My heart jolted. I jerked back. Stumbling against the bookshelves.

Varen's rough voice boomed. "Jett!"

Graysen lunged—

Grabbed Jett by the throat—

His momentum spun them both around and he slammed Jett into the wall of bookcases. The viciousness of the move shook the wall and pictures of Tabitha jostled and fell over. A few books thumped upon the floor.

Ferne cried out—

Kenton and Caidan moving fast to flank Graysen—

Graysen pitted his entire weight against Jett. He'd let go of his younger brother's throat and crossed a forearm across his chest. They were locked in a death glare, breathing hard, as Jett struggled against his older brother's strength. The other brothers hovered close, tense and ready to intercede.

"She killed them! They're dead because of her!" Jett roared.

"And if the roles were reversed?" A voice cut across the room. Varen surprised me by saying, "What would you do if you found yourself cornered?"

Graysen hadn't said a thing, simply keeping those animal-bright eyes fixed on his younger brother.

Jett's gaze snapped to his father, his nostrils flared, and then he slowly and reluctantly relaxed in defeat, his shoulders slumping.

Graysen shoved himself off, keeping himself between Jett and me.

Kenton and Caidan backed away, retaking their original positions—on the couch, leaning against the table—but both of them were now wary. Jett kneaded his throat where bruises bloomed, and went to stand near his aunt while Graysen, his unblinking gaze fixed on his youngest brother, stepped back until he was positioned in front of me but slightly to the side.

The atmosphere in the room crackled with tension, and my heart pounded so loudly I was sure every single one of them could hear it.

Valarie swept her skirt to the side and rounded the table. She approached slowly, and I steadied my frayed nerves against her. Valarie's mouth parted and there was the slightest of pauses before she spoke. "Danne Pelan."

My body swayed at the sensation of the ground tilting beneath me.

That name—that insidious name—wrapped around me, splintering through my mind. The feel of Danne's greedy hands pawing at my skin, a phantom memory branded on my flesh. Hatred and revulsion curdled my gut and sweat broke out across my palms.

The things Danne wanted to do, had tried to do to me if Graysen hadn't arrived as he did, right when I needed him the most.

I pushed hard at those memories that had my nerves twitching with the desire to slough the skin from my body like a snake.

For a brief moment, as my grays met Graysen's stormy blacks, it was just him and me in the room. Surrounded, not by his family, but by the shared terror we'd both been under...what Danne was trying to do to me.

Until...

Until I reminded myself what Graysen had done. He'd betrayed me, spinning his deceit and lies. Hunted me. Captured me. And stolen me.

Loathing frothed my blood, and I held tight to it, letting it shine bright in my eyes as they held his.

He had no right to me anymore.

But through that ill feeling, the resentment, I slowly realized at Danne's name, the mere mention of it, all the Crowthers—every single one of them—had bristled. My gaze slid to Ferne. She was crouched beside where Caidan sat on the couch. She'd stopped in the middle of feeling for the zipper on the leather medicine bag, and I watched her hands fist and the knuckles burn white. What Danne had tried to do to me, what he had done to me... She and I had someone in common. We had something in common. An event that would shape us or destroy us—if we let it.

The anger sparking in the air was no longer directed at me but at Danne Pelan. And a flash of something else, not quite pity, but some other feeling that confused them—that they should feel anything else but contempt for me.

Valarie snapped that moment in half like breaking a dead branch across the knee. "Why did Danne Pelan steal you?"

I blinked and turned back to face her.

Refusing to answer, I petulantly clamped my mouth shut and crossed my arms over my chest, shifting my weight to one hip.

"He exchanged you with a Changeling. I find it hard to believe someone like Danne Pelan could come up with such an elaborate plan on his own."

"Wychthorn," Graysen murmured softly.

I arched an eyebrow at him, silently communicating that he was the one who told me not to say a word.

He arched an eyebrow back as if saying—You may speak.

"He discovered my secret," I finally said, and even I was surprised at how steady my voice sounded.

Danne had learned the truth, but only because the man he'd stolen me for—Silas Boon—had let enough of it slip. Instead of delivering me into Silas Boon's hands to repay a debt he'd owed the other man, Danne had double-crossed Silas and hoped that if he gave me to his father it would be enough to be forgiven for stealing from the Horned Gods.

"Do all the Pelans know?" Valarie asked. And that was the right question because I was sure it could seriously shift their plans for me. If anyone, like the Pelans, discovered my truth—that I was other, that I had a wyrm residing inside of me—the Horned Gods would steal me. They wouldn't kill me. I was a prize too worthy for that.

But they'd kill my family, every single Wychthorn.

And I was beginning to suspect, with Zrenyth's rope cinched around my neck—a message and a threat—that the Crowthers needed something else from my father and I was their pawn to ensure it would happen.

I didn't know if the Pelans knew what Danne had discovered.

