“But, Captain Byrne…” Averill hesitated, embarrassed, unable to meet Amon’s eyes.

“He stays,” Raisa said, growing impatient. “Now, what is it? How did Han Alister come to be working for you if he is such a dangerous person?”

Elena and Averill looked at each other as if each hoped the other would take on this task. They looked almost…guilty.

“Bear with us,” Elena said. “This is a secret that has been kept by the clan elders for a thousand years.”

Raisa spread her skirts over her knees. “Well?” she said, worry sharpening her tongue more than usual. “Maybe I know this secret already. Like the fact that Alister was elected High Wizard.”

“Hunts Alone shares your bloodline,” Elena said abruptly.

“My bloodline?” Raisa shook her head, certain she couldn’t have heard right. This was not the sort of secret she was expecting.

“The boy you call Han is also a descendant of Hanalea,” Elena said.

Suddenly, the similarity between the names clicked. “You’re saying…you’re saying Han is related to me?”

“Only very distantly. Very tenuously,” Averill said quickly, as if to undo what had just been said.

“But how is that possible?” Nightwalker said. “He is a jinxflinger!”

Averill rushed on without answering Nightwalker’s question. “My point is, there are some who might say that Hunts Alone has a claim to the Gray Wolf throne.” He said it softly, as if not wanting the world to hear.

“Wait a minute!” Raisa raised her hand, palm out, to stop him. “Even if he had some relationship to the line, there’s no way he could be in the direct descendancy.”

“Queen Alyssa had a twin brother,” Elena said.

“A twin brother?” Raisa shook her head. “No. Alyssa was an only child, the daughter of Hanalea and that consort she married after the Breaking—what was his name?” She should know; she’d studied this history for too long.

“Alyssa’s twin was named Alister,” Averill said.

“Alister! Why have I not heard of him?” Raisa looked at her grandmother, her father.

“Alister was gifted,” Elena said. “He presented a danger to the Gray Wolf line.”

“But…Hanalea never had any gifted descendants,” Raisa said. “Anyway, if Han came from a line of wizards, he wouldn’t have been living in Ragmarket.”

“His powers were suppressed,” Averill said.

“What do you mean, suppressed?” Raisa asked suspiciously.

“Those silver cuffs he wore. They kept his magic from manifesting. He didn’t even know he was gifted until a year ago.”

The story was disjointed and sketchy enough to be true. If it was a lie, they would have done a better job in the telling. But Raisa could see that they were measuring out their words—telling her only enough to serve their purposes, trying to avoid some dark and significant truth.

“But…why would the first Alister be gifted?” Raisa persisted. “The gifted trait isn’t compatible with the Gray Wolf magic, so it couldn’t have come from Hanalea, even though her father was a wizard. And Hanalea’s consort wasn’t a wizard—that wasn’t allowed after the Breaking.”