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“And my mother?” Tessa asked, sounding tired. “What do you know of her?”

“I tried, but Temural refused to speak of her,” Scarlett said, setting her glass of wine aside. “I know nothing of your maternal line.”

“Convenient,” Theon said, his knuckles white around his liquor glass. He was lucky he wasn’t shattering the thing.

“I may be powerful, but even I must still play the games strategically,” Scarlett retorted. “Temural is more unpredictable than my mother. A little…mercurial. That whole wild and untamed thing, if I had to guess. I do not know him well enough yet to properly negotiate with him.”

Silence settled in the room once more, those of Devram lost in their own thoughts. Scarlett’s head tilted to the side. She did that often, as though she could hear something the rest of them couldn’t. It was interesting to observe. Axel assumed it was their Source bond, but that brought him back to?—

“So he is your Source?” Axel asked with a nod at Sorin.

“I am,” Sorin agreed.

“You have both gone through your Staying?”

Scarlett snorted a laugh, jerking her thumb at Sorin. “This one is older than a sage.”

“That delightful tongue of yours,” Sorin quipped, flicking her nose before she batted his hand away.

“And you?” Tessa asked, watching her cousin.

“I went through my Staying a few years ago. It was an interesting ordeal,” Scarlett answered.

“A few years ago?” Axel asked. “How old are you?”

“How old areyou?”she countered.

“Twenty-four years. Your turn,” he shot back.

“Twenty-six years.”

“When did Sorin become your Source?”

“On my twentieth birthday.”

“Twenty years?” Axel said. “How?”

Scarlett’s nose scrunched in confusion. “What do you mean ‘how?’ I gave him the Source Mark.”

She gestured to her husband, who pulled up the sleeve of his tunic revealing a Mark Axel had never seen before on hisforearm. Then again, that wasn’t entirely true. It looked similar to one of their own Source Marks, but there were differences.

“Only one Mark?” Tessa asked.

“I feel as though we’ve already covered this, and with my limited time, it is foolish to revisit it,” Scarlett said. “But I am curious about these four Source Marks. Why four?”

“One for physical connection, one for emotional connection, one for mental connection, and the final to share power,” Tessa said as though reciting a lesson.

“Among other things,” Theon tacked on.

“Oh, yes,” Tessa said, the sarcasm thick. “I forgot about the whole forcing me to give my life for yours thing.”

Scarlett and Sorin were both staring at them as if they weren’t sure what to say. Scarlett slowly set her wineglass down, faint traces of shadows appearing and hovering. “May I see the Marks youdopossess?”

Her tone was tight and even, and Theon was on his feet in the next blink. “Why?”

“Call it curiosity.” When Theon still didn’t move out of her way, Scarlett rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to hurt her. She’s family.”

“You’ve told us repeatedly you do not get along with your mother.”