When I strode into the family room, my aunt didn't acknowledge me. No one did. The room was deathly silent. I glanced around and realized why. Most of the candles had been extinguished and darkness enshrouded Jett.

My brother's connection to our mother kept us tethered to our purpose. It reminded us of what was at stake. What she was enduring all these years was reflected by him.

Worry and fear flooded my chest like bracken water surging on a high tide. Would she survive being tortured tonight? 

"How bad?" my aunt asked quietly. She sat stiff-backed in an armchair, and her features were strained as she stared down at her fingers, spread wide across the leather armrest gleaming with the barest of candlelight.

Crushing guilt pressed down on me so hard I could barely draw a breath, or move my legs. This was what I'd done to my family with the choice I'd made years ago by saving Nelle. All my fault.

Ferne knelt on the ground beside the couch, her blue skirt pooling around her legs. She had laced a hand through Jett's, and he squeezed hers tight. He was lying down on the couch, one knee bent, the other leg outstretched. He had an arm across his face to hide himself from us. His fingers were bunched into a fist and were pulsing in and out as he clenched, then slightly released, only to repeat the motion, I suspected, in time with the waves of pain washing through him.

"Bad," he said through gritted teeth. 

In some ways, I thought, Jett considered this a form of punishment himself and a relief of sorts. Her pain meant she was alive. But no amount of coaxing, bribing or even yelling, would convince him to take some pain relief. He endured the torture and suffering along with her. I had done my penance. This was his.

I went straight for the drinks cabinet, an art-deco affair, found a bottle of Glenfiddich, and poured the amber liquid into a crystal tumbler. I slammed it back, heat stinging the back of my throat, poured another. The bottleneck compressed in my hand beneath the force I used, the merest crackle, reminding me to relax my grip and take and deep breath.

Shit, shit, shit—

None of us knew what was being done to her, how long it would last, or even if she'd survive.

I was placing the whiskey bottle back down on the cabinet when I heard the whisper of material and guessed my sister had risen from where she sat, then her footsteps crossing stone, then rugs, and back to stone again as she approached. She faced me, leaning a hip against the wood and glass front paneling of the drinks cabinet.

She reached her fingers out, feeling for the tumbler in my hand, and stole it from me.

"Ferne," I warned.

She held up a finger, stopping me, and said in a low whisper, "Don't care, Gray. Tonight..." A pause while she sighed through her nose. "It's gone straight to hells." She arched her neck back and swallowed the 80-year-old whiskey. Her face scrunched up with disgust. She hissed through her teeth, shaking her head, her black hair shimmering around her shoulders. "Ugh."

I pried the tumbler from her grip and refilled it.

"Where is she?" she asked.

"Locked away."

"Your rooms?"

"Yes."

Her head jerked toward my aunt who was in close conversation with Kenton. Caidan had taken vigil beside Jett, sitting with his back to the couch, his hands clasped between his bent knees.

Ferne leaned closer. "Are you insane, Gray? Aunt Valarie is going to—"

"Don't want to hear it," I bit back.

She scowled.

I did not give a fuck.

She huffed, then twisted around. I watched her shoulders dip and something troubling ripple across her profile as she stared downward, smoothing her fingers back and forth across the mirrored surface of the art-deco cabinet. "How long did Danne have her trapped?"

Just that name—that fucking name, the image flashing through my mind of what that fucker was trying to do to Nelle—had my teeth grinding and blood roaring in my ears. Hate swelled in my chest in great waves of icy rage and made everything a haze of red—it was too hard to even pull in a breath. He got away with too much. He hurt her too much. Not as much as he'd wanted—and that was a small, pathetic blessing.

My sister, through whatever means she had, sensed the rage blustering through my veins. She rested a hand over mine, stroking a comforting touch, back and forth.

Calm. I had to calm down.

Fuuuck.

I drew in a breath, releasing, another, then another, until I steadied my racing heart and calmed the storm roiling inside, and my muscles unlocked.

Tipping my neck back, I finished the rest of the whiskey, draining the glass empty. Lowering the glass, I tapped my finger against the rim of the tumbler, watching golden light striking off the prismed crystal before finally answering, "Too long."

A small, pained sound came from her. She squeezed my hand and then let go. "I'm not sorry you ended him."

"I didn't," I said quietly. "Nelle did."

I could feel her surprise, could taste it.

Her head bowed, and midnight locks of hair fell forward. Her hands clamped down on the rim of the cabinet so hard I could see the knuckles flexing and burning white. Her voice was anguished. "Gray...what are we doing?"

