A moment later, Jett’s pain-roughened voice had me twisting around. “Wychthorn’s a wyrm.” He’d lowered a shaky arm from his face, and his agony-glazed eyes focused on my aunt. “A wyrm,” he repeated. “A prize any Horned God would slather over. Why don’t we trade Wychthorn for our mother?”
Fear tightened a hold on my heart.
My aunt’s reply slashed through the room like lightning. “Because we still don’t know which Horned God has your mother.”
“We broker a deal through Sirro,” Jett insisted.
“And risk him stealing Wychthorn for himself and condemning us all to death?” Aunt Valarie shook her head. “No, we stick to the plan. We use Wychthorn to get into the Witches Ball, and we’ll find the Horned God there… We have to.”
I didn’t know what I could do to right this all.
We just needed in.
Nelle could get us in.
We didn’t need to go any further than that.
Kenton stood at the long table where we used to gather to play board games or read or share a casual lunch when we were all kids. He braced both hands on the wooden surface. “And if we don’t?”
“We’ll deal with that outcome then,” my aunt replied.
From where he sat, leaning his back against the couch, Caidan raised his bowed head. “We haven’t even received a request for a Goods Appraisal.”
“We need the Horned Gods’ interest, and so far, no one has bitten,” Kenton added bitterly. “All of this is a wasted exercise if we can’t get into the Witches Ball.”
My aunt was about to reply when the jarring sound of the door opening made her pause. Everyone turned to watch our father stride in and head straight for me.
I assumed he’d come straight from Byron. He grabbed the whiskey bottle and drank straight from the lip, downing it in big gulps, hissing out a breath before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The bottlethunkedonto the cabinet.
Silence.
It was a long, drawn-out moment before he spoke. “You did good.”
Fuck, it didn’t feel like that to me. Using Nelle in that despicable way against her father sickened me.
“Byron’s panicking over what might happen to his daughter… To his family. The Blacksmith needs the piece that Byron holds. When you see him next, you need to break him and get him to hand it over to us.” And there it was. The unspoken—breakher.
The girl was impossible to break. My family was going to learn that.
“Where issheexactly?” my aunt asked, rising gracefully from her seat and drawing nearer.
Shit, here it was.
I steeled myself for her wrath. “My quarters.”
Shock swamped the room.
I could feel the question—why?—rolling in everyone’s minds.
Aunt Valarie took a slow, measured step closer, and I braced my stance. Her voice was silken menace. “What is she doing in there?”
I still had no fucking idea how to reply to that.
Ferne, my brave, clever sister, saved me.
Her authoritative tone cut through the tense moment, distracting everyone. “We need to find out what Aldert Pellan knows. We need to know if Danne revealed to his father that he’d stolen Nelle. If he revealed she wasother.“
My aunt shared a look with my father. Both remained silent, yet an answer seemed to pass between them. She nodded in confirmation. “I’ll take a trip up to the Carpellean Mountains and see what I can find out.”
