Page 166 of Fallacies

He shakes his head. “Alaric had figured out what Kage had been doing. They hadn’t been prepared to get you out that night, but your father came here in a panic. He took Esme out of her cell, handed you to her, and it was the last time I saw either of them. The last time I saw you.”

I glance around the space, the details of Kage’s memories coming back to me in waves. The way it smelled, the fabric covering my face, the fear in his voice…

Suddenly, I have conflicting feelings about my father. Only minutes ago, they were absolute—he was a terrible man, and he’s been haunting me ever since. There was nothing redeemable about him, but now…I’m not sure if there was love between him and my mother, but perhaps he had love for me.

However much his dark heart allowed him.

“What happened to him?” I ask softly, throat tightening around the question.

Grey shifts his weight, readjusting his chains again. “Kage was captured shortly after Esme got away with you,” he tells me. “He was charged with treason, and Alaric had him executed.”

I mutter a curse under my breath.

Executed? By his own father? It’s all so very tragic, and I don’t have the capacity to absorb it all. I’m not even sure where to start, and in the midst of replaying it all through my head, I get caught up on one seemingly insignificant detail:

“How did he get Esme past the ward?”

Grey shrugs, shaking his head as if it’s something else he’s wondered about and never got the answer to. “I don’t know.”

I force down a deep breath, but the air is uncomfortable in my lungs, and my brain feels ready to explode.

I’m the reason for all of this. It’s because of me that Esme never made it back to save them. My father was executed before he could help, and then all of these people were left with no one to defend them. In my parents’ desperation to save me, nobody was there to save them.

Suddenly, I don’t feel worthy of standing on this side of their cages. I don’t even feel worthy of standing down here at all.

But I do know one thing for certain: If I thought I was determined before, I’m hell-bent now. The only thing that could stop me from saving them is death, and I’ve already made a bargain with its dealer.

I glance over my shoulder, in Salem’s direction, not realizing how far into my own thoughts I’d spiraled until Grey says, “Did you find him or did he find you?”

I look back with furrowed brows, realizing that Grey is looking down at the silver of my Sol medallion peaking out from the top of my collar.

“The Hound?” I ask.

Grey smirks, nodding to the necklace. “No, my boy.”

At the mention of Callan, the tension in my shoulders softens. Just the thought of him pulls me back to the ground, and the bittersweet expression on Grey’s face makes me smile.

“Callan found me,” I tell him. “Right after my Split. He’s actually the reason I made it to Pirn. I never would have—” My smile falls, a sudden uneasy feeling churning in my gut. “Sorry, how did you know that we’d found each other?”

Grey blinks back at me, confused at my question, and when he points to my necklace, my heart falls to the floor.

“It was a fail-safe,” he says, like it’s information I should have known.

“What are you talking about?”

He swallows. “Esme and I had many backup plans. We wanted to make sure that if something happened and you were forced to grow up without her, you’d find your way to our people eventually.” Grey nods to my necklace. “The Lure was my idea. I put one in Callan’s when he was just a boy because after his mother died, I couldn’t stomach the thought of anything happening to him. I always wanted to know where he was.” His attention falls to his medallion. “Mine is embedded with the same magic I put in yours—a Lure that calls to his.”

I face the bars fully, gripping them until my knuckles turn white. “What is...How is that even possible?”

Grey replies as if it’s simple, “Esme gave me her necklace, the one she intended to give to you, and I embedded it with a Lure that connected to Callan’s.”

“You said you didn’t have access to magic in those chains?”

“Kage helped.”

I watch him blankly for a moment, trying to gather the sense to form words. “A…Lure?”

“Callan didn’t tell you?”