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“Not yet.”

His brow arched faintly. “Oh? Then put down the gun.”

“I’m not that great a fool.”

“No,” he said softly. “You’re not. Which is why you’ll listen.”

Magic surged behind me. The air snapped. A stone struck my shoulder and knocked the pistol from my grip. Another pulse of energy slammed into my knees.

I collapsed.

Boots crunched. A foot pressed down between my shoulders, pinning me.

I did not need to look to know.

Elias crouched beside me, one hand almost gentle on my shoulder. “You were never going to kill me, August. Not truly.”

I spat blood into the dirt. “Then watch me next time.”

He did not flinch. “There shall not be one.”

Everything went black.

I woke to stone. Chains. Cold.

The cell lay deep in the bowels of the Iron Spire—no windows, only torchlight. My wrists burned where iron bit into skin. My limbs were heavy. Thoughts, slower still.

He had made certain I could not move. Could not escape. Could scarcely think.

Footsteps echoed. The door opened. Elias entered alone.

No guards. No audience. Only him and the truth he’d come to spill like blood.

He folded his arms behind his back, studying me. “You do not appear surprised.”

“I’m not.”

“You ought to be.”

“And why is that, Father?”

He tilted his head slightly. “Because you’re still alive.”

I did not reply.

He circled slowly. “I should’ve killed you. But your mother would’ve hated that.”

My spine straightened. “Do not speak of her.”

“She was a Weaver,” he said.

After all these years he was finally admitting it. It should have brought me relief. Instead, it hit like a blade to the gut.

He smiled—thin, sharp. “Have you felt it? That stirring beneath the skin? The gift she left you?”

“What are you speaking of?”

He crouched before me. “She tried to save me once, August. Tried to save the Weavers. All she did was create me, the one thing she meant to stop. It broke her.”