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Elyria’s laughter rang in Cedric’s head before he heard it aloud.

“Tartanis is fine, Sir Manners. It’s his surname,” she told him with a snort. “Lightbreaker belonged to my mother.”

Tartanis dipped his chin, then bent at the waist in the slightest of bows. “Aster Tartanis, at your service.”

“Oh, I bet you are,” Elyria said, though her sarcastic remark barely registered.

“I’m sorry, did you say, ‘Aster’? But, your, uh . . .” Don’t say “minions.” Don’t say “minions.” “Your employees, they call you . . . I’ve only ever heard you referred to as . . .”

“Master Tartanis. Yes, I know. It was a joke of sorts, at first. Then it sort of . . . stuck.”

“I see.” Stars above, this was not in any way what Cedric had expected.

“You were expecting something else?” Tartanis asked with an unbothered smile, setting down the deck of cards.

Cedric balked. Had he said that out loud? He hesitated, honesty warring briefly with self-preservation. He really wasn’t sure what kind of impression he was supposed to be making on the man, or if he was supposed to care if he made any impression at all. “I suppose I was? I don’t know, sir,” he said lamely.

“From my name or from me? What would have been more fitting, do you think? A dark cloak? A hood? A booming voice echoing from the shadows?” Tartanis’s lips twitched. “Alas, I’m afraid I left the theatrics behind quite some time ago.”

“You could’ve fooled me,” Elyria said flatly.

“Yes, well, you’d know something about leaving things behind, wouldn’t you, my stellanoctus?”

The word bounced down the bond like a stone dropped into still water. Cedric felt the ripples of Elyria’s hurt surge down it, sharp enough that he instinctively shifted closer to her. She didn’t look at him. Didn’t look at her father either. Her gaze remained fixed on some point just past Tartanis’s shoulder, as though she couldn’t stand the thought of meeting his emerald stare with her own.

“Don’t call me that,” she said.

Cedric was about to ask her what it meant when a memory stirred from the back of his mind.

“He used to call me his dark star. Isn’t that poetic? I hated it then. Hate it now.”

His jaw tensed.

Tartanis raised his hands in supplication. “My apologies, Elyria. Back to the matter at hand, then. You thought ‘master’ was a different kind of moniker, did you, Sir Thorne? A reference to being a slavedriver, as it were, perhaps? Or simply how I work my . . . what was it you said . . . minions to the bone?”

Cedric stumbled back a step. He most definitely had not said that aloud.

Fuck it all, Tartanis was a stars-damned mindwielder.

He smiled that half-tipped smile.

“That’s enough, Father. Stop playing with him,” Elyria said curtly. Then, down the bond, she added, “Welcome to my own personal quarter of hell.”

“How do I keep him from reading my thoughts?” Cedric sent back, praying that the things said between the two of them could at least stay private.

“Same way we practiced keeping them from each other. Close the door. Close them all.”

Cedric swallowed but did as she suggested. He shut every one of his mental doors, locking them up tight, trying not to physically shudder as he shut out Elyria and felt their bond go mute.

“You’re a quick study,” Tartanis said after a moment. “I am impressed.”

“That makes one of us,” Cedric replied, doing his best to keep his hands from curling into fists. “Is this all a game to you? You are the one who summoned us here. Did you only do so because you wanted to, what, toy with us? Rub your influence in your daughter’s face, stare down her⁠—”

“Her what?” Tartanis said sharply. “What are you exactly, Sir Cedric Thorne? Who are you to think you can lay claim to my daughter? My request was to speak with her, not with you. It would be best if you took your leave.”

Elyria stepped forward, and Cedric didn’t need the bond to feel the anger pulsing off her. “Who are you to speak to him that way? I am more his than I have ever been yours, and we are only here as a courtesy. For whatever reason, you helped the people of Elderglade escape Malakar’s attack tonight, and for that I will begrudgingly admit my thanks. But whatever this”—she gestured rapidly between herself, Tartanis, and Cedric—“is, it needs to come to a very rapid end before either of us says or does something we will never be able to take back.”

Silence pressed in around them, thick as packed snow. It only broke when Thraigg, still staring at the trio with wide, bewildered eyes from his cot, cleared his throat. “I very much feel like I shouldn’t be here right now,” he said after a moment. “But ye’re the ones crowdin’ my bedside at the moment, and I’m on strict orders not to go anywhere. So if ye won’t relocate, could ye at least clue me in?”