Chapter Text
Judging by the noise coming from the kitchen, Edalyn has just blown something up. Lilith’s not quite sure how her sister managed to pull it off with those ingredients, but she clearly has.
“That wasn’t me!” Luz shouts. As if that weren’t clear, with her being on an entirely different floor and on the other side of the house. Perhaps Luz just wants to revel in the exotic and rare feeling of not being the one responsible for breaking something.
Edalyn swears loudly, which suggests she’s survived the explosion and kept her lips intact. Thus, she can be ignored for now. Lilith’s going to help her soon enough, anyway. It’s quite obvious that the burden of cleaning up that mess will fall onto Lilith’s shoulders, even though just yesterday she spent hours making the kitchen spotless. She needs a moment, she’ll deal with that after she finishes with this. There’s still more than a day till the dinner starts, and it’s a bit peculiar that Eda has already set off baking and cooking. Even with blowing the dishes up, it’s still an uncharacteristically responsible approach. But then again, Luz seems to really care about the whole thing, and Edalyn cares about Luz.
Lilith notices with surprise that at some point she must have stuck out the tip of her tongue in concentration. She used to do that back in school, but she had quickly learned to avoid it. The Coven was no place for such silliness.
No matter, nobody can see her right now, and she needs to be precise. If she must stick her tongue out like an idiot in order to do so, so be it. Lilith’s hands draw expert clear lines, and the lettering’s impeccable. She’s had years of practice. She knows how to arrange her hand and slightly lift her elbow to avoid smearing the ink, and she can do perfect cursive with her eyes closed. It’s not like she can perform any other curse anyway. But the smell of ink and paper is soothing. If Edalyn ever discovered it, she would probably never let Lilith live that down, but the parts of the old job Lilith enjoyed the most were not the witch’s duels, the prestige, not even being someone impressionable witchlings could look up to. It was the paperwork. Paperwork was quiet and never overwhelming. Yes, its amounts tended to be alarming, and its contents even more so (Lilith had quickly learned how to ignore those parts; you had to compartmentalize if you wanted to make it in the Coven). But nobody was yelling at Lilith during those hours. She didn’t need to watch her every step around paperwork. She didn’t have to look for signs that its temper was getting dangerously short, nor did she have to wonder whether it was still just short temper, or perhaps the curse already bubbling to the surface. With files, she never had to watch palismen being consumed, never felt her knuckles tighten on her own staff so hard they turned white. Paperwork was what Lilith did to relax, and she was great at it.
This isn’t exactly paperwork, but it’s as close as it can get, and Lilith will take it. The ink is almost dry, and it seems like she won’t have to redo anything. The branches are convoluted enough but in an aesthetically pleasing way. The occasional leaves perhaps lack some depth and shading, but they’re well-placed.
What remains at this point, is just the final touches with gold ink, and a simple spell to animate the leaves. The staff is more than enough to achieve that.
“What is it?” she suddenly hears a shrill voice, and manages to avoid an undignified yelp. She still flinches, though. Nobody was supposed to yell at her while she was working on calligraphy. That was the whole point.
She looks up and takes a deep breath. She’s most certainly not going to yell back at the Titan himself.
“It’s the Clawthorne family tree. Updated, revised, and complete,” she explains, and if she sounds very proud of that accomplishment, then what. It is an accomplishment.
King squints at the picture for a moment.
“Nah,” he says with a shrug, and, to Lilith’s horror, proceeds to jump onto the table and land right in the middle of the drying ink. “You got it wrong.”
She sends the Titan her most beaming, albeit a bit strained smile.
“I assure you, o lord, that it is factually correct. This is the result of weeks’ worth of additional research, and, of course, it’s based on records that were already quite meticulous.”
She really wants to stop the Titan from tap-tapping his hind paw on the document because by now, the paper is getting wrinkly. She swallows that urge back. It’s not the first time she chooses to ignore something annoying. Probably won’t be the last one either.
