“He’s your brother. He has to forgive you,” I say. “He’s probably more mad about having to wear a dress.”

She turns to face me against the rail. “You don’t know anything, do you? His job is to protect me. With his life, if necessary. And I’ve just thrown that in his face. For you.”

“I didn’t ask you to come!”

“Yes, but now that Ivan’s dead you need me.”

“He’s your brother, not your warden.”

“He’s my sibling. Not my brother.”

“What’s the difference?”

“I have no brother. He’s my sibling by choice.”

“I don’t get it.”

“The hunters target females because the legacy passes through them.”

“How can you say that? They just killed Ivan.”

“Yes, for what he knows! You really don’t remember anything, do you?”

“No, I don’t,” I snap.

“A male line dies on its own—any children he has with a normal woman are not Utod. His only value to the hunters is what he may know. They will always target a female first to halt the legacy—the gifts she passes to her children. So she adopts a sibling if she doesn’t have one to protect her. And that bond will be deeper than if they had come from the same womb.”

“Do they ever get . . . involved? I mean if they’re not really related?”

“Sometimes, of course. But it becomes complicated. And makes both parties vulnerable.” There’s something like reproach in her gaze. I haven’t forgotten her statement that I wasn’t worth risking more lives.

I decide to just come right out with the question. “How did we know one another, Claudia?”

She studies me for a moment.

“We met in the Budapest court—”

“Court . . .” I recall Ivan using that term as well.

“The Utod underground.”

“Which is in Budapest.”

“In many cities. But Budapest, naturally. And Zagreb. The Prince of Zagreb himself sent me to Opatija to see for him if it is true that you are alive,” she says with a tilt of her chin.

I lift my brows slightly. “Why would he care?”

“Really, Audra, why did you do this?” She truly seems troubled. “No. You don’t know,” she answers for herself and shakes her head.

“No,” I say quietly. “I don’t. So we met in Budapest.”

“Through a woman named Katia, yes. Piotrek was her biological brother. Her twin.”

“Then why is he with you?”

“Because she’s dead.”

“I’m sorry.”