I’d wasted no time in contacting my sisters. Even Piper had been delighted, bursting out into tears when she’d first seen me. I knew how much her ugly words in Father’s study had been haunting her. I could see it plainly on her face.

We talked in the mornings as I dressed with Ludayn, though it was evening for them. Fran liked to hop in on the calls, and all three of them gathered in the front sitting room as we chatted. I’d spoken to my father too, though the call had been brief and I’d been worried when I’d seen his flushed cheeks and wide grin.

It was only Mira and Piper this morning.

Both of my sister’s exchanged a look I knew all too well as Ludayn brushed through my hair. It very rarely tangled, but I must’ve slept restlessly last night. Azur had been particularly ravenous, and I’d tossed and turned with erotic dreams, waking up wet and slick and aching.

“He left yesterday. He said he would be back in a few days,” Piper answered.

“And you didn’t ask him where he was going?”

Piper shrugged. Her gaze flitted over my shoulder, no doubt to Ludayn, whom she still eyed with mistrust. A mistrust that set my teeth on edge, though I knew that not long ago I would’ve been equally wary of a Kylorr. It shamed me now. Sweet Ludayn, who I now knew smelled like her mother’s steam cakes because she helped her prep them in the mornings before journeying to the keep.

She’d brought me one yesterday, and it had been the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted. Like ambrosia. A cake that had melted on my tongue and left a sweet, thick coating behind that had made my cheeks tingle.

“You know Father,” Mira chimed, though her shrug struck me as nervous. “He likes to travel.”

A stone lodged itself in my belly as anger rose. The old me would’ve pasted on a smile, reassuring my sisters not to worry.

I couldn’t bring myself to do it now, even though I wasn’t there to protect them. Piper let out a long yawn and my sisters promised to call tomorrow. I said my goodbyes with a lump in my throat.

Long after the Halo call that morning, dread continued to nip at my heels throughout the rest of the day. Father had promised me. Why would he do anything to jeopardize our security and safety again? He had daughters. Mira and Piper were beautiful. Though Mira was twenty-three, nearly on the cusp of marrying out of an acceptable age in the Collis, her ethereal beauty would grant her reprieve—especially beyond the Earth colonies. How many times had I heard the collectors threaten to take their payment with her? With Piper?

There was a hatred that mingled with my rage now. One that scared me. Because I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt it quite so well formed. It became a tangible thing in my chest. Something I could hold on to.

If Father had begun borrowing credits again, my sisters weren’t safe. I had the spare money in my own account from Azur—a stipulation in our marriage contract. I could use it to get them off New Everton, out of the Collis. But where would they go? They could go to my grandparents’, my mother’s parents, but they hadn’t spoken to us in years.

They could come here, I thought, my mind wandering as I looked through the lore records late into the afternoon. I was nearly done organizing my section of records. Maazin was absent today. I wasn’t certain where he was, but I had noticed him disappearing sporadically, then reappearing like he’d never been gone. Kalia was in the village since the harvest was drawing nearer and nearer. I’d barely seen her in the last two days, and we’d put the starwood vines on hold until after the ball.

They could come here. To Krynn. To Laras, I thought, stilling and looking around the darkening records room with unseeing eyes.

Would Azur allow it?

Would Azur grant my sisters a residency contract on Krynn?

I didn’t know.

And what about Fran? We were her only family. She had no one else in the Collis, and she’d only stayed on at the estate because I’d begged her. She’d stayed out of loyalty to us. I couldn’t leave her behind.

A decision for another day, I thought, wandering over to Maazin’s desk.

I was alone. Ludayn looked tired that day. She’d told me there had been a mishap that morning in her mother’s shop and so I’d waved her off early, telling her to go rest. I hadn’t seen Azur since breakfast that morning. Ever since the night in the library, we’d taken our morning meals together out on the terrace, though they usually ended with me being his meal. Just that morning, he’d pressed me up against the wall of the keep, his claws digging into my hips, holding me in place, and I’d tried to stifle my moans in case Inasa came out to check on us.

Blowing out a long exhale, I felt a familiar throbbing begin between my thighs. He had me trained. As soon as night fell, as soon as darkness began to crawl across Laras and the Halo orbs began to glow with their golden light, illuminating rooms and hallways…I knew he’d come for me and so my body readied for him.

To distract myself, I began to look through Maazin’s records. We’d decided that I would organize the older ones, he would start with the previous year, and we’d meet halfway. He was a slow worker, however. It looked like he’d only organized the last two years’ worth, while I’d finished about twenty years.

Sighing, I sat down at his desk, dragging the nearest disorganized stack toward me. I didn’t understand how Maazin could work in such chaos. It made my skin crawl.

I began to sort through the records, scanning my eyes over the columns, finding it fascinating to see the purchase agreements, the place of harvest, the type of lore—of which there were many varieties, I’d discovered—the sheer amount of credits exchanged, the weight, the buyer. Even the name of the records keeper, Maazin’s illegible scribble present in that particular column.

I liked the feel of the thick parchment under my fingers. There was something to be said for doing this the traditional way, for keeping records with ink instead of through the Halo.

It was on my second pass of Maazin’s records when my eyes caught on numbers.

Numbers.

Numbers that didn’t quite make sense. Enough to warrant a second look.

I was a stickler for numbers. Because my own family’s safety had relied on those numbers.

I fished out my own Halo from my dress pocket, frowning, and uploaded the numbers, running them through a variety of calculations before I came to the conclusion that Maazin must’ve made a recording error.

For the weight of lore that was sold—to a buyer called “Zor Koreen”—there was a discrepancy of nearly 150,000 credits. Credits that weren’t accounted for, a simple dropping of a digit.

Frowning, I set aside that particular record. It was dated from last year and was tucked amid larger purchase agreements, on the tenth page out of fifteen total for Laras’s harvest.

There was no way for me to check the accounts. No way to verify that the full payment had been made to House Kaalium.

It’s likely just a recording error, I thought. Maazin could be scattered at times, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t thorough in his work. He had a mind for numbers too, and Azur seemed happy enough with his work, even if he got the reports to him late.

But the nagging at the base of my neck wouldn’t cease, so I dug into the next stack of records. From two years ago. It took me nearly an hour of looking through endless documents—a larger harvest year than usual due to favorable weather, according to the notes at the top—until I saw it.

The dread I’d felt from earlier in the afternoon—from the news my father was traveling—returned to me, weighing me down.

“Zor Koreen,” I whispered, tracing the buyer’s name with my fingertips, scrawled out in Maazin’s messy script. A shipment that had been sent out through the northern port, in three metal crates, stuffed to the brim of lore. Nearly 200 vron worth of lore, given the weight in the column.