But the Titan shakes his head, scratching his chin at the same time. “Naah,” he repeats. “It’s not right.”
“And what exactly seems to be the problem, o lord?” she asks with every ounce of politeness she can summon.
He pouts. Lilith has no idea how he manages to do so with that... bone structure, but the Titan is definitely pouting at her.
“First of all, I don’t like it when you call me that.”
“Very well. O Titan?”
“I mean, that is technically correct,” he admits with hesitation. “But that’s just calling me by my species.”
“O god?” Lilith proposes.
“I guess that would be cool,” he agrees gracefully.
But he’s still standing in the middle of Lilith’s detailed picture.
“So what would be the mistake here, o god?” Lilith asks, and she’s really, really polite about the whole thing.
King takes a look around, clearly having already forgotten why he has jumped onto the table and why he’s currently ruining Lilith’s work. He squints at the tree, and then brightens up with a realization.
“Ah, yes. As your god and overlord, I should be in the center of it.” His voice raises in pitch a bit. “Me!”
He accentuates the last word with a little stomp.
“I’m afraid this is not how family trees work, o god.”
King considers her for a moment, and it seems like he’s weighing his options. The options, Lilith assumes, are making the angry noise Edalyn finds so endearing, or smiting Lilith for her impudence.
“They should. It doesn’t make sense any other way,” he says decidedly. “The ruler should always be surrounded by his loyal subjects.” He takes a step back and looks at the smeared ink where the names of Lilith’s great-great grandparents used to be. “And those guys currently in the middle? Never heard of them. I bet they’re not important, like, at all.”
Annelyn and John Clawthorne were the pillars of their community. Annelyn was the best healer in Latissa, and an expert midwife. Some of the handbooks she wrote are still in use. And John revolutionized the palisman painting technique.
Lilith sighs and collects herself enough to keep her voice calm and respectful.
“The placement on the tree is not related to one’s importance, o god. It reflects the generation one belongs to,” she explains. She even manages to smile. “It is supposed to convey the passage of time, and the passage of time is objective and not influenced by the importance of any individual.”
“So you think I couldn’t influence time with my powers?” the Titan asks, and Lilith only now realizes her mistake.
He probably couldn’t, at least not at this point. Right?
“Oh, I am certain there’s nothing that’s beyond your abilities, o god,” she says without missing a beat. “But because of that, you are what we call an outlier. A phenomenon so rare and so, ah, marvelous that taking one into account would distort the image of the reality the rest of us face.”
King gives her a very confused look.
“On a sheet of paper, outliers need to be near the edge,” she tries. “Because they’re very special and shouldn’t be confused with the boring majority that takes up so much space in the middle?”
That seems to placate the Titan. For a moment.
“Then I should be at the top, not at the bottom of the page,” he decides. “The ruler should always be above his subjects.”
“Again: this diagram is not supposed to represent the importance of individuals but the succession, heirdom, and genetic concatenation. And you are the youngest Clawthorne offspring.” She heaves a sigh. “O god,” she adds.
King leaps off the table and gives her a suspicious look.
“But you’ve just told me I’m not in the center because I’m an outside— out—” He struggles with the word. “Because I’m so very important.”
She has, hasn’t she. But before she manages to come up with some white lie, the Titan changes his angle.
“Besides, what kind of a tree grows upside down?”
To that, Lilith at least does have an answer.
“The topsy-scurvy larch is quite common in the Forearm Forest region,” she says. “And the ‘tree’ in ‘family tree’ is just a metaphor. The point is to trace one’s roots and present the connections within an extended family in a systematic and comprehensible way.”
“Yeah, but the roots are supposed to be at the bottom of the tree,” King says, and he’s clearly not intending to let the thing go. “That’s how trees work.”
