I step closer. Slowly. Steadily. Her silhouette sharpens until I’m close enough to rest my hands on the armrest of the chair beside her. A tear threatens to fall, but I hold it in. I break eye contact, blink, and lean forward briefly before stepping away.
I turn to the bookshelf, searching blindly for any book at all. My throat is tight, my heart is a pounding drum in my chest.
Her voice hits like razors, cutting through every barrier I’ve built.
My hand freezes over the spine of another book. “How...” I swallow, cough, and try again. “...How about The Lost Mermaid?”
I feel her eyes on me. Maybe they hold a reluctant glint. Maybe, as always, they are paired with that wide, unfaltering smile. But it must be the latter, because her voice carries in the air like a melody stolen from a fairy tale. I turn toward her, drawing in a slow breath before I sit, letting a smile stretch across my face—one I’ve worn a thousand times, and yet always with an intensity I can’t seem to soften.
It goes quickly. Perhaps two hours, maybe less. Down here, it’s impossible to tell. No clocks, no windows—just these walls, the low light, and the faint press of earth all around us. Underground, time isn’t something you measure. It’s something you feel crawling along your skin, through your pulse.
I close the book. It’s thick and heavier than most short tales, and absurd in a way that gnaws at me. This one is about a mermaid—no sweet rescue, no triumphant return to the waves. In the end, she is caught, and she remains caught, never to be saved by the hero who was supposed to come for her. In Nigil, the land I once called home, our mermaid stories never end .
It should feel unpleasant to meet Elena’s gaze after reading such an ending. At least, that’s what I think. But she’s not saddened in the slightest. Instead, she leaps toward me with all the weight and speed of a striking bird, her arms coiling around my neck in a grip so tight it could strangle. I don’t move. I let her stay there, clinging to me.
And again, the question forms—the same one that has been with me since the day I met her. What have I done to deserve this?
Maybe I overthink, maybe I truly do.
Perhaps my dead family would want me to be happy.
I fall into the endless pull of thoughts that are born from the empty chasms of memory I no longer possess. The absences hurt almost as much as the ones I do remember. And then—suddenly—her voice cuts through my haze, and the words land like a sudden blow to the heart.
Her voice is soft. Innocent. The kind of voice that is so pure it robs you of yours. My mouth opens, then closes. Opens again, only to close for good this time. I stand there, silent, and she climbs onto my back, her small hands gripping my shirt, her hair brushing my cheek and itching my nose.
How many times have I, in my heart, called her my daughter? How many times have I let the thought slip through, even when I swore not to? Yet now, when she says the words I have longed to hear—words I wanted only for the selfish comfort they would give me—I am quiet.
My heart stutters. The only sounds left are the muffled voices from the rooms beyond and the gentle crackle of the fire in the hearth.
The flames are vivid—pure orange and red, like the blood of my kind and hers. Ash gathers within the carmine belly of the fireplace. I stare into it, and I see them. My wife. My daughter. Myself.
Heartbeats pass. I don’t know how many, and I don’t think I want to.
“I never had a father—” Elena’s voice is close to my ear, her words almost fragile now. Her small hands press harder into my chest, and the world around me seems to shift, vivid like a memory both distant and not yet lived.
Her voice trembles, but she pushes on. “—And my mother. She left me alone the moment the bad people came. My mother left me alone... and you’re going away. I don’t want that, too. Don’t go as well—”
I feel her sobs against my neck, each one vibrating into my bones. Her grip tightens on my shirt, almost desperate. My throat burns, and my own eyes sting. Salt runs freely, though I do nothing to wipe it away.
And I realize something. She didn’t say your people or your kind. She didn’t name the blood that runs in my veins. She didn’t call me what the world would.
She’s braver than I am.
I keep my gaze locked on the flames, on the fleeting images inside them, and I hold her longer. I hold her as if she is the last piece of my world that hasn’t been reduced to ash.
“You can,” I finally say, my voice low and heavy. “You can call me Pa...”