I shut the door behind me. My aunt had taken a place beside my father's sleek mahogany desk, while my father stood behind it—the rolling office chair pushed aside—and Byron faced off directly across from him. Both of their profiles were on display from where they stood. Byron's entire body shook with barely-controlled rage. He was red-faced and breathing hard, while my father remained stoic.

Byron half-turned to face me. His bloodshot eyes tracked me as I strode deeper into the room. And while he took me in, I was doing the same with him. Our leader, the Head of Great House Wychthorn, who was always impeccably groomed was a rumpled mess. His complexion was papery thin and drawn with more wrinkles since I'd seen him last. Beneath his eyes were dark purple smudges, and his hair was a disarray of salt and pepper tufts. I noted his crumpled tuxedo and the cognac stains on the tux shirt—he obviously hadn't changed since Nelle's presumed death yesterday morning.

He looked exhausted and unhinged.

Perfect.

Byron's gaze assessed me and my father—our dirty faces, the soot and ash, the dried blood splattered up my father's neck. "What happened here?" he demanded as I approached.

I didn't need to feel Byron's unadulterated hatred for me—crackling through the air, blustering all over my skin, or even taste it—a metallic tang with a fiery heat that stung my tongue. It was written all over his body. It blazed through eyes beneath thick eyebrows—the clenched jaw, the fists at his side shaking with a burning need to strike me.

When Byron arrived at our estate, it hadn't been long since the fight with Nelle and her wyrm. The stench of fire would have still lingered in the air as our warband quickly dealt to the battle site. He'd perhaps caught sight of our staff hurrying through our home for more medical supplies, or to assist with tending the wounded.

"A training exercise that went wrong," my father replied, dragging Byron's attention away from me. He answered in a flat-bored tone as if he didn't care that Byron's daughter had to fight for freedom, that her wyrm had slaughtered members of our extended family—soldiers and friends. But he did. My father wasn't cold and unfeeling. I often wondered if he felt too much—if it was too much for him to bear, having my mother stolen, tortured—and he'd had to shore up a wall to keep himself from shattering under the weight. But there were cracks rendered in the wall, and plenty moments of warmth when he knew he had to pick up the mantle in her absence.

Byron's left eye twitched.

He knew my father was lying. Knew what had happened tonight revolved around his daughter. He wanted to know if she was all right. Was desperate to ask—What is she?

Byron's fierce gaze slashed to mine and there was such a riot of emotion within those blue eyes—anguish and hate and hopelessness. I halted and bowed before him as tradition dictated. When I rose, he snarled. "I want to speak with my daughter."

"No," I replied, in a tone that matched my father's perfectly. Unaffected. Bored.

"She's not twenty—you can't claim her."

"Not yet... Not for a few more weeks," I rolled back on my heels, shrugging lightly. "However, Byron, you know exactly what she signed, the amendments made. We're having a family reunion and under the terms of the Alverac, the terms she signed in blood, she's under my authority."

Byron glanced to my father, then my aunt. "Valarie." There wasn't one inch of softening in him. It was a curt demand to my aunt.

She was nothing but ice.

He briefly closed his eyes and released a long, tension-filled breath through his nose as his shoulders slumped. This time, when he said her name softly, "Valarie..." there was despairing appeal laced within his tone, and some other kind of feeling, heavy with shared memory. It was the closest I'd ever heard him come to begging. Why my aunt and not my father?

My gaze sliced to Aunt Valarie and, for a moment, one blink, she faltered and I saw behind her mask. The woman she used to be showed herself. There was a stumbling kindness in her violet eyes and self-doubt, so swift, and gone a blink later, I questioned if I'd actually seen it.

Byron took a step toward her. "Valarie, let me speak with her."

My aunt's gaze slid over Byron's shoulder and I saw where it had landed. A family photograph—a casual moment frozen in time. My mother smiled wide, her arm linked through lanky Kenton's, Ferne flashing a grin full of baby teeth as she sat on my father's shoulders, Caidan pulling a face behind Jett, and me scowling at Aunt Valarie as she ruffled my hair.

When my aunt turned her gaze back to Byron, the subarctic wall of ice was back, except now she was feeding off his devastation, his panic and desperation—sucking it in and relishing it.

"That's not possible, Byron," she said with a brutal smile that slashed through her features.

A muscle flexed in Byron's jaw and his gaze hardened. He straightened, pushing his shoulders back. His blue eyes sharpened on my father. "I want a moment alone with your son."

As Head of Great House, he could order us in this way.

My father inclined his head, strode out from behind his desk to stand flush with his twin sister. He bowed, as did my aunt too.

My father left the room. My aunt hesitated a moment. She held the edge of the door with a hand, her other on the brass door handle. I could feel her wondering if I would buckle. I wouldn't.

My mother...my mother...my mother...

The message in her steel-edged gaze warned me to hold my ground, to make Byron suffer and twist the blade a little deeper.

I returned an almost imperceptible tip of my chin.

She closed the door behind her, and the soft snick cracked through the silent room as loud as a bolt of lightning ripping through thunderclouds.

Here was the defining moment, and I could not fail.