Eda said the same thing when she saw Lilith preparing the first outlines. It seems like an awful lot of people prefer the family tree to mimic an actual tree, which makes little sense. Yes, the ancestors being portrayed as the roots and the children as buds is quite poetic, but taking the metaphor too far has so many disadvantages. First of all, real roots are convoluted and numerous, and we rarely know about more than two, perhaps four people from that time. Thus, either the portrayal of the roots would need to be grotesquely oversimplified, or most of them would lack any label, and that’s just a waste of space. In such a case, Lilith should name the other ramifications, which would mean that Caleb Wittebane’s family should be included as well.
There’s a really small, basically negligible part of Lilith that entertains the idea of having the Emperor himself in her lineage for a few seconds. That, that would be something. Not even the most noble families could claim something like that. But the part of her that tries to be a decent person quickly kicks in, and in case being a decent person wasn’t enough, it reminds Lilith about the complications and edits to the design introducing Belos would require. If she were to include Philip Wittebane, she would need to decide what was his relationship with Hunter. If he was Hunter’s creator, that basically means being a father, right? But Hunter has grown up believing Belos was his uncle, while in fact Belos was his brother, and how do you even begin to put something like that on paper? There’s also an indefinite number of previous grimwalkers, so perhaps they could serve as the roots, but Lilith doesn’t know their names. Besides, are they supposed to be Caleb’s brothers? Caleb’s children? Belos’ children? Is Hunter their descendant, or do all of the grimwalkers, Hunter included, belong to the same generation? What if at one point Belos ran out of parts and started, uh, recycling the grimwalkers? Would the ones created with already used parts count as the offspring of the original users? How do you pinpoint the moment it started happening? Does re-using Caleb’s bone count, or was it the same bone being used over and over from the very beginning? It’s not like Lilith can ask Belos to clear up some of that confusion.
Also, if she were to include the Emperor, she should probably include King’s father as well. Which would look very respectable, yes, even more respectable than having just one Titan in the family. Alas, once again, Lilith doesn’t know enough to even begin to consider labeling the roots.
Second of all, most witches in the Isles read from left to right, top to bottom, and so it’s logical for the structure of the story told by the diagram to be just like any story written down, beginning at the top of the page.
And third of all, and that’s quite important, third of all, Lilith has almost finished the detailed picture. She started with the ancestors at the top, and she has no intention of doing everything all over again.
The Titan looks at her expectantly.
She tries to stand her ground.
The Titan’s look slowly turns into a glare.
“I will turn it upside down, o god,” she surrenders.
The god in question jumps up in pure glee and hugs her leg.
“Okay, but my name has to be the biggest and the brightest of all of them!” he says after he finally lets her go. “And I want a crown.”
“Of course you do, o god,” Lilith says miserably.
She can do it. She doesn’t want to, but she certainly can.
.
She doesn’t draw everything back from scratch. She might be a perfectionist, but there’s just no time to do that if she wants the leaves to look even remotely acceptable. Lilith introduces some minor changes, and uses a simple spell to erase the names. She writes them down again, this time upside down. She could have used a spell to do that as well, but it would feel too impersonal.
She’s almost finished, and it doesn’t look half bad when Luz runs into the room and narrowly misses the table while backpedaling.
“Eda—” She tries to catch her breath. “Eda— asks— where did you put— the fairy dust. She says—”
The girl’s eyes grow wide and she clasps her hands to her cheeks in excitement.
“Is that what I think it is?” she asks, forgetting she was out of breath.
“Depends on what you’re thinking,” Lilith replies with a soft smirk. She’s in a good mood, and the corrections required by the Titan didn’t take as much time as she was expecting.
Luz bounces on her heels. “Oh lemme see, lemme see,” she yells, though probably her intention was to just plainly say that.
Lilith moves aside and lets her niece pass. There would be no stopping her anyway.
“This is so cool!” Luz exclaims, and it’s obvious that her enthusiasm is genuine. As it always is.
She starts from the middle of the page, not even the bottom, and who does something like that? She slowly makes her way up to the top, asking about each and every name, and doing excited little dances.