"Wouldn't you like to know," I said airily.

I heard a sucking-in of breath and caught Graysen tipping his head to the ceiling, briefly closing his eyes as if to say—here we go again.

They might have captured me, but I wasn't going to go easy on them.

Graysen's eyes flashed open and slid sideways. "Wychthorn," he warned.

I slipped a fingertip beneath the rope he'd tied around my throat. "It's really hard to think with this thing around my neck."

A muscle ticked in his jaw. But there was some other feeling, not on his expression, but as if his entire body exhaled in relief at my biting response.

"Silas Boon," Graysen answered for me, still holding my gaze.

"We couldn't find anything of worth about him, other than Danne owed him a debt," I heard Caidan say. Surprise washed through me—they'd already known about Silas? I tore myself free from Graysen's gaze to watch as Caidan crouched beside Ferne, zipping up the medicine bag and taking her elbow, urging her to sit down on the couch where he'd sat. He scooped up the handles of the leather bag and carried it back toward the filing cabinet where she'd retrieved it.

"Was he working for the Pelans? Someone else?" Valarie asked, not Caidan, but me.

I shrugged lightly as if I didn't know.

Graysen's heavy attention pressed into my skin. I met his dark gaze and watched his eyes become narrowed and shrewd. He tilted his head slightly as he considered me, and he ran his tongue along the front of his teeth.

Your lies taste sweet like honey.

He knew I wasn't telling the whole truth.

Last night there was one thing that I hadn't shared with him. I'd told him of Silas Boon's involvement with Danne. However, I hadn't told him that I knew those things in the catacombs that tried to kill him and capture me were the Children of the Harbinger and that Silas Boon was part of it all.

And yet, Graysen didn't push for an answer.

"Either way," I answered Valarie, "the Pelans will know by now that Danne is missing. His family will be wanting answers and retribution."

"Let them demand it," Graysen said in that lethal calm way of his. He took a step toward me and I held my place. I refused to let him see me intimidated. "They came between me and you. Danne dared take what was mine. The Alverac protects my actions in relation to Danne."

He meant Danne's death. And with the words, he'd insinuated to his family that he was the one who ended Danne.

But that wasn't true at all. Because I'd killed Danne.

So easily too. I'd swifted Danne into the void and simply let him go. I'd watched as he gasped for air, slowly suffocating in that vacuumous space, watched as his body calcified and broke apart, and then was snatched up by the otherworldly creature that resided in the abyss—a Stormbird.

A rapid knock and a scraping sound of wood on stone quickly followed as the door to the Crowthers' family room opened. A young woman entered. Her crisp and somewhat old-fashioned servant's uniform was black, with a white trimmed collar, belt, and cuffs. Her footsteps were silent as she approached Varen and Valarie.

Valarie addressed the servant. "Penn?"

Penn looked to be about Graysen's age. She held her hands at her sides, her delicate fingers curling into loose fists. "Byron Wychthorn is here," she said in a softly spoken voice.

My heart exploded into a rapid beat against my ribs. Euphoria blazed through my veins. My father was here!

The corners of Valarie's mouth slowly turned down and her eyes slit as she cocked her head. "The Wychthorns still think she's dead."

Someone cleared their throat, before speaking. "No. No, they don't."

Valarie, along with every single person in the room, turned toward Caidan, who slid the filing cabinet drawer shut with a metallic, jarring clank.

He straightened and approached his aunt with heavy footsteps. The burn marks on his face had receded to a reddened state with small blisters.

"What did you do?" she asked in her bitter, raspy voice.

A grating noise resounded in the quiet as one of Caidan's booted feet slid across the stone as he widened his stance. "I informed them a few hours ago that Nelle was still alive."

I shot him an inquisitive glance. One that he caught in the corner of his eyes and blatantly ignored. Had he done it for my sister? Had he done it for Evvie?

"Why would you do that?" Valarie snapped. "It was to our advantage to use this knowledge—"

"Valarie," interrupted Varen. "How are we to break Byron if he thinks his daughter is dead?"

"I'd have liked his suffering to be a little longer," she replied, whip-sharp as an asp's strike—deadly.

"She's here with us. I'm sure that is suffering enough," Caidan muttered under his breath.

Varen frowned at his son but carried on speaking to his sister. "Besides, soon enough, he would have followed protocol and the autopsy would have revealed the truth of the Changeling."

From the vexed sigh she gave, Valarie agreed but didn't like it.

Penn tried again, gesturing behind her. "Byron Wychthorn's at the front door, demanding to be let in."

Please, please, please...I silently begged.

I didn't care to speak with the Head of Great House Wychthorn, or for him to find an impossible way around this situation. I just wanted my father, for him to fold his arms around me and hug me tight. Hold me like he'd done when he'd found me confined within the tithe prison and unlocked that door.

"Let him in," Varen ordered.

Penn inclined her head, turned on her heel, and left.

