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Tyr jumped when the entire shelf moved, bowing inward. The scholar stepped through the opening and disappeared.
Seeing no other choice, Tyr followed him into the secret passage.
For the first time in years, Ana did not step daintily through the halls of Fanghelm, hoping to remain unnoticed.
She stormed in like a soldier announcing a war.
The many eyes fixed on her belonged to people she’d known most or all of her life, staff she’d trusted for years before Magda had corrupted them. They gawped at her in a heady, dazed blend of confusion and sorrow, as though they’d awakened from a long nap and found their world much changed.
As they swarmed into the central hall, they each showered her with apologies, prostrate with horror at their inability to fight the thrall of the crone. They begged for Ana’s forgiveness, something she didn’t even know how to offer.
Ana didn’t have time to relieve their anxiety, nor the heart. They had all, wittingly or not, played a significant role in subjugating and isolating her. The love she saw as she swept her attention across them, one by one, was not the consolation it might have been if she had still been the same subjugated, isolated girl who had nearly thrown her life away to find the light again.
She gripped a column when searing pain ripped across her mind. Mortain. He’d been trying to break in for hours, and her only reprieve had been the cave, a place he seemingly had no power. But relentless and determined, he’d come raging back, wearing her down, the moment she’d exited.
“Mistress?” asked Feyhan, Stepan’s once-vodzhae. All Wynters were supposed to have one, but Magda had driven Ana’s away years ago. Feyhan had stayed on, aiding Lenik in his work with Arkhady, but she knew his true intent in staying had been to eventually convince Ana he would be a suitable replacement for the one she’d lost. He might have made a persuasive argument had he not eventually, like the others, succumbed to Magda’s sway. “This is everyone. As you asked.”
Everyonewas more than she had realized. Could there really be over a hundred staff in Fanghelm? Had she been so inured to the world around her that she’d forgotten so much?
Ludya pulled up beside her. “Breathe, Ana. You are stronger than your doubt would have you believe.”
“Where’s my father?”
“Lenik is with him. He’s improving, but he’s experienced some confusion.” Ludya patted Ana’s arm. “It may take time for him to return to the man you remember.”
Ana nodded, drawing a shaky breath. “And Grigor?”
“Here.” The man stepped in from the hall. “Discovered two trying to escape. Minions of the crone.” His nose and mouth twitched. “They work for no one now.”
Ana arched a brow at her uncle’s casual delivery of confessing the murder of two people. But she would spare no tears for traitors. She turned back toward the gathered staff. “I’ll keep this brief. Magda is dead. She can plague us no longer. I will not hold over your heads the terrible deeds you committed on her behalf. The pain you caused. For I, too, hurt others in her name. But Magda was not the source of the evil that haunted our halls. She answered to a being far more powerful, one whose name I will not speak. Whose name willneverbe spoken in our halls again. Never be written in our caves, our histories.” Ana paused to gauge their reactions.
They were all listening, rapt.
“I intend to defeat him and end this. But I need to know my father is safe. That Fanghelm is safe.” Ana gestured toward Ludya. “Ludya here, along with her fellow vedhma and veduhn, will guide you all in how to protect your minds from malicious infiltration. Until this is ended, Fanghelm will be a fortress—impenetrable, even from a monster such as the one who has chosen us for his diabolical deeds. I require verbal acknowledgment from all here that you understand what I am saying and asking.”
Murmurs rippled through the staff. Some wore uncertainty in their eyes, others excitement. But she’d done her part and had to trust Ludya to do hers.
“One more thing, in the event this is not already clear to you now that your minds have been released. The Ravenwoods are ourallies, not our enemies. Henceforth, anyone who harms them, unless acting in justifiable self-defense, will be held to the same laws that govern harm to our own people. Understood?”
More affirmations followed. Ana breathed deep and turned toward Grigor. “Follow me to the library?”
He nodded and fell in behind her.
When they were safely inside, Ana bolted the doors and faced her uncle. “Can I count on you to do something for me?”
Grigor leaned against the door with a stoic nod. “You know my answer.”
“The observatory,” she intoned. The idea felt extreme, even under the circumstances. Could aplacebe evil? Or was it evil that rendered a place unfit for use? Did it matter, when her heart told her thismustbe done? “There is a cellar in the courtyard behind it.”
“I know it.”
“You do?”
“It’s no cellar.”
Ana scoffed. “Nien. And you may wish to take reinforcements, for I cannot be certain there will not be other sycophants of the koldyna lying in wait to avenge her.”
“Unnecessary. What is the ask?”