“Oh, and King has a cute little crown!”
“He does,” Lilith admits without much enthusiasm.
“And I’m—” Luz’s voice breaks noticeably as she takes in the label that says “Luz Noceda-Clawthorne.” “And I’m also here.”
Lilith doesn’t fully understand what’s happening, but suddenly she has her arms full of a sniffling teenager. But it’s happy sniffling, the teenager in question assures her after a moment. It’s bonding, Luz explains. They’re bonding right now, the cool aunt and her equally cool niece.
Lilith doesn’t feel very comfortable with that kind of bonding, but thankfully, Luz lets go of her after a minute. Lilith carefully avoids looking down at her shirt to check whether it’s covered in tears and snot. It probably is, and it will do Lilith no good to know that at the moment.
“You shouldn’t be surprised,” she says instead. “It’s going to be a ‘welcome to the family’ party after all.”
“I guess,” Luz says still a bit tearfully. “But not for me.” She leans over the table once again, quickly jumping back to being excited. “So where’s he?”
Lilith points to Hunter’s name, and Luz knits her brows together.
“I’m not sure that’s... exactly accurate,” the girl says guardedly.
“It is,” Lilith assures her. She has spent past month agonizing over the issue, she knows what she’s doing. “That’s the most accurate description possible.”
Luz looks at the words ‘Caleb (Hunter) Wittebane-Clawthorne’ at the bottom of the picture with unease.
“I think Hunter might not be... thrilled,” she says. “He’s his own person, you know?”
Lilith doesn’t scoff. She knows better than to do that.
“Genetically speaking, they’re almost identical. They even had the same palisman. And he’s not exactly Caleb’s offspring, so he can’t get a branch of his own.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Besides, isn’t tomorrow’s entire party exactly about that? About welcoming another Clawthorne to his estranged family? The only way in which he’s a Clawthorne, is through Caleb’s marriage.”
Luz chews on her bottom lip for a few seconds.
“He’s not going to like it,” she says stubbornly. “Plus, he’s my brother, so he should be next to me, not on the other end of the sheet.”
Lilith is really grateful she’s not holding an inkwell when her fist clenches spastically.
She blinks twice.
“What do you mean, your brother?”
Luz sends her a radiant smile.
“I mean, my mom’s his mom as well, and he’s totally my brother. And Vee’s our sister.” Luz changes her expression a bit. “I think she should be there too.”
“And perhaps I should squeeze in your mother as well?” Lilith says, feeling her lips tighten into a thin line.
Luz doesn’t notice the sarcasm. She often doesn’t. She just nods enthusiastically and wraps her arms around Lilith’s waist once again.
“See? I knew you were the coolest aunt in all the realms!” the girl exclaims, and then she runs off to the kitchen to help Edalyn.
She still doesn’t know where the fairy dust is, but Edalyn has probably also forgotten about it by the time Luz gets back to her.
.
Four hours and three visits from Hootsifer later, Lilith is pacing the room. She’s trying to do that quietly, she really is, but when she focuses on her footsteps being as light as possible, she forgets to avoid muttering to herself.
So Luz is Edalyn’s kid, and Hunter is Luz’s brother, but he’s not Edalyn’s kid. He’s, genetically speaking, Edalyn’s great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather. And yet, he can’t be placed as their ancestor because Lilith’s niece says it would hurt her brother’s feelings, though Lilith’s niece’s brother isn’t Lilith’s nephew.
Alright. There’s certainly some way to represent this mess visually in a manner that would make sense.
Lilith’s very close to coming up with said way. The last six attempts at a blueprint of an updated-updated family tree lie crumpled on the floor while Lilith gestures angrily, preparing to crumple another one.
“I’m heading off to my nest,” Edalyn says, sticking her head through the door. “I’m dead on my feet. And, by the way, thanks for all that incredible help in the kitchen, sis, I don’t know what I would do without you.”
Lilith jumps up, startled.
