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“You didn’t seem to have any qualms about using him when you went for information about your brother.”

The Astronomer must have told her about that visit. Ithan pressed on. “Can you … elaborate?” At her flat look, he added, “Please? Why did you even use the Astronomer in the first place?”

“I thought it was the cats who had a problem with curiosity.”

“Blame it on the part of me that chose to be a history major in college.”

Her lips curled upward, but she sighed at the ceiling and said, “In my own research over the millennia, I learned that dragon fire is one of the few things that can make a Prince of Hel balk.”

“You meant to use it against Apollion?” Ithan couldn’t help but gape at her sheer audacity.

She studied her manicured nails. “I thought it might be a good … negotiating tool.”

Ithan let out an impressed laugh. “Wow. So what happened?”

“Rumor spread in the city that the Astronomer had possession of a dragon. I sought him out and offered to buy Ariadne on the spot.” She crossed her arms again. “The bastard wouldn’t sell her, not for anything in the world. But I realized that day that I might have another opportunity on my hands: I could use his mystics to hunt in Hel for answers on how to free me, and have the mystics guarded by Ariadne while they did so.”

“But you said you wanted to wait to … not be young until the books were safe.”

“Yes. But when that time comes, I want the solution in hand.”

“Why?”

“So I don’t talk myself out of it.” He felt, more than saw, the weight of all those years bowing her shoulders. “You’re not like most wolves I’ve known.”

“Is that an insult or a compliment?” He honestly couldn’t tell.

She uncrossed her arms and drummed her fingers on the desk. “There’s a lot you don’t know, Ithan Holstrom, about the truth. Too much for me to delve into here and now.” Her fingers halted, and her gaze simmered with ancient pain and anger. “But it was the wolf packs who reached Parthos first. Who started the slaughter and burnings. It was the wolf packs, led by Asteri-bred bloodhounds, who hunted down my sisters. I’ve never forgotten that.”

Ithan’s stomach churned at the shameful history of his people, but he asked, “Bred?”

A wry smile. “The gift already existed amongst the wolves, but the Asteri encouraged it. Bred it into certain lines. They still do.”

“Like Danika.”

Jesiba’s fingers resumed their drumming. “The Fendyrs have been a … carefully cultivated line for the Asteri.”

“How so?”

She fixed her blazing eyes on him. This female had lived through all of Midgard’s Asteri history. He could hardly wrap his mind around it. “Didn’t you ever wonder why the Fendyrs are so dominant? Generation after generation?”

“Genetics.”

“Yes, genetics bred by the Asteri. Sabine and Mordoc were ordered to breed.”

“But Sabine took the title from her brother—”

“At whose urging? She’s an angry, small-minded female. Her brother was smarter, but clearly no male of worth, if he sold his daughter to the Astronomer. He was likely deemed unfit by the Asteri, who coaxed Sabine into challenging him. And when Sabine’s dominance won out, they made sure Mordoc was sent to produce a line of more … competent Fendyrs.”

“Well, Micah fucked that up for them.”

“And who do you think pulled Micah’s strings?”

Ithan was glad he was sitting. “You think the Asteri had Micah kill Danika? After all that trouble to breed her into existence?” Never mind that Connor and the Pack of Devils had been destroyed as a result of that scheming—

“I think Danika was reckless and willful, and the Asteri knew they could never control her as they could Sabine. I think they realized that with Danika, they’d produced a wolf so powerful she rivaled the ones I faced in the First Wars. True wolves. And she was not on their side. She had to be eliminated.”

Ithan sagged in his seat, but then a thought struck him. “The Under-King told Hypaxia and me that Connor … that the Under-King had been given a command not to touch my brother. Why?”