Taking the steps two at a time, I hurtled up the tower's inner staircase. Wildfyre torches, braced to the curved wall and guiding the way with their skittish blue flames, were unnecessary for my family with our heightened senses, yet we kept the tradition. At dusk our staff set about the Keep, alighting the torches.

The door to my bedroom, threaded through with wild magic, unlocked with a click as I twisted the handle and pushed it open. As I moved through the doorway, magic brushed against my skin like a cat rubbing its back against a farm post. Only I could enter this room and whoever else I willed, like Penn, whom I had earlier allowed, instructing her to source something for Nelle to eat.

Knowing Nelle, she'd petulantly refuse, so it was no surprise to see a tray on the dining table—I used more often as a desk—and the silver cloches covering whatever Penn had brought to her, remained untouched.

I frowned, drawing to a halt, then slowly circling. The room was empty.

Shit, had Nelle found a way to escape?

My heartbeat picked up in my confusion...and settled when I heard murmuring behind the bathroom door...then tapped a staccato beat against my ribs when I realized it wasn't Nelle's voice, and that distress was held within the string of polite curses.

I knocked rapidly on the bathroom door, and Penn answered, urging me to enter. Anxiety crawled along the walls of my chest as I opened up the door and a thick cloud of steam billowed out. Wet heat that dampened my cheeks and the collar to my armor. The bathroom was stickily hot, and the shower obviously had been just turned off, as the pebbled shower floor still streamed with water. And Nelle—

My heart shot into my throat.

Oh my gods...

Nelle!

She lay prone on the floor. She wasn't moving.

Penn knelt on the floor beside Nelle, unmindful of the water soaking into her uniform. She'd stopped halfway through the motion of drawing a large towel over Nelle's naked body. She glanced over her shoulder, her blue eyes wide and gleaming with concern.

I chewed through the space, my bones barking as I slammed to my knees on the knobbled floor. I looked for blood first, running my hands over her arms, her sides then legs.

Something sharp and painful twisted my gut and whispered—my fault, my fault...

"Did she fall?" Slip and hit her head? Hurt herself on purpose?

Oh my gods...

She wouldn't hurt herself, would she?

"She's fine," Penn reassured me in her soft voice. She placed a hand on my upper arm, squeezing when I didn't stop searching for injuries, for some sort of self-harm.

I willed back the panic and cleared my head, thinking through rationally. My senses sharpened, and when I heard Nelle's almost imperceptible shallow breaths, and saw the towel slowly move up and down with the rise and fall of her chest, I let out a puff of air in relief.

Penn suddenly jerked her hand from my arm as if she'd accidentally brushed her fingertips against a red-hot oven. I wondered if she thought she'd overstepped her place. Other Houses might have reprimanded her for the overly-familiar touch, but that wasn't how we treated our staff. Another distinction that separated us from other Houses—they had servants, we had staff, and it was a distinction that united us as one. Penn had been a valuable member of our household for several years now, an unusual and rare addition.

She finished tucking the towel around Nelle's body and sat back on her heels. "I found her here, asleep. She must have been exhausted with everything that's happened..." The words drifted apart as she glanced away, her long eyelashes fluttering as she fell into thought, pondering, more than likely, the knowledge that would have already been passed along our staff—that Nelle was a wyrm.

Nelle would have reached near-burnout unleashing her wyrm and in the ensuing battle that went on down on the estate. She probably had existed on pure adrenaline and loathing just to keep standing during that fucked up meeting in the family room afterward.

Penn rose, bending down to swipe water from her skirt. "Thank goodness we have unlimited hot water." She straightened. "I'd hate to think if we'd run out and she'd slept through a dousing of icy-cold water."

I gently scooped my arms beneath Nelle's arms and knees and picked her up. Long locks of wet hair fell in a sweeping curtain. Water dripped down my forearms and splashed upon the pebbled flooring. Asleep, she looked vulnerable and so much younger than her age. Her ash-toned lashes fanned against the swell of her freckled cheeks. Her plump lips were slightly parted, and a noise came from her—a faint, soft purr of a snore.

