He lets out a slow breath. “It’s the Progeny holy grail. They think it contains proof she was set up so the king and her sons-in-law could take possession of her land. That finding it will end the hunt once and for all. But the Scions believe it’s a detailed account of the girls she tortured and killed. Proof of their reason for being.”

“So which is it?”

“Who knows? No one’s ever found it, if it even exists. Years after Bathory’s death, her son Pál believed if he could find his mother’s diary and prove her innocence, the king would be forced to return the property the crown had taken and clear the family name. It was illegal by then to speak Elizabeth Bathory’s name in public. But Pál never found it. The king—by then the Holy Roman Emperor—accused him and his siblings of treason, confiscated the rest of their land . . .”

“And banished them from Hungary.”

He nods. “Bathory’s descendants have been searching for the diary ever since. As have the Scions of the Dispossessed.”

“Could that really end it?”

“It’s a myth, Audra. Or was until rumor started circulating that your mother was close to finding it. The Historian wants it so badly, he’s put a ten-million-euro bounty on it.”

“Which is why you didn’t just kill me outright,” I say quietly.

Luka doesn’t answer.

“And Ivan thinks I found this diary.”

“I don’t know. No one could have gotten closer. You have no idea what your mother was to the Progeny. What you were to them before you died.”

“What was I?”

“Hope. That the generational curse would be broken. That Progeny could live in the open for the first time in centuries, have families. Die a natural death.”

I blink into the wind streaming through the broken window.

“So did I find it or not?”

“If you had found it, there’s no way you’d have gone in for the procedure. You would’ve ended this if you could. Unless . . .”

I glance at him as his expression changes, along with his tone. “Unless you found it and it didn’t prove her innocence.”

“If we were as close as you say, how could you not know whether I found it?”

“You knew what was at stake. It superseded everything. And I knew that. When I finally told you who I was, you withdrew from the underground to protect them. From me, too, of course. You were spooked, imagining how close you came to having their blood on your hands just because you knew me. You had nightmares about it for months.”

“How do you know?”

“You told me. Later, when you decided to trust me again, before you went in for the procedure.”

“To protect the underground.”