“I’d never do anything to hurt her,” Bekk said emphatically. “Her name is Juno Bera. I named her months ago, when I found out I was having a girl. Indu told me he knew she’d be a girl, that he only has daughters, because he took alvaroot every time before he tried conceiving.”

“Alvaroot?” I whispered, but neither Bekk nor Bryn seemed to notice.

“And then I found out the other babies died. I asked my midwife if it . . .” She went on, but I barely even heard her.

My mind was back on something I had read a while back when I was working in the archives of the Mimirin for Calder. I had put away a book called Country Food Recipes of the Kanin, but before I had, I’d skimmed through it for anything useful.

One of the recipes was titled “Tea Cakes with Alvaroot,” and the introduction explained that alvaroot mixes with our blood in powerful ways, helping to manifest the wishes of whoever ate it. The Kanin had once called it the “luck root.”

But a handwritten message scrawled in the margin had said: WARNING! Do not ingest alvaroot! It is a potent root with attraction properties, but it causes severe birth defects in the offspring of both men and women who have ingested it. A small defect to the heart that grows worse over time and usually causes death in infants within the first two years of life.

My stomach turned. Indu’s hubris—his unwavering belief that he could control everything around him, that he could breed an army to ensure that everyone followed his will—was what had damned so many of his children to a young death.

I don’t know if he knew about the risks of the alvaroot or not, since Bekk didn’t seem to be aware of them, but I wouldn’t be surprised either way. Indu had already proved that he put the needs of his daughters behind his own wants.

Bekk took a deep breath. “But I’m going to try anyway.”

Bryn reached over and put her hand over Bekk’s. “This is a step in the right direction. Elof is checking for abnormalities, and the sooner you know what’s going on, the more prepared you can be.”

“I hope so,” Bekk said, and then she turned to me. “Did Indu hurt you?”

I’d been deliberately vague about my time with Indu and the Älvolk, mostly glossing over it all except the part where he said Bryn and Juno were sisters. Last night, when we’d been explaining it all to her, I hadn’t been entirely sure where her loyalties lay. After all, she was carrying his child, and she had let him know that we were looking for him when we went to Isarna.

But with her looking at me now, worried for herself and her child, I thought she deserved the truth.

“He did, yes,” I said.