“I only have a tiny fraction of his power. You have no idea what it’s like to stand behind him when he lets it go. It’s like walking in the footsteps of a god.”

I sat back in my spot. I’d heard that before.

Hugh studied the boulder below. “You’ve been alive for twenty-six years. He’s been alive for over five thousand. He doesn’t just play with magic; he knows it, intimately. He can craft impossible things. If I were to stand against him, he would crush me like a gnat. Hell, he might not even notice I’m there at all. I serve him because there is no one stronger.”

Hugh turned to me. “I’ve seen you fight. I’m a fan. But if you plan to fight the Builder of Towers, you will lose.”

I realized he wasn’t bluffing. It hit home. If Roland came for me now, I would lose. Looking at it now seemed kind of absurd. I wasn’t even thirty. I didn’t know how to use my magic. What few tricks I had up my sleeve barely scratched the surface. In my head I always suspected that I wouldn’t be able to hold him off, but the way Hugh said it made me pause.

“What makes you think he wants to kill you?” Hugh sat down.

“He tried to murder me in the womb, he killed my mother, and he sent you to find and kill the man I called my father. What makes you think he doesn’t?”

“He’s lonely,” Hugh said. “It eats at him. He can age himself. It takes a lot of effort, and usually he stays around forty. He says it’s a good age, mature enough to inspire confidence, young enough to not suggest frailty. He stayed at it for years, but now he is actively aging. Last time I saw him, four months ago, he looked closer to fifty. I asked him why. He said it made him appear more fatherly.”

How sweet. “I’m not buying it.”

“Think about it, Kate. You are deadly, smart, beautiful, and you are capable. Why wouldn’t he want a daughter like that? Don’t you think he would at least try to get to know you?”

“You’re missing the point. I don’t want to know him. He killed my mother, Hugh. He robbed me of the one person every child counts on for unconditional love. Do you remember your mother?”

“Yes,” Hugh said. “I was four when she died. Three years later Voron took me off the street.”

“I don’t remember mine. Not a murmur, not a trace of a scent, no smudged image, nothing. Voron was my father and my mother. The Death’s Raven was an undisputed authority in my life. The only authority. You knew him. Think about what that really means.”