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It wasn’t a malicious accusation, simply a matter-of-fact statement, but I felt my hackles rising nevertheless and felt perilously close to making a fool of myself again. I grabbed the hot buttered roll from my plate, tore off a huge hunk of it, and shoved it in my mouth.

Ryder conceded the point with a reluctant nod. “A possibility we have to acknowledge. And part of why we’re all here today. We have to—”

“Is the queen ill?”

Another awful silence fell as everyone turned to look at Lord SesarBarthel, who, like my father, had said very little since our meal had begun. He was a handsome man, brown-skinned and white-haired, with the stern visage of an exacting teacher.

I glanced quickly at Ryder. We had all agreed not to mention Yvaine’s outburst, but now that we were sitting here, it seemed irresponsible to keep that a secret too. Ryder frowned, saying nothing. Alastrina widened her eyes, shook her head ever so slightly at him.

“That silence tells me all I need to know,” Lord Sesar said, grim and tired. “What is it? A natural disease? Some sort of magical infection? Is someone trying to kill her?”

Young Elianor looked horrified. “Cansomeone kill her? Is that even possible?”

“We can’t say for sure,” Gareth replied carefully, “but I imagine it would be extremely difficult.”

“But not necessarily impossible,” countered Lord Sesar.

Gareth glanced at me, then said reluctantly, “No. Not necessarily.”

Gentar leaned forward, earnest and fierce. “Butpossiblyimpossible. The gods might very well have imbued her with invincible strength when they chose her to be queen. And until proven otherwise, that’s what I’m going to believe. She’s never done anything but good for us, and if sheisill, it’s no fault of her own. And she can’t be held entirely responsible for poor decisions she might make while not herself, can she? That’s why we’re all here, isn’t it? To help the queen, to be her strength when her own wanes. Right now it seems shedoesneed our help. That’s all I need to know.”

Gentar’s mother, Lady Respa, raised her glass. “Hear, hear.” More murmurings of agreement rippled down the table.

But then Lord Alaster cleared his throat and said smoothly, “A lovely sentiment, young Gentar, but there’s even more to this story than a sinkhole and a mad queen. Isn’t there, Ciaran?”

“Lord Alaster,” Gemma said reasonably, “the queen is notmad, and it’s uncharitable to say so.”

Alaster waved her silent. “The Barthels and the Nashes, I think, do not yet have all the information they should.”

Lady Enid touched her husband’s sleeve. “Alaster…”

He ignored her and went on. “My children and their new friends journeyed to the Old Country only a few weeks ago, and there they fought a monster, for lack of a more precise term. A monster who had enslaved a demon and used that demon to foment discord between my family and the Ashbourne family.”

Alastrina glared at her father. “I don’t know what this has to do with anything. We’re here to talk about the sinkhole and the Middlemist, not—”

“But don’t you think it’s all something of a piece, my dove?” Alaster said, his voice sweet but his eyes hard. “And anyway, our friends ought to know whom, exactly, they’re agreeing to work with.”

Gentar, his potatoes at last forgotten, looked at Gemma and me with shining eyes. “So itistrue, the legend about the demon. Did you kill it? And the monster too? What kind of monster was it?”

“No, they didn’t kill either of them,” Lord Alaster replied. “In fact, theyfreedthe demon, if you can believe that. They freed a creature known for deception and bloodlust. And now,” he added, his gaze sliding slowly to Gemma, “one of them is fucking it.”

Shock washed over everyone like a cold wave. Father slammed his fists against the table and surged to his feet, a slight wave of his sentinel power crackling through the room. Everything—table, chairs, all of us—flew up from the floor an inch or two before slamming back down.

Lord Alaster watched him from the head of the table, expressionless. He raised his glass and took a drink.

“You absolute shit,” Father spat at him. Ryder rose, as did Gentarand Lady Kaetha. I tensed, bracing myself for the inevitable, for this whole night to come crashing down around us. We would have to go home at once; we would have to tell the queen we couldn’t do it, that we couldn’t bring ourselves to cooperate for five minutes, much less long enough to help her.

But then Gemma went to our father and took his hand in hers. He froze and looked down at her gloved fingers, completely stunned, and all the fight seemed to go out of him in an instant. It was the first time Gemma had acknowledged his existence since the revelation of what he and my mother had done to her as a child, how they had hired an artificer to alter her body and stifle her unpredictable power. A horrible softness melted my father’s furious expression; I could hardly bear to look at him.

“The demon you speak of is no monster,” Gemma said, her head held high, her voice unwavering. She had grown so much, my sister, during these last months. How strange it was to hardly recognize the woman standing before me and yet, at the same time, to see her smiling, innocent child self shining in her face. How marvelous, to know her and yet constantly be meeting her for the first time. “His name is Talan,” she said, “and his master was the monster. Talan is just as much a person as you and I and everyone sitting at this table. You will not speak of him otherwise.”

Lord Sesar considered her gravely. “And his master? He still lives?”

“We can’t be sure,” I answered on Gemma’s behalf, giving her a moment. “We still know very little about him. But we fought him, and we believe we wounded him, perhaps severely.”

Lady Kaetha looked skeptical. “Youbelieveyou wounded him?”

Gentar sat back down, his eyes still shining eagerly. “How’d you do it, then? What did he look like?”