Penn moved ahead, stealing an armload of towels, and held the bathroom door open as I eased us both out. She hurried to my bed, pulled back the blankets, and spread towels over the sheets and pillows. I lay Nelle down in a nest of fluffy towels. She stiffened, then relaxed as the mattress dipped when I sat on the bed beside her. Penn handed me a towel and I gently squeezed the moisture from Nelle's hair as best I could, and then covered her up with the blankets, tucking them beneath her chin. Rising, I backed away. She looked tiny, lost in my oversized bed.

Just as lost as I felt.

I ran my palm over my face.

What was I going to do?

I could barely push my way through all those messy, churning thoughts spinning around in my head. All the things that had happened, and all the things that now had to be done. And there was more. Still, more to fucking do. The list was endless. Everything was charging onward and there hadn't been even the barest moment to think. I twisted around and sank onto the floor, leaning back against the side of the bed, bent my legs, and propped both elbows on my knees. And now after confronting her father, it all caught up with me.

My hands trembled as I bowed my head and kneaded my temples.

Nelle would be spitting venom when she awoke and found herself in my bed. I knew that. Penn shifted her feet and the movement drew my attention back her way. I'd forgotten she was even in the room. "Is there anything else I can help with?" she asked.

I don't fucking know!

I pushed up and headed for my walk-in closet, grabbed my luggage from an overhead shelf, and started to pack. I'd only be gone for a few days, two at the most, I'd make sure of it.

Penn lingered by the wardrobe door. I half-turned to face her. "I need you to look after Wychthorn while I'm gone." She nodded. "Only you," I added. Another nod, this time slowly given.

A brusque knocking rapped on my bedroom door.

Penn and I shared a look, both of us wondering who it might be.

She hurried to the door and opened it while I stood within the threshold of the wardrobe. My hand hovered above the hilt of the blade strapped to my thigh—more instinctive reflexes than the suspicion of a true threat.

Caidan stepped forward, and as he attempted to enter my room—he bounced back with a startled jolt as if he'd hit an invisible wall. He stumbled, then quickly righted himself. His eyes shot through with confusion, slashed to mine. He leaned a hand on the outer edge of the doorframe and arched a brow, the look he gave me pointed with meaning. Yeah, the fucker couldn't get in here.

A moment later, his expression fell and sorrow carved deep lines around his mouth. The dimples in his cheeks showed themselves faintly as he sawed his jaw, angling his face downward, hiding from me behind a crown of dirty hair. His hand rested on the top of two shovels standing on end, and his fingers tightened around the wooden handles. "We need to bury our dead...and clean up the battle site," he said quietly, his voice breaking a little.

We did, and with everything that had happened, was still in motion around me, spinning me forward, pulling me in different directions, I hadn't even had time to think about those that had fallen tonight. I hadn't had time to grieve for them—my cousins, the soldiers and guards, more family than staff, that had lost their lives in the battle to capture Nelle.

Sorrow weighed me down and squeezed my heart.

My Uncle Sander had lost his sons—Collens and Hollis. We'd grown up with the rambunctious brothers who were close in age to Jett. It was impossible to imagine what it would be like at the Keep without them around. Even harder to think of my uncle and how this loss would utterly destroy him. We lived with peril every single day as enforcers, and though we accepted death it still brought heartbreak. It still wrought devastation.

Caidan glanced up and in his gaze shone everything that I'd just been thinking.

He offered me a tight, wretched smile that didn't reach his eyes. Raising a shovel he went to hand it to me, but I shook my head.

There was one thing, one important factor I needed to deal with first—Nelle. I glanced at the rows of hanging suits and dress shirts, the shoes, and the sets of drawers with folded clothes.

It could work...

One of Caidan's eyebrows rose in perplexion, when I said, "Before we go...I need your help with something."

***

I had the sensation of floating, being comforted by soft clouds, and the fresh, crisp scent of a pine forest after a light soaking of rain and morning mist, washing down my lungs.

Waking, I pried apart puffy and gritty eyes, to peer at a soft glowing light that glanced over the curves and twists of glossy, ebony wood and a high ceiling I didn't recognize.