A world-weary sigh rose from my chest, but the words were cold and flat. "Finding our mother. Isn't this the only thing we've been doing all these years?" I dropped the empty tumbler on the cabinet and the hollow sound of it striking glass rang through the room.

A moment later, Jett's pain-laced voice had me twisting around. "Wychthorn's a wyrm." He'd lowered his arm from his face, and his agony-glazed eyes were focused on my aunt. "A wyrm," he repeated. "A prize any Horned God would slather over. Why don't we just trade Wychthorn for our mother?"

Fear tightened a hold on my heart.

My aunt's voice slashed through the room like lightning. "Because we still don't know which Horned God has your mother."

"We broker a deal through Sirro," Jett pushed.

"And run the risk of him stealing Wychthorn for himself?" Aunt Valarie shook her head. "No, we stick to the plan. We use Wychthorn to get into the Witches Ball, and we'll find that Horned God there... We have to."

I didn't know what I could do to right this all.

We just needed in.

Nelle could get us in.

We didn't need to go any further than that.

Kenton stood at the long table where we used to play board games or spread around reading books, having a casual lunch when we were kids, all of us together. He braced both hands on the wooden surface. "And if we don't?"

"We'll deal with that outcome then," my aunt replied.

From where he sat, leaning his back against the couch, Caidan raised his bowed head. "We haven't even received an invitation to a Goods Appraisal."

"We need The Horned Gods' interest and so far no one has bitten," Kenton's deep voice rumbled, his gaze on Aunt Valarie. "This, all of this, is a wasted exercise if we can't get into the Witches Ball."

My aunt was opening her mouth to reply when the jarring sound of the door opening had her pausing. Everyone turned to watch our father stride in. His footfall on the stone floor was as heavy as the pounding of my heart as he headed straight for me.

I assumed he'd just come from Byron. He grabbed the whiskey bottle and drank straight from the lip, downing it in big gulps, hissing out a breath before wiping his mouth with his knuckles. The half-full bottle thunked on the cabinet.

Silence.

It was a long, drawn-out moment before he spoke. "You did good," he told me.

Fuck, it didn't feel that way to me. Using Nelle in that despicable way against her father...sickened me.

"Byron's off-kilter, panicking over what might happen to his daughter... To his family. The Blacksmith needs the last piece that Byron holds. When you see him next, you need to break him and get him to hand it over to us." And there it was, the unspoken—break her.

The girl was impossible to break. My family was going to learn that.

"Where is she, exactly?" My aunt asked, rising from the armchair and drawing nearer.

Shit, here it was.

The soles of my boots gritted on stone as I turned to face her fully, steeling myself for her wrath. "My quarters," I replied in a cold, flat tone.

Shock swamped the room. I could feel the question—why?—rolling in everyone's minds. They all knew what that room at the top of the tower could do.

Aunt Valarie shot a swift look toward my father. The shadows made the furrowed lines in her brow seem even deeper. Her sharp gaze sliced back to me. She took another slow, measured step closer, and I braced my stance. Her voice was silken menace. "What is she doing in there?"

I still had no fucking idea how to reply to that.

Ferne, my brave, clever sister, saved me.

Her voice cut through the moment and the tension, distracting my aunt and everyone else. "We need to find out what Aldert Pelan knows. We need to know if Danne revealed to his father that he'd stolen Nelle. If he revealed that she was other. "

My aunt shared a look with my father. Both of them remained silent, yet an answer was passed between them. My aunt nodded in confirmation, a jerky movement. "Agreed. I'll take a trip up to the Carpellean Mountains and see what I can find out."

"We've got another problem," my father said to us all. "Sirro's called a meeting with our House, tomorrow morning. He wants answers as to who attacked the tithe convoy and why." His deep voice gritted out, his stormy gaze landing on Jett. "Supposedly, you're the only witness that survived, Jett."

Jett had been staring up at the ceiling, forearm across his clammy forehead, mouth a thin, white line. His eyes slid to my father, and he slowly shifted his body, gingerly sitting upright.

My father, with his imposing size, stalked across the room, light catching on his dusty armor. "I have no idea how the fu—" He caught himself in time, his lips pressed together and rolling inward. He'd never sworn since my mother had been stolen. The rest of us... I think we did it in the hopes one day she'd be there to cuff us around the ears. "I don't know how we are to get our House out of this mess you've landed us all in, Jett."

Kenton pushed off the table and rounded it. "I'll take the lead in the investigation of the hijacking. Anything that points Jett's way, I'll make it go away."

