The waiter poured the tea and took off.
“I know exactly how deep they are. I know that there is an organization which is attempting to destabilize Houston with the long-range goal of installing an authoritarian government based on the Roman Empire. I know that the man at the head of it calls himself Caesar. I know that this plan began with Adam Pierce. I know that Olivia Charles and David Howling were part of the same conspiracy, which also includes Vincent Harcourt and Alexander Sturm. David Howling told this to me before I snapped his neck. I know that this conspiracy repeatedly targeted my family, going as far as to hire mercenaries to assault the warehouse where we live. They had orders to kill me and my sisters. I also know that you were the one who lifted the hex on the mind of a young man to find the artifact for Adam Pierce. And that you hexed Vincent Harcourt to keep him from spilling Caesar’s secrets. You’re in this conspiracy up to your elbows.”
I took a breath. “So I’m a little confused. You tell me that I’m supposed to trust you because you and I are blood. When was blood the most important thing to you? Was it when the mercenaries arrived in the middle of the night to butcher us, when Howling iced the overpass while I was in the car behind him so I would wreck and die, or when Adam tried to burn me to death in the middle of downtown?”
Victoria narrowed her eyes. “Clever girl.”
I sipped my tea.
“You have no proof.”
“I don’t need proof. A truthseeker hexed Vincent’s mind. There are only three truthseeker Houses in the US. I met Garen Shaffer and eliminated him as a suspect.”
“You cracked Garen Shaffer?” Skepticism filled her voice.
“I didn’t have to. He wanted to play a game, and he lost.”
“He didn’t cloak?”
“He did at some point, but I picked through it. Garen Shaffer is too focused on the welfare of his family and his corporate health to become involved in a conspiracy. He’s quite content with things as they are. House Lin is up to their throats in government contracts.” Rogan had shared that handy fact with me one night, while we discussed the future of House Baylor. “Involving themselves with the conspiracy would be too risky, as they’re under heavy scrutiny. That leaves you. You fit the profile.”
“Oh, so there is a profile?”
“Yes. Everyone involved comes from an old powerful House, at least four generations deep. Everyone is dissatisfied with the status quo. Pierce wanted to burn the world free of repercussions and constraints of the law. David Howling wanted to destroy his brother and take over his House. Olivia Charles hated to see her only daughter stuck in a loveless marriage because of her genes. She had reached the apex of her social climb, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted the kind of status that would allow Rynda to pick and choose her husband among the elite of the elites, no matter her genes. Vincent Harcourt is a sadist, who is almost never given free rein by his House. Not sure what Sturm’s issues are, but he definitely has some.”
“And me?” Her voice was deceptively mild.
“Your only son ran away when he was still a teenager. You never had another child, probably because you can’t. Without heirs, House Tremaine will die with you.”
Victoria’s face showed no emotion. Nothing at all, as if she were carved from rock.
“You looked for him and terrorized everyone you thought might be connected to his disappearance. But you went too far, and you were made to stop. You wanted the freedom of looking for your son. You wanted access to every database, every information bank, every person you decided to question without such pesky limitations as criminal code or rulings of the Assembly. You wanted more power. What you did is treason. My father wouldn’t stand for it and neither will I. I want nothing to do with you.”
I got up, turned away, and took a step.
“The middle one is a siren,” Victoria said behind me. “Like her grandfather. But the youngest is neither a siren, nor truthseeker. She is something else. Something you can never let out.”
Catalina and Arabella. I spun around.
Victoria pointed at the chair. “Sit.”
I sat.
“I had twelve miscarriages. It runs in the family, something you may need to worry about in the future. We get one offspring per generation, and we count our lucky stars if the child survives. I was my mother’s ninth and final pregnancy. She died when I was twelve. My father followed her two years later. I am House Tremaine. Alone. I wanted a child. The future of the House required it, but I wanted one. And that child would need to be a strong one. A weakling would be killed. The father had to be a Prime. I tried with three different Primes, each carefully chosen, cajoled, seduced, bribed. Whatever it took.”
Her hands curled around her cup like talons. Old pain flared in her eyes.
“Why not marry?”
“Because the man I loved died three weeks into our engagement. He was a precog from the House Vidente. He never foresaw his own death. His business rival commissioned the hit. He was shot as we were walking out of the theater.” She brushed her cheek. “It took me a long time to stop seeing the blood on my skin. It went away, finally, after I killed the last of them.”
“You killed the entire rival House?”
“Yes. All of them, the husband, the wife, the children. Their dog.”
Ice claws pierced my spine.
“For me, there was only one man. But my child required a father. I tried twelve times before I finally saw the writing on the wall. It had to be an in vitro fertilization. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to convince a Prime to donate his sperm? How afraid they are that their precious DNA will grow legs and take off into the world? You can seduce a man into your bed and tell him comfortable lies about how much you desire him and how your contraception is flawless, so he comes inside you, but ask him to ejaculate into a tube and you can’t hide the true purpose of that request. They realize that you intend to have their child, and they run, because they’re cowards.”
I should have walked away, but I couldn’t now. I had to know. “What did you do?”
“In the end, I found one. Formerly of House Molpe. They call themselves something else now. I suppose Molpe was too on the nose. The Office of Records is delighted to call Catalina’s talent siren. They think they are clever and came up with something new, but the truth is, your grandfather’s family called their magic that for generations.”
“How did you convince him?”
She grimaced. “Money. They’d excised him. He was a siren, a true Prime, terrified to use his talent because it brought him nothing but misery.”
“I thought the siren talent only manifested in females.”
“They’d like you to think that, but no. Believe me, I checked. I had far too much riding on it. The father was the lesser hurdle. I also had to find a surrogate. She had to be a Prime. Anything less than a Prime, and I ran the risk of lessening the child’s magic or her failing to carry to term. I couldn’t afford either. Finding a Prime surrogate was impossible.”
Oh no. Oh my God, no. “You didn’t.”
She smiled for the first time, a quick parting of lips and a flash of teeth. “I did.”
“How?”
“Blackmail and money. Two of the oldest levers one presses when trying to move people to her purpose.”
I just stared, horrified.
“Your father wasn’t just special. He was one of a kind. There will never be another. I had them neuter her.”
“What?”
“She’s kept under constant sedation. That’s the only way they can keep her contained. She never knew the pregnancy happened. The cost was astronomical, but it was worth it.”
“That’s horrible. You are horrible.”
“I am.”
She sipped her tea.
“Your father was a triple carrier. His own magic failed to express, which was expected. I never held that against him. I had enough magic for us both. His real value was in the children he would produce. I always had faith that the genes would sort themselves out. But to do that, to be a successor, he had to be shaped and molded. There were lessons he had to learn. Practical, useful lessons that would keep him alive after I was gone. He hated them, and he hated me for teaching them.”