Nelle's name brought all her emotions twisting beneath my flesh back to the fore.

The blistering heat of her outrage seared my soul.

The spitting of incensed fury smothered my mind.

That eerie part of me, that strange ancient whispering, seemed much louder as if it had now been infused into my very being. Its insistence thrummed through my veins, burning my bloodstream with urgency to go to her, sinking fangs into my heart as a scaly sensation, primordial and sinister, coiled around my bones.

Tamer—an ominous side to me could only deduce.

I spun around, unable to stop myself from moving toward the open doorway to Florin's office. However, indecision dogged every footstep.

I'd been here too long.

I can't... I need to let Nelle be!

I had to find her.

Let her go!

My stride turned purposeful, but a raspy and sleep-ridden voice stopped me midstep. "Gray?"

"Mela?" I pivoted back, hurrying to my friend's side as she blinked blearily. She slid her hand out from beneath the blanket and I gripped it, both of us squeezing each other's fingers.

"How am I alive?" she asked, utterly bewildered.

I huffed a laugh. "A concoction of magic infused with Skalki's Tears," and a drop of my blood, but I didn't share that part. "How are you feeling?"

She beamed a broad grin, her straight teeth bright against her dark skin, the warm undertones luminous with the caress of candlelight. Her soft nose crinkled as she thought about it. "I feel exhausted, and yet oddly invigorated?"

Mela's rich brown eyes slid from mine to the wavering strands of silver, the combined might of power vibrating in the office and lightly teasing our hair. Her eyes widened when she discovered she was in the presence of two Horned Gods. And one was a beast she'd never spoken to before. She startled and tried, fumbling in her attempt, to sit up. I stopped her with a hand to her shoulder pushing her gently back down. "Rest," I urged.

She sank against the pillow cradling her head as she flicked a nervous glance at Florin, her hand tightening anxiously around mine. She wet her lip with the tip of her tongue and cleared her throat. "Where am I?"

The corners of Florin's human mouth curled downward as he scowled at her down the length of his nose. His deep voice rumbled with menace. "Someplace I'd prefer you to never remember."

Mela swallowed, her eyes rounding.

I groaned, dragging my free hand down my face and peering out between my spread fingers at Florin who produced a jar of wriggling grubs and plonked it on the writing desk with a threatening thunk.

I gestured toward the massive beast. "This is the Purveyor of Rarities... A friend."

"You're friends with a Horned God?" Mela breathed in astonishment.

"It runs in his family," Sirro interjected enigmatically, winking at me as he strode closer.

When Mela's gaze met Sirro's, I knew my best friend well enough to see her try to quell the sudden flash of rage and near-overwhelming heartache before it could raze across her features. The blankets cloaking her prone figure twitched and I had an awful feeling she was reaching for a dagger strapped to her hip.

"Easy, Miss Văduva," Sirro murmured, his power gathering around him, the silver dark and deadly. It seemed he understood what quaked beneath Mela's fractured loyalty. Perhaps recollecting what he'd ordered at the temple at Evvie's engagement blessing, and how Mela had reacted to the Estlores' slaughter, to Elyse being abducted by Urstlo. "You serve me and my kind."

Our servitude to the Horned Gods was ingrained in all of us, and Mela was no exception. She struggled against the urge to wield a weapon against the masters we served, fighting against our very nature and lost. She expelled a bitter breath, her taut body easing. It was a drawn-out moment before she said, and truly meant, "Master Sirro, you saved us all. Thank you."

He inclined his head, shadows and light glancing off the wild mess of his hair. He angled himself toward where I stood, his voice sharpening and becoming more businesslike. "Before you called me down here for Yezekael, I was at the Emporium." Unease inched down my spine and clenched my throat tight. "It seems your aunt has arrived back from whatever business your family had sent her on and was there as well."

A wintry sensation frosted my gut.

My aunt's at the Emporium?

Sirro was staring intently at me, his amber eyes narrowed and swimming with intrigue as he waited for my reaction. I wasn't about to tell him what exactly my aunt had been up to for these past few weeks. Though, I was shitting myself to learn that my aunt was at the Emporium.

Sirro continued, resting a hand on the workbench, sooty fingertips nestled by the downy blanket of black feathers. "Your brothers were there, as well as the youngest Wychthorn."

All the muscles in my body locked taut. "What were they doing with Nelle at the Emporium?"

"Your family is so ruthless," he purred, his mouth twitching on an approving smile. "Using Nelle to intimidate Byron to gain Jurgana's attention."

My knees weakened, threatening to buckle beneath me. Godsdamned Jett. He'd cooked up an idea to use the Emporium as a stage set for precisely that. As to how he was going to pull it off, he hadn't shared it with me. Every time I asked, he kept saying he was still working out the logistics of his plan.

