“Also, you are to keep his dust until his eighteenth birthday,” my mother added.
Well, that wasn’t going to earn me any brownie points with Remo’s little brother. Not that I needed to ingratiate myself to the rascal, but if I wanted a future with his brother, I most definitely didn’t want to be at war with another person in his family.
“Okay.” I rubbed my palms against my thighs, about to get up, when I remembered something. “Iba, Josh said he had an informant. That’s how he knew where the portal was and where it led. Did he by any chance tell you who it was?”
My father’s jaw flexed. “Joshuaisthe informant. Gregor owed him agajoï, and Locklear asked what had become of his sister. That’s how he found out about the supernatural prison.”
That weasel! “Why didn’t he go get her himself then?”
“Because he didn’t think Gregor would ever let him back out.”
“Why didn’t he askyouto help him?”
“Because he assumed I knew about the prison and would be plenty happy to lock him inside. Honestly, it would’ve been tempting.”
To think he was the newdraca. “Is he the one who told you about Kingston?”
“No.” Nima sighed. “That was your grandmother. The one on your dad’s side.”
My father knocked his shoulder into hers. “We can’t all have flawless relatives.”
They might’ve surpassed the shock-factor of this revelation, but I most definitely hadn’t. “Was Addison complicit with Gregor? She wanted you dead, Iba?”
“No,amoo.” Iba rubbed his jaw, which was in dire need of a shave. “One of her maids heard her muttering while she was high about Gregor sending Kingston into a place called the Scourge, and she went to Silas with the information.”
A wave of goose bumps washed over me. “I could go my entire life without hearing that word again.”
“Sorry.” Iba sent me an apologetic smile that deepened the little lines around his eyes and mouth.
Expelling a breath, I finally climbed to my feet. “Fire and dust may bring some rust, but words will never hurt me, right?”
Palpable worry tightened Nima’s eyes.
“Well, if you guys don’t mind, I’d like to go rest and change out of this outfit.”
“One last thing, Amara,” she said, and my father finished, “You’re grounded.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“Just because you’re our daughter does not give you the right to break the law. Selling your scales on the human black market—”
“I did it to buy you guys an anniversary gift, Iba.”
They exchanged a wordless but loaded look.
My father sighed. “Your motives might’ve been noble, but you still broke the law.”
“But, Iba, haven’t I been punished enough? I did go to actual jail.”Never thought I could play that card . . .
Another look passed between them.
“I had to deactivate a bomb, and fight monstertigri, and—”
“Ace?” my mother said.
“Cat?”
When the corners of my mother’s eyes tipped up in time with the corners of my father’s mouth, I sensed they’d come to a mutual decision about my fate.
