With a flourish, he signed the bottom of the paper he was working on and finally—grudgingly—looked away from his work and up at his grandmother. That’s when Var blinked and leaned back a bit in his chair.

It was, for Var, a reaction that suggested immense shock.

“Is there an issue, Grandmother?” he asked.

“You want us to magickally bind and bury an elder of the Cadwaladr Clan?” Rhiannon asked, her voice calm.

Extremely calm.

“As I said, I know she’s family and has been useful in the past,” Var explained, “so I’d never suggest we kill her.”

“Then what are you suggesting?”

“That we get and maintain control of her. She’s a danger.”

“She’s a witch.”

“And your point?”

Bram gave a small jerk of his head at Frederick and the boy, a survivor like his aunt Dagmar, immediately moved out of his chair and to the back of the room.

Bram followed. He’d been working with Rhiannon for centuries. He knew her almost as well as he knew Ghleanna. And he knew the dangers of both. Sadly, his grandnephew had not bothered to learn those dangers yet. Nor had he learned when to listen to Bram.

“There was once a royal,” Rhiannon told her grandson, “who attempted to control witches. He marked them so they’d be easy to spot. Your aunt Morfyd, because she didn’t want the humans she tended to know she was dragon and be frightened of her, stood while a human marked her as a witch on her face.”

“I . . . I wasn’t suggesting—”

“Do you know what happened to that monarch?” Rhiannon asked. “Your aunt Annwyl killed him and took his head. His name was Lorcan and he was her brother. She never mentions him,” she continued. “With reason. Of course, if Annwyl hadn’t killed him . . . I would have. I’d called Keita back to do just that once I saw what he’d done to my daughter.”

“Grandmother, I—”

Rhiannon twitched her fore- and middle fingers and the heavy wood table Var was still sitting at slid hard across the room and slammed into the far wall.

She took a few steps until she stood in front of her still-sitting grandson.

“So I’m sure you’ll understand,” she went on, “if I’m concerned that you want to bind and trap a witch for being a witch.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“I will not allow you, Unnvar, to travel down a path made up of those Annwyl has already killed. Not my grandson. Now, if Brigida does something that concerns me, then I will handle it. Witches will handle it. Not you, with the backing of legions. Do we understand each other?”

“We do.”