She massages her forehead. “Either they believed him or they were willing to be complicit in his lie. It’s hard to know which. But in either case, my parents were convicted and sent to Fang Island. Leiden’s Bone Charmer was too. And I was expelled from Ivory Hall and stripped of any right to practice bone magic.”

Horror pushes up my throat. “But they’re not still there, right? You must have been able to reverse such a terrible decision.”

Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. “Fang Island is a cruel place. All three of them died before they could be vindicated.”

I think of Jensen and my stomach seizes. What will become of him? What will become of Boe in his absence?

“So is that why everything changed between you and Latham?” I ask. “Because of what his father did?”

“Of course not,” she says, like one person’s family betraying another’s in such a heinous way wouldn’t be enough to tear most couples apart. Her hands tremble as she smooths invisible wrinkles in her dress. “I didn’t hold him responsible for what happened. We don’t choose our parents. But yes, it changed things. Or I should say, it changed Latham. He became bitter. Obsessed with revenge.”

I squirm uncomfortably in my seat as I think of my own fantasies of exacting vengeance on Latham. I don’t want to fathom that the two of us could ever have anything in common.

“At first, we stayed together. But increasingly, I realized he had become a different person. His father’s actions—and the Grand Council’s—had unlocked a darkness in his heart that no amount of love could overcome. He started dabbling in dark magic, seeking out those who used it, learning to practice it himself. It frightened me.”

“What kind of dark magic?” I ask. Did he know about the spell that required the bones of three Charmers even then? Had he been planning to kill my mother since he was my age?

“Terrible things. Using healing magic to cause pain instead of relieve it, Mason-made weapons that should never exist, bone potions that induce panic if swallowed …” She stops talking, pressing her lips together as if she’s ashamed the words have escaped. “I thought maybe in time he’d learn to forgive, to let go of all his hatred, but it only got worse. So I left him. I moved away from Kastelia City and came home.”

“Did he try to win you back?” Bram asks.

“For many years,” she says. “He seemed to show up at odd times, to know precisely where I’d be on a given day. Finally he admitted that he’d been reading my future. We fought.” She touches the pendant at her throat again, as if to reassure herself that it’s still there. “I told him I never wanted to see him again. But …”

“But what?” I ask.