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He was there when we registered as a House. He was one of the two witnesses, with Connor being the other.
A memory came to me, Alessandro and I in Linus’ summer mansion, Linus grilling meat for his patented fajitas, Alessandro looking at me, looking at Linus, and then murmuring to himself in Italian, “I’m such an idiot.”
He knew! Siren magic leaked, and Alessandro’s antistasi powers would’ve tagged it as a threat.
“Sonovabitch!”
I wasn’t even sure which one of them I was cursing at.
I braked hard in front of the desk and leaned onto it, face-to-face with the recorded Linus.
“Fuck you.” It felt good to say it out loud.
“You’re probably cursing and it’s fair. But if you’re watching this, the situation is urgent, so let’s put that part aside and move forward. I have many vital things to tell you.”
I landed back into the chair. Yes. I couldn’t wait to hear this. I knew all about House Duncan. It was an old Scottish House with a persistent line of hephaestus Primes. Duncans made weapons of all types and sizes. One time when Linus and I were chased and had to abandon our vehicle and everything inside it, he made a detour to a recycling center and built a gun out of scrap metal and magic. It fired the little tabs you broke off aluminum cans—there was a container of them there—and he’d killed three people with it.
Linus was an orphan. Both his father and his mother had died in a tragic car accident when he was a toddler. That was the official record.
“Angus Duncan, my grandfather, was a stubborn man, set in his ways and convinced he was always right.”
You don’t say. Shocking.
“He and my mother butted heads. When she was nineteen, they had a row and she left for a holiday in Greece. She met my father, who was twenty-six, handsome, and charming. They had a summer romance, and she became pregnant with me. His family pushed for marriage. My grandfather told her to come home. They had another one of their fights, over the phone this time, and the next week my mother married my father. House Duncan didn’t attend the wedding.”
Marrying someone because you were pissed off at your parent sounded like a recipe for disaster.
“The bloom was off that rose quickly. My parents were very different people. My mother had goals. She wanted to be someone, to challenge herself, and my father was content to float within the bubble his family had built to safeguard him. Still, two years after I was born, my mother was pregnant again, with a girl. My father’s relatives demanded she abort the child.”
What?
Linus’ expression turned harsh. “During the First World War the region was invaded by the Russian Imperium. Katina Molpe, my father’s oldest aunt, rowed her boat to one of those tiny rocky islands the Aegean is famous for, little more than a boulder sticking out of the water, and then she sang to the invading army. An entire battalion drowned trying to reach her, until enough of them managed to swim across the stormy water. You can guess what happened next.”
They tore her to pieces.
The love sirens inspired wasn’t truly love. It wasn’t gentle or selfless. It was a burning obsession and if allowed to linger, it grew into an all-consuming need to possess. If they couldn’t have the entire person, they would settle for a piece. A clump of hair. A nail. A finger. Anything would do. Katina died a horrible death to save her town. Nevada had told me this story just before our trials. A cautionary tale about the perils of siren magic.
“All Molpe carry the talent, but only women are Primes,” Linus continued. “I’m probably the strongest male siren alive but I’m barely an Average, and I suspect that is only due to the magic reserve I inherited from the Duncan side. I cannot compel people the way you do. The most I can do is to predispose people to like me and to sense when mental mages try to manipulate me.”
He must’ve felt Kaylee building up her power when she and her mother entered his study. The siren magic, however weak, gave him a warning. It was the only reason he was still breathing.
“After the war the Molpe family was hounded by every neighboring government and political faction wanting access to siren powers. A lot of Molpes died. The family had to go into hiding to save themselves. They relocated, changed their name, and made sure no more Primes were born.”
Selective breeding, Molpe style. Only male children were allowed to live.
“My mother refused to give up my unborn sister. She was a hephaestus Prime, and nobody would be taking her future baby away from her. She barricaded herself in a house and called my grandfather to come and get her. He and my uncles got there one day late. My father somehow got my mother to let him in and shot her in the head.”
