Han Alister was the descendant of a madman who had ravished a queen and broke the world. Or he was the final representative of a love that had defied convention, and those who paid the price for it.

Shiv’s words came back to him. What is it about you? People can’t stop talking about you. Telling stories. It’s all I hear about. Cuffs Alister this, Cuffs Alister that. It’s like you’re golden.

But Han didn’t come from royal blood. He was the son of a laundress and a soldier.

“Your grandfather wore the bracelets also,” Elena said, as if she’d read his mind. “He was fostered at Escarpment Camp.” She paused, and a flicker in her eyes said she was covering over a secret. “The gift did not manifest in your father. He died never knowing about his lineage.”

“What did you tell my mother?” Han found himself ask-ing. “Did she know what the cuffs were for?”

Elena shook her head. “We told her you had been possessed by a demon while still in the womb. That the cuffs would protect you. That she couldn’t tell you the truth because it would make you vulnerable to evil.” The matriarch said this with no trace of apology.

Han stared at her, horrified. It was no wonder Mam had always seemed convinced that he would fall prey to the siren call of the streets. Even when he left the life, she always questioned it, never believed he’d reformed. That lie had been a barrier between them. He recalled one of their last conversations. “You’re cursed, Han Alister,” she’d said, “and you’ll come to no good.”

“We arranged to foster you each summer at Marisa Pines,” Elena went on. “We paid your mother a small stipend.”

“So…you paid my mother to let you take me?” Han said, his voice cracking. “She didn’t…ask any questions?”

Wouldn’t Mam have wondered why the clan was interested in him?

Not if it brought in a little money. People with nothing don’t have the luxury of asking questions.

“Your mother hoped it would be good for you to get out of the city,” Willo said. “She hoped it would keep you out of the street life, that you might learn a fresh-air trade. That it might protect you from that early…damage.”

Han felt under siege as he never had in the camps before. They had always been a place of safety, of refuge. And here it had all been just another game of slide-hand. Willo and Elena and the others were nothing more than grifters in clan garb.

He’d been made a fool of—stung like a loaded mark on the streets of Ragmarket.