Hunting November

by Adriana Mather

  “Dad?” I say.

  My dad looks thoughtful. “We need to be here during the transition,” he says. “There will be some discord as a result of Jag’s death and it’s important that we get the Lions organized and cohesive as soon as possible.” He pauses. “But after all our affairs are in order, I’m not opposed to looking for a new location for the estate.”

  I press my lips together. It’s not lost on me that I’m being selfish in requesting that a huge household of people shift because I don’t like the building, and if I’m being honest with myself, it’s actually not the estate that I don’t like—the estate is just a fancy manor house—it’s the idea of it that I’m resisting. But his response makes it easier; I’m calmed by the thought that I’m not trapped here, that my dad is listening, and that he cares how I feel.

  I’ve never seen such utter shock in my friends, though, who like all Strategia tend to mute their expressions but are not doing so presently. They just keep glancing from my dad to me and back again, like we’re a puzzle they can’t solve.

  Aarya looks like she might faint. “If my parents loved me that much, I’d never leave home,” she says. “Not for the Academy or any reason.”

  I look at Aarya. That is by far the most vulnerable thing she’s ever said in front of me, no jokes, no sarcasm, just awe. And I realize that while I might be in a difficult situation right now, my dad truly loves me, and so I let it go, whatever frustration I was harboring. In that moment it disappears.

  DAD SITS ON the end of my four-poster bed. The room is decorated in pastel blues and whites, with a large fireplace and a chaise lounge. The cheery decor feels out of place with the ominous events that just transpired here, but right now I couldn’t be more grateful for it. If this room were drab and cold I would feel even more disoriented than I already do. Not to mention, now that it’s bedtime, I’m fairly convinced someone is going to spring out of a secret door and cut me open.

  “It’s going to take some time to find our rhythm in this new world,” my dad says, clearly recognizing my hesitancy. “And it’s going to be challenging. But I will be here with you every step of the way.”

  “And you’re absolutely positive that Brendan isn’t going to come after me with a knife while I’m sleeping?” I say.

  My dad smiles. “Rose took him away for a few days. It’s going to be a hard adjustment for him—for all of us, really—but one that is worth making.”

  I snort. I remember provoking Brendan at the Academy, asking him if the fact that we’re cousins meant I’m also a contender for the throne. But when I said those words, I wouldn’t have guessed in my wildest dreams that I would have to live with him, much less lead a Family with him. I never wanted to lead a Family in the first place.

  “I know your introduction into Strategia hasn’t been an easy one, and I know that Brendan has made it harder than it needed to be,” my dad says like he can read my thoughts. “But I assure you, there is a great deal of good here, even if it’s not immediately obvious. And given some time and space away from Jag, Brendan will have an opportunity to make choices that are his own. I know too well what it means to be raised by that man.”

  I frown, frustrated by the possible truth of that answer. “Fine,” I say.

  “Fine?” my dad repeats, and the corners of his mouth turn up ever so slightly.

  I fidget with the edge of the white comforter. “As much as I hate to admit it, I saw what Conner did to good people like Ash. I can only imagine what it must have been like for Brendan with Jag.”

  Now my dad does smile. “I truly wish your mother were here to see the amazing person you’ve become.” His voice softens.

  “Dad…,” I begin, not sure what I want to say.

  He watches me and waits, his expression relaxed and open, inviting my questions.

  I sigh, letting my worries go for right now. There’s been enough turmoil for one day and I’m utterly exhausted by it. “Tell me about Mom.”

  He gets the faraway look he’s adopted over the years whenever he talks about her. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything. All of it,” I say.

  He laughs. “That could take a while. How about I just start at the beginning, and eventually, sometime over the next couple of years, I will finish telling you what a remarkable woman she was.”

  I smile. “Deal.”

  He sighs, looking up briefly. “Your mom was the most brilliantly strategic student the Academy had ever seen, that I had ever seen. The first time we spoke, we’d only been there a week and she walked right up to me in the dining hall and said ‘I don’t hate people because of their Family. I certainly have a few members in my own that I would rather not claim. I hate them because of their character. Let’s hope yours doesn’t suck.’ And as much as I wanted to convince myself that I didn’t like her and that her opinion didn’t matter to me, it was impossible. Everyone cared what she thought; she was one of those magnetic people who smiled and turned perfectly composed assassins into babbling mush. So of course I tried to impress her.” He winks at me.

  “Did it work?” I ask, finding myself leaning into his happy memory.

  “Not even a little,” he says. “Took me two years before I got her to smile at me and another six months before I convinced her to sneak out of her room and spend time with me.” He looks at the fireplace, remembering. “People always assumed that we were enemies who eventually fell for each other. But the truth is, I was head over heels from the beginning.”

  “Dad, why didn’t you ever tell me any of this? Why did you keep it from me?”

  My dad nods like he’s been waiting for this question. “It was the single hardest thing I’ve ever done, sending you off to the Academy without telling you about Strategia, without telling you that everything was going to be okay. But if I had told you then, it would have confused and hurt you, putting you in danger and damaging your ability to complete your mission.”

