"Would you like butter?"

Do I want butter on my fucking scone?

I pinched the bridge of my nose and drew in a long, deep breath, which kind of made my irritation worse because all I was doing was inhaling all those glorious smells of freshly baked loaves of bread and pastries, onions and tomatoes frying with oregano, and omelets oozing with cheese. My stomach twisted painfully with hunger.

I dropped my hand away to brace it on my hip and gritted out between clenched teeth, "YES." I might have bitten the word out too harshly because the Purcell girl flinched and shrank back. Her thin brown eyes flared wide and grew more fearful.

The kitchen was a warm respite from the long bleak night and the task of carrying limp bodies that grew stiffer the longer it took to find them scattered all over the vast lawn. We'd finished carrying the last of the dead down the flight of stone steps beneath the Deniauds' mansion into the cool, dark holding cells as dawn approached. I was just as cold and hollow as those I'd worked quietly alongside, and a little worse off because I was hungry. And much worse right now, I was being served by the most timid and slow-moving girl because Tabitha refused to offer me food earlier.

The kitchen was a hive of industry, clashing sounds, and comforting smells. While the sous chef and the junior chefs called out to one another as they worked as a team, twisted loaves of bread were being pulled out of the big commercial ovens and eggs were cracked into buttery pans or pots of swirling water. The sound of a knife on wood was a rapid tempo to match the organized chaos as vegetables were diced, sliced, and julienned. The delicious smell of crisping potato rostis permeated the air, along with mushrooms bathed in frothing butter and rosemary.

The Chef barked out orders to his brigade who snapped immediately into action. He leaned back from the stove as fiery orange flames burst all around his frying pan after he doused it with olive oil that spat onto the burner. His knife-scarred hand wrapped around several rations of bacon and he tossed them into the pan. They sizzled and spat and sent a mouth-watering aroma into the hot room. My stomach growled in protest.

The Purcell girl and I were tucked around the corner from the main thoroughfare where men and women bustled about the stoves and preparation stations. The girl was taking fucking forever to go to the cool room and return with a slab of butter and it seemed like a century before she located a butter knife. It was like watching paint dry the way she slowly and warily moved around me. She kept shooting nervous glances over tense shoulders that were almost at ear level. And it wasn't just her, either. The whole brigade took turns to dart quick apprehensive looks my way.

Heat wafted in thin wisps as she split the hot scone in half. Her hand trembled as she slowly scraped butter onto her knife and then spread it across the scone.

Hurry. The. Hells. Up!

I was itching to grab the godsdamned butter knife from her and do it myself.

Why couldn't I just grab what I wanted to eat and leave?!

Because the Chef took one look at me as I strode in, filthy and still wearing my weapons strapped across my chest and down my spine, and he'd ordered me into the corner. Crowther or not, he didn't care. This was his domain and in here I was a nobody. I would have bitten back at being disrespectfully spoken to, but he was the one with all the food and I was starving. I glared at everyone as I rapped my knuckles on the wood countertop in vexation.

Everyone but the Chef was on edge, and it wasn't what had occurred outside. It was because I was in here practically crackling with thunder. And I was in here because Tabitha Catt cleverly avoided me earlier when she passed around mugs of coffee and something to eat. By the time I'd weaved around the cluster of men and women trying to catch Tabitha's eye, she held her chin defiantly high as she blatantly ignored me and marched quickly down the pebbled path and back into the mansion. Astonished, I gazed around at everyone. They all had hot coffee to warm their hands and heat their throats, and comforting food to fill their stomachs against the chilly snap of dawn.

Everyone. But. Me.

I was fucking cold and miserable and starving.

STARVING!

Finally, thank Zrenyth, the cheesy scone slathered with melting butter was tentatively offered toward me on a small white plate. I wasn't sure the Purcell girl was even breathing as she kept her unblinking eyes on mine the entire time like I were some kind of wild beast that was going to bite her hand off.

Tempting.

Suddenly the kitchen door blew open.

It crashed against the wall with an almighty crack.

At the abrupt noise, the girl squealed and jumped in fright. The plate jostled and danced in her hands and then slipped from her loose grip. I sucked in a horrified breath, my stomach clenching in anger and hunger as I watched my delicious, buttery, cheesy scone fall onto the floor, butter-side down, with a splat. Oh my fucking gods!

Whatshisname-Osborne-Oswaine—I'd already completely forgotten it—stumbled inside huffing and puffing as if he'd run a marathon. He braced a hand against the steel counter where the junior chefs were slicing tomatoes and grating potatoes and sagged his hip against it.

The Chef and his brigade twisted around to see who had caused the ruckus.

Splaying his other hand across his heaving chest, Osborne-Oswaine canted forward, trying to catch his breath. His grimy, curly hair bounced stiffly. "Has anyone,"—he huffed out— "seen Varen Crowther? Please...I need to find him."

At this point he was unaware I was standing behind him, glaring down in dismay at my scone while the Purcell girl cautiously slunk away. I tried to get a grip on my simmering anger—and failed.

