Flashback ( PDFDrive )

cache—and then brought back a fake instead. I gave you the tracker
they used to find you. And my mom sent them there to mess you up.
Oh, and let’s not forget that she did it to scare you into cooperating,
because she wants you to be useful to me—and then I wasn’t even
there to help you fight, because I promised Alden . . .”
“Promised Alden what?” Sophie asked, glancing between the two of
them.
Keefe shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Kinda sounds like it does,” she pressed.
But Alden was staring at his injured son, and Keefe was kicking the
cot harder and harder and harder, so she decided to let it go—for the
moment. Instead she reminded Keefe, “If you’d been there, the only
thing that’d be different right now is that Elwin would have another
patient.”
“And there’s no guarantee I would’ve saved you,” Tam added with a
smirk.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you hadn’t,” Keefe muttered.
“Stop,” Sophie told him. “Seriously.”
“I am serious! Don’t you get it? I’m as toxic as Umber’s freaky
shadows. That’s my legacy.”
The last word felt huge, like the letters were slowly squeezing all
the air out of the room.
It was the word Lady Gisela used to hint at whatever creepy plans
she had for Keefe’s future—and every reckless decision he’d made over
the last year was all part of his desperate attempt to relieve the shame
and fear that were eating him up inside. That was the problem with
guilt. If it didn’t fracture his sanity, it could send him spiraling down a
very dangerous path, and Sophie refused to let either disaster happen.