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Gods, I need to visit an apothecary.

Loss opens up inside me. The only thing worse than losing Nero would be to lose him and also be pregnant with his child. My hand shakes as I carefully set the portrait back in the box. The scroll crackles as I gently unroll it, and I only read three words before I set it down again.

My dearest Kestrel

She wrote this letter to me. I close the box and turn back to Death. “Did you read it?”

“No. This was meant for you. I merely kept it until I could deliver it as she intended.” There’s something in his voice. It could be mistaken for coldness, but I know better. The same feeling is lodged in my chest. Twenty-two years and he still mourns her.

“You loved my mother.” It’s a leap, but not a particularly large one. He kept this box safe for over two decades. I don’t know why he didn’t give it to me earlier, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

“Yes.”

I exhale slowly. I expected him to deny it. Apparently, he really means to tell the truth. “You were romantically involved.”

“We were.”

“Are you my father?” The question bursts out of me almost violently.

Death looks at the box for several seconds. “Your father died a long time ago. I’m sorry.”

I don’t know if I feel relief or disappointment. Mouse has been a father to me in everything but blood. I’m not looking for a replacement, and certainly not with this terrifying man. But at least if Death were my father, his actions during the Trials would make more sense. “I would like you to tell me what happened after my mother became Cinque. The full story.”

He nods. “As I promised.” Death is so still, it’s downright uncanny. He’s not quite looking at me, but he’s not not looking at me, either. “Your mother and I joined the Trials together. We were young and idealistic and thought two votes in the Cinque would be enough to enact change in Caelria. It only took a week after the Trials before we were firmly disabused of that notion.”

“How?”

He frowns, but doesn’t chastise me for interrupting. “The Wands are the most overt in their manipulations, but the Pentacles, Cups, and Swords are just as invested in keeping things balanced exactly how they are.”

“They aren’t balanced, though. The Minor Court have everything and the Dregs have nothing.”

He inclines his head. “Just so. The guild masters have a wider range of priorities, but ultimately they are more of the same. We were unprepared for the wake of the Trials to be just as dangerous as the Trials themselves.”

It’s a relief to focus on the distant past instead of the pain of the last few days. My mother’s shadow may have followed me for my entire life, but I have little memory of the woman herself. Any grief I hold for her is a grief for not being able to know her. It’s not the same as what I’m experiencing now. “Is that why she didn’t come for me in that month between winning and her death?”

“We weren’t sure we could protect you. I had the thought to choose a sliver of territory and bolster its defenses with people loyal to us—and then bring you there—but we never got the chance.” He finally moves, his hand ghosting over the sickles. Not touching, but caressing all the same. “I didn’t realize I’d lost her until it was too late.”

I flinch. “What do you mean?”

“While I was focused on finite safety, she had fallen into…” Death sighs. “Paranoia. She thought she could hear the Moon Themself. She was convinced a Minor Court in the distant past had done something to the gods—trapped them or harmed them in some way—in order to take all the power for themselves.”

Knowing what I do of our current Minor Court, I wouldn’t be surprised to find it to be true. I’m stuck on one thing he just said, though. “You can’t hear Death?”

He goes still, his dark eyes narrowing on my face. “Kestrel,” he says slowly. “I won’t claim to know where the gods went, and They clearly have some connection to this world still because They imbue Their champions with power each Trials, but make no mistake—They are no longer present.”

Except I can hear the Moon. I’ve even seen Them twice now. I work to keep my expression blank. “I’m aware.”

He studies me for several beats more. Long enough that I have to fight not to squirm with the lie of omission. Finally, Death continues. “Osprey began behaving erratically. It drew notice, despite my efforts. If I had realized the depths she’d fallen to…” He shakes his head. “I didn’t. That failure will haunt me for the rest of my life. Kestrel, what’s wrong?”

“Osprey?” My mother’s name. Through my entire life, Mouse never said it. He always called her the Moon, the name she’d died possessing.

Death’s gaze goes soft. “Yes. Osprey.”

My eyes burn, but nothing emerges. “What happened next?”

“She waited until I left our new territory for … a task.” He moves on before I can wonder what that task could possibly be—or if it’s any of my business. “And then she went to the section of the wall that stretches over the bay. She tried to bring it down.”

I wait for his words to rearrange themselves to make sense. They don’t. What he’s suggesting is incomprehensible. “She tried to bring the wall down?”