Ve'Rah Daa (The Ephemeral: Book 3)

Chapter 21

I found Molly in the courtyard next to the pavilion. She sat beside Beckett on a wooden bench, where the two brunettes shared their lunch scraps with Cinder and Richard.

To my relief, the canines got along just fine; Richard was too old to bother the wolf, and his nonaggressive counterpart wasn't the least bit interested in engaging with the mutt. In fact, Cinder seemed happy here in the settlement, among crowds of people, among children—something completely unheard of when it came to the aloof creatures of the forest. Her affability only reinforced my theory that she was a spirit who'd walked this earth before. She'd been here, she'd lived here, and she'd returned during Trevor's leak for some greater purpose. Just like Laurel Murphy.

"Wolves were the first domesticated species, you know," Beckett told his young companion, and his voice sounded less winded than usual, less gruff. "Legend says we raised their pups as guard dogs and hunting partners over 30,000 years ago."

Molly's eyes widened, and she turned to gape at the scholar. "Really? That long ago?"

He nodded and clicked his tongue. "Leave it up to mankind to encounter a beautiful, dangerous carnivore only to make it serve them somehow."

Molly glanced at Cinder, then Richard, who licked the child's ceramic plate clean with an obsessiveness that concerned me. "Maybe the wolves knew they would get to eat chicken forever if they let us pet them," she said. "Maybe they dem'sticated us."

Beckett smiled at her fondly, admiring the child's positive, imaginative, and oddly philosophical mentality. "You know, you might be onto something there, kiddo..."

I leaned against the corner of the pavilion to watch their amusing interaction. We'd missed Beckett at the meeting this morning, but I was happy to learn he'd sought out a small child to entertain with his stories and grumpy observations. Outside of backgammon nights, he'd never truly fit his military boots or the flashy uniform assigned to him—and it wasn't just his age bracket or the tragic fact that he'd outlived his cohort.

To me, it was always clear he didn't want to be a federate. Training, fighting, surviving...he didn't find joy in any of it, and sometimes, it seemed like he treated war as a punishment, not an obstacle in life. Sometimes it felt like he only stuck around to protect the people he cared about. Specifically, Jaden, Siren, and me.

I wondered if, in some ways, he saw his daughter in the three of us. Perhaps that was why he'd grieved Jaden so deeply, maintained a relationship with Siren after she'd fled the military, and crossed a snowy mountain range to bring me home. Perhaps we were the women he'd pledged to protect after he'd failed to save his child.

The idea devastated me, but it also explained his paternal behavior toward me. And as I watched him here now, joking with Molly and exaggerating his tales to elicit awe and laughter, heartache shrouded my skeleton.

Molly noticed me eavesdropping then, and she waved me over. A second later, Richard caught a whiff of my scent, and he ran up to greet me, his tail wagging at super-speed. "Sorry to interrupt," I said, pausing to pet the dog's snow-stippled coat. "The coalition has a special request for you, Molly."

Her blue eyes widened. "You need my help?"

Beckett and I traded soft grins at her enthusiastic reply. To be included in an operation so momentous was every child's dream, and I wanted to give her that, regardless of how small her role was. "With your permission, I'd like to review your mother's journal from her time with the Seventh Order. Your father thinks she may have written something that could help us end the war."

Asking to touch and analyze the contents of her mother's personal belongings could have deeply upset her, and she had every right to refuse my investigation. But, as I'd hoped, the young Rhean gasped in excitement and jumped to her feet.