Sirro erupted in vicious anger, storming forward. His power ricocheted outward, rattling the office in a violent quake, gusting up against my skin. Every inch of him bristled. His voice boomed, loud and cruel, and brooked no argument as he stabbed a finger toward me. "THE WYCHTHORNS DID BETRAY YOU! DON'T YOU DARE THINK OTHERWISE!"

Slapping a hand on my shoulder, he squeezed so hard the tendons and muscles ached. He leveled a hard glare at me. "Never, ever, forget that the Wychthorns betrayed you. They might not have gotten to my kind first, but they still exposed your mother. And much worse, Byron and his wife condemned you all to death. Every single Crowther would have been slaughtered that night. Your entire family. All of them. Every aunt and uncle. Brother and sister. Cousin and grandparent. All your loyal servants... Brutally butchered... Your entire House annihilated for harboring an other. That is what the Wychthorns were willing to do. That is the depths of their deceit."

Sirro's gaze softened. Though he spoke quieter he was just as authoritative. "I would have had to investigate your mother due to the word coming from Byron himself. But, yes, there was someone else that got to my brethren that same night." His hand fell away to his hip and his furious gaze shifted to the cauldron sputtering goopy liquid into the fire. It was a good long moment before he puffed out a breath, his taut shoulders slumping as the anger drained away. He began to speak, and the defeat diminishing the usual rich timbre of his tone caught me off guard. "I'd been at the Wychthorns investigating Nelle. I'd had pressure placed on me to do so since she wasn't out in public as much as it was presumed she should be." He gave a low hiss, aggravation crossing his features. "Many of the Houses will use any excuse to usurp Byron's authority."

"And you found nothing different about her?"

His amber eyes sliced to mine and for a split second, I swore they glittered with cunning. "Nothing at all." A heartbeat later, he resumed. "After Bryon implied Tabitha was other, I discovered someone else had betrayed her to one of my brethren. It was too late for me to intercede. She'd already been claimed by Lyressa." He loosened a frustrated sigh through his nose, shaking his head slightly. His jaw clenched as he swung a dark gaze back to the fire. "And now I don't know who betrayed Tabitha. Nor who Yezekael sold the information to. It had to have been sold to Lyressa or someone else, someone that bade Lyressa to go around me and claim your mother herself... Though, I'm leaning toward the latter." He swiveled back around to face me fully. I held myself rigid as he searched my face with intent eyes gone bronze and somber. He spoke bluntly. "I don't think you, your sister, or anyone else present was meant to survive that night."

I blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Your mother invoked Draxxon's Covenant.

I remembered vaguely what my mother had yelled at the red-headed Horned God that night.

I beg you for mercy. For Draxxon's Covenant. I'll do anything you ask. Spare my son. Spare my family!

"I thought it was a reminder of Draxxon and Hamon's sacrifice."

"It's more than that. Your family lost a lot of knowledge the night the Houses retaliated against your ancestors after they'd stepped down from the Great House. Oskar survived but he was a child. He would have been too young to know of it. Your library, treasure trove, and entire house were ransacked." He turned to Florin, arching a curious brow. "I'm assuming Tabitha learned it from you?

The other Horned God's eyebrows shot up as he shrugged a shoulder. "It might have come up. I'm not sure. She chit-chatted far too much for my liking. Always poking about my wares and reading my books."

Chuckling, Sirro swiveled back to me and explained further. "Draxxon's Covenant was our word, given to your ancestors and tied with wild magic, to stay our hand if we should raise it against your family." He smiled and there was the faintest trace of pride in it. "Your mother was always so clever."

Carrying on speaking, his tone became bitter. "Lyressa couldn't work against Draxxon's Covenant. And since those who accompanied her that night couldn't do anything either, they had to be Horned Gods too. None of them could act against you and your sister." His voice dropped away and became self-rebuking. "I couldn't do anything to save Tabitha, nor find her. Lyressa cleverly hid her trail by claiming to have given Tabitha to the Orbweever who consumed her immediately."

That was fucking bullshit. "She's not dead."

