She stalked toward him before pulling back her fist and delivering a punch. His head snapped back and his heels saw the sky.
“They are gentleman and ladies, and they are my friends. They deserved better than you gave them.” Charity walked on. “Where is my father?”
“He’ll be in his favorite shed, probably, or his house, Third,” Kairi said, walking by her side.
People called out to them as they walked by, but she ignored them, intent on her mission. Her father was in his temporary shed, a nicer place than the shifters had called home.
No, not home. A resting place until she was settled.
He looked up, startled. “Charity, darling, what—”
“Devon is gone, did you know?”
His sag was slight, but the fact that she noticed it at all meant he was gravely disappointed. “No, but I wondered. I spoke to him yesterday, hoping to impress upon him the remorse he would feel…” He sighed and stood, coming around his table to clutch her upper arms. He leaned forward to look into her eyes. “He wanted the best for you. He decided that it would be best if you were here, with your people.”
She felt her lower lip tremble under his supportive gaze. She shrugged his hands away, needing to hang on to her anger with everything she had. “Well, that’s the thing about modern women. We don’t like our men deciding what’s best for us without our consent.”
“I understand, honey, but these are the guardian lands, and—”
“Dad, I am glad I met you. I would like a relationship with you. But Devon is my home. He brightens up all my dark places. His pack, to me, makes sense. I belong with them. But there’s more to it than that. We, as a people, belong with them. I know you can feel that. You’ve said you can feel that. They fight like we’re meant to fight. I mean…we’re guardians, right? Why are you called a guardian when you spend your days messing around with plants? Aren’t there gardener fae? Or table-designing fae? We should be playing with swords to get our kicks, not thorny flowers. We’ve lost our way.”
He stared down at her for a silent beat. Footsteps, barely heard, sounded right before Halvor gently knocked at the open door.
Her father’s eyes darted back and forth between them. “What have you done?”
The knock sounded again. She shrugged.
“Yes, Halvor?” her father said.
“Second—” Halvor cut off whatever he’d been about to say when he caught sight of her. He composed himself, if a rock could be said to compose itself.
“Go ahead, Halvor. I doubt she feels bad for whatever she’s done.”
“The guest houses, Second. They are…destroyed.”
Her father’s eyebrow ticked up. “Destroyed? However did you do that?”
“I have magic. If you use it right, it blows things up,” she said.
Her dad’s smile beamed brighter. “I see.”
“Do you?” Anger overcame her again. Her dad took a step back. “What sort of people treat their guests like garbage? How does that look on you as a people? Sorry—on us as a people?”
A small crease formed between his brows.
“Did people ignore them?” she asked, thinking about the woman who hadn’t noticed Devon the night before. She was an asshole for not having picked up on this sooner. Her people were all assholes for thinking this behavior was right.
An embarrassed look crossed her father’s face, gone so fast that Charity thought she’d imagined it.
“And all this halvsie stuff?” she continued. “You can’t treat people like this, Dad. You can’t. Right now the shifters—and a lot of people, I think—regard the guardians reverently, as warriors. They even call you warrior fae! If they knew you treated people like this, hiding in your natural nook far away from trouble while the elves torture people for info and the—”
He touched her shoulder and his eyes took on a keen edge. “What was that?”
“What was…what?”
“The elves…”
She frowned at him. How could he not know?
She explained what Emery had told them about the elves’ recent history of torturing and sometimes killing for information. Her father’s brow lowered as she explained the elves had been randomly grabbing people to question.
“This is pretty common knowledge,” she finished. “Ask Emery—though I guess he left. But he knows exactly what the elves are capable of. He put himself at great risk to lead our party through the wilds. If you can get hold of Vlad, I’m sure he’d love to fill your ears on the state of things. I mean…you live here—you should know all this.”
Her dad’s gaze zipped behind her, and something new moved within his eyes. A smoldering light, of sorts, heating to flame. Halvor had stood to the side of the space and listened intently.
Her dad’s lips pinched together. It meant he was disappointed. “Thank you, Charity, for all you have said. Now, if you will leave me to speak with Halvor—”