My hands skimmed silk and warm cotton, and the scent of cedar permeated the air.

This wasn't my room.

It took a long confused moment for muddled sleep to fall away and my mind to fully awaken.

What happened? Where am I?

The Crowthers—

Flashes of memory, too many, too fast, barrelled through me. Wyrmfire and screaming, sinister threats given in candlelit rooms, my father's voice roaring for me—

My hand went to my throat first. My fingers encountered the coarse fibers of the rope.

Oh my gods—

Terror swelled inside my chest, all-consuming and violent. Like dead leaves choking the grating of a storm drain, I couldn't draw a breath. Hot tears pricked the corners of my eyes.

Breathe, breathe—

I swiped aside the last memory spinning through my mind. I refused to think upon the man with guilty black eyes, his hands shaking so badly he couldn't put the noose around my neck—so I had done it for him.

Stupid, stupid, stupid me!

I huffed quick, quiet breaths through my nose, shoving back the panic at where I'd found myself—trapped behind stone walls. There was no place for panic right now. I wouldn't be able to find a way out of this prison if I was crippled by fear and heartache.

My eyes slid sideways.

A chrome lamp with a long neck curved high above a woman who sat at the corner of a couch, her legs tucked under her, and a book splayed open on her lap. It was the same woman who had come into the family room to announce that my father had arrived on the Crowther's estate—Penn.

My tongue felt thick and furry in a mouth that was parched. Water. I'd give almost anything for a glass of water. I rubbed my dry lips together and cleared my prickly throat.

Penn glanced over. Her fingers stilled, caught halfway in the motion of turning a page. Her blue eyes widened in surprise to see me awake.

I sat up, my body aching and the movement lethargic. The cashmere blankets of midnight blue, and silk sheets that had been loosely tucked around my body, fell to my waist. Beneath it all, I was naked, sitting on a nest of fluffy towels.

The other woman quickly averted her gaze. A slight flush of color crept up her neck and stained her cheeks pink, but I was beyond feeling embarrassed about someone seeing me naked. I had a godsdamned rope around my neck, and I'd battled the Crowthers in nothing but a fire-pockmarked t-shirt.

Squirming around, I re-adjusting myself to steal a towel I'd slept on top of. Wrapping it around my chest, I rolled the edge of the dark-gray material over and tucked a corner of it inward. I frowned, pushing a tangle of fuzzy hair back from my forehead, trying to remember the last thing before sleep had claimed me.

I'd been showering.

Someone, no doubt Graysen, had found me asleep on the bathroom floor, and I supposed he carried me to his bed to let me sleep. But for how long?

There was no concept of the hours passing in his room with its windowless walls. Had it been only a few hours since I fell asleep in the shower? A few minutes? A full day?

"What time is it?" I asked, my voice raspy. I swallowed, trying to ease the soreness from my throat. It felt as if I'd been screaming myself hoarse, or I was coming down with a rare cold.

Penn peeked from the corner of her eye, saw I was presentable, and turned back to face me. She shut her book and placed it on the couch beside her, untucked her legs, and smoothed out the long skirt of her servant's uniform that reached a little higher than her ankles. "It's mid-morning." Her voice was soft, pleasant even. Her face too.

She had dark brown hair swept back in a tidy bun, a few loose tendrils framing her face. She had fine-boned features, delicate. Even her wrists, poking out beneath the white sleeve cuffs of her uniform, seemed fragile. Good. Because I was sizing her up. Seated, I wasn't sure just how tall she was, but she seemed like she might be only a few inches taller than myself. I was tiny at five-foot-nothing but I'd make every inch count.

Raising a hand, I scrubbed the sleep from my eyes before glancing around the room.

I took in the barest of details. Nothing decorated the walls beside one area dedicated to holding Graysen's books. Across from me was a small dining table crafted from the same type of ebony wood as the bed I had slept in; an office workspace of sorts; and several tall drawers. Where Penn sat on the black leather couch, there were a few cushions. Like the bedding with its soft blankets in midnight colors, even the cushions were adorned in soft grays and charcoals and blacks, adding to the stark feel of imprisonment.

And no Graysen.