I would not fail.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I thought of my brother Jett—how stiffly he'd sat on the couch in our family room, a trembling hand crossed over his ribs. How the low glow of candlelight skittered over his pale clammy skin. I remembered the sound of his short rasping breath. He was in agony—and that meant so too was our mother.

When I pried my eyes open, Byron had smoothed back his hair and was brushing a hand down the flat of his wrinkled shirt. He buttoned his jacket at the waist, tugged at the shirt cuffs, and squared his shoulders as he turned to face me. The man who ruled over all the Houses regained his posture, his authority.

Byron stared at me long and hard—thoughtful. "I saw your reaction to Nelle's death."

Every muscle in my body went on lockdown.

I don't think I was even breathing.

Holding Nelle's dead, broken body in my arms...I'd shattered in that moment. I hadn't known, no one had, that Nelle had been replaced by a Changeling, and the body in my arms wasn't Nelle, but a replication of her. In my horror and grief, I'd broken, and everyone who was there had seen me fall apart and keen over her lifeless body.

Caidan was the only member of my family to have witnessed it, and I hoped to hells he'd kept it to himself.

I shoved a hand carelessly into my jacket pocket and refused to respond.

While he'd witnessed my reaction, I'd seen his too. I'd had a fear that Byron would end his daughter's life to save his neck, but at that moment watching the raw grief spill from him, I realized he could never do such a thing. As an other, Nelle should have been handed over at birth to the sect that ruled over us, and yet, despite the great risk to himself and his family, he'd kept her hidden from the Horned Gods all these years—a secret hidden in plain sight.

He loved his daughter.

A frown creased his forehead, and his gaze became a little distant, as he dropped his hand to the desk beside his thighs. He tapped his forefinger upon the wood as he carried on speaking, slowly, as if thinking through earlier thoughts he hadn't had time to untangle. "I thought it was a ploy by your family, exchanging Nelle for a Changeling and stealing her. But you'd simply take her, you wouldn't go to all of that to hide her from me. And then I thought that maybe she'd planned this herself and found a way to escape you. Leave us all behind and escape." He shook his head, glancing away as he cleared his throat. "My daughter is too kind-hearted to let us believe she'd died."

Nelle does have a big heart.

When his gaze returned, his eyes were shrewd. "Who stole her? Who tried to steal my daughter?"

There wasn't any reason to keep the information hidden from him, but I wasn't going to give him everything he wanted to know. He needed to earn that. And not knowing would be far more unsettling. It would put more and more pressure on him to buckle to our demands.

How I'd yearned for this day.

It was much like when I'd waited for the moment to reveal the truth to Nelle of the Alverac. I'd desired for years to see her panic and fear take root. But when that moment came, I realized it no longer seemed right.

This, however, was the complete opposite.

We needed something from Byron and I was going to enjoy breaking him to get it.

"Another House," I finally replied.

"Which one?"

I didn't answer.

"Which of the Houses dared do this?"

I could see his mind ticking over as our eyes locked, wondering who it might be, if they knew what Nelle was—an other. And if they did, what kind of hold they'd have over him? Not just us, but someone else out there.

I remained silent.

His shoulders slumped a little and he gave a curt nod. He dropped his gaze to his hand, now splayed upon the desk—smooth, long fingers that had never had to harden with the daily use of blades. They'd only curled around pens and quills.

He swallowed thickly, his voice low and close to breaking. "Don't hurt her."

And those words hacked at my heart with a rust-edged blade.

The only way to get what we needed from Byron was to threaten him with his daughter.

My only regret was using Nelle as the tool to do so, but I had to exploit it. There was no other way around this mess. I willed ice to flow through my veins, and emptied my head, my heart, of everything that threatened to overwhelm me and stop me from doing what was necessary.

I can't fail.

I can't...

There was a flatness to my tone I'd perfected over the years, an emptiness to my expression that could intensify fear, far darker and swifter than anything else. "I can do anything I feel like to her and there is nothing you can do about it."

His blue eyes shot to mine.

Terror. I tasted it on my tongue.

"What is it that you want from me? What can I give you to free her?" The same question he'd posed to me time and time again throughout the years after we chose Nelle for the Alverac.

There was no point for him to avoid it, to pretend civility anymore. We had him pincered with his daughter.

He had a choice to make—cut Nelle off or give us anything we wanted. And there was no way he could cut himself off from his daughter. He'd hidden and protected her from the Horned Gods. If Nelle's secret was discovered—that she was an other, a wyrm for fucks-sake—the Horned Gods wouldn't just annihilate his entire family, everyone related to him, and everyone who had ever served under him. They'd wipe every single mention of the Wychthorns from history.

We owned Byron just like we owned his daughter.

But I let him scramble in the hope that he could pull himself out of this shit hole he'd shoved himself into.

He waved his hand dismissively. "This revenge on me, going through my daughter to make me pay for your mother's death..."

This, this, was what had my blood spitting. Had my fingers clenching inside my inner jacket. Had that wicked, ancient strain humming through my body, whispering to me to end him.

