I hurry toward the sitting room. Maryl’s distraction won’t last much longer, and there is as good a spot as any to start my search for answers. I have to go from the back corner of the house to the front; making speed while staying sneaky is not easy under such circumstances. When I finally get close, I see only the left side of the central staircase’s landing.

A blurry person stands on the landing while another paces next to it. Mr. Veratog is obviously the one on the steps, and Mom’s ivory dress is easy to distinguish even at my blurry distance. I should’ve worn my glasses to such an important dinner.

Past them, through the sitting room’s open glass doors and into the foyer, the front doors slam open. I freeze.

Mom stops pacing and turns to the entryway. The echoes of footsteps reach me not long before the first shapes appear behind the sitting room’s threshold. I creep forward again.

“Max!”

Mom’s anguished cry stops my heart and feet. She doesn’t shout like that. I’ve not heard her make such a sound before in my life.

I run forward just as soon as Mom does. I duck away from Mr. Veratog before he even starts to reach for me. I stop next to a couch near the center of the room and gasp behind my hands.

Daddy is being carried through the house in the arms of a person taller than he is wearing silvery-black armor. Daddy’s left arm is almost bare from his shoulder to the middle of his forearm. His coat is wrapped around his right shin, but that pant leg is tattered from the knee down. All of the exposed skin around the ruined bits of his clothing is wrinkled, purple scars. Dark bruises swell up on the sides of his face.

And he groans in a creaky voice that fails to carry any of its usual rumble.

Mom reaches his side as Bastien walks straight to another person in a nearly identical suit of armor as the one carrying Daddy. The four of them hurry Daddy toward the staircase. Mom puts her hand on his cheek and tries to soothe him as the other guard gives Bastien what looks like a heavy canvas satchel. They’re all too focused on each other to notice me.

Something about those guards seems wrong. They move far too fluidly for anyone wearing so much metal armor. The plates look too… close? Like the suits would be too tight to fit even the slightest elf inside.

I walk along the back of the couch to meet them in front of the staircase. The guard that gave Bastien the bag turns from him and looks straight at me. I gasp.

The slots in the helmet where the guard’s eyes should be are filled with a pulsating, golden, fire-like energy. That same color flows in lines across the armor plates and faintly in the gaps between.

I look directly into the creature’s golden eyes. Animated armor, elemental possession, eerily thin folk I’ve not heard of before – I don’t care. I want some answers.

“What happened to my Dad?” I ask, clearly and loudly enough to reach the high ceiling of the room.

Each head turns to me, but nobody stops to answer. Instead, a hand clutches my shoulder and pulls me away from the group.

“Sorry, miss,” Mr. Veratog says with all due sincerity. “You weren’t meant to see this.”

I try to shrug him off, but his grip is too firm. Mr. Veratog nearly drags me back into the hallway. I barely see Mr. Tielswen run downstairs and take Daddy’s face in his hands

“What’s going on over there? Let her go!”

“Dammit, Dimitri, control yourself!”

I let Mr. Veratog turn me around. About twenty feet away, Dimitri yanks his wrist out of Max’s hand and spins toward our oldest brother. His jaw is so tight, his eye were so narrow, I don’t know what he might do.

“Mimi, stop!”

He turns to me and starts to say something, but his mouth snaps shut. He looks back at Max, who stands an arm’s length away with his hands slightly raised.

“The last thing Dad needs right now,” Max says in a shakily low voice, “is all of us barging in on him with a bunch of questions—”

Dimitri shakes his head. “No, what Dad needs is his family at his side.”

I take a deep breath. “Max may be right.”

Both of my brothers turn to me. Max looks relieved, but Dimitri looks confused, almost hurt. I peel away from Mr. Veratog and describe what I saw of Daddy’s injuries. Mimi—no, Dimitri stares at me in disbelief after I finish. Max covers his eyes and shakes his head. Nobody says anything to cover up the sound of boots on carpet behind me.

I look over my shoulder. Bastien approaches with two men in gray-and-brown driving uniforms. I take a moment to recognize them as Mr. Leland and Mr. Marcus. Not Mr. Veratog’s husband, who also works as my security detail, just regular driver Mr. Marcus. The three of them stop in front of Max, Dimitri, and me.

Bastien stands up straight. He rubs his hand near the base of his missing fingers and frowns at me. He clenches his jaw, takes a deep breath, and addresses all of us.

“Dad’s injuries are serious, but stabilizing. We have the medicines we need to aid his recovery, and Mr. Tielswen has the expertise to apply them. To expedite his healing, all nonessential functions and events within the manor are suspended, pending Dad’s recovery. If the three of you could bid our guests farewell, Leland and Markus will take them home. Mr. Tielswen has already started his treatment, so Dad is to have no visitors tonight. Understood?”

I nod and look back at Dimitri. He narrows his eyes at our brother, but eventually nods, too.