“He is your brother, Kate,” Vianne said. “Kiran is Hale’s son.”
The world seemed to spin around Kate. She wanted something to hold on to, but the room was bare save for a table and chair and two narrow beds. Even the walls wouldn’t have given her purchase. At first she’d thought they were made of stone, same as the rest of these underground chambers, but now she saw that they were a dull metal. Even the floor and ceiling were metal.
With a worried look, Vianne bent toward Kiran. “This is Kate. She is your sister.”
The boy’s eyes widened and his mouth gaped open, his surprise almost comical. That was when Kate saw the truth in his eyes. They were the same shape as her father’s, the same shade of brown.
She sucked in a breath. “This is why my father was sending those payments? To support you and your . . . his . . . son?”
Vianne nodded. “I wasn’t always a cook. Your father was one of my regular visitors. Until one day when he became something more.”
Love? Kate wondered. Did my father love you? He must have, but even if he hadn’t, Kate knew her father would’ve loved his son. She wanted to be angry, to feel betrayed at her father’s deception, but that was the old Kate, the child who had not yet experienced the world beyond her sheltered life. Grown-up Kate understood that her parents’ marriage had been cold and empty. She couldn’t blame her father for finding comfort somewhere else.
More questions crowded into her mind. “Why does he live down—” Kate felt a small hand at her waist and looked down to see Kiran tugging on the end of her tunic. She squatted, putting herself at eye level with the child.
“Are you really my sister?” the boy asked, head cocked ever so slightly.
Kate nodded, marveling at how familiar he seemed, as if she’d known him all his life. He looked so much like her father. Our father. The fact that she hadn’t known him before now sent a wrench through her chest.
The boy’s answering smile seemed to swallow his whole face. “Want to see my toys?”
Without waiting for a response, Kiran grabbed her hand and tugged her toward the bed. Kate couldn’t say no—it was impossible to deny this child. He seemed starved for human contact. And the sun, she noted at his alarming paleness. She could see the veins on his face like blue rivers crisscrossing his forehead and beneath his eyes. Did he live down here all the time? It didn’t make sense.
One by one, Kiran pulled out the toys from beneath his bed, ragged, pathetic things, most broken and frayed. One of the dolls, a crude object made from old canvas with a painted-on face, was singed across the top of its head where Kate suspected yarn had once been sewn to make the hair.
“How old are you, Kiran?” Kate asked after a moment.
“Six,” he said with an air of pride, as if this were a most impressive age. “I can count to a hundred. Want to hear? One . . . two . . .”
Six years old. Kate felt sick to her stomach. He was too small to be so old, but she should’ve guessed it already. Her father had been making those payments for three years before his death. The questions burned fresh in her mind, but she held them back, giving the boy the attention he craved while his mother watched them from the doorway, her eyes bright with emotion.
He is my brother. My father’s secret. But there was more to the story, Kate was certain.
Eventually, Vianne crossed over to them and gave Kiran’s head an affectionate pat. “I need to talk with Miss Kate, my little prince. Will you play on your own for a bit?”
Kiran nodded, although his lip threatened to curl into a pout. Guiltily, Kate followed Vianne out of the bedroom and back to where Anise sat, waiting for them.
“I know you have questions,” Vianne said. “And we’re ready to answer all we can.”
Kate pulled out one of the chairs and sat down slowly. “Why do you keep him down here?” It seemed the most important of all the questions jockeying for position in her mind. She couldn’t imagine a more miserable existence.
Vianne stole a furtive glance at Anise, who nodded. “Master Raith trusts her, and the binding spell will ensure her silence in everything she learns today.”
“Raith? What does he have to do with this?” Kate asked, unconsciously leaning forward.
“We’ll get to that,” Anise replied. “Go ahead, Vianne.”
The other woman let out a sigh, her scarred fingers drumming against the table. “Kiran is forced to live down here because, like your father and like you, he is a wilder.”
Kate’s jaw dropped to her chest. This woman knew? Her father had trusted her with his secret? Why?
“Then again, Hale is not solely to blame. I am a wilder, too.” Vianne raised her hand and a small flame appeared on her palm.
A wilder. A pyrist. At once everything made sense—the metal walls, the burned toys, even the strange warmth. Only, it didn’t make sense. Most wilders didn’t come into their magic until adolescence.
“Kiran has his powers already? But he’s so young.”
“So were you—just seven if I remember right.”
Kate swallowed, a strange resentment rising up in her over how much her father must’ve trusted this woman. And yet he kept her secret from me.
“Kiran’s ability first appeared when he was just a baby,” Vianne continued, giving a slight shudder. “We don’t know why it came to him so early, but you can imagine how difficult it was to keep him hidden, and the danger he posed to others. That’s why Hale had the room built for him. Kiran didn’t know how to control his magic back then. How could he, being so young? He’s much better now, though.” Vianne nodded, as if to reassure herself of this truth.
“Then why keep him down here still?” Kate asked, and too late she realized how stupid the question was.
“The Inquisition, of course,” a man’s voice spoke as if from nowhere.
Kate jumped in surprise, her hand going to the revolver at her belt. After last night, she never wanted to be without it. But she didn’t pull it out as Master Raith slid from the shadows by the stairs and approached them. Once again, he wasn’t wearing his mask or robes. Anise and Vianne both greeted him warmly, and a moment later, Kiran came bolting out of his room to leap into Raith’s arms. To Kate’s growing shock, the master magist hugged the boy, then tickled his sides, coaxing a giggle. Who is this man? She stared at him, taking in the birthmark on his face and the permanent black stains on his fingertips.
Raith set Kiran back down a moment later with a promise to come play with him once he was done out here. Kate watched it all, feeling as if she’d stepped into some strange, unknown world where right was left and up was down.
Once Kiran had retreated, Raith said, “Now, where were we? Oh yes, the Inquisition. As you know, Kate, the Inquisition gives the gold order the power to actively hunt for wilders, regardless of age or suspected guilt. Kiran was just three years old when the high king sanctioned it. But your father tried to stop it from happening altogether.”
At once Kate remembered what Corwin had told her about how her father and the king had been arguing about the Inquisition before the attack.
“It’s why he went to the king’s chambers that morning,” Raith continued, “to change Orwin’s mind. Hale knew you would not be in danger from it. You are, or were, a part of the gentry and so, for the most part, exempt from the gold’s reach.”
“But not Kiran,” Kate said, anger starting to simmer inside her at the injustice of it.
“No,” Vianne agreed, her voice sharp and bitter. “Not the bastard son of a prostitute.”
Kate winced, pity mixing with the anger now. She understood without doubt that her father would’ve done anything to protect Kiran and his mother. Of course he would have. They were family. I have a brother. The thought tugged hard on her tear ducts, and she forced it away.