My darling Phebe,

By the time you read this, you may have heard the news already. Alethea is dead. I do not know if I will ever be able to return to Pelago. I promised her I would take care of her children, that I would watch over them. A deal was made and a deal was broken and there may be repercussions that I cannot yet fathom. But I fear that’s all I can put into writing. I’m doing everything I can to keep the twins safe, even if it means my home is lost to me. My dearest sister, know that I miss you and you are in my thoughts every day. And please, listen to your little brother this one time and heed my warning—stay away from the Byrne family. I hate to think of what Ambrosine might do to retaliate against me, if she has deduced my role in this. Stay safe, Phebe. May the goddesses go with you.

Agnes had to read the letter three times before she fully understood it. “A deal?” she said. “What deal?”

“I don’t know,” Phebe said. “But not a week after I received this letter, I had a visit from a pair of Byrne Misarros. They questioned me about my brother, when the last time I’d seen him was, when I had last heard from him. I lied, of course, about this letter. I told them I had not seen him since Alethea married Xavier and he left to live in Kaolin—that at least was true. I showed them a previous letter, one filled with stories of Alethea’s nervousness at having children, of her excitement, with little bits of news about Old Port City and questions about his home country. A letter that was fully benign. They confiscated it and I have not seen a Byrne or their Misarros in Arbaz since. Not until now.” She glanced at Leo.

“He never said anything.” Agnes felt dazed. “Eneas never told us . . . I don’t understand. Why didn’t he tell me about this?”

“I think maybe he tried to,” Leo said. “When he drove us to the Seaport, remember? He said to be careful around Ambrosine. He said to see things as they are and not as you wish them to be.”

Her father’s words came back to her then, from a day so many weeks ago in Xavier’s study when Agnes had insisted that her mother would have wanted her to know Ambrosine.

The Byrnes are not who you think they are, Xavier had said. They are selfish and greedy. They are arrogant.