When her mother’s barrier collapsed, the mutated plants shrank back down to fill their decorative pots, becoming unassuming house plants once more.

A chill ran down Elana’s spine.

Her mother never dropped her guard. It was unlike her. Which meant that the intruders, neither of whom could have been over thirty and were therefore not her parents’ peers, had to mean something to her. She wasn’t treating them like garden-variety assassins, but people of significance.

It took Elana all of thirty seconds to see why.

The man standing next to the wild-eyed, crimson-haired woman—who was apparently called Valkyrie—was a stranger to her, but his face was strikingly familiar.

The man was easily her father’s height, perhaps even taller. From the jewel gold of the intruder’s eyes to his raven-black hair, his coloring was the spitting image of a younger Gerard de Vanquise. He could have been mistaken for one of her father’s old portraits, if the stranger’s facial features weren’t also juxtaposed with her mother’s cold, elegant beauty.

He looked like someone Elana should have known, but she had never met him before. She was sure of it. So what was this?

Elana glanced sideways at her mother, but the duchess was frozen in place.

“You must be Elana, then.” The man’s voice cut through the room, sounding dry and faintly entertained. “I haven’t seen you since you were a few years old.”

Elana stiffened under the stranger’s deep ocher gaze. There was no hostility in his eyes, but neither was there any warmth. The combination of that empty familiarity and the intensity with which he was studying her made her palms break out in cold sweat.

He knew her. He had to. But she couldn’t place him. Who was he?

She edged towards her mother’s side without answering him. To her relief, the stranger’s attention shifted as her father stepped forward.

The sphere of dark energy in her father’s hand continued to grow and crackle ominously.

“What are you doing here?” he asked the stranger, his voice cold and commanding. He turned to her mother, narrowing his eyes. “Marlena. I’m certain I told you to cut all contact with him.”

Her mother’s eyes were visibly misty as she shook her head. Her mouth and nose stayed hidden behind her hands, hiding her expression, but her voice betrayed her. “I did,” she said with the faintest hint of a tremor.

Elana had never seen her mother so poorly composed. She edged closer, hovering uncertainly at her side. What was the appropriate thing to do in a situation like this? She had no doubt that her father would keep them safe, but what could she offer?

Elana hesitated with her hand over her mother’s shoulder. Her best instincts—deeply buried—told her a gentle squeeze might be reassuring, but she couldn’t make sense of how or why it would be. Instead, Elana angled herself between her mother and the intruders, hoping that obstructing her view might provide her with some relief.

When it was clear the duchess had no more to offer on the matter, her father’s eyes shifted back to the stranger.

The air in the room shifted with his attention, growing colder as the swirling darkness in the palm of her father’s hand continued to grow. Jagged lightning sparked and crackled from its center, illuminating the room in flashes of white and amethyst.

“Antoine.” Her father’s voice boomed in the enclosed space and she could hear the cold anger in it. “I told you that if you dared to come back, I would be forced to return you to the Maker. I pray you have a good reason for daring to show your face here.”

Antoine? Elana’s eyes widened, snapping to the sibling she had only ever known by name. Her eldest brother, more than ten years her senior, and the banished heir.

“Rest easy, Your Grace. You’ll find no evidence of my presence here once I leave. I took great great pains to cover my tracks on my way from the tower,” Antoine said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m here on unofficial business as Antoine de Vanquise, not as a representative of the Magic Tower or the academy.”

The gears in Elana’s mind came to a dead stop. Antoine had been exiled—erased. But he was powerful. Titled. Influential. A representative of not only the academy, but the Magic Tower.

Her stomach churned. Why, then? If he’d achieved so much, how had he still fallen so far out of favor?

It was no secret that the crown considered the Magic Tower to be the closest thing to a threat within the borders of the empire. Its resources and influence rivaled only the king’s.

Elana’s eyes darted to her father.

