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It was their secret. The only thing they had kept only to themselves.

Would that knowledge have stopped Donika from killing Annelise? Knowing her father would die, too? She shook her head to clear her thoughts. There was no use thinking on it now. The past was in the past, and Annelise was determined to keep it buried.

“You made good time,” Zion remarked, a smile in his eyes as he pulled away from her only enough to meet her gaze.

“How is she?” Annelise asked, breathless.

A smile turned up the corner of Zion’s mouth before he answered. “Strong. Like her mother.”

Annelise shook her head, worry still fresh in her gut. “What does Donika want with her?”

“You know what she wants.” He sighed, running a hand across his shorn black hair.

Annelise favored this look on him—it suited him. When they had married, he had grown his hair out into boundless curls that he wore tied at the nape of his neck.

The shorn haircut made him appear younger.

“The Kotova grimoire willneverchoose her. Never. It would rather go undiscovered for centuries before it chose someone with a black heart.”

“I tried to warn her,” he replied. “You know her biggest weakness—family. She feels slighted by you still. She is a Kotova by blood, but she thinks the bloodline never claimed her.Younever claimed her.”

Donika would never forgive her for leaving their family to come to The Stone Palace for Osiris. It hadn’t mattered that it wasn’t her choice—that she was summoned. That she hadn’twantedto leave.

The result of those events was Diana, and Donika hated her from the very moment she saw her. Donika was driven by the jealousy that consumed her, and she saw it as a betrayal. That Annelise left because she and Zion weren’t good enough. That wasn’t the case at all. She had written to Donika. Thought of her each and every day. But The Stone Palace was no place for a child, and she tried to restrict her visits to when she had training for the academy.

She didn’t want her spending more time here than necessary. She had wanted to protect her. By the time she had fallen pregnant with Osiris’s child, they had hastily sealed their marriage to make things official before anyone else knew. She and Zion hadn’t been romantically involved for years at that point, but that didn’t matter to Donika.

Before Osiris found out her true nature—that she was a Stormshade and had hidden it from him—she stood to be crowned queen of Istmere.

“Has she found it yet?” Annelise asked, biting her lip.

Zion shook his head. “No, she hasn’t. She sent her soldiers to the mortal realm in search of it, but she found nothing. It hides from her still. I believe it is fiercely loyal to Diana.”

This brought a smile to Annelise’s lips. She had known the grimoire would choose Diana when she had sent it to search for a new ward. The grimoire was quite picky due to its sentient nature, and she knew that Diana would care for it well, as she had all these years.

“How long has it been?” she asked, meeting Zion’s gaze once more.

“Almost a month. We have time yet, before she tires of her playthings,” he replied.

“Playthings?” Annelise asked.

She was under the impression it was only Diana who had been captured.

“She has taken her friend captive as well. A Shade. Fowler… Tess Fowler,” Zion replied.

Annelise nodded to herself. “I know the family. Only a month… that’s more than I had hoped for. But then again, after all this time, Donika would want to savor it. I wouldn’t be surprised if she kept Diana imprisoned foryears. If my instincts are correct, we have time to infiltrate the castle staff and formulate a plan. Who do we have on our side to aid us?” she asked.

“Surprisingly, the boy who was sent to retrieve her from the mortal realm and his friend. He has done a poor job of hiding his true feelings, and I’m sure Donika suspects where his loyalties truly lie. The boy has been playing the part to try to remain out of her crosshairs, though I’m not sure how much longer that will work.”

“Hardly much of a boy,” Annelise mused with a short laugh, remembering that Nikolai had to be at least twenty-two by this point.

She hated the idea that he had feelings for Diana. He had double crossed the resistance, and Isaac wasfuriouswith him. He was the reason Diana was in this mess in the first place.

No.

Annelise shook her head. Not Nikolai’s fault… no.

That blame fell on her.