Understanding dawned like bleak morning sunlight.

Oh gods...

This was why Nelle's rage thundered beneath my skin.

But earlier, all those shockwaves of fear, the spikes of terror...

And I'd left her there to fend for herself against the Emporium. Against my cutthroat family. Noxious plumes of guilt poisoned my lungs and the leaden weight of culpability dragged my shoulders down. My voice cracked when I asked, "Did they gain Jurgana's interest?"

Sirro unconsciously rapped the workbench in time to the erratic rhythm of my stumbling heartbeat. "I left before I was able to find out. I'd arrived there with Jurgana's sister, Mrysst. I thought your family might need additional help with enticing a Goods Appraisal. I'm sure with Mrysst whispering in her sister's ear the delights of the Wychthorn princess, she'll have ensured Jurgana to push for an appraisal."

My head jerked back, bewilderment creasing my brow. "Myrsst wanted to help us?"

Canting his upper body forward, he imparted slyly. "Though she's extremely shy and keeps to herself, she's rather fond of your father."

My knees finally gave out and I fell onto the stool beside Mela with a heavy thunk.

What the fuck?

I blinked sluggishly, my mind awhirl with new information. Who the hells were my parents? "I had no idea that Mrysst even knew my father."

"It would seem that both of your parents have kept secrets from the other."

But there was something more dire at play here than my father's secret, or even my mother's.

Nelle.

The words tripped from my mouth as panic squeezed cold claws around my heart. "I need to go. I need to get to the Emporium." What the fuck was Jett up to with Nelle there? Just how were my brothers going to tempt Jurgana? I knew there was more to it than the Witches Ball. We needed Brangwene's Hjarte. But that was something I could never say aloud, especially in the presence of two Horned Gods.

Nelle's current emotions were highly strung and my skin itched as she stewed in anger.

I was thankful that she didn't seem panicked.

She was simply fucked off.

I shoved to my feet, rounding toward Mela. "Do you think you can walk?" If not I'd carry her.

Mela was already pushing the blanket from her, black feathers ruffling as it fell away in folds. Swinging her long legs over the side of the table, she slid to her feet. Then swayed, pressing a hand to her head while groaning, "Shit," before slumping against me.

I grabbed hold to steady her stance before easing her down to sit on the stool. "You okay?"

"She needs a little more time to recuperate," Florin interjected, his hooves clacking on stone as he took a concerned step closer, a wriggling grub pinched between his fingers. And then his entire demeanor became menacing as he loomed above Mela, casting her in a sinister shadow. He snarled, "She's not leaving without all her memories of my home being stripped from her mind."

Mela glanced up at the Purveyor of Rarities towering over her, the ethereal smoke wavering from his immense form, his blood-red eyes glowing like embers in the shadowy reaches of the office. "You want to extract all my memories of this place?"

"Yes," Florin hissed, bowing his head and baring a mouthful of vicious teeth.

Mela gulped, shrinking. "How does it work?"

"You eat it. And hold in your mind everything to do with me and my home."

Mela shot me a horrified look when he dropped the grub into her palm. "But it's alive."

"Yeah. And they taste fucking gross," I replied.

Her eyes widened. "You've had one before?"

I nodded, grinning and rocking back on my heels. "Yep."

Sirro was busy fixing up his shirt, rolling up the torn cuff of a sleeve that gaped wide. "I suggest you go now, Graysen. I'll take Miss Văduva home when she's regained her bearings."

"And lost her memories of this place," Florin grumbled beneath his breath, capping the glass jar of remaining grubs and placing it back down on the old-fashioned writing desk.

I blinked at Sirro. I wasn't sure. Neither was Mela.

"You have my word she'll return safely home," Sirro promised, a hand over his heart. His gaze cut to Mela's and though his voice softened, there seemed to be a heavier meaning within his tone. "I think perhaps the two of us will talk on the way home to your estate."

Mela held his gaze, considering his offer just as intently, before replying, slowly and carefully, "Yes, I think we should."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

Though she spoke to me, she continued staring thoughtfully at Sirro. She gave a confident nod. "I'll check in with you tomorrow, Gray."

"Tomorrow."

Mela tore her gaze from Sirro's and dropped it to the writhing grub in her palm, pulling a grossed-out face. Taking a deep breath she pinched the slimy thing tentatively with the tips of her fingers, lifting it to her mouth. And the sight of her doing that arrested my attention and narrowed it down to that wriggling little grub.

As I sifted through my memories of when I was here with Nelle earlier today, I realized there were things I didn't get to ask Florin. There'd been things that the Purveyor of Rarities had said or reacted to rather curiously. And there'd also been unearthed memories from when I was a child that had begged a question or two of the Horned God.

