“Who are you in all of this, anyway? One of them—us? Please don’t tell me you’re my uncle Rolan.”

“There are those of us committed to protecting the lives of Bathory’s direct descendants. Since the day four centuries ago we concealed the whereabouts of her illegitimate first child, taken away in secret before she married. We are an old order who watch and intervene only when we must.”

I almost take comfort, hearing that. But something’s bothering me.

“I saw you. Talking to Luka behind the Dropfly.”

“I was. I told him everything.”

“What?”

“He followed you to Maine. He obviously knows you’re living under an assumed name. So I told him I was your stepbrother, that I’d been looking for you, had seen the two of you together at lunch. That you went through some unknown trauma back at home you refused to talk about, erased part of your memory, and faked your own death.”

“Why would you tell him that?”

“I needed him to know killing you now would get him no information. I told him I was the only family member who knew you were alive, and that I was worried about your mental state. He acted upset, made up some story about how often you seemed forgetful since you started dating, and said he wanted to talk.”

“We weren’t dating.”

“I told him to let me talk to you first. That I’d bring you by his place tomorrow so we could stage an intervention or some such thing. But he was suspicious. And then I saw him following me on the way to your place and knew you were out of time.”

“Why didn’t he kill me in Europe? Because you were there?”

“A hunter will follow, even toy with a mark for years. Insinuate himself into her life if necessary, give her time to discover who she is, to find others like her—all to gain as much information as possible on her death.”

I lean back and cover my eyes. I feel sick. Fifty questions are careening through my skull, but one takes precedence over them all.

“Who am I trying to protect?”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re my priority.”

“It matters to me!”

He sighs. “Friends. Other Progeny you met in Europe, your adoptive parents . . .” I glance at him sharply, and he hesitates before saying, “It isn’t unheard of for a hunter to threaten a non-Progeny family member to gain what he wants.”

Family. The parents who took me in and raised me as their own. And now I don’t even know who or where they are.

“How long have you been following me?” I ask suddenly.

“Almost a year.”

“Then you know where they are.” I grab his phone. “Tell me where they are!”