Sirro flung a piercing glance my way, keen-edged and vengeful. "I know. I don't believe for one second that Lyressa gave your mother to the Orbweever." His lips thinned and pulled back into a sneer. "Since the Orbweever is a mindless, ravenous creature that consumes everything it's given, your mother's remains would never be found amongst its hoard if we went searching for her bones. Giving your mother to the beast was a clever tactic to hide what she was up to."

"What is she up to?"

Sirro's nostrils flared, dark power snapping outward to roil around his figure. "I still haven't unearthed it."

Fuck. I dropped my gaze downward. Scowling, I stabbed the stone floor with the toe of my boot. If Sirro couldn't find out, what chance did we have?

The Witches Ball—my traitorous mind whispered.

My gaze swept back up when Sirro carried on speaking, his voice low and almost a snarl. "But I do believe she is working against me specifically. Maybe even the brethren itself." He spun around on his heel and paced back and forth, flicking up a hand. "I don't like the idea of someone out there, one of the Houses, managing to work around me to accomplish this." A hiss was gritted out between clenched teeth, his hand fisting as he lowered it to his hip. "And now we don't even know the identity of whomever this she was that betrayed Tabitha."

The memory of Yezekael's last interaction with Sirro prodded me. "Yezekael mentioned the Hemmlok Forest, that she had sought him out there."

Sirro stilled, his ash-coated brows nudging together as he drew the words out slowly. "Yes, he did."

The Hemmlok Forest was ancient, sprawling, and primordial. Many Horned Gods resided within its savage heart. Jurgana and her sisters were a few who called the Heart their home. "It's shared by three families," I said, talking through my thoughts. The Hemmlok Forest was situated near Ascendria, and three Houses were set within its thrawn realm.

"The Lyons, Deniauds..." Sirro murmured.

"The Deniauds are Nelle's grandparents," I shot back. Could they have been responsible? Had Nelle's grandparents protected her by betraying my mother to Yezekael? I shook my head as I shot that idea down. I was fairly certain that Nelle's grandparents didn't know that she was other. They didn't have a close relationship with Nelle. Byron had ensured that. He barely spent time with his own family either.

"Indeed they are," Sirro mused. "The Szarvases share the forest too."

A ghostly sensation fell through my chest as light as a feather and chilling as sleet. The Szarvases. My gaze snapped to Sirro's. The words rushed from my lips. "The Szarvases hunt for otherworldly creatures in the Hemmlok Forest for the Horned Gods." Yezekael was a lesser creature, otherworldly. Sirro and I shared a look, both of us clicking at the exact same time. Yezekael bartered on behalf of others. Surely, the Szarvases would know of Yezekael. It crashed into me, a startling shock of realization that I knew something more of my mother's whereabouts the day she was abducted. "My mother met one of the Szarvases the day she was stolen."

Sirro's spine snapped ramrod straight. "What?"

"That Szarvas woman was how Tabitha always referred to her," Florin said as he busily sprinkled a pinch of violet dust into a cup of tea. He capped the vial and placed it back into the apothecary cabinet before picking up the teacup. It looked strange in his large taloned hand, like a miniature doll's cup. Ambling over to Sirro's Familiar, he offered her the tea. She stretched her hands up, wrapping them around the china, and took a sip.

Whatever he'd given her brought immediate color to her wan face and the threads of power connecting her to Sirro brightened like quicksilver.

Sirro didn't look surprised that Florin admitted to knowing my mother. A look of understanding passed between the two Horned Gods before Florin's voice rumbled inquisitively from his chest. "How did you know?"

Sirro smiled slyly, jutting his chin at Florin's desk with the human-sized writing set perched upon it, before striding past us to the office door where a black leather tote bag hung from Impala horns. He half-pulled out a feather duster from its depth and winked. "Tabitha might have risen to the upper ranks, but at her heart, she was a servant. And very passionate about cleanliness."

The Purveyor of Rarities chuckled. "That she is." Shadows and light danced around the tufts of blue-black fur and the gnarled ram's horns curled back from his head as he shifted closer to Sirro, his hooves clacking on the stone. His large shadow fell upon both of us. The oversized office seemed too small, too confined to accommodate two Horned Gods within its embrace, their power radiating outward to tremble against my skin.

"That Szarvas woman," Sirro repeated his voice hard as iron.

