However, first, I needed to check in with Mela. I slid my phone out of the pocket of my sweatpants, swiped a finger across the screen, and typed a message.

Me: We still on for tomorrow?

Half a minute later my phone pinged with an incoming message.

Mela: Yes. Petra picked up a relatively fresh trail today in the catacombs. We'll be at the tunnels first thing.

Petra was the Văduvas' prized hunter and the right hand to Mela's mother who ruled their House as Head. She was also one of the few people my father respected.

Me: See you there. Thanks, Mela.

Mela: It's going to be okay, we'll catch this Yezekael for Master Sirro.

I had no fucking idea what Sirro wanted with the creature. Everything surrounding the Horned God was a mystery.

The creak of the library door being opened caught my attention and I glanced toward it, watching Caidan slipping through the open doorway, his flip-flops clapping against the stone floor. His broad body disappeared as he shut the door behind him. I readjusted my stance on the rug, my bare feet sweeping against the soft piles of wool as a thought crept inside my mind as to how I could help Mela save Elyse Estlore.

I quickly typed out a message.

Me: Have you found anyone to get you into the Pelans' Laboratory?

The three dots flashed in and out of the screen, and it was a good minute before my friend replied.

Mela: My only lead was unwilling to help.

Me: Have a word with Evelene Wychthorn.

Mela: You think?

Nelle's older sister Evelene was a force to be reckoned with. And her betrothed, Corné Pelan, had learned it the hard and painful way. Fire and retribution burned within every inch of Evvie when she put him in his place, on his knees before her. If there was anyone who could and wanted to get back at the Pelans, it was her.

Me: I do...just don't tell her it came from me.

Mela: Not your biggest fan?

Fuck no. Evvie and I were united for one brief moment during her betrothal celebration. Now I was sure Evvie hated me just as much as her scumbag fiancé. Probably more.

Me: Who is?

Mela: You really need to learn how to play nicer, maybe then you'll have more friends than just me.

Mela: And thanks, Gray,

Me: Goes both ways. Anytime you need me, I'll be there. See you tomorrow.

Plucking the Glenfiddich off the table I refilled my glass with amber liquid then wandered over to the fire where Jett sat nearby, sulking in the armchair. The rest of our siblings had left and it was just him and I remaining in the library.

I stared into the fire, at the orange-ochre flames devouring burning logs, the hypnotic way the fire undulated, disappearing and then reappearing.

I'd been with Mom in the limousine before my whole world had been obliterated.

Less than an hour earlier I'd told her what I'd overheard at the Novaks' while my father had been in a meeting with Yoran Novak. The orders that had come through for them to accompany Sirro to Great House Wychthorn and investigate Byron's youngest daughter to discover if she was other. My mother had immediately phoned Marissa, warning her that the Horned God was coming for Nelle, advising her to take her daughter and run.

While I stood by the hearth in the library, heat radiating outward in blistering waves and smoke churning upward into the flue, I flexed my fingers wide. Staring down at my palm and the hills of skin rough with callouses, a tingle of memory warmed my flesh. I could almost feel the last touch of my mother's skin on mine when she'd threaded her fingers through mine and squeezed. Her green eyes glistening with unshed tears and the watery smile she gave me. Her voice was broken yet strong when she'd told me how proud she was for what I'd done, going against the Horned Gods in the hope I could save a young girl.

We'd sat in silence. The world behind the limousine's windows streamed by in a blur of black and streaks of silvery light as our convoy had driven down the country roads heading back home. Ferne had slept in her car seat, fussing every so often and kicking at the crochet blanket.

When my mother visited Ascendria she often met up with a friend for high tea at the Monarch Tower overlooking the lake. Sometimes it was Marissa, on occasion Aunt Rosa, or friends from her time working as a servant at the Deniauds', like Oswin or Beckah. As for other Matriarchs, they weren't eager to spend time in my mother's company. She'd been a servant and had risen to a role and position others felt she should never have been allowed to. My father hadn't cared for our world's traditions with its strict unions between upper-class families. He'd fallen in love with her years before, and despite her trying to dissuade him because of their difference in ranks, he wasn't the type of person to easily give up on something, in this case, someone he wanted.