"WHAT THE HELLS DO YOU WANT?!" I roared, my hands fisted by my sides.

He jolted ramrod straight and slowly turned around. His blotchy cheeks paled and for some reason, he seemed to have lost his voice. All he managed to do was gape, and nothing but a squeak came from his lips.

I was just about to snap at him, to demand he spit out what he'd come to find me for when the edge of my awareness was brushed by something malevolent, ancient, and vicious.

The bright lights above us flickered and fizzed, dimmed and brightened.

Every single person froze. All that could be heard was the spitting and sizzling coming from the food being fried in pans or on the grill.

My skin prickled with goosebumps and all the fine hair on my body rose as the air began to thicken and thrum with oncoming dark magic. It pulsed in time with the footfall that trembled the floor beneath us like a distant rumble of an earthquake shifting through a mountain range.

Osborne-Oswaine dragged in a breath and then expelled the words in a frantic rush. "Mr. Crowther, Master Sirro wants to see you immediately!"

Hellsgate!

I spun around and surged forward through the kitchen and down the hallway, throwing my senses outward to hunt down Sirro. I rounded a corner and a nightmarish squall of darkness swept toward me. Magic blustered down the hallway like savage stormwinds blowing through a derelict house. Heedless, I ran right into Sirro's ferocious power. It whipped through my long hair and raked against my skin with tiny teeth as if it was tasting me, and I followed it right back to its source—Sirro.

When I had entered the mansion heading for the kitchen, the hallways had been choked with the Deniauds' servants, busily moving in and out of the house, assisting with the clean-up after Jurgana's devastation or organizing the heirs and surviving guests as convoys arrived to transport them back to their Houses. Now, they had stopped in their tracks and lined the hallway walls, frozen in silent bows as Sirro stalked through their ranks. He didn't even give them a second glance.

The Horned God's magic lightened from inky darkness to silvery strands as he strode purposefully down the marbled hallway within the heart of his storm. Deep grooves of anger lined Sirro's ageless face as his fierce gaze clashed with mine. I'd seen the Horned God enraged before but this was something else. His teeth flashed almost like fangs as he snapped, "Varen, with me!"

His immense power hummed a lethal note as it arched and whorled, crept along the walls and through open archways, the otherworldly threads spearing out as if they were searching for someone or something.

My mind whirled back to what Sirro had shared with me in the early hours of the morning, that he'd felt something when he'd first arrived and had begun to hunt it.

He pivoted around smoothly and I fell in beside him.

We made our way through the hallways at a clipped pace. The sun was beginning to rise and the sky was streaked with pastel colors—violets and pinks and dusky blues—as we stepped outside through a servants' entranceway. We crunched across the pebbled path and servants stepped aside to let us pass, bowing as we strode by.

I chanced a sideways peek to find Sirro focused dead ahead with a glint of a blade in his narrowed golden eyes. While we walked I tried to work out what was going on, why the hells Sirro needed me. My senses were on high alert as well as my nerves. I was on edge and the air licking my exposed skin was chilled as if it heralded oncoming sleet.

Set a little further away was an elaborate garden that curved around the lawns and along the western side of the mansion. The gardeners had made their creation of a wild unrestrained garden, with trees, flaxes, and wildflowers, seem effortless and inviting.

Just before we reached the faux tower that rounded the chateau-esque mansion, Sirro marched off the path and onto the dewy grass, heading straight toward a spot beneath a tree, its wide-spread boughs shading the flaxes and lavender that surrounded it.

Sirro came to a halt. His power coiled around him and his Familiar too. He shot me a sharp look but didn't say anything.

I threw out my senses, easily noting Sirro's scent as I glanced around. Blades of grass had been crushed beneath the soles of shoes. Two—Sirro, and someone else, a smaller footprint. Whoever it was had stumbled backward right into the garden. Several flax leaves were bent, with sap oozing from the creases, and a rain of fresh autumnal leaves was scattered on the verdant ground beneath the tree.

Judging by the loose black fibers hooked into the tree trunk's rough bark, whoever it was had been pinned there by Sirro. My breath almost left me in a whoosh when I recognized the scent floating on the air—wild roses—Tabitha. My nostrils flared. Cold vicious anger poured through my body. What the fuck had Sirro been doing to Tabitha?

When a snarl burned its way up my throat, I remembered just in time that I couldn't make it seem like I knew Tabitha, a servant, nor could I take on a Horned God either. And right now, I couldn't be sure exactly what had taken place between them. My jaw flexed but I tamed my anger and tampered it right down.

Sirro cocked his head. His gaze was unyielding and demanding as it slid my way. "I need you to pick apart the scents. There should be three—myself, a young woman, and a third. Widen your search, the third is a short distance away."

And there was. Sirro, Tabitha, and a third very faint scent, so faint there was almost no trace of it. I was trying to decide what it smelled like. It had a decidedly ancient air about it, decay and wrongfulness, like the reek of decomposing compost and something else I couldn't quite work out. It lingered in the air but completely disappeared elsewhere. Either it had blended within the servants that had come and gone or whatever it was had vanished.

