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But he already knew the answer: He had been scared to have his worst fears confirmed.

A sheen of sweat coated his face from the heat of the fireplace. He felt as though hot coals were burning a hole through his chest. Blair wiped a hand across his forehead, eyeing his mother with poorly veiled impatience.

“Iris seemed pleased with her room,” his mother said, clearly biding for time. “Truthfully, I’m not sure why you brought her here.”

Moral support, Blair thought. Not that he’d counted on her being whisked away barely ten minutes after their arrival.

“Iris seems like a nice girl,” Thomas said bracingly, patting his son on the knee.

Blair ignored him, his attention focused on his mother. Her slender fingers were clutched around the jade necklace resting against her clavicle as if it were a rosary; an obvious sign of her agitation.

“You look a tad thin,” she commented, taking a delicate sip of tea. “I hope they’re feeding you well.”

Blair tried very hard not to scowl. “I’m not their pet.”

His mother raised her eyebrows. “Does that mean you’re the chef of the house, then? I must say, I’m impressed. I don’t think I’ve actually ever seen you in the kitchen, unless it was to steal beakers and measuring spoons for your potions.”

Considering that his parents hired a full-time cook, he was fairly certain his mother hadn’t stepped inside the kitchen for anything more complicated than a glass of port in several decades herself. But the taunt wasn’t worth the effort of a refutation.

“How long are you staying?” Jocatta asked in an offhand voice.

“Just the night.”

Her face dimmed, or perhaps that was merely due to the cloud that had drifted over the sun beyond the towering back windows.

Blair reached for his tiny silver cup again. It was a style his mother usually only broke out when company was over. He felt a little thrill of delight that he might be regarded that way now, as a guest, rather than a fixture.

“We might leave earlier,” he forewarned, “if I don’t get the information I came for.”

Jocatta’s mouth pulled down at the corners. “So, this is how it’s going to be now, is it? You come home after your grand disappearance only to make demands and then depart? With no means of communication, not the slightest attempt to stay in contact with your family.” Her practiced voice remained even, but her silver eyes held a flare of suppressed fury.

“More or less,” Blair agreed, meeting her gaze with his own quiet ferocity. With his mother, he knew exactly how much he could—and couldn’t—get away with. He was teetering on the edge of what Jocatta would allow, but he held firm.

“Leaving us that way was intolerable.” Her voice broke as her hand tightened around her necklace. “Arriving home to find you missing a second time…” She trailed away, and understanding hit Blair with the force of a blunt knife.

He hadn’t considered that the only other time his parents had come home to find him gone had been the day he was kidnapped. His heart ached as he watched his mother swallow, her hands clutching her necklace’s chain like a lifeline.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You could have told us,” Jocatta said, but Blair was already shaking his head.

“You wouldn’t have let me go.”

He wanted his mother to deny it. For a moment, he waited, convinced that she would. Instead, she said, “I would have searched the ends of the earth for you, had I not known where you went. I believe I may have frightened your friend. I apologize for that. I merely had to confirm that you were safe.”

His mother’s revelation planted seeds of confusion in Blair’s mind, spreading through him like an invasive weed. “What do you mean?” He felt the blood drain from his face. “You came to check up on me?”

His father shifted uncomfortably in his chair as Jocatta took another sip of tea. “There are worse fates than having a loving family.”

But there was a difference between love and control, and his mother had been conflating the two for his entire existence. He was about to tell her so, when she held up a hand.

“Why now?” she asked, redirecting the conversation. “Lucy’s been dead for over two hundred years.”

Blair blinked, taken aback by the abrupt change in subject. “I know that. But I’ve had dreams about her.” He hesitated. “About…what happened to us.”

His mother frowned. “You think me that imperceptive? You’ve been having these dreams for years. What’s changed?”

“Nothing,” Blair lied. “They’ve just been more frequent lately. Seeing Lucy so often made me wonder about her for the first time in a while. I thought you might have some answers.”