“Get dressed.”

I jumped, half in the process of removing my nightclothes, turning to find Lessa standing behind me. Her face was coated with a bemused expression that put me immediately on edge. Tonight was a full moon and there was a bonding ceremony to which I was invited. I’d intended to use the pretense of needing something from the markets in order to visit Marc and tell him the news, but it appeared that would have to wait.

“Why?” It was a struggle to keep from wrapping my arms around my body. Not to protect myself from the other girl, but to protect that which lay within from her venom.

“Your father wishes to speak with you.”

As always, my skin prickled with trepidation at an impending conversation with my father, and I half wondered if it ever would not. If I’d ever grow comfortable enough with deception to approach his interrogation without my heart pitter-pattering like that of a mouse who’s scented a cat. Or whether now that I had more to lose and more to protect, it would only grow worse.

But there was no avoiding it.

Pulling the gown on, I followed Lessa into the hallway and down to the parlor. The house was eerily quiet. Not as though it were empty, but as though everyone hid behind closed doors, holding their breath while they waited for disaster to strike.

Get control of yourself, I silently berated my overactive imagination. He has no more reason than he did yesterday to suspect. Yet all the logic and reason in the world did nothing to quell my growing urge to run. To hide.

To fight.

The air in the parlor was thick with unspent magic, and I jumped at the click as Lessa shut the door behind us, going to stand next to the wall, her arms crossed. My father stood with his back to me, elbows resting on the mantel over a fireplace that hadn’t seen flame in nearly five hundred years. Despite it being yet early, a full tumbler of amber liquid sat in easy reach.

“You wished to see me, Father?” I asked, needing to break the silence.

He snorted, the noise full of contempt. “Is there something you wished to tell me, Pénélope?”

Wished to, no. I opened my lips to spill useless information, but before I could say a word, he turned. “Let me rephrase: do you possess knowledge that I might wish to be made aware of?”

My hands and feet turned to ice, and I took an involuntary step back. No. Please no. Too late I realized that the knife I always carried with me to these meetings was still hidden in my room. Not that it mattered. There was no way I could stomach the idea of using it on myself now.

“Something,” he continued, “that might have resulted from your little trysts?”

Run.

I flung myself at the door, but I barely made it a step before magic snared me. I rotated in the air, helpless to do anything as my father approached, a knife – my knife – appearing in his gloved hand. He stopped, eyes on my stomach, then his lip curled back with disgust. “On anyone with power, it wouldn’t be noticeable. Yet despite this… child existing only a matter of weeks, its magic shines through yours.”