Hymgild's Memory Eater.

A flood of images flipped through my mind, of my mother and me as a five-year-old, here at Florin's. An icky grub twisting around in the middle of my palm. The tickly feel of it against my skin. The gross taste of it exploding across my tongue as I chewed the fucking disgusting thing. And then something my mother had asked the Horned God.

What was it?

It came back to me then.

Have you used it on me?

What would you have to forget, little thief?

Nothing I'm sure... I suppose I wouldn't remember if you had used it or not.

I turned to face Florin, catching his attention. I jutted my chin toward the office door, silently requesting that he join me as I strode a few paces away from Mela and Sirro. The Horned God shifted his gigantic body to stand beside me. I tipped my head back and quietly asked, "My mother, she'd taken one of these memory grubs, hadn't she?"

A flash of admiration swept over Florin's goat-like features. Perhaps he'd been wondering if my memories had come back fully and he'd been expecting me to pose this question. The huge ram's horns dipped forward as he inclined his head in answer—a yes.

I angled myself closer, scowling. "Did you force it on her?"

"No," he answered immediately, offended. "There was something she wanted to forget."

My scowl slipped away. "What?"

His mouth pursed on the side as he gave it some thought. "I don't know. She never shared it with me. But it was important, and whatever it was, it had plagued her for some time."

I glanced sidelong at Sirro, wondering if he'd overheard us. He'd half-twisted around to watch us, and there was something on his expression that I couldn't make out, couldn't quite place. A mixture of emotions churning together so fast they became impossible to pinpoint and were quickly shuttered away when he turned back to Mela.

He was curious too, very curious about my mother.

"I can only assume that it was important," Florin said quietly, stroking his chin with the tips of his razor-sharp talons. "Perhaps something she didn't want to remember. Or maybe something she knew she couldn't let anyone else discover."

We shared a perplexed look.

Shit, what the hells could it have been?

His hand fell from his chin to my shoulder. He squeezed firmly, his red eyes gleaming bright in the dim light of the office. "Whatever it is you need to do, good luck, Tamer." On that, he swiveled away and lumbered back to Mela.

I launched forward, dashing through the lair, out the open doorway, into darkness and lavender light that whipped past me as I bolted up the roughly-gouged staircase. I was on the edge of exhaustion myself but urgency pushed me faster, had me digging deeper. I hurtled up the steps, up the warded staircase, up, up, up.

A memory of the Uzrek speaking inside my mind resurged.

Just before I'd barrelled up the worn, ancient staircase with Mela dying in my arms, the ancient creature had described the warded staircase as—Signposts of a sort.

Signposts for what exactly?

What the fuck did that even mean?

But the thought got nudged aside when Nelle's fiery anger thrummed through my veins like a rageful bassline in a metal song. I met the end wall, rapped my knuckles three times, and the secret doorway opened up, its slowness increasing the anxiety that made my heartbeat skitter. And then I was bolting through the corridors, careering down an avenue of stalls in the closed-down market. Erupting through a side door back into the city, sucking in cool air tainted with the smells of concrete and gasoline fumes and rotting garbage.

I hit the pavement hard. Rushing air whistled in my ears, tearing at my hair, as my boots hammered the asphalt, my thoughts scattering with my panic as I wondered what to do, where to go. My car was still parked on the street outside the market and I fumbled for the key fob stashed inside my bandoleer. Hearing the beep-beep before I quickly unsheathed my blades, tossing them into the seat beside me as I slid inside, igniting the car. The metal beast vibrated with leashed power. I slammed my foot down, shifting gears swiftly, and the car burst forward in a surge of furious energy. The engine roared as I charged down the city streets, colorful neon lights streaming past. I wove through the city's streets like they were my personal racetrack, dodging past slow-moving vehicles, streaking past the city's darker nightlife, the drunks weaving down sidewalks, dealers hocking off their infused drugs on street corners, prostitutes posing seductively and catcalling, looking for business.

As I headed toward the hills surrounding the city where the Emporium resided, I realized that something was wrong.

Wrong.

Wrong.

Wrong.

I felt for Nelle, diving mentally into the recesses of my being, sifting through the darkness until I found those threads that bound us together. She was a strand of moonlight guiding me through the pitch-black depths of my soul. But something was off. The feel of her, our connection, wasn't getting stronger the closer I got to the Emporium.

In fact, my senses sang that she was heading in a different direction.

Fuck!

I hauled on the steering wheel and the handbrake at the same time, skidding us into a 180, smoke billowing everywhere. Slamming my foot on the accelerator, I shifted through the gears like lightning, faster, faster, faster.

Nelle was no longer at the Emporium, but I knew instinctively where she was heading.

Home.