In the past, it hadn't gone well for other Houses that had tried to break with tradition. Hells, that was why our family had stepped down from Great House—because my forefather had fallen in love with the wrong person. Not from the wrong class, but because she had come from outside our sinister organization altogether.

My ancestors had suffered for the choice. My family had relinquished the mantle as rulers of the Great House and become an Upper House, allowing another family to lord over us. Years later the Houses retaliated anyway, and in the dead of night slaughtered my ancestors, all but for the heir, an eight-year-old boy who managed to not only survive the bloodshed but created carnage himself.

History could have repeated itself, but for one factor—Sirro.

Sirro had given my mother and father his blessing to marry. He explained his reasons to no one.

Gulping down a mouthful of whiskey, I rotated the glass between my fingers as I pushed through my memories of that fateful night when my mother had been abducted.

I tried to recollect what she'd been wearing. My mother had been casually dressed before I'd left with Dad and Kenton for the Novaks' that morning...but when she'd picked me up from the Novaks' estate, she'd worn sophisticated and formal attire. The type of dress she'd wear to meet someone important.

The simple lines of her dress, its dark navy color, and the way her hair was swept into a sleek updo, allowing her swan-like neck to be showcased, made her jewelry stand out.

As she sat beside me, she'd unconsciously toyed with her necklace. Not the pearl pendant my aunt had given her as a gift years ago, this one sparkled with large yellow diamonds set in a chain of rose gold. Matching yellow diamonds glittered in her ears and were draped around her wrist. It was a jewelry set my father had commissioned for her, and she'd worn it for him on their wedding day. Specifically yellow diamonds, a reminder of the sun and its brilliance, because she was his summer.

I dragged a thumbnail back and forth across my bottom lip, deep in thought. Why that particular jewelry set? Was it a statement to whomever she'd gone to meet that day?

I turned away from the fireside, letting its heat wash over my back. Jett was petting Flossie, and he'd picked up my blunt and just blown out a mouthful of rancid-sweet smoke.

"Did you feel anything the day Mom was stolen?" I asked him.

Jett angled his head. He studied me, eyebrows inching together over heavily lidded eyes. Licking his dry lips, he cleared his throat. "It's taken you a long time to ask me anything about Mom."

There hadn't been anything to ask because I'd been with her at the time. I'd been tossed about like a fucking salad when the limousine had been flipped over by the Horned Gods sent to claim her.

Afterward, my father and aunt asked me what had happened. I'd explained it over and over again until my voice grew hoarse, going through every single detail. Jett was briefly asked too, but he was young, confused, and utterly devastated. He'd been nine years old and our mother was his heart. He'd barely spoken a word for many months afterward, and spent most of his time in his bedroom, weeping or crying out in agony when she'd been tortured.

And me, I'd retreated inside of myself the moment I'd failed to protect her.

Jett's jaw clenched and his eyes darkened with memory. "I felt her injuries when she'd been hurt in the car crash, but they were an abrupt shallow kind of pain. There and gone."

"What about earlier in the day? Did you feel anything unusual? Had she been hurt while she was away in Ascendria?"

He blinked, somewhat confused by my question. But I got the feeling it wasn't the question he was startled by—it was me asking.

He sighed, tapping ash from the blunt into the ashtray balanced on the arm of his chair. "I spent a good while picking apart that day trying to figure out if anything out of the ordinary had happened beforehand." He pushed the stray strands of hair that had come loose from his man-bun away from his forehead. "I was with Caidan in the training pits with our Weapons Master getting the shit kicked out of me. I wouldn't know if my pain was her pain."

"Do you know if she was going to meet up with someone in the city?"

Leather groaned beneath him as he shifted his weight on the chair. "Why do you want to know?"

I wasn't ready to share what I was beginning to suspect about my mother, that she had a secret life in Ascendria, one that involved a Horned God. Nor the other suspicion that she'd met with someone from another House.

It could be something or it could be nothing.

My silence drew out a response from him. His voice was flecked with annoyance. He threw up the hand holding the blunt. "I don't know. The last time I saw her was over breakfast and she was wearing one of her sundresses like she does when she spends the day running errands for the staff."

I frowned, taking a sip of whiskey, spice and heat sliding down my throat. What the fuck did that even mean? At the time we were just kids and it was just something adults said to us all the time—I'm off to run errands.

