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My voice is fervent as I declare, “He’s not taking my baby, Mama. I won’t let him.”

But she looks at me like I’m missing something crucial. “Do you realize there are no Royal women past a certain age? Before Lavinia Lucia and Story Austin, there were no Queens in Forsyth. There were only gaping holes. There was no reigning Lady or Duchess. Queen Lucia was murdered by her husband. Miranda Ashby has been dead as long as you’ve been alive. And if there’s a Baron Queen, I’ve never seen her.” She turns her wrist, showing me the DKS symbol branded on her wrist. “You asked me about this once. Remember? You said it seemed like I was a Duchess in all but name.” Her eyes grow flinty. “Saul gave this to me because, after that night, I begged him for protection. But it didn’t come free. I had to barter myself. My body.”

I stare at the brand, aghast. “Oh my god, Mama…”

“Nothing is free,” she stresses. “A brand, a ring, a tattoo, a wrist cuff, a necklace… every Royal woman pays a price for those symbols. I paid mine.”

“Things are changing,” I tell her, willing her to see the promise in my eyes. “Sy isn’t going to give up Lavinia, and I can’t see Killian Payne walking away from his Lady. It’s different now.”

She pushes against the bulge of my belly. “You think the women before them didn’t think they were different? Why do you think Sarah ran with Nick and Sy’s fathers and never turned back?” She’s not just being harsh. I hear the fear in her words. “Royal women don’t survive, Verity. Especially once they birth an heir.”

Desperately, I wonder, “Is that why you never told him about me?”

“There was nothing to tell,” she snaps, yanking her hand away. “You could have been Lucia’s just as much as his. How was I to know? Your looks favored me more than any of them. You weremine.”

“This is Forsyth,” I stress. “You know it’s not that simple.”

“He would have killed me,” she says, her voice rising into near hysterics. “Who would have protected you then, and what price would you have paid for it? And if he knew—if any of them knew—you’d have a target on your back.”

I think about betraying Wicker—revealing to Lavinia his Royal lineage—and my heart sinks. I’ve been so fucking foolish, playing games where lives were at stake. Why? Because I was too embarrassed to admit that I may have actually felt sympathy for him?

It all feels so silly now.

“When did you know?” I wonder, feeling sick. “When did you realize Ashby was the one who…”Created, I want to say, but it’s an East End term she won’t welcome.

She stands up then, walking over to the ancient fridge. Opening it up, she pulls a bottle of vodka from the freezer, her movements slow, as if she’s drawing out the process of filling a shot glass. Glancing over her shoulder, she admits, “I’d had some suspicions ever since his kid died. Miranda, as you know, wasn’t far behind. East End grieved them so publicly that it became a spectacle.” She snorts, mouth curving derisively. “‘The year the roses died.’ That’s what theRoyal Gazettecalled it. In any case, photos of them were plastered everywhere. You couldn’t get away from it; those green eyes of Michael’s, always watching you. Eyes,” she stresses, “that lookedexactlylike yours. We were just lucky so many wrongly assumed you got your green eyes from me.” Throwing back the shot, she finally turns to me, stone-faced. “But you were four when I knew for sure.”

Stunned, it takes me a moment to find my voice. “How?”

She fills the shot glass again. “Because Rufus showed up on our doorstep, demanding to see you.”

My chest clenches just imagining it.Four. She would have thought she was home free. “He found out?”

“Of course, he did,” she snarls before downing the second shot. “Bribed your goddamn dentist for a cheek swab and confirmed paternity. Why not? He’d already managed to take two of those orphaned Princes of yours. It probably distracted him for a while, but they weren’t what he wanted. He wanted Michael. He wanted an heir—a true heir.” She points the glass at me, a fuming sort of satisfaction in her eyes. “That’s part of how I was able to fend him off. A King has no use for a daughter.”

“Apartof it?” I ask, catching the glint in her eye.

Arching a finely plucked eyebrow, she pops out a hip, drawing my attention to the pistol holstered there. “Well, he did bring a dick to a gunfight.”

A reluctant smile tugs at my mouth imagining my mother pulling a gun on King Ashby.

How differently things might have turned out if she’d pulled the trigger.

“I still worried there’d come a day he’d return, but year by year, I grew more and more prepared,” she continues, laughing darkly. “A lot of secrets come in and out during the Furies. I gained my leverage and waited to use it, to keep us safe. And then you grew up,” she adds, gesturing to me. “You became a woman, and I stopped looking over my shoulder.”

Frowning, I pick at my pudding. “And here I thought you were just trying to get me into a Royalship.”

She shakes her head, looking tired. “The truth is, I saw that night in the crypt how Royal women were protected. Not just Miranda, but the Lady, the Countess, the Duchess—all of them. I didn’t groom you to be a Princess, Verity.” Her voice cracks. “I groomed you to beloved. Cherished. Protected, like the Mirandas and the Lavinias.”

“Loved,” I clarify, “by monsters.”

“By fighters,” she argues, nodding toward the gym. “Byvictors. At least,” her eyes roll, “that was the plan.”

Pace’s rant rings in my ears.

“We’re all in cages. Some are bigger than others. Some, like ours, are gilded and comfortable. But that’s how being a Royal works. We’re trapped behind territory lines. We’re in our brownstone, or tower, or crypt. We may be sitting on bombs waiting to go off at any fucking moment.”

“Things are going to change,” I tell her, pushing to my feet. “I know you can’t see it. I know revolution never came for you, and I’m sorry, Mama. But I’m not in this alone. This baby has more than just me.”