Aurora’s mother gazed at Duke, the old man who had become something between a father and mentor to Aurora. Tears still flowed down the queen’s cheeks and dripped from the regal line of her jaw. “You might know him as Duke. But I knew him as a lord, a long time ago.”

Aurora’s mother took Duke’s hand and squeezed. “You could have come here, Finn. We never would have turned you away. No matter what happened in Calibah.”

Duke lifted her mother’s hand and placed a kiss on her knuckle. “I had a lot to live with. It was easier to spread that grief around, not take it with me all to one place. Besides, I came when it was time, I think.”

Panic made Aurora’s mind slow, like she was trudging through melting drifts of snow.

Calibah.

Finn.

She saw the pieces, knew how they would fit together if life were fiction, but how, how could this be?

“Are you saying…” She trailed off, staring at her mother.

The queen pushed herself up a little higher in the bed, and wiped her tears. “Aurora, may I present to you Lord Finneus Wolfram of Calibah. Lord Wolfram, I believe you know my daughter.”

Finneus Wolfram, nephew to the king, left Calibah that day with a small contingent of soldiers and sailors, intent on finding safe passage to another land. Neither his ship, nor he was ever seen again, and the city of Calibah fell to catastrophic storms two weeks later.

—The Fall of Calibah and the Mystery of Lord Wolfram

16

Kiran’s head was pounding as the voices in the room swelled to a deafening noise. They were damned lucky it was morning, and there were no customers to overhear them in the tavern below.

He was having a hard enough time grasping the fact that his mentor, the man who had practically raised him from the time he had joined the crew at eleven, was some long-lost, believed-to-be-dead lord. The fact that he had apparently once had an affair with Aurora’s mother before the queen was married was a thought he had set aside to examine another day—hopefully one that never came.

Aurora had been shocked by the revelation of the affair. She barely took a breath while berating her mother for never telling her she had known the Finneus Wolfram, really known him. But that was far from the most dire news of the evening. Once Kiran had finally gotten Aurora to calm down, he managed to get her to explain why she had abandoned the tavern and run upstairs in the first place.

The Lockes knew she was in the city. And they had tasked one of her old guards to lead the search for her.