Amusement teased my lips. "He's out of my life, Azriel, and no longer a threat to whatever plans you—"
"It is not the threat to me I worry about," he cut in, voice irritated.
I raised my eyebrows. "Well, he can hardly threaten me, given he and everyone else wants the damn keys."
"His need for the keys did not stop his attempt to strangle you."
Well, no, it hadn't. But I suspected Lucian's actions had been little more than a momentary lapse of control—one he would have snapped out of before he'd actually killed me. Although, to be honest, I hadn't actually been so certain of that when his hands had been around my neck.
I opened the ornate metal gate and walked up the brick pathway toward the front door. Wolfgang's house was one of the increasingly rare redbrick Edwardian houses that used to take pride of place in the leafy bayside suburb. The front garden was small but meticulously tended, as was the house itself. I pulled out the gloves as I walked up the brick pathway toward the ornate front door, then said, "Lucian is no longer our problem."
"If you think that, you are a fool."
And I wasn't a fool. Not really. I just kept hoping that if I believed something hard enough, it might actually come true. I slipped the gloves on and switched the discussion back to my health. It was far safer ground.
"You can't expect me to recover instantly, Azriel. I'm flesh and blood, not—"
"You are half Aedh," he cut in again. His voice was still testy. But then, he always did sound that way after a discussion about Lucian, whom he hated with a surprising amount of passion for someone who claimed it was only his flesh form that gave him emotions. "More so, given what Malin did to you."
Malin was the woman in charge of the Raziq, my father's former lover, and a woman scorned. My father had not only betrayed her trust by stealing the keys from under her nose, but he had also refused to give her the child she'd wanted. Instead, for reasons known only to himself, he'd gone to my mother and produced me.
"Meaning what?" My voice was perhaps sharper than it should have been. "You never actually explained what she did."
And I certainly couldn't remember—she'd made sure of that.
He hesitated, his expression giving little away. "No. And I have already said more than I should."
Because of my father. Because whatever Malin did had somehow altered me—and not just by altering the device the Raziq had previously woven into the fabric of my heart, which had been designed to notify them when I was in my father's presence.