Black Wings, Gray Skies (Black Hat Bureau 4)

Damn him for erasing my past, and damn me for letting him, for never suspecting a liar had lied to me.

Hot tears slid down my cheeks, burning my eyes, as tiny fissures crackled over my heart.

A roll of his shoulders cracked the blackness as if it were a dark chocolate shell coating ice cream. Jagged pieces slipped and slid to the floor, evaporating, taking the malodor along as if neither had ever existed.

“I vow to you, on the dark heart of Eire, the cold stone of Tran, the darkness of Mirk, I am your father.”

The invocation was as dated as the rest of him, but it bound him to his word in unbreakable chains.

“You really are Hiram Nádasdy.”

“I am.”

Had he lied, he would have been struck dead, but he remained standing.

“I heard you’re in fascination with the prince of Hael.” His voice held echoes of a long gone past. “Your mother taught me love is unexpected, a treasure, so I won’t pretend I know what you need better than you do, but I had hoped you would settle down with a nice witch for the most ordinary life imaginable.”

“You’re really him.” I was stuck in a loop, and I couldn’t break free. “Hiram Nádasdy.”

“I am, I am, I am.” He smiled. “Thrice spoken, thrice vowed, thrice proven by my vow to the ancients.”

Dad.

This was my dad.

How was this my dad?

Warm hands gripped my tense shoulders as the comforting scents of tart green apples and sweet cherry tobacco allowed me to relax. Asa was here. I could get through this, through anything, with him. He linked his strong arms around my waist, and I melted back against him.

“This is…” I swallowed, tilting my head up at him, “…my dad.”

“Are you sure?” Asa held me tighter. “I thought he was…”

Hiram sat on the edge of the desk, facing me with an unspeakable agony carved into his features. He stared at me, into me, and he shattered my world to bits.

“Everything your grandfather told you is a lie.”

That same little girl in me sobbed with joy and relief and—most damning of all—hope.

I couldn’t afford hope. It cost too much. It hurt too much.

“I don’t remember…” I pinched my lips together, “…most of my childhood…”

“I’m aware.” Hiram angled his head away, but the set of his jaw was hard and tight. “Father told me. He wanted me to know I had been replaced. That he was molding my child in his image.”

Asa kept me steady, plucking questions from my head I couldn’t voice. “What caused your rift?”

“I was already questioning Father’s tenets when I met Howl.” He cleared his throat. “Vonda, my wife.”

A distant memory tickled the back of my mind, a certainty Mom had called him…Saint?

“After we married,” he continued, “I broke ties with Father, and his Black Hats. I wanted a peaceful life. I wanted to be with Vonda. I wanted… It hardly matters now.” He took a fortifying breath. “He had always hated my lack of ambition, but my contentment was not to be borne.”

“If he couldn’t have you,” Asa summarized, “then no one could.”

With a wry twist of his lips, Dad nodded. “Just so.”

As if I were a child on my father’s knee at story time, I asked him, “What happened next?”