“Huh?” she says, turning around and realizing this time it’s not Hootsifer.
Edalyn sighs and enters the room.
“I was being passive aggressive, but it seems I’ve wasted a perfectly good jab on a sister who neither helps out with the cake, nor listens to my complaints.”
Lilith gives her a noncommittal grunt, and throws another crumpled sheet of paper onto the floor. Then she stomps on it purposefully.
“What happened here?” Edalyn asks in alarm, seeing the state of the room. She examines a dent in the wall carefully. “Have you punched it, Lily? Cuz if you punched it, you’re the one fixing it, that’s the rules.”
“Luz says Hunter’s her brother,” Lilith deadpans, refusing to dignify her sister’s question with an answer.
“Yeah, and?”
“How is he her brother?”
“Through adoption, I would assume.”
“So has he been formally adopted?” Lilith presses on.
“I don’t know?” Edalyn shrugs. “But neither has Luz, and you know she’s a Clawthorne.”
Somehow, she really is, and Lilith does know that. It doesn’t make much sense, logically speaking.
“Very well,” Lilith admits because she knows how to pick her battles. “Still, Hunter’s not your kid.”
Edalyn drops onto the chair heavily.
“Obviously not. He’s Camila’s and Darius’,” she says, stifling a yawn. She stretches out like a cat, and then yawns openly. And then once more, for a good measure.
Only after that, she looks up at her sister.
“You okay, Lily? You want to... sit down for a little bit?”
Lilith’s outburst shouldn’t surprise anyone, and yet it comes as a shock to both of them.
“No, I don’t want to sit down! I want it to make sense!” She gestures to her notes angrily. “Any sense! How is Darius his father? In what way? I’ve never heard Darius say anything like that!”
Eda carefully avoids any sudden movement, as if she were stuck in the same room with a rabid animal. “I mean, Darius would never say he’s Hunter’s father, but he’s, you know.” She makes a vague gesture.
“I don’t!” Lilith screams. She clears her throat, noticing her poor volume control. “I don’t,” she repeats quietly.
“He’s Darius,” Edalyn says with emphasis, as if that were supposed to explain everything. “He won’t call himself a dad, but Hunter’s definitely his kid. It was Darius who dealt with all the paperwork when Hunter was getting admitted to Hexside. Pretty fatherly, if you ask me.” She gives Lilith a worried look. “Stop doing that, you’re gonna tear your hair out.”
Lilith untangles her hand from her hair, only now noticing what she’s been doing. She takes a deep breath, and decides to ask the next question just to be done with it.
“Splendid. But what about Amity, then?”
Edalyn gives her a confused look.
“Darius is dating Alador, isn’t he?” Lilith says.
“He is?”
Lilith opens up her scroll and shows Eda her Penstagram feed. Half of it is covered in photos of the two abomination witches, though every image description is a poorly veiled insult. The target of the insults varies, depending on which one of the two has posted the picture.
“Alright, seems that way.” Edalyn shrugs. “Good for him. Both of them.” She snorts. “I guess it’s the goo that holds them together, amirite?”
Lilith gives her an exasperated look.
“What,” Eda says defensively. “I love a juicy piece of gossip just like any other gal, but those two have been an item since forever. That’s not really gossip. And I don’t see how it has anything to do with you losing your marbles.”
Lilith grabs her sister by both of her ears and yanks so that Eda has no choice but to look her in the eye at an awkward angle.
“Think, Edalyn, think!” she hisses. “If Darius and Alador are together, is Hunter Alador’s child as well?”
Eda furrows her brows, and then winces immediately as the movement causes the skin on her temples to stretch painfully. She bats at her sister’s hands, and Lilith finally lets go of her ears. “I think that’s for Alador to decide,” she says. Then, suddenly, she sniggers. “Though Gus tells me he welcomed Hunter to the Blight family quite cordially on the Day of Unity.” The chuckle turns into yet another ugly snort, and Eda doesn’t seem in the least embarrassed by that noise.
