Erador cupped Sescina’s necklace in his palm and caressed the anchor, remembering how she held it. It signified her letting go of this place. He wished that came true for her in the way she wanted. He couldn’t remember if Sescina was wearing the necklace the day he found her dead. Had she gone to the pit and lost it there?

  He slipped it in his pocket, brushing the ridges of the coin he found in Breck’s room. He pulled it out and rolled it in his fingers. The scuffing of the broom and the surrounding throne room faded as his thoughts wandered. The eagle was a symbol of Elsgrith and was one of Aminria’s charms. He flaked off the dried crust on the side, thinking about the memory from Slen of the coin covered in blood on the ground. Aminria claimed her aunt killed her father, possibly had ordered someone else to do it. But who? When he tried to envision the person holding that stick that was about to hit her father, he couldn’t see them.

  He looked up to find Mikra staring at him as he moved the broom. Erador stiffened his jaw and focused back on the coin. It looked the same as the one in his vision, but it couldn’t be.

  Erador moved across the throne room to Eonidas, sitting on a bench. “I want to ask you something.”

  “Anything brother.”

  Erador sat next to him. “It’s about Breck.”

  Eonidas rubbed his hands and licked his lips. The smile on his face disappeared.

  “I found this in his room.” He handed the coin to Eonidas.

  “I haven’t seen a Grith in years.” Eonidas smiled slightly. He studied the pendulum on the back and flipped it over. “This is a rare coin.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Breck told me he wanted one years ago when we worked in Elsgrith.” Eonidas rubbed the eagle.

  Eonidas and Breck both joined Lucrethia after the Raven was imprisoned. After they had already lost their contracts with every kingdom.

  “Wait. Didn’t Elsgrith ban us from working with them because of the Raven?”

  “Yeh… but Lord Judgment was friends with the king.”

  “You're kidding.” Erador blinked. “How long?”

  Eonidas pursed his lips. “At least twenty years before his death. Probably for as long as he had a contract with him, if not longer. Lord Judgment convinced the king to let us back, but we had to operate in smaller numbers.”

  “Judgment stopped because of his death?”

  Eonidas nodded. “When Francis’s sister took over, she didn't want any part of it.”

  If Judgment knew King Francis that long, did Aminria meet him at some point? Erador wasn’t sure her age, but she was already an adult when he was an older child. She hadn’t appeared to have aged in years, like any Harian.

  “What did you do with Breck?” Erador asked.

  “Got rid of a lot of criminals. It was tough work tracking ‘em down and removing them without a trace. At least we got paid well.” He flicked the coin up with his thumb and caught it. “Saved some people too.”

  Yet another thing his father kept from him. He never knew the Paradins still worked for Elsgrith after what the Raven had done. The Paradins helped eradicate the criminals without a trace, but some of them came here. People who fell on hard times, people who needed help, and they changed, becoming part of this society. Lucrethia made a good living that way, but the Raven destroyed it.

  Eonidas studied the coin, frowning, as if he missed those days. “Breck loved the pay and he wished to live like a king.”

  “Sounds like Breck,” Erador said.

  “Yeh, but I know he would get bored of that. He grew up on the street. His parents abandoned him.”

  Erador remembered how Breck spoke of Emera taking care of him.

  “He had to teach himself to read. He wasn’t perfect, though.” Eonidas studied the coin again and looked up at Mikra. “I think Mikra gave him this one.”

  “How do you know?” Erador reached to take it but Eonidas moved his arm away and studied the coin closer.

  “He said it was one he wanted but it being rare, it was difficult. They changed the mold.” Eonidas pointed at the eagle’s feet. “He’s perched rather than flying in the new ones.”

  “Did anyone else come from Elsgrith, besides Dethil and Aminria?”

  “Mikra. He was friends with Breck.”

  Erador lowered his head, realizing Mikra’s outburst in the morgue made sense now. It was hard imagining Mikra being close to anyone because he hardly spoke.

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  “How close were they?”

  “Quite close. They met on the streets of Elsgrith and came here around the same time.”

  “Mikra? I didn’t... I thought he came a little over two decades ago.”

  “He was around. Mostly by the gates. Probably why you didn’t see him back then.”

  “He went from guard to caretaker?”

  Eonidas shrugged. “Not enough were willing to do it.”