"We need Byron to know his daughter's alive and that she's with us. It doesn't matter if it's today or tomorrow when he learns the truth." Varen told his sister.

And stupidly, I felt grateful to these Crowthers.

I was going to see my father!

My fragile hope was crushed as soon as he went on. "As Head of Great House Wychthorn, he has every right to come here. But he has absolutely no authority over us in regard to his daughter. He can demand to be let in and we will let him. But he'll never be able to see her or speak with her unless we allow him to. And tonight isn't the night for that."

A monstrous feeling of despair and desperation tangled within me. I wanted to scream. I wanted to sob. Of course, they'd never let me speak to my father.

But the door was ajar.

And so far, no one besides myself had noticed.

Valarie and her twin brother shared a look—a silent communication, a shared twin-link perhaps.

"It's moving faster than we anticipated," she said.

"Then we move faster," he replied.

They were discussing me, a thing they could pawn off as if I were a vase or a piece of jewelry. Right in front of me, as if I were nothing.

The hem of Valarie's skirt flared as she turned to Kenton. "Take her to the holding cells beneath the Keep. Lock her away until we have need of her."

The words holding cells echoed in my mind. Beneath the Keep, a place I imagined to be cold and dank, with little to no light. I'd break. I had little left to me and, in that nightmare place beneath the fortress, I'd shatter. My paralyzing fear of the dark would be the end of me.

Some spineless, pitiful part of me trembled.

It whispered from me. "Dungeon, you mean."

"No." It was more snarl than a word.

Frigid silence thickened in the room. Every set of violet eyes honed in on Graysen, except for Ferne who angled her lace-bound face in his direction.

Graysen pushed his shoulders back and walked closer to his aunt. There was something of a predator nature about his stride.

Kenton pushed off the table to flank Graysen at a polite distance, and Caidan shifted sideways to take the other.

Everyone's attention was fixed on Graysen.

Not on me.

If I could get to my father...

Move, move, move!—I shrieked at myself. Adrenaline pumped through my heart, my veins, my blood.

"She can't go anywhere, can't do any more damage without her wyrm," I heard him tell them all as I stealthily slipped toward the door—closer, closer, closer—stepping carefully over the books that had fallen from the shelf, willing myself to be one of the shadows.

"That's not—" Valarie began to say.

"She's mine," Graysen cut her off. His claim rumbled through the air, skating over my skin, prickling the fine hair. "It's my signature on the Alverac. It's my name spelled in blood. I decide what happens with her."

And that was the last I heard because I'd made my escape.

While the Crowthers were focused on Graysen—the audacity that he should overrule his aunt in the matter of me—I slipped through the doorway and bolted. I knew I'd have little to no time before they would realize I'd escaped and come after me, but I had to try.

No dark power wound itself around my bones, urging me on, increasing my strength and speed and endurance. Instead, I rallied the last scrap of energy left to me, burning through it, existing purely on adrenaline and desperation, and hurtled down the hallway. I gasped ragged, frantic breaths, pumping leaden arms. My lungs were aflame and blazed so brightly in my tight chest, I thought they might actually be on fire as I pushed myself faster, faster, faster—darting past servants, their faces a blur of startled glances and half-uttered exclamations.

No one stopped me.

No one would dare to.

Not with the fierce look on my face.

My father is here... My father is here...

I fled the same way I'd come, following the twist of hallways, flying through open and empty rooms, a short flight of stairs, and along the inner balcony that led to the grand staircase. I flew down its wide steps toward the entranceway of the fortress.

The sound of furious pounding came from behind the heavy oak doors. "Open this godsdamned door!" my father roared.

The young woman, Penn, who'd announced my father's arrival to the Crowthers, had a guard on either side of her. They gripped the hilts of blades strapped to their sides. All three of them faced the massive entranceway. Unaware of my approach, Penn began to pull open the door.

My muscles burned in protest, legs ached with agony—

There...nearly there...

Pushing off the bottom step, I crossed the foyer. My bare feet smacked against stone. I yelled out to him, my voice almost cracking. "Father!"

"Nelle!" The rich timbre of my father's voice, even if it was threaded with panic, surged through my heart, easing my own terror.

Penn half-twisted around to gape at me in surprise—

Both guards whirled—

But the door in Penn's hands had already begun to swing open—

I caught the barest sliver of my father's face: a bloodshot eye flared wide to see me, the emotion shimmering in its depth—relief and cold rage and anguish.

My hands reached forward, about to shove aside the shocked-faced servant and pull open the door. I wanted it gone between us, when—

Harsh fingers gripped my upper arms, biting my flesh and bruising my skin.

I was yanked back—

Swung upside down—

My stomach curved around a broad shoulder.

Gone, with only a single word drifting in the air like frothy wake breaking apart on the swell of an ocean. I screamed the name I so rarely used, "Papa!"