“Is that what happened last night? They stole women?” I ask.

“They also broke the gates and shredded some guards, but yes,” Able says. “While you were busy getting mounted by your animal husband, we were here fighting to keep our people safe.”

My father pounds his fist on the table. “Enough.”

“Was anyone important hurt?” I ask, edging around the question I want to pose and trying to speak their language.

“It was just a few whores. I think we’ll live,” Able says.

I almost flinch. They were our people—they very well could be the friends who helped me keep the women of Lunameade safe.

“Is that why so many women have gone missing recently? If the Drained have evolved, why do they only want women?” I try so hard to sound curious and confused instead of accusatory, but I can tell my father isn’t buying it.

“The Drained have evolved to develop a taste for flesh to go with the blood. We have made a careful study of their changes in behavior, and we have found that they seem to have a use for the women,” my father says, tapping the edge of his spoon on the side of the bowl.

“Alive? For what?” I ask.

“For breeding,” Able answers before slurping a spoonful of soup.

My stomach turns over when I think of the beast and its fathomless eyes. I should be quiet. I should just go along to get along, but I can’t.

I don’t know if I fight because I like the feeling of making a scene or because I’d been taught the only way to be taken seriously in this family is to show my teeth.

I set my glass down too hard on the table, and everyone jumps. “How long have you known about this? It would have been valuable⁠—”

“We tell you what you need to know,” my father snaps.

I cross my arms and stop trying to control my aura. “Well, this is a thing I needed to know when I was face-to-face with one.”

All three of them go still. The anger in the room dissipates in an instant.

My mother sits up straighter, her expression shifting into her best approximation of concern. “What do you mean?”

I run my finger around the rim of my glass. I can’t tell them the truth. While directing the horde of Drained toward the fort ten years ago might have been done out of necessity, this particular piece of information in the wrong hands could see Henry’s family removed from power there. As much as my husband annoys me, he’s a much more reasonable heir than Stefan Laurence.

I’m a practiced liar, but my father is just as practiced at detecting lies; any indication of my deception will stoke his paranoia even higher.

I steady myself with a bracing breath. “I mean that in my travels, I encountered an evolved Drained one, and it was clear immediately that its behavior was different. Fortunately, Gaven was able to take care of it swiftly.” I cock my head to the side. “Our agreement was that you share information with me and I will share it with you. If you don’t share a known threat, I can’t be prepared to meet it.”

My father’s jaw ticks as he stares through me. “They are more cunning, and you should be careful out there and stay close to Gaven.”

I would love to lay into him, but I need this dinner to be over soon because I’m exhausted. I want to get back to my room as soon as possible so I’ll be ready in case Aidia sneaks out after getting Henry’s message.

“I’m quite tired after our journey, so I will give you the basics quickly and you can tell me why you’ve summoned me,” I say. “The deal that the Havenwoods made with us seems to be their true purpose, though I doubt it’s their only one. From what I can tell, they are stretched very thin with able-bodied guards. Many men died in the attack ten years ago, so they have older fighters and younger ones, but the generation between has been decimated.”

“Kellan seems to think the same,” my father says.

“Yes, well, Kellan suggested that there might be a reason why you’re so nervous about the Havenwoods showing up. That there might be a reason for them to blame us—” I lick my lips. “To blame you for their misfortune.”

My father’s aura sucks in close to his skin. “He shouldn’t have told you that.”

“Is it true?” I ask.

I take a long sip of my wine and watch my father over the rim of the glass. His reaction to this information will tell me a lot.

I lick the excess from my lips before speaking again. “I assume it had to do with their well.”

My mother drops her spoon, and Able pauses with his wine halfway to his mouth.

I watch them in my periphery, but I keep my entire focus on my father. The blue light around him picks up speed. He’s furious. I can’t help but brace myself with my hand gripping the seat of my chair.

It’s been many years, but I have still not mastered the cold, paralyzing terror of knowing he’s angry. I doubt I ever will.

“I knew about their well, but we didn’t need it,” my father says, his voice wavering with barely leashed anger.

I scoff. “You weren’t curious about what it might do?”

He slams his fist on the table and points at me. “What would you have done? There was a horde of those evolved things coming at the city. I tried my best to brace for it, but I couldn’t hold the tide of them back myself. Even with Able’s help, it would have been impossible. So I did what I had to do to ensure they headed north. I set part of the forest on fire. You know how fast holy fire spreads. I used all of my magic to force them away from the city. Then I rode out and shepherded them all the way to the wall of Mountain Haven. Once they smelled the blood inside, they stopped trying to fight their way back to the city. I left them there without looking back. I thought the wall would hold. I didn’t realize how much they had evolved, but I’d do all of it again for our people.”

Able is so still, I’m not sure he’s breathing.

After a long moment, my brother laughs—a loud, hysterical laugh. “Yes,” he says between great, gasping breaths. “I’m sure you did it all for our safety and not your own greed.”

He laughs harder, and my father’s aura swirls faster; he’s getting angrier by the second.

Able looks at me. “I didn’t know about this, but I—” He gasps with laughter. “I saw the aftermath. Those things found a weak spot in the wall and they clawed at it over and over. When we went back to investigate afterward, we found the remnants of claw marks in the stone.”

Able can’t seem to stop himself. His eyes tear and he completely comes undone in a fit of laughter.

The dining room door cracks open and Able’s bodyguard, Nick, rushes in with Gaven close behind him. Nick has something in his hand that looks like a syringe. When Able sees him, he just laughs harder.

“Come to shut me up again, Nick?” Able shouts.

Nick plunges the needle into his arm, and Able’s laughter cuts off abruptly. He sighs, and a moment later, he slumps back in his chair, unconscious.

“Get him out of here,” my father says.

Gaven and Nick enlist the help of my mother’s guard, Fallon, and the three of them carry my hulking brother from the room with great effort.

Moments later, the doors open and the servants return to clear our plates and replace our soup with roasted chicken. My parents eat as if nothing is amiss. I pick at my food, knowing that I need my strength, but still too unsettled from the stress of the day to keep much down.

“Why did you summon me back already?” I ask.

My father sets down his cutlery and leans back in his chair. “As you saw tonight, Rafe is becoming a very big problem. He publicly asked for more responsibility. Of course, he framed it as a way to prove to the people and the Divine how sorry he is for his failure last night, but he’d already run the idea by several of the magical houses before he announced it today. He wants his men to take over the full guard duty of the northern half of the city.”