So I sat down and waited, not interrupting, and presently Madding lowered his hands and turned to me.
“I should have kept my voice down,” he said softly, amid the chime of crystal.
I smiled, drawing up my knees and wrapping my arms around them. “I find it hard not to yell at him, too.”
He sighed. “If you could have seen him before the war, Oree. He was glorious then. We all loved him—competed for his love, basked in his attention. And he loved us back in his quiet, steady way. He’s changed so much.”
His body gave off one last liquid shimmer and then settled back into his stocky, plain-featured human shell, which I had come to love just as much over the years. He was still naked, his hair still loose, still standing on water. His eyes carried memories and sorrow far too ancient for any mortal man. He would never look truly ordinary, no matter how hard he tried.
“So he’s your father.” I spoke slowly. I did not want to voice aloud the suspicion I’d begun to develop. I hardly wanted to believe it. There were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of godlings, and there’d been even more before the Gods’ War. Not all of them had been parented by the Three.
But most of them had been.
Madding smiled, reading my face. I’d never been able to hide anything from him. “There aren’t many of us left who haven’t disowned him.”
I licked my lips. “I thought he was a godling. Just a godling, I mean, not…” I gestured vaguely above my head, meaning the sky.
“He’s not just a godling.”
Confirmation, unexpectedly anticlimactic. “I thought the Three would be… different.”
“They are.”
“But Shiny…”
“He’s a special case. His current condition is temporary. Probably.”
Nothing in my life had prepared me for this. I knew I was not especially knowledgeable about the affairs of gods, despite my personal association with some of them. I knew as well as anyone that the priests taught what they wanted us to know, not necessarily what was true. And sometimes even when they told the truth, they got it wrong.
Madding came over, sitting down beside me. He gazed out over the pools, his manner subdued.
I needed to understand. “What did he do?” It was the question I had asked Sieh.
“Something terrible.” His smile had faded during my moment of stunned silence. His expression was closed, almost angry. “Something most of us will never forgive. He got away with it for a while, but now the debt has come due. He’ll be repaying it for a long time.”
Sometimes they got it very wrong. “I don’t understand,” I whispered.
He lifted a hand and drew a knuckle across my cheek, brushing a stray curl of hair aside.
“He really was lucky to find you,” he said. “I have to confess, I’ve been a bit jealous. There’s still a little of the old him left. I can see why you’d be drawn to him.”
“It’s not like that. He doesn’t even like me.”
“I know.” He dropped his hand. “I’m not sure he’s capable of caring for anyone now, not in any real way. He was never good at changing, bending. He broke instead. And he took all of us with him.”
He fell silent, reverberating pain, and I understood then that, unlike Sieh, Madding still loved Shiny. Or whoever Shiny had once been.
My mind fought against the name that whispered in my heart.
I found his hand and laced our fingers together. Madding glanced down at them, then up at me, and smiled. There was such sorrow in his eyes that I leaned over and kissed him. He sighed through it, resting his forehead against mine when we parted.
“I don’t want to talk about him anymore,” he said.
“All right,” I said. “What shall we talk about instead?” Though I thought I knew.
“Stay with me,” he whispered.
“I wasn’t the one who left.” I tried for lightness and failed utterly.
He closed his eyes. “It was different before. Now I realize I’m going to lose you either way. You’ll leave town, or you’ll grow old and die. But if you stay, I’ll have you longer.” He fumbled for my other hand, not as good at doing things without his eyes as I was. “I need you, Oree.”
I licked my lips. “I don’t want to endanger you, Mad. And if I stay…” Every morsel of food I ate, every scrap of clothing I wore, would come from him. Could I bear that? I had traveled across the continent, left my mother and my people, scrabbled and struggled, to live as I pleased. If I stayed in Shadow, with the Order hunting me and murder dogging my steps, would I even be able to leave Madding’s house? Freedom alone, or imprisonment with the man I loved. Two horrible choices.