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Chapter Forty-One: Small Talk

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It was no surprise when my dad, the history buff that he is, suggested Aranova, Rome, as the place we went into hiding, away from the rest of the world. Subtle, I'd told him. But it was far, and we had no ties there. Eventually, he convinced me it would be a good place to lie low. To start fresh.

And that was how the two of us ended up in Italy.

My dad took up a job at a museum—which were plentiful, believe it or not—in the city. For the first time, I didn't have to work some dead-end, minimum wage job to earn a living, and I eventually began to teach art classes at the same museum.

I wasn't able to tell Mae and Gale where I was going, but after seeing me all over the news, they understood why I needed to get away. My secret was out, and all the people of the world, both good and bad, knew who I was and where I lived. Staying in New York could very well have meant a death sentence.

So I cut my hair to my chin, took to wearing a contact to conceal my heterochromia, and I paid to have the worst of my scars covered with tattoos. I changed my name, and even began to wear fake glasses. And it all worked like a charm, because I was never once discovered.

That was, not until several months had gone by.

They were the first peaceful ones I'd had in a while. I'd made some friends—friends was kind of a stretch, they were more like good acquaintances— and I'd had plenty of time to devote to my art. I'd continued to practice my fire, but using the method Loki had shown me often left a sour taste in my mouth. I'd started trying to date again, something that had never gone well in the past, when I had no control of my powers and hardly any free time to devote to it.

Best of all, though, I began to rebuild my fractured relationship with my father.

"I'd wanted to give this to you for a while," my father had told me in the fall, when my twentieth birthday had arrived, holding out a small box to me. He hadn't said why he had never given it to me, we both knew why. It was because I'd left before he'd gotten the chance. "It was your mother's."

I'd opened the box, to see a small silver signet ring. Engraved in its centre was a sword with a pair of feathered wings emerging from behind it.

I'd slid it on my finger and wrapped him in a hug. It had been the first time I'd felt truly close to my mother. It had been the first time my father had willingly mentioned her without my pushing him to.

I slipped this same ring off of my finger now, preparing to teach my weekly ceramics class. My students were mainly old folk taking advantage of the senior's discount. The smiles on their faces as we worked the clay left me feeling warm. Finally, I'd found work that I truly loved to do.

The class went by quickly, coming to an end just as the sun began to sink past the horizon. I washed up and put my mother's ring back on as the class emptied out.

"You're dressed nicely for your pottery class this afternoon," my father's voice came from behind me, and I turned to see him lingering in the doorway.

"I've got a date," I wiggled my eyebrows at him, collecting my bag.

"With whom?" he nosed, folding his arms.

"With a guy who took my sketching anatomy class last week," I told him, rolling my eyes.

"What happened to that girl you were seeing?" he pressed.