HEART OF GOLD | CORIOLANUS SNOW

𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍 114

As Lilith watched her father lift Val off his feet and spin him around in the air, all she could think about was how bad this was for his back. But she didn't say anything. Her brother was laughing, Criseida was grinning, and her father was doing both. Maybe he was fifty-five and too old to be picking up children this way, but if she could put that smile on his face, she wouldn't be here in the first place.

Val had just presented their father with his annual hand-drawn birthday card in his parents' room, as was the custom. During the actual party, the kids would be separated from the adults, so he always gave his gift first. Lilith had long since graduated to adding hers to the pile with everyone else, but for the first time in her life, she wasn't going to be at her father's birthday celebration.

Last week's folly had been salvaged into a fashionable, A-line bob by a professional hairdresser. Athena and Olympia had warned everyone she would meet during the week not to ask about the change by explaining to them what had really happened, but they could not have pre-empted the whole city.

Usually, her father's birthdays weren't overly elaborate affairs, but Aunt Xanthe and Criseida had decided to throw him a big bash in commemoration of fifty-five years. It wasn't like Lilith knew everyone who was coming, but she knew enough people who cared: the Starlings, the Silvers, the Knights...

Criseida had assured her he wouldn't be here—he'd never even been invited—but Lilith still wasn't confident she could handle the curious looks, let alone the questions regarding her latest fashion choice. It was out of fear of creating a scene that she had requested to be excused from the occasion, and it was a mark of her father's concern that he had granted her wish.

Ever since her diagnosis, he had been worried, but after her episode at the lake, where she had cried until she passed out and caught the worse chill she'd ever suffered, and especially after she'd mutilated her own hair, Lilith couldn't even look at him. In truth, she could hardly look at anyone, because every time she saw another pair of eyes—save for Val's, since he only thought his Lili was quieter than normal because she was ill—she saw pity for the girl who got abandoned, and she didn't want to be that girl.

The problem with her father's eyes was that they were too much like her own, not just in colour but in emotion. Lilith never told him about her feelings—it just wasn't something they talked about—but even if Athena hadn't told Criseida, and Criseida hadn't told him, he could have made the deduction easily, not least because he heard things.

On the few instances she'd met his gaze since, she discerned not just sadness, but anger. Anger at the man who'd wronged his daughter, no doubt, but also something else. Lilith wanted to believe it was anger at her, at her naivety, at her recklessness. It was how she felt: angry at herself. More likely, though, her father was angry at not having protected her. In other words: angry at himself.

Lilith could tell he was trying to suppress that look as he tugged on the pink bow that secure her present, and she was trying to suppress that look to facilitate his efforts, but it made her want to cry—his attempt, the necessity of it, how alike she'd never realized they were. A lot of things made her want to cry these days.

Tearing back the golden wrapping paper and opening the Aurora box, her father gave a genuine smile at the bespoke cufflink set, complete with tuxedo studs and a tiepin. She had designed it herself, everything from the white enamel surfaces to the gilded edges and gold imprints. The flowers featured on the quartet of studs—two lilies, two honeysuckles—had been penned by her and recreated by experts on the glossy surface. His initials were carved into the cufflinks, and today's date engraved on the tiepin.

It was a good thing she had been inspired ahead of time and opted to plan in advance, because she would not have gotten anything done in this wreck. It was not such a good thing to think of what—or who—had inspired her.