Page 61 of These Vile Hearts

“What was your dad like?” Castor asks.

I offer him the truth trapped in a cage of lies. He’ll be dead soon, so I suppose it doesn’t matter what I say. The thought sits uncomfortably in my mind. “My dad was like thunder; he had a voice that filled the whole room. But he also knew when to stay quiet because my mom…she was like lightning. Sharp. Quick. Striking.Terrifying.”

“So that’s where you get it.”

I push past the deep discomfort of being compared to my mother and send him a sly smirk. “You think I’m terrifying, do you?”

“Perhaps not all the time. The sight of you with that dagger wasn’tun-terrifying, I’ll say.” His hand slides across the table just enough for him to brush the backs of his knuckles along the hand that held the golden dagger I meant to kill him with. My breath catches on an inhale. “Sharp, quick, and striking, though? Most definitely.”

He says it like it’s a compliment. From him, I think it might be. Ridiculous, masochistic man.

Before I can think of what to say—all my quick remarks have drowned in too much insulin—Castor asks, “Why was your mother terrifying?”

I frown at my lap, picking at a snag in the thread on one of the acorns on my pine-colored gown. My mom wasn’t always terrifying. Not when I was very young, when my dad was around more often. Then he started going on monthlong jobs, and she began to unravel like a dropped spool of thread. And I was the only one around for her to tie herself to.

“She liked to be in control of everything and everyone. And she had a special way of convincing people that they were in the wrong…even when they had no idea what it was they’d done in the first place.”

“I thought mortal mothers were all warm and generous and comforting.”

“They are definitely not all like that.”

I don’t like talking about my mother. Too many feelings about too many things she did would push me to a breaking point if I allowed them. So, of course, I don’t. I lock them up and shove them in the basement where they belong.

“What were you like then?” he asks. “As a mortal sapling.”

Once I’m completely locked down, I look up at him. “Nothing special. Just a little girl stuck in a thunderstorm.”

“How do you do that?” he says suddenly, words tinged with frustration.

“Do what?”

“Keep your face so blank and emotionless like that when this is clearly something that bothers you.”

“How do you know it bothers me, then?”

“Because— Well, doesn’t it? Or do you just not feel anything ever?” The thought seems to unnerve him.

Rich coming from a dryad. Although this past week has opened my eyes in an uncomfortable way. Not all dryads are terrible or cruel and conniving. In fact, most of them are pleasant. Nice, even. Maybe it’s just the Crown District dryads who my father meant to warn meabout. The ones with all the power. And then there is Castor…who I still can’t figure out.

And I shouldn’twantto, because I need to murder him, like, yesterday.

“Of course I feel things,” I retort. “But just because I feel something on the inside doesn’t mean everyone has to see it on my face.”

“But how do youdothat?” he asks more earnestly.

I shrug, staring at the jar of sugar crystals in a bit of a daze, remembering all the times my mom scolded me for crying during a high or low blood sugar. How she reminded me what could happen if I ate something I shouldn’t. “You could die if your sugar stays high for too long, Maddox. Do you understand that? This disease can kill you.”

What would she have had to say about me mistakenly taking the wrong kind of insulin? My teeth clench and unclench at the thought. “Practice.”

Castor lets out a humorless laugh. “I’ve practiced for years, and yet I am unable to master my face in most situations.”

“A king who can’t master his emotions?” I say with false dramatics. “That’s not what we want.”

A deep sigh. “Truly, it is not.”

“Well, it’s really not that hard. Just pretend you’re a house, and everything you feel is locked inside where no one can see.”

“A house…”