But we’d be ready for him when he did.
I’d made sure of that.
I stepped out of the secret room to find two people waiting for me in Victor’s office—Deah and Seleste.
They both looked fine, and no cuts or bruises marred their faces. It didn’t look as though Victor had punished them, despite Deah’s confession that I had let her win the tournament. Making sure they were okay was another reason I’d come here tonight.
Deah had her sword out, but Seleste smiled when she saw me.
I smiled back at her. “Hello, Seleste. How are you?”
“Oh, fine, darling,” she said, waving her hand at me. “Just fine.”
“No more bones and blades?”
She shook her head. “No more bones and blades.”
“Good.”
Seleste smiled at me again, then started humming to herself and wandering around the room. Earlier today, I’d confronted Claudia and Mo about Seleste being my aunt and why they’d never told me about her and Deah. They’d said that my mom had wanted it that way, that she and Seleste had had a falling out when Seleste had announced her plans to marry Victor after he’d had my father killed. But I wanted to hear it from her.
Seleste went over to the bookshelf where Deah’s trophies were sitting, picked them up, and started polishing them with the sleeve of her dress, still humming all the while.
Deah wasn’t so accommodating, though. “What are you doing here?” she hissed, dropping her sword to her side. “Are you crazy?”
“No, just checking out a hunch. And I wanted to talk to your mom. I was hoping that she would come in here. You too.”
I went over to Seleste. Now that I was looking for it, I could see how much she resembled my mom—same dark blue eyes, same straight nose, same mischievous curve to her lips. Seeing so much of my mom in her made my heart ache, but I kept my face and voice soft and gentle.
“Aunt Seleste,” I asked. “What happened between you and my mom?”
Her hand curled around the trophy she was polishing, the gold cup from this year’s Tournament of Blades. Someone—Felix, most likely—must have found it in the boathouse and returned it to Deah. Seleste stared at the trophy a moment, then carefully pushed it back into place on the shelf.
“I loved Victor. I thought he was different from what he really was. That he was a good man.” She gave me a sad, crooked smile. “Mine is the only future I can’t see, and I didn’t realize what Victor was really like until it was too late. But Serena knew. She always knew. She tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen.”
Seleste drew in a ragged breath, then slowly let it out. “I didn’t realize that Victor set Luke up to be killed by that nest of copper crushers. I thought it was just an accident. But Serena knew the truth. So did everyone else. But it was already too late for all of us. Claudia didn’t want Serena seeing Luke, so they fought. Mo took Serena’s side, so he and Claudia fought. Serena didn’t want me seeing Victor, so we fought. Everybody fought, all the time, until there was nothing left of us.”
Seleste stared at me, then Deah, who’d come up to stand beside me. “I don’t want that for the two of you. You can’t fight each other the way Serena and I did. You have to work together. Otherwise, Victor will win, and he’ll destroy all the other Families.”
Deah’s eyes widened. “Mom, you don’t mean that. Sure, Dad has his problems with the other Families, but he would never try to destroy everyone else.”
Seleste stepped forward, reached up, and cradled Deah’s face in her hands. “My darling girl, always wanting to believe the best of people, even when they don’t deserve it. You are the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. Always remember that.”
Seleste leaned forward and kissed Deah’s forehead. Then her blue eyes glazed over, and she skipped away, humming and lost in her own world again. Deah watched her, a stricken expression on her pretty face.
I shook my head. “Open your eyes, Deah. Your dad has been plotting something against the other Families for a long time now. And I finally figured out what it is.”
I pointed to the secret room, which was still open behind me. “Remember what Katia wanted to do to us? Well, your dad has already done the exact same thing to a whole bunch of monsters. He and Blake set out traps in the woods to catch monsters so they can rip their magic out of the creatures with black blades.”
I stalked over to the desk and picked up one of the files there. “And he has files on all the Draconis, notes about how he can use those black blades to augment their magic, make them faster, stronger, better fighters. He even has a file on you, if you care to look.”
Deah’s face paled, and her mouth twisted as though she was going to be sick. “He wouldn’t do that. Not to everyone in the Family, not to me. . . .” Her voice trailed off, and I could tell that she didn’t even believe her own words.