Had that been the cause of their rift, when her brother’s prestige and accomplishments far surpassed what any parent could dare to wish for? Political differences? Was that it? Did it really take so little to be excommunicated from the de Vanquise family?

She almost asked—she wanted to. But the air itself was oppressive, thick with magic. She was acutely aware that there was no place for her between her parents and estranged sibling. Next to them, she was an ant among titans.

The duke’s golden eyes landed on Valkyrie, and his features twisted with a combination of emotions that Elana couldn’t quite place.

“And you brought that rabid thing with you?” her father asked, his voice dripping with open disdain.

Valkyrie visibly bristled and took a lunging step forward, only to be stopped by Antoine's outstretched arm. Elana flinched, nearly stumbling into her mother as she took a half-step back. Valkyrie hadn’t raised her weapon, but Elana could taste her bloodlust in the air.

“Antoine—” Valkyrie snarled, irritated.

He shook his head. “Stand down.”

With those two words, Valkyrie’s disposition shifted. The bloodlust dissipated, as if it had never been there to begin with, and the fire in her eyes went flat.

Antoine’s attention shifted back to Gerard. His eyes narrowed, and his icy expression was eerily similar to her—no, to their mother’s. “Valkyrie is here as my personal knight,” he said coolly. “Is that a problem?”

“I’m to believe that you brought that rabid hound for a simple home visit?” the duke replied.

“A home visit?” Antoine laughed humorlessly. “When was the last time you let me call this place my ‘home’? Valkyrie was forced to spill that poor knight’s blood when he tried to bar me from entering.”

Antoine gestured to the crumpled figure on the floor behind him.

“I would rather she not do the same to you, Father,” he said with a theatrical lack of sincerity.

“Gerard,” their mother said, stepping forward and intervening by setting her hand on his forearm. “Enough,” she whispered. “Please.”

The spell swirling in Gerard’s hand quieted. “No one saw you come?” he asked Antoine, his face still rife with tension. “Are you absolutely certain?”

“I am, Your Grace. You’ll be grateful I’m here,” Antoine said. He nodded in Elana’s direction. “I came to deliver a gift for my baby sister, and to have a word with her. You do remember that I’m an instructor now, at the academy, don’t you?”

Elana tasted metal in her mouth, and the sick, hollow feeling in her stomach expanded. He was an instructor at the academy that their siblings had perished at. All of them.

Was his apparent concern with her the product of a guilty conscience, because he had let the rest of them die? Or worse—what if he’d had a hand in their deaths, and she was next? Elana raised her hand to her mouth as discreetly as she could while her stomach churned.

Antoine’s eyes flickered in her direction—brief, disinterested—and then back to their father, who stared stonily back at him.

“If they find out she can’t use mana, the other students will come for her head,” Antoine warned, stepping forward as he maintained eye contact with him. “Is that what you want?”

Their father didn’t answer.

“I didn’t think so,” Antoine said. “I told you that you would be grateful I came.”

He reached into his pocket, withdrew a velvet jewelry box, and held it up. “I’ve been working on a magical artifact that should prove useful.”

“Then leave it and go,” the duke said, narrowing his eyes. “I can overlook your intrusion, this once, for your sister’s sake.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to give her a little instruction if you want to make sure she doesn’t immediately get herself killed,” Antoine said.

His eyes shifted as he scanned the room, sweeping from corner to corner before he frowned.

“And where’s the whelp? I intended to test his readiness as well,” he added.

Elana’s attention snapped back forward, her mind racing. The whelp? What was he talking about? Alarm bells rang like tripped wards in her mind. She was missing something. A big something.

She lowered her hand—shaking, fantastic—and, ant-among-titans be damned, asked, “What is he talking about?”

She glanced between her father and brother, and her eyes narrowed when neither of them answered her. Instead, her father held his outstretched arm out in front of her, putting the conversation on immediate pause.

“If your intention is to instruct those under my care,” he growled, addressing Antoine. “Then I’ll be the one to assess your qualifications.”