When Elias had said he wished to drop off the ring with his daughter, I hadn't expected him to take me to a grave.

I should have. He hadn't spoken another word about her for the rest of the journey. I should have known.

The sun was just rising on the final day of our travels, casting golden rays across the gray landscape. An early morning chill nipped at us as we entered the weeping wrought iron gate. He'd brought us to the West side of the capital city, to the empty outskirts where there was plenty of room for death to sprawl. The cemetery was large, much larger than the one near Bevuin. As we walked, I noticed many of the graves belonged to children—both under and within the age for Death's so-called gift. Children who had not returned.

Elias explained he and Yvonne used to live on this side of the city, but they couldn't bear to stay in their old house after their daughter had died. He fell quiet as we approached her grave.

"She died there. In that house. We held her vigil there as well," he said softly, an uncharacteristic quiver in his voice. He clutched the small box tighter. "She had always been sickly. It had finally caught up to her during a particularly difficult winter."

"I'm sorry," I said. Even though I truly meant it, it felt hollow. What was there to say to someone who had experienced such a loss? What a hole there must be. I'd be arrogant to think my words could even begin to patch it.

After that, I simply stood beside him, studying the gravestone. It was simple, a cold and speckled gray, smooth around its edges. Some of the graves in the cemetery were marked with ornate carvings or statues, but hers was quaint and quiet. Unassuming. Lorelei Sterling, it read. Beloved daughter. May she rest in eternal peace.

I scanned the dates and stopped short, my chest tightening. "She was only eleven years old?"

He nodded and finally knelt, opening the box and placing it beside the stone. The silver ring inside gleamed, a perfectly polished piece. It was set with a small green gem. On the inside of the band, Mother had engraved text, but it was too small for me to read. Elias remained on his knees, closer to the earth and the grave. Only the wind stirred, rustling a pair of chimes somewhere farther in the graveyard.

"She would have turned fifteen this winter." He smiled somewhat, but his shoulders were still slouched. "I'd told her that I would have the ring made for her fifteenth birthday. She..." A small chuckle escaped him. "She was always getting into Yvonne's jewelry box, you see. Parading around the house wearing as many pieces as she could fit. It was to be the first that was hers."

Whatever light the memory had brought him began to fade. "I wish I could have given it to her."

I lowered to my knees beside him, feeling the press of graveside dirt against my legs. In a place like this, it was difficult not to resent Death and the lives he had taken so early. In this case, a life he had not returned. What made him decide one child was worthy when another wasn't?

My fingers curled. The tightness in my chest was painful.

With a deep, shuddering breath, Elias rose and fixed his cloak. "Shall we head back? We still have a few hours before we reach home."

"Are you sure you don't want to stay?" I looked at Lorelei's gravestone, at its sloping edges and crisp text. I noticed now that there were flowers engraved at its bottom, nearly covered by the grass that had sprung up around the stone. Still, it was clean. Cleaner than every other stone in the cemetery.

Elias lingered for a moment longer, and the silence stretched. The chime sounded again as another cold breeze caressed my face, reminding me—painfully—that I was the living girl. "I'm sure," he said. His footsteps carried him away.

The grave and I stared at each other. I couldn't help the creeping fear that I could have been the one buried in the earth, taken from everything. But Death had thought otherwise, and I still had no clue why a flower had been the thing to sway him.

I touched the stone flower at my side. Its petals were cold, humming with the same empty life as always. Then I followed the path back to Elias and the carriage. He helped me inside, his gaze bearing the distant look of a man whose mind had gone somewhere far. The quiet was painful, but not tense.

"Thank you," I said. "For showing me."

Elias looked at me briefly—truly looked at me—then climbed inside. He shifted as if the whole thing were a coffin that didn't fit either of us. He finally resigned himself to the window as the carriage slowly began to move again. "I am no stranger to death, though I wish I was. I don't want you to feel like you must face it alone. No one should."

"You don't have to expend so much effort for me." Elias was digging a hole for himself that I wasn't sure he could escape from. He'd offered escape to my mother, protection to me, and now a chance to connect when I'd told myself I wouldn't connect with anyone. Certainly my uncle never intended this outcome when he'd dropped me here.