Florin nodded, his long ears twitching and scattering tendrils of wavering ethereal smoke from its tips. Sirro continued to stare at Florin. No, he wasn't staring at him, but through him as something ticked away in the back of his mind. I could see a mess of thoughts and sharp emotions washing across his features.

I spoke up then, and I told the Horned God what I knew about my mother meeting this other woman at the Monarch Tower. The power shortage and the flash of lightning that had occurred seemingly out of nowhere.

He dragged a hand heavily down his face. "She gave herself away," he murmured.

My heart stumbled a beat as realization caught up with me, just for how long he'd known about my mother. He'd known all this time she was other and never said a word about it. He'd never acted against her. After I finished telling Sirro everything I'd discovered, silence stretched out between us.

Sirro leveled a look at me. It was dark and serious. "A long time ago, before your parents wed, your father was engaged to someone else." Astonishment expanded inside my mind, rendering me stupefied. My father had been engaged prior? "It was a union between your family and the Szarvases."

What the hells?

The Szarvases?

Sirro continued. "Your father and Miss Irma Szarvas had been childhood sweethearts."

Irma Szarvas. The name didn't ring a bell. I searched my memory of the Szarvases but it was cluttered with the generation I knew now, not my father's peers.

"You know her as Irma Pelan," Sirro explained.

It was a strike across the face.

My mouth gaped open in shock.

"After the engagement was dissolved, Irma ended up marrying Aldert Pelan," he added.

I didn't know Irma Pelan personally, but I fucking knew of her. The last time I'd encountered Irma was at Evvie's engagement celebration. The woman looked as if the life had been sucked out of her soul.

"Irma was enamored with your father, anyone could see that." He shifted closer. "And now it would seem that when things soured between them she never gave up hope of reconciliation."

"From what I've gathered from Tabitha over the years," Florin interjected, "she's been trying to get between Tabitha and Varen since then."

Violence raged in my bloodstream, fearsome and hot. I slammed the flat of my palm against the workbench. "She betrayed my mother. It has to be her!"

Sirro lifted a placating hand. "We don't know for certain she did. But I'll wager it was her."

I glanced between Sirro and Florin. My entire body hummed to unleash itself with wrath. "It has to be her. It all adds up. But how did she find out?"

"I'm assuming that the lightning strike has something to do with it," Sirro replied.

Maybe someone got hurt.

Maybe my mother helped them by stealing their pain.

Irma fucking Pelan.

But it was someone else's face that came to mind. Gerrit Pelan. The Pelan's youngest son, softer and kinder than his siblings. A few weeks back Gerrit had accompanied his father when the elder had barreled in without invitation to my family's meeting with Sirro at his residences. Gerrit had seemed off with my presence, uneasy... As if he knew something that I didn't.

I dug deeper into my memory of Gerrit. Gerrit would have been around four or five years old at the time my mother was abducted. He'd have been young enough to still be stuck to his mother's side. Young enough that Irma Pelan might have brought him to the meeting with my mother at the Monarch Tower.

He might very well know exactly what happened that day.

And how exactly Irma Pelan discovered my mother's secret.

"I'll find out for sure," I said boldly to Sirro. "I'll be the one to speak with her." Because eventually, I would, after I pried what I could from her youngest son.

"Good. Because I'm not sure I wouldn't annihilate her on the spot without interrogating her first."

I blinked, my anger fading. "You really care for my mother."

"Greatly."

"Why?"

"As an other, she could never reveal herself to us. My brethren will never know how much we owe her." He dropped his gaze to his fingers as he tapped them against the workbench in a slow, measured rhythm. His tone seeped with regret. "I had to make a choice five years ago."

Five years ago he'd given us the boon. The Alverac. A dark and twisted way to be able to gain Nelle. I sucked in a sharp breath as I suddenly remembered what he'd said to me weeks ago after the meeting Gerrit and his father had barged into.

Choices. We all have to make choices. Some divide us right down the middle, cleave us in two. We have to pick one side or the other. Make one choice over another.

Did he know that Nelle was a wyrm?

Was that what he'd meant? That he had to choose between saving Nelle or my mother?

"You gifted us the Alverac," I breathed. "You knew that Nelle would get us into the Witches Ball."

His mouth tipped up on one side and he hitched a shoulder as his gaze met mine. "I'd hoped."