Part 35 (1/2)

”I'm a Lesser. I was born to serve.” He sniffs and rubs his nose in his sleeve. ”Working in the palace was a lot better than working in the Pits, though. I've been there since I was seven.”

”You work in the Pits. With those awful Keres?”

”Thanks to Haden.”

”Haden?”

”I bet he didn't tell you that part of the story, either. . . .”

”What story?” Haden asks, sliding into the booth across from me. ”What are you two talking about?”

”I was just about to tell Daphne what you did to me two years after your mother died,” Garrick says.

He has no inner song, no tune coming from him, but I can tell he's trying to upset Haden from the very loaded glare he throws his way.

It works. Haden goes ashen and a nervous little melody, like the tapping of anxious fingers against a table, comes off him. ”We don't need to talk about that,” he says.

”But she should know,” Garrick says. ”If you're going to give her your woe-is-me, disgraced-prince sob story, you really should tell the whole thing.”

”This is not the time or place,” Haden says, almost as if it were an order.

”But she wants to know,” he says. ”Don't you?” He turns that pointed glare on me. I can't deny that I am dying with curiosity now.

”Tell her how you couldn't stand having me around after I witnessed what you did when your mother died. Tell her how you lied just so you could get rid of the walking, talking reminder of your shame.

Tell her how you had me banished to the Pits. Tell her how two little words could have saved me from seven years of living a nightmare, being clawed at by every terrible thing that lives in the blackest part of the Underrealm, fighting for sc.r.a.ps, and praying to the G.o.ds that I'll make it one more day. Or when things are really bad, that I won't.”

My breath catches when he says this. I look at Haden for his reaction.

From the dark tones coming off him, I expect him to lash out at Garrick, to order him to be quiet, but instead, he lowers his head, as if resigned to letting the truth come out.

”Tell her,” Garrick says. ”Or do you want me to?”

Haden sucks in a deep breath and lets it out. ”When Garrick was seven, two years after my mother's death, he was found with one of my mother's pendants in his possession. It was made of rubies and shaped like a pomegranate. It was her favorite. He was banished to the Pits for stealing it from the palace.”

”But I didn't steal it,” Garrick says. ”She gave it to me. You knew that. You knew she gave it to me, but you told them that I took it.”

”Haden?” I ask. ”Is that true?”

”In a way. He would have taken it if she hadn't given it to him.”

”But she did give it to me-”

”Because she caught you trying to steal it.” Haden looks at me like he wants me to understand. ”My mother and I walked in on him going through her stuff. He was supposed to be cleaning, but he pocketed the pendant right as we walked into the room. She saw him do it. We both knew she did, but instead of demanding it back or calling for the guards, she told him he could have it. I asked her why, and she said that Garrick was only different from me and Rowan because his mother wasn't able to protect him the way she had for us. She said that if letting him have the pendant would help his life be a little better, then the least she could do was let him have it. She said that we should show compa.s.sion and mercy for everyone.”

”A lesson you forgot as soon as she was gone. As soon as it was convenient for you.” Haden lowers his head again. ”I made a mistake and I've felt shame for it every day of my life.”

”You turned him in for stealing it?” I ask him.

”After my mother died, my father chose a new Boon from the harem to become his queen. He wanted to give her the pomegranate pendant, but when it came up missing from my mother's possessions, the Court originally concluded that I was the one who stole it. When my father demanded to know what had happened to it, I told him that Garrick had taken it-and when they found it on him, they didn't believe that she had given it to him. . . . I didn't corroborate his story.”

”How could you do that to your own cousin?” I ask.

”We're not cousins,” Garrick says. ”We're brothers.”

”Half brothers,” Haden says quickly. ”And I did it because I hated Garrick at the time. He was right; he was a walking reminder of my dishonor. A walking reminder of what my life would have been like if my mother hadn't protected me with that oath. It hurt me every time I looked at him, and so I wanted to hurt him back.” He sits up and looks Garrick in the eye. ”I didn't know how bad it would be. I didn't know they'd banish you to the Pits. I thought maybe a few las.h.i.+ngs . . . I didn't know.” He pauses for a moment and then says, like it's the most painful thing he's ever had to say, ”I'm sorry.” I hear the s.h.i.+ft in Haden's tone and I know he's being sincere-I can hear the remorse coursing off him-but Garrick treats him like he's just spat in his face.

”Take your apologies and shove them up your a.s.s,” he says.

”Garrick, please,” Haden says.

Garrick looks at me. ”Be careful, Daphne. Haden's selfishness and his obedience are a dangerous combination. He'll do anything to try to win his honor in his father's eyes back. If he's willing to let a little kid be thrown into a Pit full of monsters because he didn't like seeing him around, what do you think he's going to do when he doesn't get what he wants from you?” His words strike a dissonant chord inside me. His view of Haden doesn't match the remorse that I hear in Haden now. They just feel wrong to me.

But then again, I barely know Haden at all.

Whatwould he do if I couldn't convince the Oracle to change his mind? What would he do when I continued to say no? Because I'm sure as h.e.l.l . . . or Hades . . . never going to say yes to helping him.

”Watch your back, Boon,” Garrick says. ”Because n.o.body else is going to do it for you.”

”I'm not a Boon,” I say through gritted teeth.

A very round woman appears at our table with a loaded tray. ”Well, howdy, folks,” she says. ”I've got chicken noodle soup, sodas, a salad, cheese fries, and cheeseburger! Whose poison is whose?” She looks down at us and her grin fades. ”Oh no, oh dears, you're not all headed to a funeral, are you?”

After the waitress leaves, Garrick grabs his bowl of soup and Pepsi and moves to the next table over like he can't stand sitting close to Haden anymore. But instead of eating, he lays his head on the table and moans, as if his exchange with Haden has zapped up all of his strength. I keep a close eye on him in case he decides to make a run for it anyway.

”You know,” I say tentatively, ”if you stopped treating Garrick like a Lesser and more like your brother, he might start to forgive you.”

He nods like he might actually consider the idea.

Haden and I sit across from each other in awkward silence for a few moments, but the smell wafting up from my cheese fries and bacon cheeseburger reminds me of how insanely hungry I am. I pick up a fry, and a long string of gooey, melty cheese trails behind it. I catch the slight curl of Haden's lip while he watches it.

He pulls his own plate closer to him and starts picking the croutons out of his salad.

”You seriously got a salad?” I ask him, trying to lighten the mood.

”Yes?” he says, and pushes the glorious pile of grated cheddar cheese off the lump of iceberg lettuce on his plate. ”Is that a problem?”

”We're at a greasy spoon. You should at least have the decency to get something greasy. That's their specialty. This,” I say, pulling his plate away, ”doesn't even fall into the proper definition of salad.

This is just lettuce.”

”I like lettuce,” he says, but the grimace on his face betrays how he really feels.

”How do you maintain all that muscle if you eat like a rabbit?”

”We eat different things in the Underrealm.”

”He doesn't like anything,” Garrick says from the adjacent table. ”He's the pickiest eater this side of Tartarus.”

”You mean you don't like bacon cheeseburgers?”