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“I always blamed myself for Oliver and my fath— Phillip ,” I corrected, knowing I could never call him my father again in good conscience. “Gemma doesn’t know who killed them. I would venture a guess it had something to do with my parentage. ”

“It’s not your fault.”

I flinched, not convinced by his words and not ready to go there with him.

“That chair there in the corner,” I pressed on, “Phillip, your uncle … used to sit in it, and I would sit on the floor with Oliver in my lap. Not every night, but some.” Not every night because some nights, Phillip began early with the rum and his speech slurred too roughly for us to understand.

I left that out, how I used to take care of him when he got lost in his drink.

So my mother didn’t have to and Oliver never saw. “He would read to us.”

“What was he like? Phillip?”

Phillip had been a brilliant man with a tortured soul. He’d been a sad drunk, never violent or belligerent. Soft-spoken and full of thought. He’d been the type of man to keep his burdens to himself until they crushed him.

When I woke up that day after falling in the cellar, my family had felt like strangers. I quickly loved Oliver—it was hard not to—but even with him, there were times I felt… kept at a distance.

Now I knew why.

“Kind,” I finally told Ezra. “He was kind. He loved his family as best he could.”

“Gemma mentioned that he was drunk a lot.”

“He had his vices.” I gestured to the bottle of rum half empty on the bookshelf.

Neither my mother nor I had found the strength to move it.

Even Gemma must have known it was Phillip’s, because she hadn’t dared touch it.

“He was sad. I didn’t understand why I never felt…

enough , but now I do. I wasn’t his. He knew it, but he still called me his daughter. ”

I remembered the last thing he said to me and realized he must have known. Maybe not that he was going to die that night, but about me, about the prophecy, about what I might have to become.

“Sweet girl, I pray you’ll be free one day. ”

I hadn’t known what he meant at the time. But freedom, true freedom, seemed less likely by the minute.

“He did love you, then, as his own?”

I shrugged, attempting a smile. “I think he tried.”

I’d never shared that feeling aloud, but I shared it with Ezra.

It felt necessary to give him all I could of Phillip and Oliver, even if they felt less like mine to give.

I shared everything I could remember: Ollie’s favorite toys and books, the small mole on his forehead, his little laugh that turned into a squeal when he got excited.

Ezra asked how exactly they’d died, but I decided to spare him from the gory details.

No one else needed the weight of that burden.

“I don’t think they felt much pain,” I answered. “They looked peaceful.” That mark—the X—had been deep but smooth, and I’d hoped that meant they hadn’t struggled. That they’d been carved up only after death.

Ezra accepted the details with a solemn nod, then leaned back in his chair. “Probably wasn’t the Butcher that killed them, then.”

My interest piqued. “The Butcher?”

“The Butcher of Nyrida,” Ezra clarified.

“He’s been doing Molochai’s bidding for centuries.

” Ezra mimicked a knife across his throat.

I flinched at the visual. Too familiar to the scene I’d stumbled across a year ago.

“He’s got more murders under his belt than Molochai does.

There’s not a person in the Caves who hasn’t lost someone by his hand.

He even killed Elias’s parents and little sister. ”

I shuddered. “And why couldn’t he have been the one to kill Phillip and Oliver?” I wasn’t too concerned about the horror stories Ezra had heard as a child, but I would take any chance to figure out who killed them.

“Well, the Butcher… he butchers, ” Ezra emphasized. “From what I’ve been told, if he’d done it, they would have felt pain. It would have been… messy. ”

I nodded slowly. “Is he… human?”

“Or something like it. Molochai’s used blood magic to keep him alive for four centuries.” A shiver rippled through him. “As far as I know, Simeon refuses to use that type of magic on anyone else.”

I couldn’t decide if that was selfish or valiant, choosing to live—maybe suffer—alone for eternity, watching every loved one come into the world and then leave it.

“Does Simeon live in the Caves?” I asked. Did he have any more children? Was I his only family left? Would he even want me for anything other than what the prophecy had foretold?

“Sometimes. He comes and goes as he pleases.” My cousin resurrected the fading fire with the metal poker below the hearth, then he turned to me.

“I know this is a lot to take in, but I promise, things will get a lot easier once we get you back to the Caves,” Ezra assured me, his eyes brightening.

“Elias will be there, and he can take over your training and protection. He’ll help you. ”

An unnatural cold settled in my bones at the thought of my… fiancé.

“Do you know him?” I fidgeted with my thumbs. “Elias.”

Ezra’s face illuminated with pride. “I know him well. He’s a good man. You’ll like him.”

Doubt lingered in the back of my mind like a pesky itch. Wouldn’t a good man come fetch his bride on his own?

“What’s the deal with Smyth?” My thoughts lingered on the man who had helped me. The man that was here.

Ezra rolled his eyes. “The plan was always for Finn, Caz, and me to follow a few days behind Gemma and take you back to the Caves just after your nineteenth birthday. Elowen was still supposed to be here too.” His brow furrowed.

“Sounds like she disobeyed Simeon’s orders, but…

we were one day into our journey when Smyth showed up with a note from Simeon claiming he was now in charge.

I questioned it, but the letter had Simeon’s seal on it. In his handwriting too. ”

“What’s his motive?” It was clear he wanted to protect me, but the reason why eluded me. Had Elias been too busy to come fetch me and hired some muscle to drag me out of hiding instead?

“I don’t know,” sighed Ezra. “But he hasn’t cared much about anything but getting to you.

It’s odd, if you ask me, but your protection is our objective, and if he aids in that…

” My cousin shrugged, then chuckled. “It helps that he’s an absolute beast. Two days ago, we were jumped by a band of thieves, maybe six or seven of them.

Finn, Caz, and I had barely grabbed our weapons by the time Smyth was halfway through them.

” Ezra shuddered. “Can’t say I like him much, but he’s already saved my life once, so maybe I shouldn’t object. ”

“Same,” I mumbled, taking my bottom lip between my teeth with a heavy sigh.

And with the way he looked at me—tense, assuring, warm, certain— I prayed that he would, and thought that he might, teach me exactly how to save myself too.