My brother continued speaking. "Maybe she was off wandering around the garden centers like she always did. And if not that, she could have been walking the lakeside trails. Maybe she did end up having lunch with Marissa. I don't know, she probably wanted some alone time."

Though Mom often was accompanied by one of us, Aunt Valarie on occasion too, there'd be one day a week she'd go alone to the city. Aunt Valarie would look after Ferne, and Dad always had business to attend to with the Novaks, and the rest of us had lessons with our Governess or Weapons Master.

Most of us, apart from Jett who was glued to her hip, grew bored with the hours she endlessly spent at the nurseries fussing over new plants and flowers. Sometimes she'd stroll around the lake, talking to the gardeners and hearing about their landscaping designs, the changes they implemented every season, shifts of plantings, and new ways to sculpt space with greenery. It bored us, so we were quite happy to stay at home on those visits to Ascendria.

The day before everything happened, she'd tripped over Caidan's skateboard, fell down the grand staircase, and fractured her back. She'd lain on the floor recovering and tried to get my shy aunt to come along with her to the city on the following day. She hadn't arranged to see Marissa, I remembered that, so the day she'd been abducted, it seemed to be a genuine visit to Ascendria for herself.

Yet...

That day in question still didn't add up.

It was there.

Hidden in my brain.

She'd been up to something, or perhaps it had come upon her, unexpectedly.

What I'd learned from the memory buried inside my head, resurfacing from its murky depth, was that I'd been five years old when my mother had visited a Horned God. And those golden threads of magic wavering in my memory meant she'd been healing someone.

First, you need my help. I came as fast as I could, Florin.

"There was something that day," he said slowly. He had his head tipped back on the armchair, staring up at the glass-stained mural deep, his brow creased in reflective thought. His fingers, pinching the blunt, rapped a beat on the armrest. "I dunno. I was so fucking hot and sweaty and tired from duking it out with Caidan in the training pit. After lunch, I passed out for a few hours." He took a hit from the blunt letting the smoke wisp from his mouth like mist. "You ever fall in your dreams? Like that rushing feeling of physically falling and you jolt suddenly awake?"

"Yeah."

"The way I woke up was similar to that. But it wasn't falling, it was this swift electric shock that went through me, like lightning I suppose, stuttering my heart. I'd put it down to Caidan and his asshole roundhouse move, repeatedly slamming me in the chest with his kick." His eyes narrowed. "But now...thinking about it, it was like a faint echo of what it's like when Mom's tortured with fire, or ice shreds her skin, or her bones are stretched and quaking."

My mouth went bone-dry.

Jett didn't speak too often about what was happening to Mom. He kept the specific pain she was enduring at any given point in time to himself.

He lowered his gaze, met my horrified one, and startled. Swallowing thickly, he realized, he'd said too much.

"And today?" I asked quietly, my pulse racing.

There had been beads of sweat on his brow in the Great Hall this afternoon, and his hand had been trembling. Which meant our mother hadn't been okay.

His jaw tightened as his gaze swept downward to his fingers holding the blunt, streams of white vapor coiling through the air. There was a strain in his voice when he replied. "It's just little moments, nothing big or overwhelming, a dull ache if you will. Like she's tired and recovering from..." He glanced away toward the fire and his eyes blazed with hatred for the flames licking its stone belly. He suddenly rose from the armchair. Flossie jumped to the floor and scurried beneath the table. His voice was sharp and cold as he stalked past. "She's alive, that's all that matters."

He yanked the library door open and slammed it shut behind him.

Amber light stretched and flickered over the pocked and blackened hearth where I stood in the library, rolling everything around in my head. Had Jett picked up on something that had happened to Mom while she was in Ascendria? She seemed fine when she'd arrived at the Novaks to escort me home. I stood there for a while longer, finishing off the whiskey, wondering how Mom was; how I was going to uncover what she'd been up to in Ascendria; what the fuck Sirro was up to with this Yezekael... When a sensation, irritated and dry-scaled, slithered down my spine.

Earlier this evening, at the top of the tower, when Aunt Addie and her entourage arrived, I'd felt something similar then too, a warning that something was off. At the time I'd assumed it was due to Nelle cruelly taunting the fuck out of me.

But now while I stood beside the library's fireside that same sensation scratched my nerves and hackled all the fine hair on my body.