"Can you scent it?" Sirro asked, staring at the very spot I smelled the third presence.

I frowned, rounding on him. "What is it?"

He made a slight humming noise of contemplation as he continued staring. He clicked his tongue before meeting my gaze. "I don't know. But it's what I detected last evening when I first arrived."

I couldn't help myself. I had to know. "Who was the girl?" I asked, trying to make it sound as if I wasn't prying. I shifted my weight, my filthy shoes sliding along the moist earth as I assumed a casual pose to hide the fact I wanted to throttle the life out of him.

Sirro gave me a strange look, one I couldn't quite read, but it left me with an off-kilter feeling. Worse, I wondered and feared if it had anything to do with what he'd done to Tabitha.

"A servant," he finally answered as he relaxed and flashed a smile that revealed a sliver of white teeth. "A Between Maid and very pretty in an unassuming way."

Territorial fury rushed through my veins and stung like shards of glass. There was no way I wanted Tabitha anywhere near the Horned God. He could so easily claim her for his harem. My fingers curled into white-knuckled fists and I had to force them to unclench.

Pretty, he'd called her.

Sickly horror curdled my blood at the thought that Sirro might have tried something with Tabitha. Something she wasn't willing to do.

Sirro's smile faded as his gaze became more faraway with thought. He flicked a glance at the tree trunk he'd pinned her against. His thick dark brows nudged together as he said quietly, "She took me by surprise when I saw her standing there beneath the tree. She'd been so young when I first laid my eyes upon her all the years ago, peeking beneath the bed... For a moment I thought..." He shook his head slowly, his lips pinching together. "Nevermind," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

I frowned as my anger faded. It was an odd thing to say—first saw her peeking beneath the bed. From what he'd inferred, he'd met Tabitha years ago.

He blinked, then shot me a swift curious glance. "Tabitha Catt is no one, yet someone of interest," Sirro enigmatically informed me. "And now she's all grown up."

I schooled myself to look blank as if I shouldn't know the name at all.

Unease scraped down my spine while Sirro watched me with quiet interest as if he knew something that I didn't or something that perhaps I should know. "Does the name Tabitha Catt mean anything to you, Varen?"

I wasn't sure what his angle was. My first thought speared to the idea that perhaps he knew what had transpired between myself and Tabitha this weekend, and what kind of leverage he would have over me if he wanted to expose my tryst with a servant.

I shook my head: no.

He sighed through his nose as if I'd disappointed him somehow.

Sirro smoothed a hand down the lapels of his jacket as he moved beneath the tree. The first rays of sunshine lightened the sky and poked through the leafy canopy to glance off his silver cufflinks. A shaft of light dusted his disheveled hair with gold, while the dappled shadows made his dark-copper skin turn more russet, like leaves in fall. "Perhaps this might remind you." He angled his chin toward the front end of the mansion, indicating for me to join him as he started walking across the lawn back towards the path of gray and white stones. As we treaded through wet grass he began to speak. "Tabitha Catt was seven years old when she stumbled out of the Hemmlok forest, having survived a horrific event. She remembered nothing of what had transpired that night. Indeed she remembered nothing of her life at all. Some wondered if whatever she'd experienced that night had traumatized her so much her mind had blocked it to protect her from it."

"What was she doing out there?"

The Hemmlok Forest was dangerous the deeper one went into its ancient and gnarled depth.

"Apparently she spent a fair bit of time out in the forest with her mother, Asta. Her mother...I heard, had become increasingly erratic."

My gaze slashed to his, wondering what he meant by that, and just as the new puzzle pieces of Tabitha started to rotate around in my head—she'd lost her memory—Sirro's sly amber eyes glistened with anticipation. "If I remember the story right, you discovered Miss Catt first, Varen."

My footsteps faltered.

Shock was swift and brutal and crunched the air from my lungs.

When Tabitha had told me her name in the kitchen cool room last night, I'd experienced an insubstantial moment of recognition. I'd felt I had heard Tabitha's name before, that I did know her from somewhere, sometime else...but at the time I'd been drowning in the way her soft body pressed against mine, and lusting after those pretty lips to dwell on it any further.

And those eyes of hers, the shifting color of green and blue, had been familiar too, familiar in a way I couldn't pinpoint.

Tabitha Catt.

I had met her before.

And now I remembered from where.

What's wrong, little servant?

I came to a standstill, staring vacantly at the wrought iron gate at the end of the path. I rubbed my fingertips across my chest as a leaden heaviness sank through me.

"The only thing Tabitha remembered was her name," Sirro went on to say. Pebbles chinked and crunched beneath his shoes as he moved around to stand before me, forcing my attention back on him. "She'd been out wandering the forest that night with her mother, who, it was later pieced together, had been killed by one of the beasts that roamed the forest. No doubt eaten since there was nothing whatsoever to find of her. Tabitha and her mother were servants for—"

"Lower House Szarvas." I ended for him, the words more air than voice. I lowered my hand back to my side. Squeezing my eyes shut, I dropped my head as hot nausea burned my gut with self-loathing.