  While I’m not sure he’s wrong, I still don’t like it. “Okay, so maybe telling me right before would have been a mess, but why didn’t you tell me before that? You had seventeen years.”

  He takes a breath. “Telling you was something your mom, Aunt Jo, and I debated many times. We needed to train you, to give you the tools you would eventually need to integrate into Strategia society. But we also recognized that you had a unique opportunity growing up in Pembrook, one that would make you a better person and a more compassionate Strategia. You got to be a kid, without the Lions and the Bears and the political discord. You got to be best friends with Emily, and do countless other things Strategia kids don’t get to do because they know too much and because their responsibility is too great. Tell me, would you trade that time if you got to do it all over again?”

  I chew the inside of my cheek, trying to concoct an argument that would have let me have both the truth and my life in Pembrook. But he’s right. I could never have known and had a normal childhood.

  My shoulders drop slightly. “No, I wouldn’t have traded it for the world, not even with the pain of giving it up.”

  My dad looks relieved, like he had assumed so but he’s happy to hear me say it.

  “When I found out who you guys really were, I thought that you and Mom and Aunt Jo had been in hiding, that you were completely divorced from Strategia. But that’s not true, is it?” I ask, trying to understand some of the missing pieces.

  “We never wanted to leave Strategia. It was just the best choice in a bad situation.” He pauses. “You see, when your mom and I were young, we believed we could make Strategia the powerhouse for good that it had the potential to be. But it quickly became apparent that we couldn’t do that through uniting our Families, that we needed to find another way.” He takes a long look at me.

  “By becoming the Ferryman?” I say, still a little mystified by the idea.

  “That was part
of it,” he says. “Your mom, Aunt Jo, and I didn’t want to stop our work, but we also couldn’t do our work under our own names. To tell you the truth, we had no intention of creating that alias; it just happened gradually, and over time we saw how useful it could be.”

  I’m instantly reminded of Hisakawa’s last poisons class, where she said: Capitalize on what is already in your environment. Blend.

  “So you were planning this Lion takeover my whole life?” I say, a little startled.

  “Not exactly,” he says. “But as Jag aged, he became more vicious, and it became apparent that he couldn’t remain in power.”

  “And Aunt Jo?” I ask.

  For a brief moment pain appears in his expression. “There was an opportunity, one we couldn’t pass up—”

  “To kill the Regent?” I ask.

  “Right,” my dad says, rubbing a callus on his left palm. His expression is heavy and he waits a beat, thinking something over. “Jo called me shortly before she died,” he says, and my heart nearly stops. “She said that no matter what happens, she didn’t regret what she did, that she got the bastard who killed your mother and that was enough.”

  My eyes widen. So it was the Regent who killed my mom.

  “And she told me that if something did happen to her, to tell you she loved you,” my dad continues, and I study my fingers, suddenly feeling very raw. “That she loved you and that in this whole dark world you were her bright star. She said she’d see you on the other side. She’d be the one in the red dress with the fabulous hair.” He smiles a sad smile at the memory of my feisty aunt.

  And the grief I was suppressing, the grief that was too big to deal with at the Academy, backs up on me. It starts low in my chest, making my throat tighten and the bridge of my nose tingle, and when I look up at my dad, I lose control of it. My chin trembles and my eyes water. He reaches out to me and I bury myself in his arms, crying quietly against his shoulder. Tears for Aunt Jo, my mom, and Ines, for the fear that I would lose him, and for the countless deaths in these last few weeks. All of it pours out of me, hot and messy and unbridled, onto my dad’s shirt. And he strokes my hair and my back, telling me over and over that it’s going to be okay, that he loved her, too, that he’s sorry.

  We’re like that for a long while, me curled against him like I used to when I was a little girl, safe in the confines of his hug. He doesn’t try to move away or get me to talk. He just waits. He waits until my breath slows and my chest stops heaving. I wipe at my face, suddenly exhausted, but also with a lightness I haven’t felt since before the Academy.

  I exhale and sit up. “I want to be on board with this, I really do, especially if it’s something that you and Mom and Aunt Jo fought for. I just…It’s going to take me some time,” I admit, turning my mom’s ring on my finger.

  “That’s entirely fair,” he says, his tone acknowledging the fact that I’m struggling with this. “You have lots of time to choose who you want to be. Even if you decide you never want to lead, that’s okay, too. I’m incredibly proud of the girl you already are.”

  I soak in his words. Because right now, I can’t make sense of a grandiose plan to save Strategia and fix the Lions. It’s enough that we’re together again and that he’s proud of me.

  I smile at him, and it’s a real smile.

  And he smiles back. “I know we missed December twentieth,” he says. “So I’d like to make it up to you. What do you say to you, me, and a day of winter fun?”

  A warmth seeps through my body, one I didn’t realize was missing, but one it now feels like I can’t live without. “That would be amazing, but”—I pause—“do you think we could bring my friends? After seeing you with them today, I think they need a little dad therapy even more than I do, especially Aarya.”

