The Alcazar (The Cerulean Duology #2) - Amy Ewing Page 0,109

was still with Alethea, still cradling her on her deathbed as if she might yet wake.” He swallowed, and it was loud in the utter silence. “I told him we have to leave, now. I told him what I’d seen, what Ambrosine was planning. ‘She killed her,’ he said. He kept saying it over and over again. He blamed Ambrosine for her death, for making him bring Alethea to Culinnon, though he had made that decision as much as Ambrosine had. As much as Alethea had. I shook him then, hard, and made him look at the papers. ‘This is not what Alethea would have wanted,’ I told him. ‘Will you let her dying wish go unanswered? Will you leave her daughter with this woman?’

“That seemed to rouse him. We went to the nursery and got the two of you. I carried Agnes and he took you, Leo. He could barely look at either of you. But when we approached the dock where our ship was anchored, we discovered Misarros swarming it. We were trapped.”

“How did you escape?” Agnes asked.

“Ezra,” Eneas said, pursing his lips. “He wanted Xavier to take him to Kaolin, to get him as far from Culinnon as possible. She hates him, but he is technically a Byrne, so she couldn’t let him go. He led us to a small ship that I was able to sail by myself. I told Xavier, we cannot take Ezra with us. It wasn’t worth the risk. She would be furious enough when she discovered we had gone with the children; why add insult to injury. And personally, I had never liked Ezra, never trusted him. Xavier promised him, though—he promised him that once his children were safe, he would find a way to get Ezra out from under his mother’s thumb. And he did. It only took eighteen years.

“The mertags knew me and let our ship pass. We made it to a port where we could purchase berths on a larger ship that took us to Ithilia and from there back to Old Port City. It was a long, dark journey, but your father grew even darker over the course of it. The change in him was startling. He never held either of you again after that first night. I never heard him laugh the way he used to. He threatened me never to tell the two of you about Alethea or what life was like before you were born. And I knew his threats were real—he could send me back to Pelago without a second thought, and then I would never be able to see either of you again. I would have broken my promise to your mother, to make sure you both knew you were loved.”

Leo felt another twist of guilt remembering all the times Eneas had offered him a compliment or a sweet or even just a jovial good morning. And all the times Leo had scoffed or rolled his eyes or wished he hadn’t.

“Your father became cold and hateful,” Eneas continued, “and his hate was directed both at Ambrosine and at Pelago, at the country he felt had given him the only woman he had ever loved and then taken her away. Xavier was not going to look after you. It was left entirely to me.”

He turned to Agnes. “But when you wanted to apply to the Academy of Sciences, I found I could not refuse you. I could not prevent you from living your life as you wanted it, the way your mother would have wanted you to. Even if it meant bringing you within your grandmother’s reach. I thought, so much time has passed. Perhaps she is not the same anymore, does not have the schemes she once did. Eighteen years and not a whisper of rebellion in the northern islands. I thought she might have given up on that plan.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “But once I left you at the Seaport, a growing fear took root inside me. I should have gone with them, I told myself. I should not have let them go alone. I purchased a berth on the first ship I could find.” Eneas placed a hand on top of Agnes’s. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “You should have known all of this, from the very beginning. I tried to protect you and I fear I only made things worse.”

Agnes squeezed his hand. “It’s all right,” she said. She looked at Leo. “We know so much