Lilith has no idea what Edalyn’s talking about, but she’s not going to admit that. She goes back to pacing the room.
“If Hunter’s going to be Alador’s child, then he’s Amity’s brother, right?” she presses on.
“I assume...” Edalyn says carefully. “Listen, Lily, I think you should take a break for a second. You’re getting... intense. You need to calm your tits.”
Lilith looks down. “I don’t see what they have to do with anything,” she says. “And they’re not important. Because if Hunter is Amity’s brother and Luz’s brother, doesn’t that mean that Luz and Amity are sisters?”
“Pretty sure it doesn’t mean that, Lily.”
“Is Luz dating her own sister?” Lilith carries on, and even she herself can hear the hint of hysteria in her voice. “Don’t you think we should do something about that?”
“Nope,” Edalyn says, popping the p. “Definitely no, I’m not going to do anything about that besides being supportive, and neither are you. Here’s what you are going to do, sis: you’re going with me to the kitchen, and you’re going to have a nice cup of sweet sleeping nettle. Then you’ll go to bed, and tomorrow your brain won’t be doing whatever the hell it’s doing right now.”
Lilith stops in her tracks and takes a look around. The floor is covered in discarded attempts at making any sense of the situation. She’s tired, she realizes. When was the last time she ate? When was the last time she went to the bathroom, since we’re at it?
“I guess I could use a short break,” she admits weakly.
“Besides, it’s not like you need to include everyone, right? I mean, Raine’s also kinda Hunter’s parent, more than the BATs’. Though that’s mostly because I’m BATs’—” Edalyn trails off, probably noticing Lilith’s expression. “Um. No?”
“No,” Lilith states flatly. “Absolutely not.”
“No it is,” Edalyn concedes. She squints at the last sketch in order to change the subject. “The tree looks different than before.”
“You don’t say,” Lilith snaps at her. “It made sense before. And now...” She collapses onto a chair in silent resignation. “Now there have been some new pieces of information to take into account.”
“No, I mean the tree,” Eda says. “The trunk and the branches and all that. Where are the leaves? It doesn’t look like a tree, more like a… really tangled up snake? A worm?”
Lilith nods and makes a sound that is something between a giggle and a sob.
“Is that Hooty’s face where there was a decorative hollow before?” Edalyn pushes on.
“He really wanted to be included,” Lilith explains. “Actually, I’m pretty proud of that solution.”
“Well, he is family,” Edalyn admits. “Though I wouldn’t, you know. Make him into a tree.”
Lilith’s smile grows even wider now that she feels her left eye twitch.
“So do you perhaps have some ideas where and how he should be introduced to the diagram?” she asks.
“I dunno, next to King and Luz?” Eda proposes, scratching the back of her neck. “And, uh, Hunter... and Vee? So that’s a thing now. Huh.”
“And, pray tell, is Hootsifer your child the way Luz or King are?” Lilith asks with manic politeness.
“Well, not exactly, but you could put him down as something else.”
“A brother, perhaps?” Lilith feels her muscles strain under the weight of the continuous smile.
“Nah. Definitely not a brother. More like a distant cousin that annoys you during family gatherings, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, the word ‘mean’ is certainly appropriate here,” Lilith retorts, her smile disappearing momentarily. Then it comes back, this time even wider. “To be our cousin, Hootsifer would need to be a child of someone from this level.” She gestures at the branches that contain their parents and their parents’ siblings. “Any idea who might have given birth to Hooty? Or raised him when he was a larva?”
Eda shudders. “Okay, I see your point. But if not a cousin, then something else? Something that is not a tree.”
Oh, if Edalyn wants to have that conversation, she’ll have it.
“In fact, Hootsifer has proposed a way his presence in the family could be handled,” Lilith informs her sister.
“Oh?” Eda asks, not knowing what’s coming.
“He seems to be under the impression that he’s your life partner, Edalyn.”
