Free Carnival of Secrets by Melissa Marr Page B

together.”
    “I’m almost seventeen, not seven.” She measured tea into the teapot and resolutely didn’t look at him. “Plus, we train. It’s not like I don’t see you.”
    Behind her, she heard him rummaging in the fridge. “Once we get settled, maybe we ought to take another father-daughter class.”
    She turned to face him. Once he had pulled a container of leftover Chinese out of the fridge, she told him, “Maybe what we ought to do is both of us find some people our own age to socialize with. I was thinking that this move might be a good time to start a few new things . . . like dating.”
    “Like dating ?” he repeated. Her usually unflappable father stared at her with a look of horror on his face.
    “I’ll be seventeen tomorrow,” she reminded him as she pulled out dishes.
    He opened the top of the container and spooned some sesame chicken onto a plate she handed him. “How about this: you can date if you meet someone we both think is worthy of you. You don’t want me to be stuck at home all by myself, do you?”
    Mallory turned as the teakettle whistled. She’d been his whole life since her mother had left, and she did feel guilty at the thought of abandoning him. “Mom’s not coming back, is she?”
    Her father sighed, but instead of ignoring the question like he typically had when she’d tried to ask about her mother, he said, “She loves you, Mallory, and we both want what’s best for you.” He paused. “But she doesn’t love me , and we agreed that it was best for her to leave.”
    “Best for whom?” Mallory asked.
    “You.”
    Mallory felt tears trickle down her cheeks. It wasn’t that her father was saying anything she hadn’t suspected, but it hurt to hear him finally admit aloud that her mother was truly gone and that he didn’t think she’d come home.
    “She could visit me,” Mallory suggested softly. “I could visit her. If you knew where she was—”
    “No.” Adam turned his back. “No more talk of Selah. She’s gone, and she has no business in your life.”
    “She’s my mother,” Mallory said.
    “Which is why she was in your life as long as she was.” Adam kept his back to her, so she couldn’t see his face. It didn’t sound like hurt in his voice. There was a lack of emotion that sounded far too like his sister, Evelyn, like the callousness of most of the witches Mallory had met. Hearing it in her father’s voice, especially about her mother, unsettled Mallory.
    The silence that filled the kitchen was weighty with things that she didn’t quite understand. Had her mother done something awful? He didn’t date, so Mallory had thought for years that he must still love her mother, but now, she wasn’t sure.
    He could date. Maybe that would help—and make him more likely to let her date. He was attractive in that old-guy way. He had hair that was dark enough still that she teased him that he secretly got it dyed, no wrinkles that she could see, blue eyes with the sort of thick lashes only seen on cartoon characters and baby dolls, and, despite only minimal exercise and an atrocious diet, a physique that would shame most guys her age. If not for the way he dressed, she suspected that he could pass for an older brother rather than her father. It was the benefit of being a witch: he was almost creepily attractive to human women despite being hundreds of years old.
    She, unfortunately, had none of his genes. Her hair was a nonremarkable brown; her eyes were a normal brown; and her calories added up. She wasn’t unattractive; she was simply closer to average than to inhumanly striking, smart, and healthy like Adam. If she were more like Adam, she’d have had no trouble getting boys to actually ask her out. If she were a witch, she’d be able to learn spells to protect herself. If she were a witch, so much would be easier. Regrettably, she was just a human.
    She sighed as she poured the tea.
    “Mals? Is something else wrong?”
    “I was just thinking that