My hand flew to my mouth. “Oh my god. How old were you?”
“Four.”
My heart shattered. Four years old. The age when children should be playing with dolls, not watching their world end in blood and steel.
She cleared her throat and forced herself back into motion, ushering me to an ornate chair before a golden mirror. “Please sit so I can do your hair.”
I sat down numbly. My mother was dead. My father had been possessed and destroyed by a demon; Angelo had been forced to kill him. And I’d watched my brother nearly die, helpless to save him. I knew exactly what it felt like to lose everything. To have your family ripped apart by forces you couldn’t control.
Brynn’s parents had been murdered. Mine had been destroyed in different ways, but the pain—the grief—that was the same.
She began combing my hair with steady, practiced hands, her face smoothing into an unreadable mask. I hesitated, then forced out the question lodged in my throat. “Are your brothers here too?”
“No.” Her proud gaze met mine in the mirror. “I was eight when they escaped.”
My heart leaped. “Escaped? They left you?”
“We were separated. They couldn’t get to me. They didn’t have a choice. I was attending Queen Alanna’s bath. Well, she was a princess at the time.”
I thought about the forest Ari and I passed through and wondered if they were watching us like Robin Hood. “So they’ve been hiding all this time?”
An idea struck me. If Brynn’s brothers were organizing resistance, hiding from the queen...they’d want to know about Ari’s plans. About the army he wanted to bring to our world. They might even help me stop him—if I could find them. “Where did they go?”
She shook her head slowly, her expression troubled. “I don’t know. No one does. They have searched for them for years, but my brothers are clever—and desperate. They vanished into the wilds beyond these walls, even her illusions can’t reach,” Brynn said quietly. “Some days I tell myself they’re safe. That they’re gathering strength, waiting for the moment to strike.” Her voice wavered, the first crack in her calm facade. “Other days, I wonder if they’re even still alive.”
The pain in her eyes was too familiar. I’d worn that same look when my brother was missing—when I thought him dead, or worse, suffering somewhere I couldn’t reach him.
Her hands tightened briefly on the comb. “But if they are, the queen will never stop hunting them. And she will use me as bait until the day they return.”
The words hit too close. I’d been used as bait too—Ari had taken me to control Enzo, to manipulate the people I loved. Being reduced to leverage, to a tool for someone else’s agenda...I knew that violation intimately. “I’m sorry. No one should have to live like that.”
“How many brothers do you have?”
“Seven.”
“Seven brothers,” I murmured, stunned.
I swallowed hard. “Why did House Cormac want to conquer your family in the first place?”
Brynn set down the comb, then picked up a soft cloth and began patting my hair dry. Her soft touch reduced the tension in my muscles but her next words broke through the relaxation.
“Because my family had something they wanted.”
My brow furrowed. “Power?”
“Yes. But not the kind you can see.” Her pale eyes met mine in the mirror, sharp and unyielding. “Our magic was unique. Rare. Dangerous.” She lowered her voice, and the hair on my arms stood up. “Like yours.”
My breath caught. “Mine?”
Brynn nodded. “The shadows run in my bloodline just as your magic runs in you. House Cormac feared us because we could do what no one else could—tear through their illusions, reveal the lies they’ve built their throne on. So they came for us.”
She stepped closer. “And now they see you the same way they saw me. The queen knows what you are, Joy. She knows exactly what your power can do. And she will twist it, use it, or destroy it —whichever serves her best.”
Brynn’s lips curled in bitter rage. “That’s why you’re here. You’re not a guest. You’re a weapon. Just like I was.”
“I know.”
Brynn clasped my shoulder gently. “Listen, you have to be from the House of Whitveil. Your father or mother had to be from this house.”
