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His jaw tightens. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know more than you think.”

“No. You know what’s written on those bullshit papers. You don’t know me.”

“No, I guess I don’t,” I agree. “But bloodlines, debt transfers, crimes, and sealed charges paint an interesting portrait when one has the patience to read.”

Something in his face shifts.

Unease, this time.

“You call me a monster,” I say. “Yet you quite literally came from one.”

His eyes narrow. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh,” I say softly. “You don’t know.”

His face hardens. “Know what?”

“Your mother did not land on Purgatory because she was merely poor, unlucky, or inconvenient,” I say. “She was sent there because she killed a man.”

He stares at me. “Liar.”

“Your father,” I continue, ignoring the word. “The man who forced himself on her and thought power would protect him afterward.”

Arlo goes very still.

“She killed him,” I say. “Yet that was not what condemned her.”

His mouth parts slightly as if to speak.

“She ran,” I continue. “A guard tried to stop her, and she stabbed him before he could drag her back. Given her reasons, they might have let her off had she gone willingly.”

Arlo shakes his head once. “No.”

“Yes.”

“My father died when I was a baby. He worked on the farm. My mother wouldn’t lie to me about that.”

“Wouldn’t she?”

His face twists, and I let the question sit.

“Go home and ask her,” I say.

“You’re lying . . . You’re baiting me to leave.” There’s no confidence in his voice, and his breathing is uneven.

I take one more paper from inside my coat and hold it up between two fingers.

“And since we are discussing family secrets, you may want to ask her why Crawly never had her executed for prostitution and breaking curfew when other women were punished for less.”

Arlo’s gaze snaps to mine. “What?”

“Angie,” I say.

“You do not get to speak of my sister,” he growls.

“You mean Crawly’s daughter,” I say.