The Houses believed my mother had died in a car accident. We'd even held a funeral for her, and there was an empty tomb resting in our family mausoleum—her name and date of death carved into ancient stone. Byron had known the truth the entire time. He knew Horned Gods had come for her because he was the one who told Sirro she was other. As far as he was aware, my mother had died at their hands because he had betrayed her. And still nothing. Nothing from him for the part he'd played in her supposed death. At the very least he owed us a godsdamned apology for condemning every single member of my House to death when he betrayed my mother. Because  he knew we would all be slaughtered alongside of her!

I stalked around the office, taking my time to answer, purely to get the hot swathes of rage burning beneath my skin under control. My father's office, like Byron's, was filled with rare artifacts but also filled with life—pictures of our family throughout the years. They were a reminder, I suppose, of what was at stake, but also a way to hold onto the life we had before all of this. A life that we could have once again. There were also a large number of weapons on the walls. It was tempting to grab hold of an Egyptian dagger and plunge the copper blade right through Bryon's callous heart.

I couldn't contain it any longer. "You know what, Byron? I'd have expected something from you. Maybe even an apology for what you did to our mother, betraying her to the Horned Gods. And yet...nothing."

Weakness.

He couldn't afford it.

He was still trying to hold on to his position as our leader and not our lackey.

Byron's gaze hardened. "And what would you have done, if it were the other way around? If you had to choose between Tabitha or Nelle?"

That question. That fucking insidious question. It had ruined my fucking life, that question.

Anyone else would understand.

Any one of my family could have done the exact same thing as Byron.

Turned Nelle over to save my mother.

But I wasn't just anyone.

Neither was Nelle.

And it had been my choice that set us down this dark path, pitting our two Houses against one another. Even as a child, Nelle had stolen a piece of me. She'd owned me even back then. And the truth of it all—I couldn't choose. How could I choose between them both?

"Where is my daughter?"

"Locked away in the dungeon below the Keep. It's dark down there...no light." I stilled in front of him beside the desk and angled my head. Ash-crusted locks of hair slid over my forehead. "Who would have known that your fearless daughter would be terrified of the dark?" I tsked. "Certainly not me."

Byron's face went white with shock and rage.

I fucking loved seeing that look on him.

And yet hated myself for saying, "She's such a pretty thing with those big, wide eyes. So fucking innocent, on her knees, begging... It's like a song, those words she keeps repeating. All she wants is to see you... Speak with you."

"Then let her see me."

Raising a hand, I twisted my wrist and studied my fingernails as if bored. "Everything comes with a price, Byron."

"What is it? What do you want from me?" There was a thin edge to his tone, like a blade that had been overly honed. He was teetering on the precipice, but he hadn't fallen over just yet. When I looked up, his demeanor changed. He stiffened and became harder and sterner, the leader of all the Houses. "All of this," he said, gesturing with a dismissive sweep of his hand. "Everything you've done was for this purpose. You have manipulated and machinated to get me exactly where you wanted. So what do I have to give over to see my daughter returned to me?"

I gave it some thought, or I made it look like it. I stepped closer to Byron and my father's desk and drummed my fingertips on the sleek surface. It was the only noise in the office besides Byron's angry breathing. "Something that belongs to the Head of the Great House... Only the Head."

His eyes widened. It began to slowly, ever so slowly, dawn on him just what I was talking about.

He blinked, glancing away, his brow furrowing. "You'd give me back my daughter?"

I clicked my tongue, drawing his attention back, and shook my head at him slowly. "I won't let her go, because she's mine. But I can be persuaded to be benevolent and kind toward her. Make her life here just a little bit more bearable. Maybe unlock the cell she's in and put her up in a proper bedroom like the little Wychthorn Princess she is. Wipe away those tears of hers and tell her everything will be alright." I softened my voice as much as I could at that moment, making it sound enticing. "Let her speak with you Byron, her mother, and sisters. I expect they'd like to see her very much. The last time they saw Nelle, she was broken and bleeding and very much dead."

Grief washed over him and made those age spots stark against a complexion that grayed in memory of what it felt like to watch his daughter purposely step off the roof of his family home, intent on killing herself.

I tsked. "Such a terrible last memory of someone so vibrant and full of life."

He went to speak but I held up my hand, cutting him off—something that wouldn't be tolerated under normal circumstances. "In the matter of your daughter, think on it. Think about all the things I could do to your sweet, precious little girl."

I bowed and strode from the room. One of Byron's guards peered through the open doorway and swiftly jerked back as I moved past. My father stood in the hallway, patiently waiting to speak with Byron after my meeting with our illustrious leader. One arm was braced across his chest, and the other hand kneaded his blood-splattered chin. I stalked past with a silent acknowledgment, aware of his deep violet eyes warily assessing me. Yet I knew he'd overheard everything that had transpired behind the black lacquered door to his office.

I left Byron Wychthorn stewing in the stinking cesspit he'd created for himself.

I'd let him stew and sweat and panic over what we'd do to his beloved daughter. When it came time to collect what we wanted from him, he'd be so desperate he'd hand anything over. But it wasn't just anything. We needed the one possession the Head of a Great House was entreated to protect. And we knew he held it, because once, a long, long time ago, we'd been Great House Crowther.