face with its wild waves. "Probably."
The blunt, bored way Tulip answers me is the last straw, and I burst out laughing. I laugh harder than I've laughed in a long time.
Because it's true.
Even if I had not brought Himureal back, he would have come for me because I am his blood, his family.
Zeph, Mace, and Tulip eventually join me in the laughter. After all of it is out of my system, I shake my head and wipe the tears that squeaked out in my moment of mirth.
"Alright, well, I'm glad we dissected this riddle—we didn't even have to since I've already brought this particular God back," I say, closing the journal.
"To be fair," Zeph interjects, "examining this one allows us to make sure our logic is sound before we go after the others."
"Gods, Zeph, since when do you care about logic?" Tulip says. "It wasn't very logical to kidnap Viola's best friend if you wanted her to love you."
"I deserved that," Zeph says, wincing. Tulip's expression is not one of anger or fear, though. She's teasing him, and something in me lightens knowing that they are growing more comfortable around each other.
"Well, which one is next?" I shuffle the journals, looking at each one. Eventually, I land on the one with a lightning bolt on the cover and open it up, trying to get through this as best we can before we arrive at the Cliffs.
"There,in the distance," Morrow says, pointing towards the top of the mountain we're hiking up. "It looks like there's a structure there overlooking the cliff."
I squint, trying to see what he claims to. It all looks like a smudge to me.
"I see it too, let's head there," Mace says from behind me.
It's been at least two hours since we've been climbing. Jaz got us as close as they could and, surprising all of us, decided to join us on our trek up the cliffs. Their people are staying on the boat for now. After another hour, we finally arrived at the top of the hill.
"Are we really supposed to do three hours each way every day?" Tulip pants, bending over and resting her hands on her knees. "Because if so, I'm staying on the fucking ship."
Laughing, Jaz pats her on the back. "Ah, come on, Tulip, where's your sense of adventure?"
"Adventure? Do you not know what I've been doing for weeks now?" Tulip nearly screeches. "The only beds we've slept in have been on your boat and in Feria. The rest of it was just us on the ground!"