For a second there, Eda looks as if she wished for her mouth to be full of water so that she could spit it out dramatically. “What.”
“Your life partner,” Lilith repeats sweetly.
“But— but—” Edalyn stammers. “Life partner as in, you know, life partner? As in, me and Raine being life partners?”
“That’s exactly what I’ve asked him,” Lilith admits with a sigh. Fun is fun, especially when someone questions Lilith’s most ingenious ideas, but Eda looks like she’s on the verge of an aneurysm. “He didn’t understand what I meant, so I phrased it differently and asked about romantic partners. He seemed very confused when confronted with the notion. I think he believes that partnership means living together without the kinship?” She clears her throat. “Both of us were confused, I must admit.”
“Oh goodie,” Edalyn mutters. “So now there’s three of us, all very confused. I’m not going to open this can of snakes right now, though.” She brightens up. “A tree it is! And what a great idea, Lily, I might add. Never had any doubt you could handle the whole thing. I think you deserve some rest for coming up with that.”
Lilith agrees with the last part.
They go to the kitchen. It’s in shambles, and Lilith realizes she should have investigated the explosion she heard back then. They do have a nice cup of sweet sleeping nettle, though, and soon enough, Lilith feels the tiredness spreading through her limbs. She yawns, but she covers her mouth while doing so. She’s not an animal.
They chat a little, though it’s only to pass the time while they finish drinking the herbal brew. Eda’s the first one to do so, and it’s a bit disturbing to see her pour herself a glass of apple blood immediately after that.
“It’s the second one in dozens of hours,” she explains, apparently noticing Lilith’s expression. “I deserve some treat after today, and before...” She cringes slightly. “Tomorrow.” She downs the glass in two gulps, and pours herself another.
“I’m sure it’s not going to be that bad,” Lilith says, even though she’s not sure. It’s a conversation for another time, now her eyes are refusing to stay open. “Mother’s much more willing to listen now, and father... I thought the two of you worked something out.”
Edalyn sticks her nose into the glass for a second before answering.
“Yeah,” she finally says. “I’m not sneaking out through the bathroom window, am I. It’s good.” She takes a generous gulp. “It’s all good, so good.”
“I think you require one more ‘good’ to make it more convincing,” Lilith says sleepily because what else is there to say. I gave you the curse that hurt our father? You’ve been avoiding him for decades because of what I’ve done?
She’ll say all those things. Eventually. Now she feels like her speech would be slurred anyway.
Edalyn gives her something resembling a smile, and then it drops when she realizes the glass is already empty.
“Seriously, though,” she says, grabbing the bottle. “It’s good.”
For a moment, they sit in silence, and it’s not a comfortable one. Eda considers the bottle for a moment, and then starts drinking directly from it.
“Now dad has a successor, and the kid’s pretty good with a carving knife, I’ll give him that. And he’s a Clawthorne, so it all really worked out in the end,” Edalyn finally says, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. She smears the lipstick all over her face. “I think dad’s really into this whole accepting Hunter into the family idea.”
Lilith gives a perfunctory nod, too tired to react properly, the warmth of the sleeping nettle slowly encompassing her entire body. She lets her head rest on the elbows she must have put on the table at some point. She just needs a second.
“I’ve even heard him call Hunter ‘son’ once,” Eda adds while her sister gives up the heroic struggle to keep her eyes open.
Lilith wakes up just before dawn. Her back’s sore from the awkward position, though Edalyn apparently wrapped not one but two blankets around her. There’s also a pillow lying next to her on the tabletop, suggesting that Edalyn had tried to slip it under Lilith’s cheek but gave up.
She squints at the surroundings, trying to understand what kind of a process has led her here. She retraces her steps and tries to remember the conversation she had with her sister before nodding off. Washing the dishes, the apple blood, tomorrow. No, that’s today already. Today’s dinner. Father. Father finding a successor, father calling—
Turns out the pillow does come in handy. Lilith uses it to muffle her screams.