  “Sure thing,” he says, and it suddenly occurs to me that, for the first time since I was five, when I said friends, I didn’t mean Emily.

  “And, Dad?” I say. “I want to see Emily.”

  For a moment he hesitates, then nods. “We’ll figure out a way. I promise.”

  There is a knock on the door, and from behind the wood Ash says my name.

  “Come in!” I say, and my dad gives me a knowing look.

  “I’ll let you kids talk,” he says as Ash enters.

  Dad kisses me on the head, like he has before bed for the past seventeen years, and I smile my good-night as he leaves the room.

  Ash sits down next to me on the bed. “Everything okay?” he asks.

  “Yes and no,” I say, not sure words can properly express the jumble of emotions I’m experiencing. “My whole life just took a one-eighty. It’s going to take me a little while to catch up. But I’m working on it.”

  He nods, his expression understanding, and suddenly it dawns on me—it’s over. The running is over, the hiding is over, but also the twenty-four-seven time with Ash. I look at him, more conflicted than ever—part of me thrilled to be done with that chapter of my life, and the other part dreading giving him up.

  “Go ahead,” he says, reading my face. “Ask.”

  The words stick in my throat, hard to form. “You’re leaving, aren’t you—”

  “No,” he says definitively.

  My chest flutters with hope, but I’m scared to get excited before I’m sure. “Not leaving tomorrow or not leaving for a while?”

  “I’m not leaving until you kick me out.”

  “But what about your family?” I start.

  “Layla will go home and explain it all to them,” he says with a satisfied smile.

  “Won’t they be mad?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Layla’s pretty persuasive. I think she’s going to sell it as a political boon, a way to repair our Family’s relationship with the Lions.”

  I would say that’s smart, but everything Layla does is smart. “And the Academy?”

  He shakes his head.

  I look at Ash for a long moment. I owe him so much, more than so much. “Thank you for being here, Ash, thank you for all of it, for…I don’t know how to tell you what it means to me.” I stop, because it’s not actually what I want to say.

  But before I can continue, Ash replies, “Thank you for trusting me.”

  “No. No,” I say to stop him so I can come up with the words to express how I feel. The last time we had a conversation like this I got tongue-tied and wound up saying nothing. I can’t let that happen again.

  Ash looks amused. “No, you do not accept my thank-you?”

  “You’re not supposed to be thanking me….” I wave my hand at him. “I’m the one doing the thanking.”

  His amusement reaches his eyes. “No thank-yous. Got it. I’ll add it to the list of unkissable offenses.”

  I give him a look, and he raises his hands in surrender.

  I take a breath, trying to keep my flustered feeling from interfering with my honesty. “You told me once that you truly cared for me,” I say, slowly refocusing. “When most people say that, they’re talking about their emotions, about some fluttery feeling. But you showed me, and not just because you took unparalleled risks, but because you kept me grounded and made me laugh even in my darkest moments. And what I wanted to tell you is that I truly care for you, too.”

  “That’s a good thing, November, because I’m certain that I’m in love with you,” he says. “And it would be awful at this point to find out that you were indifferent.”

  I laugh, my cheeks getting warm. “I say the most emotional thing I’ve ever said to a guy and somehow you manage to one-up me,” I reply, grinning at him and secretly wishing he’d say it again.

  He gives me a mischievous look. “Then I’ll strive to one-up you in love for as long as you let me. I can’t imagine that anyone will ever love someone more than I love you. So please, give it a try. But be prepared to lose.”

 
; I laugh again. “I’ll take that challenge.”

  He leans close, pressing his lips into mine. And in this moment, even though I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, I know that my dad is safe and that Ash loves me, and that everything is going to be okay.

  I usually write long acknowledgments because, as it turns out, it takes a giant collective of creative smarties to craft my books. See that sentence? I guarantee someone is going to have to fix it. And all the ones after it. But this time around, I’m going to simply say that without your help (“your” referring to Boss Agent Extraordinaire Ro, Editor Genius Mel, Team Awesomeness at Random House, Mom of Love, Husband of Devotion, Baby of Mind-Blowing Everythingness, Family/Chosen Family and Friends of My Heart, Brilliant CPs and Writer Buds, FAMB Lovelies and Readers), I would be a complete and utter mess.

  You all bring a level of joy to my life that is just plain giggly. You cheer me on, uplift me, and you make my writing and my world shine. There will never be enough words or exclamation points to describe the gratitude I feel when I wake up in the morning and realize that I get to do something I love, with people I love. So please accept this babble as a small token of the enormous, indescribable feels I get from knowing you all are there. Thank you. THANK YOU.

  James Bird

  ADRIANA MATHER is the New York Times bestselling author of How to Hang a Witch, Haunting the Deep, and Killing November, as well as a full-time producer and actor. She owns a production company called Zombot Pictures, which has produced the award-winning Honeyglue, among other films.

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