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I hadn't fully understood what that meant until I said it aloud.

The room around us wasn't somewhere Oda had put the stray girl because there was nowhere else for her to go. It had been built for people like me. For four hundred years, Wildhearts had climbed those stairs, slept beneath that carved hart, and looked out through that same window.

I wasn't the first empty girl the tower had taken in.

More importantly, I had never been empty at all.

"The records say the Hart wakes when the Wildheart is safe," I said.

Jax glanced around the tower before looking back at me. "Are you?"

I almost laughed. "No."

Nobody laughed with me.

"Which is probably why she hasn't woken yet." I looked down at my palms. "What happened at the Proving wasn't me finally shifting. I reached through the bond and took Kaelen's wolf because I was terrified, bleeding, and needed something strong enough to survive Delphine."

If I concentrated, I could still remember the sensation of it: the black fur, the gold eyes, the weight of teeth behind my lips. It had never belonged to me, but it had answered me anyway.

"And that's the part Aldric recognized," I said.

Tamsin looked up sharply. "What do you mean?"

"After the Proving, when everyone was shouting, Aldric leaned toward Kaelen. He was furious that Kaelen's wolf had appeared through me. He knew exactly what had happened."

Silas's expression went flat. "You're telling me Vance knows what you are."

"Yes. Or he knows enough to be dangerous." I got to my feet because I couldn't sit still for this part. "But I think I've been asking the wrong question. Observation, control and culling aren't three different explanations. They're an order."

Nobody interrupted.

"First they observe. My file was stamped SUSPECTED. OBSERVE before I ever came here. They withheld the packet and watched what I did without it. Aldric changed my Proving so he could see what happened when I was threatened. On the mainland, his men brought darts, not bullets. One of them said the Council wanted me breathing."

Jax's face had gone completely serious.

"If what they see is useful, they take control," I continued. "And if they can't control it, then they cull it."

I thought of Sera's name in the register.

Retained by order of the Chair.

"They didn't kill my mother when she was five. They kept her. They retained one Wildheart child and continued monitoring descendants of the line for forty-one years."

"They were waiting for another one," Tamsin whispered.

"Maybe. Or making sure that if another one appeared, she appeared alone, ignorant and dependent on them." I looked around the room. "The Hollowing records say the Council destroyed the Wildhearts because a Wildheart bonded to several Kindred Elders could pull those Houses away from Council authority. That means the threat isn't simply a living Wildheart. It's an independent Wildheart forming bonds they can't control."

Jax leaned forward, then hissed when the movement pulled at his ribs. "And Kaelen is an Elder's heir."

"Exactly. I think the Severing is meant to do two things. Cut me off from the strongest political bond I've formed and prove that Kaelen still obeys his father."

Silas watched me closely. "You said you think Kaelen believes the Severing will save your life."

"I do. The announcement came immediately after Aldric confronted him. Kaelen had a new bruise, and the grief coming through the bond nearly put me on the floor." I forced myself to say the next part carefully. "I think Aldric threatened to have me culled if Kaelen refused."

"What are you going to do?" Tamsin asked.

"Ask him to know for sure."