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Ren could only smile at that. She took a seat beside her mother.

“Now that we’re comfortable,” Ren said. “Tell me all about this Harlow character.…”

* * *

As the winds howled against the closed door of their makeshift bedroom, Ren finally told her mother why she needed to visit Ravinia. And that revelation led to the heart of her plans with the Broods. After making sure they could not be overheard by a passing deckhand, Ren started at the beginning. The words fell out of her mouth—somehow made less dangerous by the dark nothing of their makeshift quarters. There was just enough light that Ren could see her mother’s face and little else.

“You’re being quiet,” Ren noted.

“I’m thinking.”

Ren would have paced, but there simply wasn’t room to pace.

“How will Theo be involved?”

“Right now, he’s not involved. He doesn’t know about any of this.”

“You’re bonded. He’s going to eventually figure it out.”

“Agreed. For now, I’m nursing his distaste. He’s wounded. His father humiliated him. I have to build a bridge from that feeling—that experience—to mine.”

“Hatred isn’t too long a walk from shame.”

“I know that, but it can’t just be hatred. Anger is a fire, and fires burn out. I don’t need Theo to simply be angry at his father. I need him to move a step beyond that. I need him to rationally accept that his family deserves to be destroyed. I need him to choose me over them.”

Her mother nodded. “That will take time. Years, maybe.”

“Or a single moment.”

They’d been speaking quietly in the dark for a while now. Ren wasn’t sure how much farther they still had to travel, or even what the weather was like outside. All she could hear was the tossing waves and the hissing wind and the occasional thump-thump of deckhands passing their location.

“Do you remember the Tin’Vori family?”

Ren’s mother nodded. “Their estate was near the harbor. We could see their children playing sometimes. From the docks. There were two boys and two girls.”

“The oldest one was killed. By the Broods,” Ren supplied. “His name was Ware Tin’Vori.”

“I remember that. Everyone talked about it for weeks. Your Aunt Sloan claimed she heard the boy shouting as he was dragged through the Lower Quarter—the liar.”

“Dahvid is the one who was seen in Ravinia. He’s an image-bearer.”

“Powerful magic,” her mother replied. “But hardly subtle. You can’t smuggle an image-bearer into Kathor. He’d be noticed everywhere he went. How can he help you? If he can’t even return to the city?”

“I don’t know,” Ren admitted. “I feel like I have no other options, though. None of the major houses in Kathor will even speak with me.”

Her mother nodded. “There were two girls in the family: Ava and Nevelyn. The younger one was a wild thing. We’d spot her climbing all the way to the tops of the trees. Sometimes she’d set things on fire and throw them into the harbor. The other one was more like you. Always reading books. What did the old lady say about them?”

Ren sighed. “She wasn’t sure. It’s like you said. Dahvid is easy to find. There aren’t many image-bearers—even in a free port like Ravinia. But she thought if he was alive, it was possible they were too.”

“What’s your plan? When you find him?”

Ren did not answer for a time. She didn’t actually have a plan. What do you say to someone who has the same hatred in their heart that you do? She couldn’t imagine discussing the weather or magical theory with someone like that. It felt like the only thing that could exist between them was a mutual desire for destruction. It was enticing. The thought of having someone who understood. But that would only be true if he’d carefully grown his hatred over the years as she had.

“I suppose I’ll ask him to destroy the Broods with me.”

7 DAHVID TIN’VORI

It began with blinding brightness.