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O’Rourke had gone deathly still. “That is not …” he said faintly.

“Not what?” Marcus finished brightly. “Common knowledge? No, it’s not.” He grinned. “You can thank your dear wife for spilling the secret.” Marcus raised his voice to a mocking falsetto. “Just spare the children, I beg you! Spare the children.” He grasped his own throat and made a gagging sound.

O’Rourke stared as understanding dawned. “You said you wouldn’t touch my family.”

“And we haven’t,” Catherine said brightly. “Until today. But all good things must come to an end.”

“She was the lady of this manor,” O’Rourke whispered. “You had no right …”

“I’d be more concerned with your own fate, if I were you,” Marcus suggested.

“There’s nothing beneath this house but old cellars,” O’Rourke whispered. But the color had drained from his face and not returned. “Storage vaults and the like.”

Catherine smiled faintly. “And a gate.” She leaned over a chair. “Stone carved with dwarven runes. Ringing a bell now?”

There was a long silence. O’Rourke swallowed. “The stone is decorative. Nothing more. The words … no one can read them.”

“Decorative?” Catherine shook her head. “No, simply sealed. And as for the words … Well, I’m quite a skilled linguist, and they are simply an older form of Classical Sangrathan.”

Marcus’s grin widened. “Very dramatic words. Very instructive words.”

Catherine spoke softly. “Do you know what the words translate to, Lord O’Rourke? Did your family pass that knowledge on to you?” The man in the chair made no sound. She smiled. “I see them there, in the recesses of your mind. They’re less poetic when translated. But roughly they translate to Let the gate open only when the blood spills from those who hold this land. None but the rightful lord may pay this price.”

O’Rourke licked his lips again. “My wife. Her blood …”

Catherine crowed, “How quickly the newly made widower recovers.” She shook her head. “Her blood was not enough. No, the stone calls for your blood. Your family blood.”

“My … second son,” O’Rourke choked out. “He has always been willful. Perhaps …”

“His blood will be offered soon enough, but no, O’Rourke, you great sniveling coward.” Marcus shook his head in what looked like a mix of admiration and disgust.

“You sit in this chair because the land answers to you—and the gate will not open for anyone else,” Catherine said quietly.

“But why?” O’Rourke’s voice rose to a higher pitch. “Why are you doing this? What is the point of it, any of it?”

“Come away, now,” Lunaya whispered urgently to the boy. “Come away.”

The blood would flow; there was no reason the boy should see it. He’d already seen too much. It was a sheer miracle that he had not yet been noticed and caught. She tugged at the boy’s hand. He ignored her, but she would not give up. When he finally stepped back from the door, Lunaya grasped the handle and pulled it shut very carefully.

“Come,” she said and started to walk back down the hall. “You need to be away from here when they come out.”

“Why do you care?” the boy challenged. “Why help me? You’re one of them. They’re your triad.” His face had wrinkled with disgust.

Her footsteps faltered. “Yes, they are.”

“Then, you’re just as bad as they are. You’re horrible. Lord O’Rourke was right. Why are you doing this?”

Lunaya stared back at him wearily. She knew the answer now, though she wished she didn’t. She had been young and far too naïve—just like the boy—not very long ago. “Why do people ever do horrible things?”

“Power,” the boy spat. “Wealth.”

Lunaya would have added a third and fourth option: And because they can. And to see what happens. “Highblood ways have always been cruel,” she said quietly.

“Killing other highbloods? Murdering children? That isn’t the highblood way.”

“It was. Once.”

“You’re just as bad as them. You think you’re not? You didn’t stop them when they killed servants’ children.” There were wet streaks on the boy’s face.