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“Theo,” Blake growled.
“I don’t know who shot Florence.” Theo looked like he desperately wanted someone to put him out of his misery. “I swear I don’t.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “But I do know who shot Nyxaris.”
My hands were shaking.
Theo opened his eyes. Tears streaked down his face. Shame was written into every line. “It was me.”
“What?” Blake breathed. He took a step toward his cousin.
Theo looked up at Blake. “I’m glad you’re back, cuz. But yeah, it was me. I did it.” He dragged a shaking sleeve across his face, his shoulders trembling.
I wanted to hug him. I wanted to kill him. But I couldn’t even move.
“I know it was wrong,” he said hoarsely. “I know that. Don’t think I don’t.” He swallowed hard. “But I had no other choice. Viktor has me in a choke hold.”
Blake went very still. “What do you mean?”
I looked back and forth between these two men I loved in such different ways, and I knew something terrible was coming.
Theo gave a bitter laugh. “Blackmail, of course.”
“What could Viktor possibly be blackmailing you about, Theo?” I asked softly.
Theo looked at me. “There are two things hanging over my head. For one, he has Vaughn. Vaughn’s family, too.”
I closed my eyes. “All right. That’s a reason.” And a pretty good one, too; I honestly couldn’t say I knew what I would have done in Theo’s shoes. I glanced at Blake—whose uncle hadn’t hesitated to use him to murder and to destroy—and I knew he knew it, too. We were not innocent. Our hands were not clean.
“What’s the second reason?” Blake asked, his face grim.
Theo’s mouth trembled. “The second reason was about me. About who I am.”
“Stop,” Blake commanded. He grabbed Theo by the elbow, as gently as he could given the circumstances, and steered him toward the tower entrance. “We’re not doing this here.”
I followed them, my thoughts spinning. We moved through the Common Room and up the stairs to Blake’s room. When Blake had pushed his cousin down into a chair and shut the door and locked it behind us, Theo crumbled.
“I didn’t know,” he said, voice breaking. “I swear to you, I didn’t. I’ve believed what my mother told me all my life.”
I was starting to feel like some blanks needed to be filled in. I looked over at Blake as I ran through what Theo had told me the day I first met him. His mother was Viktor’s younger sister; Viktor and Alexander Drakharrow were Aryel’s older brothers.
Blake frowned at his cousin. “What do you mean? What did Aryel tell you?”
“You know the story, I’m sure your parents told you—that she’d had an affair with a highblood man,” Theo said dully. “He didn’t want to form a triad as he was already in one. He didn’t want to claim me either.”
“You told me that you were born on the wrong side of the blanket,” I said slowly. “That day we first met.” I knew it was a euphemism for being a bastard, but I thought he’d been joking. Still, it was dawning on me that he bore his mother’s surname and not his father’s. “There’s nothing wrong with being a bastard, Theo.” Though it was an ugly word to describe a child, any child. “Who gives a shit if your father and mother weren’t in a triad?”
Theo gave a hollow laugh. “But you see, I’m even more of a bastard than we thought.”
“What do you mean?” Blake demanded.
Theo pressed a hand to his mouth. “Viktor told me the truth. That I wasn’t just a bastard, not in the way I always thought.” His eyes were helpless. “Don’t you see? I’m his bastard. He’s my father. My mom gave me this letter.” Theo thrust a crumpled note toward us.
Blake held the letter as we both read silently.
Theo,
Necessity has a way of dragging even filth into the light. Know then that you are my bloodborn son. I take no pride in the affiliation. You are an embarrassment and precisely the kind of man I most despise. Nevertheless, with this knowledge, you will now begin to act according to your place in this world. Your allegiance is mine. Your loyalty is not a matter for negotiation. You will receive instructions in the coming days. You will carry out these instructions without hesitation. If you obey, you may keep the foul little attachment you have made. If you do not, I will take it from you, piece by piece, while you stand powerlessly and observe. Your mother has learned her place. Now so will you. Do not test me. Do not speak of this to anyone.
—Viktor Drakharrow
