"That is none of your concern."
I stare at her. "How can you say that? I've seen them. I've watched them scream for families they were never supposed to remember."
She looks up, and her eyes flash silver. "Weren't you the one who refused to continue making the elixirs?" Her voice could cut glass. "I think it's a little late to start caring about those laborers now. Don't you?"
I knew she would say it. I've been waiting for it since I walked through the door. It still lands like a knife between my ribs. Without thinking, I reach for the bond. Malachi's presence flickers at the edge of my awareness, warm and steady, and I breathe a little easier.
"So, to be clear,” I say, keeping my voice controlled. The way she taught me. "You won't tell me where Jordi is. You won't acknowledge that the Council violated the treaty. You won't explain why they sent silent guards instead of legion, or why they did it while the city was looking the other way, or why my brother was dragged off in chains like a criminal."
I study her the way Malachi studies me, searching for cracks in the stone. Her eyes are hard. Her jaw is clenched. But she doesn't look away, and she doesn't answer. Fine. If she won't give me answers, I'll give her truths.
"Come to think of it," I continue, "you've always been good at diverting our attention when something important is happening. The Council learned that trick from someone."
Her eyes flash silver. A warning.
I don't stop.
"Perhaps you taught them. Or perhaps you learned it together."
"It seems to me," she says, her voice dangerously soft, "that you came here with all the answers already in hand. You merely wanted to give me a piece of your mind."
"No." My voice cracks, and I hate it. "I came here hoping I was wrong. Hoping you didn't know about Jordi. Hoping you would be as outraged as I am that the Council broke the treaty, that they took one of us, that they—" I have to stop. Swallow the knot forming in my throat. "I came here for help, Mother. The way I've always come to you for help."
She says nothing.
"But I see now that was foolish of me."
She rises from her chair with the slow deliberateness of a predator. She's only a few inches taller than me, but at this moment, she seems to fill the entire room. The power radiating off her is almost visible, silver flickering at the edges of her irises. I release my clasped hands and lift my chin. Hold my ground. Even as every instinct tells me to kneel.
"Everything I have done," she says, "and everything I do, is to protect you. To keep you safe."
"From what?"
"From things you do not need to know about."
I lower my gaze to the desk between us. The papers covered in her elegant script. The seal of Veritas pressed into wax. I think about what Malachi said about gods treating mortals like pawns.
About games that never end. It clicks, then. The thing I've always known but never let myself name. To Mother, we willalways be children. Pieces to be moved. Minds to be shaped. She calls it protection, but protection and control wear the same face when you're the one being protected. We obey because she raised us to believe we have no choice.
This isn't a new realization. The seven of us have whispered about it in dark corners since we were old enough to question anything. But it's never felt this sharp. This urgent.
Mother was never warm like Anala, never gentle like Freida. But she was the one who claimed us. Named herself our guardian. Taught us to embrace our gifts, pushed us to reach our full potential. But what is potential, really, when you're only allowed to grow in the shape of a cage?
It takes everything I have to lift my head again. When I do, I find her seated once more, reading a foreign newspaper as if I've already left. As if this conversation is finished. As if I'm finished. My sigil burns. I’m not.
"I have done everything you asked of me." My voice shakes despite my efforts to steady it. "We all have. We followed your rules. We stayed in our territory. We kept your secrets and swallowed your lies and pretended this cage was a home."
Her eyes lift to mine. Cold. Assessing. I don't stop.
"You promise outsiders safety and acceptance. You tell us to honor the treaty, to stay away from the Council, to trust that you know what's best. And yet when they take one of us, when they drag one of your own to the Keep in chains, you sit behind this desk and do nothing."
My voice breaks. I hate it. I keep going anyway.
"When someone you raised, someone you claimed as family, disappears for three days without a word, you do nothing. You know nothing. You say nothing." I take a breath that feels like swallowing glass. "What else will you allow, Mother? How much more will you let them take before you decide it matters?"
She's quiet for a long moment. When she speaks, her voice is softer than I've heard it in years. "You have to trust that I have your best interests at heart. That everything I do, I do for you." She meets my eyes. "Your brother is safe. I give you my word. Is that not enough?"
Her word. The same word she's given us a thousand times. The word we were taught to treat as law. I laugh. The sound is shaky, cracked, nothing like humor.
