For a moment we both just looked at each other while I tried to figure out how to salvage my attempts at burning my reputation with him.

“Naga aren’t the kind of people you’d invite home for tea,” I started to say.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re rough around the edges, I know.”  He waved me off before I could finish my sentence.  “And there’s things about you that you don’t want me to know, I guess, because you think I’d hate you.  Thing is, I don’t think I could hate you if I tried.  I don’t think you’re actually capable of doing anything that evil like you said.  Maybe not so great, but maybe you had to do that anyway, I don’t know.  Besides,” his brows drew up.  “You’re not the only one.”

For a long moment we were both quiet as I tried to figure out what he meant by that.

“You heard how Papa died?”  He asked abruptly.  “Mechanical failure in a plane while flying to some remote place?”

I paused, not really sure where this was going, but nodded.  “I didn’t intend to follow your family’s situation, but it was international news at the time.”

“Yeah, well, it’s all a lie.”  He rested his elbows on the counter, his chin in his hands, and a faraway look on his face.  “Papa had started having trouble with his magic.  It was glitching, almost, not working reliably.  He started going to supernatural doctors trying to figure out what was wrong, and they all told him the same thing – he’d pushed his magic too hard for too long and it was just running out.  Like an engine that couldn’t hold up to the pressure anymore, it was breaking down and there was only so much more it could limp along before it died entirely.

“Papa refused to believe there was no cure.  He kept shelling out his diamonds, traveling the world in search of some magical solution to his problem that started in greed.  He’d had a chance, back then, when he first found out, to make some changes to his life.  Stop jetting across the world on the weekends, stop throwing money down the drain to import in the fanciest of foods and the most luxurious of clothes.  He could have planned better, let his magic rest, and actually lived quite comfortably, still even attending some of the parties he was used to, if he’d just stopped going overboard and given his magic a chance to rest.  But he wouldn’t, he refused to give up on the idea of curing his magic, so he kept spending all the diamonds he had, oblivious to the fact that he was running so low on magic that he wasn’t going to be able to make diamonds much longer – and that when that happened, his money would run out, too.”

He was quiet for a bit, remembering, then sighed.  “I had moved out by then and was on my own, trying to distance myself from my parents as much as possible because I was tired of getting targeted by people because of them and I just – well, they were never family, you know?  I didn’t enjoy having dinners with them or anything.  Papa only wanted me so he had an heir and someone to give his money to.

“But when he started to have problems, he and Mama both contacted me, repeatedly, trying to see if I could solve their issues.  Pegasus magic, it doesn’t come in until pretty late, at least adulthood.  They were hoping maybe it had come in by then and I could grow diamonds for them just like Papa used to, so they could continue to live the life of luxury they were accustomed to, even if Papa’s magic did run out.  But…I told them my magic hadn’t come in yet.”  He paused.  “I lied.  It had.  I just didn’t want to get involved in that.  It was their mess, their problem, their greed that had put them in that position.  I’d seen firsthand the effects that greed could have on other people, and I knew if I was growing diamonds for them, they wouldn’t let me stop or wouldn’t let me moderate how much magic I used.  Not to mention, even if I was supporting them, they still wouldn’t let me have any input on how they treated their servants or any of that.  It’d just be the same waste of money and magic as it had been with Papa, and I wanted none of it.  I didn’t want to deal with them whining about it forever, though, so I told them I didn’t have my magic yet.  I’d hoped that it would force them to actually reconsider their spending habits, retrench, and start living smarter.  Within what they could actually afford.”

He shook his head slowly, glancing up at me with a pained grimace.  “They didn’t.  Papa was focused on getting his magic back, and Mama – well, she had her own plans.  Turns out, she couldn’t abide the idea that their money was running out and there might be no chance of changing things in the future.  She figured if Papa died, she could get his life insurance money.  Then, since she was a siren, she had a pretty good chance of winning over a wealthy man in the circles she was used to, human or otherwise.  She’d have a rich husband who could tide her over until my magic came in and I could give her the life she wanted.  So…she had Papa’s plane sabotaged.  It wasn’t an accident.  She murdered him.”

I was startled to hear that.  I hadn’t realized he’d faced such a tough situation with one parent literally killing the other, all over money, but I also was well aware that the truth of Roland Wright’s death had never come to the public eye.

I was about to ask, but apparently Ambrose guessed my question.  “How come no one knows?”  He gave me a crooked smile.  “You’re not the only one who’s done bad things, Maddie.  I did.  When I figured it out, I, well – see, I never loved Papa, or Mama, not really.  They were strangers to me who made it pretty clear I was just another tool for them.  A pawn, a tool, a security plan – I wasn’t even a person to them.  I tried to make them happy in my younger years but it became pretty clear early on that it didn’t matter either way.  They would never actually love me even if I got good grades like they wanted.  I usually tried to get good grades, just because it meant less arguing with them, less being yelled at about how I needed to be a good son, but…I didn’t do it for them.  By the time the whole thing with you went down, I resented them deeply.  I could never forgive them for not letting me talk to you again and then firing you.  They couldn’t understand, because they’d never felt real empathy for another being, so to them, they just assumed my anger would eventually fade.  But it didn’t.  I think I hated them, to be honest.  Even if I never would have done anything about it.  I just – I didn’t want anything more to do with them.  Not if I could help it.”

He tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling as if it would somehow remind him of past events.  “When I found out what Mama did, though, I took action.  It wasn’t like I loved Papa, but he deserved better.  She was just as much to blame for his pushing his magic like that.  She begged him to, constantly, wanting more things, more trips, more – whatever.  At least half of the money he spent was to make her happy.  Not because he truly cared, I think, but he saw it as a status symbol, having a wife that he lavished upon with rich gifts.  But at the end of the day, she was equally to blame for his magic running out as he was.  She could have helped him even, make that adjustment.  She’s probably the only person he’d ever listened to over the years – anything I said, or Leo, or you, or anyone, just went in one ear and out the other.  But he did actually listen to her.  Leo was still with them back then, he told me he begged her to try to get him to stop the trips to all the doctors he could find and just accept that his magic was fading and he needed to change.  Of course she wouldn’t do that, she wouldn’t ever want to live the life of a poor person.  So…I gave her an ultimatum.”

He looked towards the other side of the room, as if maybe he didn’t want to look at me during this admission.  “I told her I had proof that she’d murdered Papa, and I would take it to the police, to the press – drag her name through mud – unless she cooperated with my terms.  She would live in the smallest house Papa had owned, in a small town, cut off from all of society she was used to.  No servants, no trips into the city, nothing.  I warned her that if she left town, if she reached out to any of her old friends, if she thought about getting married to some rich guy again, if she tried to take action against me – any of that, and the information would be immediately released.  She did try, once.  Well, a friend of hers found her and asked her what was wrong and how she’d ended up there, away from society circles, and she made up a sob story of how I’d taken over the estate when her husband died and treated her poorly.  There wasn’t much left to the estate, to be honest, and I sold pretty much everything, but I did set aside enough to make sure she had money for food and basics, but not all the extras she was used to.  The friend came to me, all in a huff, so I told her Mama was there because she actually experienced a mental breakdown after Papa’s death and she needed the peace and quiet.”

He shrugged a bit, still not looking at me.  “Upside to that, I knew if she ever reached out to any of her friends again, the rumors would have already reached them about Mama being there for her mental health, and they wouldn’t listen to what she said.  I also made sure Mama knew that she messed up and I wouldn’t let her off the hook twice.”  A long pause.  “She died about 60 years later, still in that town.  She hated it, living like a normal person, and somehow I thought that was a better punishment for her than even prison.  Because freedom was always just beyond her reach, but she could never get it.”

He finally turned to look at me again, meeting my eyes tentatively.  “Point is, you’re not the only one who’s done bad things.”

“I’m not sure that counts as bad,” I murmured quietly.  “You were still taking care of her and didn’t put her in prison.”

“Fine, somewhere in between bad and not-great.”  He gave me a ghost of a smile.  “I – I take revenge on people who cross me, okay?  I destroy them.  Um, not physically.  Professionally.  I also had this teacher – I’ve gone to university a few times over the years, and one of these times, I had this teacher who was just bad.  I challenged him, more just because he’d say stuff and I wanted to know why, and he got mad that I was asking that.  He started marking me down on tests deliberately, but when I had proof of that – because I had a friend in the same class and we were able to compare tests – I went to the administration and he got reprimanded.  So in revenge, he deliberately sabotaged my attempts to get a graduate degree at the school.  So,” he shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable again, “I ended his career.  I just – made sure he got fired, then he could never teach again.”

He took a deep breath, looking me in the eyes again.  “That’s the kind of person I am, Maddie.  You think I’m not scared to let you see that?  To let you know that I’m not just the young dreamer anymore?  I still dream, I guess, but – I’m not a perfect person.  And I don’t expect you to be.  Maybe you’ve made mistakes, too, maybe you have things you don’t want to share, but that’s okay.  I’m okay with all of that.  I know who the person underneath all that is and I still love him.  I can’t live without him.”  He looked at me, pleadingly.  “Please, Maddie, please.”

I had to admit, I was touched by his speech.  I wasn’t bothered by his stories of fairly minor revenge, in my eyes.  I’d seen a lot worse during my brief life in a naga nest before I’d ever met him, and I’d seen worse since I’d parted ways with him.  A part of me really wanted to just let him in, tell him the truth – and then what?  I couldn’t protect him anymore, those days were gone.  He’d do the same thing he did that day, trying to protect me when that wasn’t his job, only this time, he might get hurt in the process.

So despite the brief moment of pain, I knew what I needed to do.