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He froze, a muscle in his jaw ticking. “Who sent you?”
“No one sent me.”
I lifted the chain over my neck. When he took the locket from me, the chain looked tiny in his hand. With his fingernail, he pried the locket open.
“Who gave you this?” he asked.
I clenched my shaking hands into fists. “My mother.”
He curled his fingers around the locket. “I will ask you once again. Who sent you?”
“No one sent me. I came here myself from America.”
He had an expression of sharp scrutiny in his eyes, and it hid his emotions well. “Why?”
“To find my father.”
“The father you never knew,” he said, still studying me like a puzzle to be solved.
I nodded.
Silence thickened the air between us, burdened by unspoken words. The Grandmaster still held my locket, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask for it back.
“Tell me your name,” he said. It wasn’t a request.
“Ardis.” He didn’t deserve my birth name.
“Does death thrill you, Ardis?”
A chill ran down my spine. “Why would you ask me that?”
“Because you chose to be with Wendel.” His gaze flicked over to my sword. “Because you must have brought that blade with you when you left America.”
“How did you know?”
“It’s a Chinese sword. And I have a faint recollection of it belonging to your mother.”
My stomach knotted. “How long were you together?”
“Long enough.”
The Grandmaster reached across the distance between us and placed his hand over mine. It felt rough and warm. LikeI had imagined my father’s touch would feel, back when I was nothing more than a lonely child.
I bit the inside of my cheek. I wasn’t small and helpless.
Not anymore.
“Who are you, Ardis?” he asked, his voice gentler than I would have thought possible.
“Your daughter,” I said, still not wanting to believe it.
“Then you belong with me.” His eyes darkened. “With us.”
“With the Order of the Asphodel?”
“Of course.”
I tried to jerk my hand away from him, but he tightened his grip until my bones ached. “Let go of me.”
