Her eyes find mine in the dark, wide and wet. "Iowyn?"
"Yeah." I'm already pulling her up, checking her face, her arms. Bruises under her nightgown, blooming across her collarbone—yellow at the edges, purple at the center. New. He's been busy since the plaza. Took out his fear on the only target he had left.
My hands are shaking with rage now.
I'm going to kill him.
Not a thought. A fact.
"We have to go." I keep my voice low. "Right now. Can you walk?"
"I—yes. What's—"
"Later. Come on."
She doesn't argue, doesn't ask questions. Just takes my hand and follows.
I left her here.
I left and he did this.
But there's no room for that right now, so I shove it down and keep moving.
We slip into the corridor with her bare feet silent on the rugs. I keep her behind me, between my body and the wall, myeyes tracking the doors as we pass—closed, closed, closed—my ears straining for footsteps, breathing, the creak of a floorboard.
Third floor. The main bedchamber. Koshin.
The stairs are wide here, grand, made for displays of wealth my father doesn't have anymore. I take them two at a time with Seris's hand tight in mine, and when we reach the top, the door to my father's room is already open.
Yellow light spills into the hallway. Candles. The smell of copper underneath.
I stop at the threshold.
My father.
His arms are stretched wide, wrists bound to the bedposts with what looks like curtain cord—strangled by his own décor. His shirt is torn open and his face is a mess: one eye swollen shut, lip split, blood smeared across his chin and dripping onto the carpet he always yelled at us for staining. He's breathing, ragged and wet, and one good eye is fixed on the figure crouched in front of him.
Koshin.
He looks up when I enter. His eyes have gone silver and there's blood on his knuckles.
"You found her."
"Yeah."
"Good." He rises and steps back, leaving space between himself and my father. Space for me.
My father's head turns. One eye lands on me and I watch him try to rearrange his face into something fatherly, something sympathetic. He never could do it right. The mask always slipped.
"Iowyn." His voice is wrong—thready, desperate. "Iowyn,please. You're my daughter. My blood. We're family, you can't—"
I step forward.
The gun is in my hand. I don't remember drawing it.
He used to hit me for less than this—for speaking out of turn, for looking at him wrong, for existing in a way that inconvenienced him. Now I'm standing in his bedroom with a gun pointed at his face and he wants to talk about family.
"The bruises on Seris." My voice doesn't shake. "Are they from tonight, or yesterday?"
