Page 258 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

Kade smells freshly baked bread.

His mouth waters.

‘You live here?’ Lachlan asks.

‘For now. I assume, perhaps with naive optimism, that the three of you have come in such…’ She gestures vaguely at Riley without looking at him. ‘Diplomatic fashion to avoid destroying the alliance that Vasily worked so very hard to broker.’

‘Yes,’ Kade answers with more confidence than he feels.

Her gaze softens. ‘Hello, Julian.’

Blaire Montbelliard is wearing a terracotta silk blouse tucked into high-waisted cream trousers, barefoot. She has her jet-black hair scooped up into a messy yet stylish bun atop her head, a few tiny braids interwoven. The green stone at her throat glints whenever she moves.

Kade doesn’t bother correcting her this time around. ‘Hi.’

‘I see much change in you, my dear,’ she observes, her voice so soothing. ‘Silly has told you many things, I believe. And this, I suppose, is Riley Harker,’ she adds, her gaze flitting for the first time onto Kade’s boss and brother. ‘My other nephew.’

‘The fuck does that mean?’ Lachlan asks sharply.

‘Precisely what you think,’ she tells him. ‘Isabel Seravienne was my sister, and Céliane’s too. We were born to the corrupt Sovereign of Aurelion. Julian is my nephew. Jean-Marie too, although…’ Blaire gives a graceful shrug. ‘Riley suits him far better.’

‘Did she choose my name?’ Riley asks quietly. ‘Isabel?’

‘I was not there, but I would think so, yes.’

‘Wait, Lee is my aunt?’ Kade blurts out.

‘We both are. I am sorry I’ve not been able to be as present in your life as she is.’ Her green eyes slide onto Riley once more. ‘You have been very well guarded these past seven years.’

‘This is why you were there,’ Lachlan says, almost to himself. ‘My God, this is why you were there in the Estate, isn’t it? For Jules.’

‘Isabel was the eldest. It was her responsibility to secure the bloodline and marry well. Our putrid father demanded nothing less, and he sold her off to Penhalyx as soon as he could. I was the youngest in the family. Céliane in the middle. When we learnt that her plan to escape had gone wrong, we were little more than children ourselves. Even so, we vowed that we would find a way to bring her sons home, both of them.’

‘My talent permitted me to break from the gilded machinery of court, and Céliane was disowned outright after our father discovered her transformation. The loss of his prized son truly sent him into madness beyond repair,’ she explains with none of her earlier sharpness, ‘and what he did next forged the Death Knot between Céliane and me. Even so, we vowed to bring Isabel’s children home and devoted our lives to it, but, as we were yet to discover, Penhalyx was not a man to be trifled with.’

‘You were there to retrieve Jules.’

‘Julian was my focus, yes. I had managed to infiltrate the Estate some years before your arrival, working as an assistant to Clara Barnes. Céliane always had a great affinity with technological innovation. Between the two of us, retrieving both boys should have been exceedingly simple, but, as I said…’ Blaire wanders into her open-plan kitchen. ‘Penhalyx was no fool.’

Kade glances at Riley. ‘Did you know this?’

Riley gives a single nod.

It takes a lot to swallow down his anger, but he manages, knowing it can wait until later.

‘Silly said you’re a Sway,’ Lachlan intones, watching her.

‘He is correct.’

‘Then you should have had no trouble getting Jules out of there.’

‘And yet we have had nothing but trouble in this Godforsaken country ever since we arrived here. The man who had taken it upon himself to hide and keep Isabel’s firstborn was a notorious thug who had the good fortune to build his empire directly atop a convergence of powerful ley lines, obscuring him from electronic surveillance and frustrating every method of divination at our disposal or Penhalyx’s.

‘Isabel’s second-born lay directly in the clutches of the man who had her killed after she delivered him.’ Blaire’s face turns pale, her lips thinning into a hard line. ‘Getting close to Julian was nigh upon impossible when he was a baby, a toddler or a child. He was never permitted outside. One of us had to get in, and by the time I managed it, even at the very lowest rung, my newest problem had only just come to be.’

‘What problem?’

‘Jessamine.’ Blaire wipes her eyes and exhales slowly, her eyes closed until she finds whatever tranquillity she was searching for. ‘You may as well stay for tea.’