"Do you have other questions for me?" Elias asked. "While we have a moment to speak."

He didn't say it outright, but I thought to speak alone might have been implied, which made me wonder if he didn't think he could speak plainly in his own home.

I did, of course, have questions. It took several long minutes of rattling down the road before I could pull any from the threads of my mind. We had already talked about many things on our journey, like how as a child Elias had been in an accident and presumed dead (small town, he'd explained when I'd snorted, with no doctor and little schooling among its people). When he'd woken again, it was thought to be the gift. In a strange turn of events, a traveling representative from the academy had convinced his confused parents to send him to the school.

Because Elias had never died, he'd never gained any magic either. He had failed out of the school in his first semester, unable to pass the tests to sample other tracks or to move on in his own. He'd pointedly avoided telling me which track he'd been slotted into, but I had my guesses. I'd laughed when he'd told me—it was all quite amusing, moving from one misunderstanding to the next—but it reminded both of us how little even well-meaning adults knew about the gift, and how easy it was to misguide their children. Elias could have ended up any number of places had the man not been from the academy.

The academy was no great place to be either.

"It does mean I know how uncertain the school can be," Elias had said, putting emphasis on the word uncertain that made it sound more sinister. "Not everyone there has the best interest of the students in mind."

In that memory, I found my questions, and thus returned to the present carriage ride. "How do you know Varren?" I asked. "I saw you speaking with him when we went to file my paperwork."

Elias folded his arms and leaned back into the little corner by the window. He exhaled deeply. "Varren was a professor there during my brief visit. He helped arrange for me to leave once it was plain that I had no magic. He kept up with me after that. When it happened, I'd told him about Lorelei's death."

"And that day?"

"That day..." His face pinched, growing dark. He looked pointedly at the scuffed tips of his shoes. "He accused me of something unthinkable. To put his suspicions to rest, I told him I'd taken you in after a tragedy. Nothing more, nothing less."

Imagining what Varren feared Elias had done made my skin prickle. I laughed awkwardly. "Varren must be quite old," I said, and only then did that puzzle me.

"I'd thought he was old when I first met him," Elias chuckled, the ghost of a smile creasing his face. "Not that it means much. I wasn't very old at the time."

I laughed with him, but it was somewhat hollow. I had these pieces now and nowhere to put them, so they haunted me. The stone flower turned cold beneath my fingers, colder than ice. I felt the pull toward the old journal and stuffed it down.

The rest of the ride disappeared. I may have dozed during parts of it as it seemed to slip by without my noticing. At the end, Elias shook my shoulder gently. The door opened, flooding the inside with evening sunlight.

While our luggage was unloaded, he helped me down. Yvonne came out to greet us, hugging Elias tighter than what I thought was usual. The way he kissed her cheek seemed mournful, so I looked away. Exhausted down to my bones, I headed inside and pondered if I should bother with a shower before I collapsed.

"Celestine." Elias's voice stopped me halfway up the stairs. I turned to find him alone in the dimly lit house. The shadows creased his face in odd ways, cutting a gaunt image of a man I knew better, somehow, than the perfect soldier. He started to say something, his mouth open and frozen. We stared at each other instead. "You were never dropped on me by the king," he finally said. "I asked to take you in."

At first, I couldn't answer. I knew no words. It was like a punch to the gut, and I was winded and scrambling. I blinked the wetness from my eyes and nodded. "What a silly idea that was."

"I don't regret it." Then he smiled at me, truly smiled. "Would you like dinner before you crawl into your cave for the night?"

"I suppose," I said as I descended the stairs. "But only if there's dessert."

"You can take that up with Yvonne."

The three of us sat down together. It wasn't Mother's cooking, but I didn't mind. I found that I never really did now that Mother knew I was safe and alive. For that quiet evening, all was well, and I would not disturb the peace we had made. Nothing seemed to go as my uncle no doubt hoped it would, and that thought allowed me to sleep comfortably. 

It's back to school for Celestine next time! Hopefully she doesn't come back to anything too crazy. That might ruin all this nice peace she's found :(