Page 280 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

My mouth parted half from surprise and half from disappointment. Urinthia was the one to bring Melanthe back from the dead?

“My mother pulled Melanthe from Caligo?” Visha asked, entering the tower room. Her pulse was rapid, she seemed affected by the news—more affected than us. And the most affected I’d seen her.

Macaria jumped to her feet and Kilian lifted his sword to her throat. “Not another move.”

“V-Visha?” the violet witch asked, teary eyed and reaching a trembling hand to my witch. “Is this where you have been, sweet child? For Celesteel, you look well.”

Visha didn’t falter though the news had shaken her plenty. “Answer me, Macaria. Did my mother bring Melanthe back?”

Macaria nodded. “It was her. Yes, it was her. Silas, he…he offered her a bargain.”

“A bargain for what?” I asked.

Tears began pouring out of Macaria's onyx eyes as she raised them to my witch again full of beseech. “It was all for you, sweet Visha. Do not blame her. Your mother did all this for you. Because she loves you. We all do.”

“Speak!” Visha bellowed and the walls shook a little. My witch was terrified. Horror painting her freckled face.

What had my father offered to make Urinthia Delcour shake the foundations of all she believed in?

“Silas offered her a babe in exchange for helping bring her back,” Macaria revealed. “An Ybris babe of Delcour blood—an heir. One that would fulfil the fate of the next Grand Maiden without dying. One that could survive in the outer realms. One whose magic would be unending and would not die in the Otherworld. One that could travel between realms without dying. Melanthe’s babe.”

Visha put a trembling hand to her mouth while all of us were stunned in total shock.

Hells. What on seven bloody hells? Father…no, Urinthia had agreed to that? This was worse than I thought. “Why Melanthe? Of all the witches he could have had, why her?”

“Two prime Crafters need to join the sceptre. Melanthe’s little sister would never be powerful enough and he’d found out Visha had disappeared. If he were to raise Aurora, there was no other choice but to bring Melanthe back.”

“My mother was going to let Silas ruin a whole realm for selfishness?”

Macaria’s face twisted with emotion. “She did not know his intentions and she was desperate.”

Visha breathed out a shaky sigh and clutched on a table to steady herself.

“Does Melanthe know what my father intends to use her for?” I asked. I had not known how much more the veil of my father’s lies had hidden. How he had planned so much right under everyone's sight. Had I underestimated him? Had I always underestimated him? Had I belittled his cruelty? His wit?

Macaria shook her head. “No one does, except us two and now you.”

“So my father would use Melanthe to do his bidding and then rip the child out of her womb?”

“I’m sure you’ve seen worse been done, Night Queen,” Macaria said with no remorse. “I’m sure you’ve done worse yourself.”

“Missing my point, witch,” I bit out. “Melanthe is his secret weapon in all of this. If he is betraying her—”

“She will do nothing. Because that is what fools in love do.”

No. No. “Melanthe would not allow her child to be made a hock.” Then thoughts struck me harder than steel. Father and her were cut from the same cloth. They complement one another not only in loyalty but in thoughts. “Unless it was what she wanted.”

“To make her princess of hells,” Visha finished, shutting her eyes tightly. “Silas’s connection to the outer realms. Another divine child.”

“Melanthe’s sister, she said something dragged her out of Caligo,” Kilian said deep in thought, smoothing a hand over my back—his calm grounding me from panic and ire. “If Urinthia held the portal open, who found her inside the Otherworld?”

“A beast. Silas’s beast.”

Of course. It all made sense. “How would it be able to cross to the Otherworld unscathed?”

“Because it cannot die. He is cursed to live forever.”

“He?” I asked. “How do you know it is a he? Why would such a thing be cursed to live forever.” It was Demir without doubt.