  Eonidas stared at the coin one last time before he let it drop onto Erador’s palm. It was as if he didn’t want to let those memories go, but it wouldn’t bring Breck back.

  Erador thought of Aminria holding it as a child as he rolled the coin over and over in his fingers. The people around him were dying. He was unable to tell them the last things he wanted to say while his father got to hear everything he felt about him and he didn't care. Aminria deserved to know, even if she would hate him for it.

  He found Aminria outside on the manor’s front steps alone, hugging her knees to her chest as she watched the followers in the courtyard. They appeared in as much despair as her, just sitting or standing around the fountain waiting for their ends.

  Erador sat next to her and she glimpsed over.

  She buried her chin against her knee. “I thought you didn’t want my help.”

  “It’s not about that.” He stretched out his legs with the coin still cupped in his palm. “I needed to tell you something.”

  He held out the coin.

  She stared at it. “What?”

  Erador moved it closer. “Look at it.”

  Sighing, Aminria took the coin. “What am I supposed to see?”

  He turned it over in her hands to the pendulum, but she didn’t react. Then he wondered if his visions of the coin were wrong.

  A moment later she dragged her thumb down the pendulum, her voice shaky as if she recognized it. “Where did you get this?”

  “It was in Breck’s room. I was wondering if you’ve seen one like it.”

  She gave it back to him. “It’s a grith… so likely.”

  Erador rubbed the ridges on the coin’s edge. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her, even though her broken voice confirmed that she knew something.

  He touched the scars on his wrist. “Everyone who knows what happened to me thinks I went to the Shadow Realm to prove to my father that I could go there on my own. But in reality, I left because I didn’t want him to hit me again.”

  Aminria shifted but she stayed quiet. He knew it made her uncomfortable but one of them had to break the barrier.

  “When that lurker found me, I wasn’t scared. I was so angry at my father, but then… it attacked me. I thought I was going to die and I wanted to live.” Erador let out a scoff. “I don’t know why. I knew I would just be punished, if I did.”

  “Did he?” Aminria looked at him with a curious gaze.

  “I think he wanted to but I was barely conscious. He yelled at me, told me the lurker was punishment enough, and those scars were there to remind me of how stupid I was.”

  “I say you look intimidating,” Aminria said. “The scars look like you’ve faced a monster and won. It’s attractive unlike Judgment’s sores.”

  The corner of his lip raised. “I barley survived. If anything, I felt like a coward because I couldn’t go into the realm anymore. I blamed Shade for it, I blamed the venom, and the visions.”

  “What are they like?”

  “They made me feel and experience things I wished I had. I became resentful of my life and Shade.” Erador lowered his head. “What did I do to deserve a father like mine? I can’t keep the visions away anymore like I used to. I can’t pretend what I’m seeing isn’t here.” He looked at Aminria, trying not to let the emotions show. “I’ve seen you as a little girl.”

  She let out an uncomfortable laugh. “Right… You’re mixing memories with reality like Loma said.”

  “That’s not what I mean. That lurker that attacked me was your father’s shadow.”

  Aminria stared at him for a moment and her eyebrows drew in anger. “No.”

  “I’ve seen his memories. I’ve seen your brother and that charm bracelet when you first got it.”

  Aminria cupped her bracelet as if to shield it from him. “You’re lying.”

  “I was attacked by your home. The lurker was there because or you. He misses you. And this coin,” he said, rising it from his lap. “Your father had one just like this. You’ve seen it.”

  Aminria looked down and shook her head. “You’re having visions and the deaths aren't helping.”

  “Dethil has seen his memories too. He was marked, so I know it’s real.”

  “So what? That just means it’s him? How do you know it’s not someone else? You’re mixing me, my bracelet,” she said shaking it. “These memories and hallucinations are false.”

  “I know it’s hard to accept his death.”

  “It’s not about that,” she snapped. “It’s you. You just expect me to believe this?”

  Her not wanting to believe it had nothing to do with the cards, his mumbling, and visions. She couldn’t accept it. Her father was dead. Erador had witnessed his last moments but telling her that wouldn’t help. Knowing that Slen was here confirmed he was gone even though she hadn't seen his body.

  She hugged her legs, turning her body away from him. Erador touched her arm. Her body trembled under his touch. Part of him regretted telling her when they were already going through enough.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Aminria wiped away a tear. “I don’t want to hear about this again.” She ripped away from him and stormed up the steps.