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Alastair’s fists clench at his sides. “Lacrimosa is my guest.”

His father regards him coolly. “Well then. Since you’ve opened the house to so many of your friends, why don’t you invite them to dinner?”

I can feel the veiled threat couched in his every word, every gesture. Marcus watches Alastair the way a hawk scans the fields in search of a mouse: claws curled, ready to swoop at the smallest flicker of movement. It’s clear this offer is both challenge and punishment; all I want right now is to take Alastair’s hand and drag him far away from here.

“There’s no need to—to go to any trouble,” I stammer, forcing my voice to stay even.

Marcus folds his arms. His eyes rake over me, assessing every flaw. My tangled hair, my crumpled clothes.

“Perhaps you’d like to freshen up before we eat.” He tips his chin in the direction of the stairs, an echo of the gesture he used to dismiss Camille and Hugo. “Alastair, wait here. I’m not finished with you.”

I look at Alastair; I don’t want to leave him. He shakes his head, a minute movement, and offers me a reassuring smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

An ache spikes through my chest as I move slowly away, the widening distance between myself and Alastair feeling wrong—feeling dangerous. As I reach the stairs, Marcus calls after me.

“Oh, and Lacrimosa? We dress for dinner in this house. I know that’s probably an unfamiliar concept to you.”

CHAPTER SIXTEENNow

I find Camille in the upstairs hall, standing outside the closed bathroom door. From within comes the sound of a running faucet, the splash of water in the sink. She looks anxious and overalert, skittish in a way I’ve never seen her before. Her entire body is drawn tight as a wire, her lips bitten and her fingers curled against her palms.

She nods toward the door. “He won’t tell me anything; he only wants to speak with you.”

“I’ll see what I can get out of him, then. And I might need to borrow some clothes. Your father said I shoulddress for dinner. As opposed to showing up naked, I guess.”

Camille makes a face at my mention of Marcus. “I’ll go and find something for you to change into. Good luck with the Salt Priest.”

She squeezes my hand, her skin sweat-damp, her fingers trembling, then she goes down the hallway into the depths of the house. I knock on the bathroom door. “Hugo? May I come in?”

The latch clicks, and Hugo opens the door. He’s washed the blood from his face, though his nose is still swollen, and there are spreading bruises beneath his eyes.

“It’s not broken,” he says flatly when he notices me examining his injuries. He turns to sit on the edge of the bathtub. “Close the door, will you?”

I step into the room and close the door. Leaning my back against it, I fold my arms and look down at Hugo. He’s so deceptively innocent, a blue-eyed boy with golden curls and a spray of freckles dusted over his cheeks. And part of me wants to plead with him for help, to lay out the whole truth of my connection to Therion—and his incomplete banishment—like cards on a table.

But I’ll not trust him so easily.

“So,” I begin guardedly. “You’ve left the Salt Priests. Why?”

He gives me a querulous look, then ducks his head. “Because I feel terrible about what I’ve done.”

“Which part, exactly? Banishing our god, or nearly collapsing my family’s mine, or attacking me? Or perhaps when you betrayed Alastair after he trusted you?”

“He told you about that, then.”

“He did.”

Hugo picks at the cuff of his sweater, tracing the shape of the dried bloodstain on his sleeve. “I never meant to hurt him—or any of you.”

“You’ve got a strange way ofnot hurtingpeople.”

He shoves a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. He looks miserable, but there’s a hard, flinty anger in his expression. “You have no idea what the Salt Priests are like. The ways they demand loyalty, the things they make us do. I should have left a long time ago. I wanted to leave with Alastair, truly I did. But it wasn’t possible.”

I shift back to lean against the opposite wall. “What changed?”

“I had a sister. Georgiana.” He picks up a damp washcloth and begins to blot at the stain on his sweater. “Five years younger than me. She was still a child when Alastair asked me to leave with him. I wanted to bring her with us, but she was… fragile. All the Salt Priestsuse a tincture as part of our rituals, even the children. It’s addictive. I knew she wouldn’t survive the withdrawal.”

I remember what Alastair told me about the drug the sect uses to ensure loyalty. How no one can be away from the compound for longer than a few days before they sicken. “Is that why you decided not to leave?”