A nod from my father. Then his steel-edged gaze shifted from my youngest brother to me. "After the meeting with Sirro, if we survive it, you," he said pointing a finger at me, "and the rest of your brothers, need to head to New York. There's trouble with the Widowmakers and an insurrection brewing."

"I'm not leaving." I'm not leaving Nelle, here, alone.

His voice was a landslide of rocks, a fierce curl to his lips. "You'll attend this meeting with Sirro and you'll accompany your brothers and deal with the Albanian syndicate, and no one returns until they are put back in their place."

Fuck!

It could be days before we got a handle on that shit with the Widowmakers.

My father's gaze moved across all of us, all his children, and with each second that passed, the hardened angle of his body softened. He ran a meaty hand through his graying hair, coated with ash. His voice was quieter when his next order was given. "First, we bury our dead and clear the battle site. We keep this contained. And we do this now."

It was going to be a long night, one full of sorrow and grief.

But before it began I needed to check on Nelle.

My brothers gathered themselves and started to head toward the door.

"Jett," Ferne cried, "You need to rest. Take a painkiller...please."

Jett had risen from the couch, and limped the last couple of steps toward the desk riddled with paperwork and half-formed devices, resting a moment there, while he tried to calm his sharp and shallow breaths. "I'm fine," he said, scowling, but his features were pinched with pain. He dragged a loose lock of sweat-dampened hair from where it had fallen across his eyes.

"He needs to rest, he can't—" my sister started to protest, appealing to Aunt Valarie.

"Jett will rest...after he's taken his dues," my aunt snapped back.

Gods, he'd earned a whipping.

And one look at my father's formidable glare locked on his youngest son—he agreed.

My aunt wasn't done. She walked toward Jett. "You put our House at risk. If the Horned Gods discover it was you who hijacked Sirro's convoy and freed those Tithes, we'll be the ones with the noose around our neck." Her canny eyes wandered over Jett's closed expression, trying to read him. "Why?"

He clamped his mouth shut.

He'd done it for a girl, a mortal girl.

In reply, he unzipped his jacket, tossing it onto the desk. His t-shirt followed, and his lean upper body was revealed, the wyrm brand and lines of fire and Ukkenskrit tales inked across his chest.

My gaze landed near where he stood, where a roll of velvet sat next to a nest of wires on the desktop. I crossed the room and stroked my fingers across the material, my rough finger pads caught on the soft fabric, as my thoughts kept spinning.

I heard my Aunt Valarie turn away, her footsteps as she headed toward the door, no doubt on her way to collect the whip. My blood ran cold in memory of that whip, the leather splitting apart my flesh.

"Why did you do it?" I asked Jett quietly, angling my face to stare at him.

"I couldn't..." He shook his head, frowning and blinking, as if he hadn't come to terms with it himself. Then shrugged. "I just couldn't let that happen to her."

And I wondered why he couldn't see the correlation between him and I. Nelle and Red. Except, he'd done something about it. He'd defied everyone, including our own family, and put us all at risk to save a girl, a mortal, from the Horned Gods. But me, I'd handed mine over to my family.

Rolling his shoulders, he cracked his neck and limped toward the door where Aunt Valarie stood waiting for him. "Let's get this over with."

"Wait," I said, turning my attention back to the desk and the twists and coils of wiring, and the velvet. As the soft material unrolled, a heavy bolt was revealed. My fingers spread across the fletching—hovering, not touching—and I could feel how wrong the bolt was. It looked innocent enough in a savage way. Crafted from wood, it crackled and hummed with magic—deep, dark magic that pulled at me. It wanted to unravel and steal my heightened senses, strength and speed, as well as the blood gift from my mother running through my veins. "I have an idea how to redirect Sirro."

Pushing into motion, I walked over to the weapons rack, picked a crossbow, tipped it upside down, and placed a foot in the stirrup to cock the bow. At the loud click, I quickly slotted the bolt into place, I didn't want to touch that fucking thing too long. At the brief contact, scorching pain ripped through my hand and set the nerves on fire—dark magic sucking and leeching—and blisters erupted where my fingertips had gripped it. Hefting the crossbow, I braced and aimed at Jett.

Jett's eyes went wide, his hands rising before him as he stumbled back. "No fucking way. That's from the Gestelt Tree."

I arched a brow. "You know this for sure?"

"It's the only possible explanation."

I agreed with my youngest brother, it was the only explanation.

I smiled coldly. "Point to where it's going to hurt the most."

"Fuck you, Gray!"

"Obviously, not somewhere fatal," my father muttered.

I aimed, squeezed the trigger, and released.

The thud of the bolt ripping through flesh, and Jett's grunt and explosive curse clashed against the walls.