He'd started to protest, wiping his eye, even smiling a little. "Really, Mother, I've been -"

But then she brought up his aunt, and his smile vanished. It always kept coming back to this, the moment he'd saved his eye, but not managed to save his mother or father, and taken his own relative's life in the process.

"I didn't . . . outpace her," he said. How many times was it going to hurt him to tell this tale? How was he going to hurt his mother by telling her he'd killed someone she did once love?

"I killed her."

There wasn't an easy way to say it, and no use dragging it out. She'd said not to lie to her.