He doesn’t move away, but she doesn’t allow herself to feel relief. It’s just for the moment, like it always is. Just for now, not for ever. She is not quite ready to believe him, and she does meet his gaze, but it is with quiet eyes that have no reply.
“I think he’s like you,” Djinni says. There is nothing in her voice, no expression on her face that suggests how she feels about what she has just said. Of course, she could mean that he was quiet like his father, or dark haired, or even that he was male. But that is not what she means, and they know it.
Her throat is too thick when she tries to speak, her mouth too uncooperative. She still cannot bring herself to ask what she has never inquired of Stillwater. Everything else but, but never quite that. She is made almost entirely of curiosity but she has never been able to bring herself to ask directly. This is different though. This is not about Stillwater. This is about Ivar, about her Ivar.
What is he?
What is her son?
“So he will need you.”
This is what parents do, isn’t it? She tells herself it is, that they make sacrifices. This is what she should do. Fathers are important, especially fathers who give their sons sharp teeth and a love of the water. Her own teeth are dull in comparison and her affection for the water a paltry imitation of love. She is not accustomed to being less of anything, and yet she knows that this is not her place.
“If you want to continue to stay away from me,” she hesitates, just for a moment, but it was never her intention to admit guilt (she is innocent of anything, after all; he’d been the one doing the avoiding), “I won’t stop you.”