Lady Kiradin offered no reply. She had her back to the door, lost in conversation with a slight, red-haired young woman. Only the slightest tensing of her shoulders betrayed that she’d heard.

“I don’t care what you have to do, Tailinn. Events are coming to a head. I need them mobile. As many as can be managed.” She lifted an upturned hand to Tailinn’s chin, forcing the younger woman to meet her gaze. “I’ve suffered too many disappointments of late. Do not find yourself among them.”

Tailinn stared over Lady Kiradin’s shoulder, her hazel eyes widening as she caught sight of Apara. She gave a small, hurried nod and withdrew from the sitting room.

Still Lady Kiradin didn’t turn.

“Another life you’re tearing apart?” demanded Apara.

At last, she turned. “That’s twice you’ve addressed me thus. Do not make the mistake of a third.”

Apara froze mid-stride. Lady Kiradin’s posture hadn’t changed. Not so much as a wrinkle had shifted on her face. So why did she have the sudden sense of having crossed into a wolf’s lair? Anger turned cold, uncertain.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” she asked.

“I didn’t mean for you to learn of it this way. But events . . . events make a mockery of intent. A mother cannot love all her children as she wishes, especially those whose existence invites scandal.”

Apara pinched her eyes shut. Sevaka stared accusingly out of memory. “You sent me to murder my sister!”

“Sevaka wasn’t your sister,” snapped Lady Kiradin, “any more than I am your mother. Whatever you were before, you are now vranakin, a cousin to the Raven. That was the bargain I struck for you. And how you’ve prospered.”

“And my father?”

“Were you not listening? The Crowmarket is your only family.”

Apara flicked her eyes open, rage rekindling. “Answer me!”

Lady Kiradin shrank back. “Gone, and good riddance. A charming man, but he’d a soul scraped from the gutter. He thought I’d be content to live with him in the shadows.” She rallied, her tone crackling with satisfaction. “I was always meant for the light.”

She stepped closer, her voice softening with remorse. “I would never have given you up, but I needed to remarry, and Samias Kiradin would never have adopted some vranakin whelp as his own. Don’t you see? I protected you. Kept you safe the only way I could. Surely you believe me?”

Apara shook with anger and . . . yearning? She hated herself for a fool. More than thirty years behind her – old enough to have raised a family of her own, had life and desire coincided – and yet she trembled like a child.

“I might,” she breathed. “If you’d said something these past years.”