Agnes gasped. “Is that true?”
Matthias shrugged. “It’s a good story. And it is certainly effective. My family has held on to our power through a mix of money, mystique, and intimidation. And Culinnon lies at its heart. I wish I could . . .” He made a sort of strangled choking sound and sighed. “No, I cannot explain it to you. You will have to see it for yourself. The island possesses a sort of . . . well, I hesitate to use the word magic; it sounds so implausible.”
Agnes and Vada exchanged a look.
“No,” Agnes said. “It doesn’t. Not to us.”
Matthias scratched the bald spot on his head. “Very well—there’s something about it that once you leave, you cannot form the words to describe it accurately. I suppose it is one of the island’s ways of protecting itself.”
“You make it sound like it’s a living thing,” Agnes said.
“Like I said, you must see it for yourself. Culinnon possesses greatness, but it is not enough for my mother. There is an even older story, from the earliest days of Pelago, one that my family does not like to tell. One that the Triumvirate would like to forget too.” He glanced at Vada, as if uncertain that he should continue.
“You can trust us,” Agnes said quickly.
Vada touched the fang that hung at her throat. “On my honor as a smuggler, I will not say a word.”
Matthias inclined his head, and Agnes saw that Vada had given him a secret in exchange. A clever move, Agnes thought as her uncle turned back to her.
“Do you know the three ruling families?”
“The Aerins, the Renalts, and the Lekkes,” Agnes said.
“Correct. But the Renalts weren’t an original Triumvirate family. There was another, called the Shawnens.”
“Shawnens?” Vada said. “I have never heard of them.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Matthias said. “This was centuries ago. It has been forgotten why the Byrnes hated the Shawnens so much—a failed marriage contract or a broken deal or some other betrayal of trust. But whatever it was, the Byrnes and Shawnens fought until one side was completely decimated. There are no Shawnens left in Pelago.” A shiver ran down Agnes’s spine. “The Byrnes had hoped to be inducted as the third ruling family, but the Aerin and the Lekke were not wild about the precedent that would set. So they told the Byrne matriarch that if she wanted to be a part of the Triumvirate, she must give up Culinnon.” Matthias took off his glasses and cleaned them on his sleeve. “Needless to say, she declined. And the Lekke and the Aerin had joined their forces together—the Byrnes could not fight two families at once. They retreated back to the north and the Renalts were inducted into the Triumvirate, and the matriarchs of my family have brooded over this slight for generations. It is often said there is a streak of insanity in the Byrne family. But that is not the word I would use.”
“What would you call it?” Agnes asked.
“And insatiable lust for power,” Matthias said. “My mother was furious when Alethea left. She’d had a plan, my sister told me. She wouldn’t give me details but she swore she was never going back to Culinnon again. I was excommunicated soon after, so to speak. I wasn’t Byrne quality, even for a boy. Too soft, Mother said. Too weak. Always with my nose in a book.” Matthias rubbed the back of his neck. “It was drilled into us since we were children how important family was, how necessary our traditions were. But Alethea wanted to live her own life on her own terms. Mother could never forgive her for that.”
He set his pale eyes on Agnes and she felt her stomach swoop. “She wants you, Agnes. She has a plan that was left unfinished with Alethea’s death. So my advice to you would be: run. Go to another island, go back to Kaolin, go anywhere but where she wants you to be.”
“But . . .” Agnes blinked. “I can’t leave. And I won’t go back to Kaolin, not ever. My brother, Leo, he’s been taken by the Triumvirate along with a friend who needs my help. She has to get to Braxos, and not for the reason everyone else is trying to find it. She’s . . . she’s different, she’s special, and I promised that I’d get her there and I can’t abandon her or my brother, not now, not ever.”
Matthias was quiet. “There is so much of her in your words,” he said at last. “You say you need to get to Braxos to help a friend? Not for riches or glory?”
Agnes nodded. “I don’t care about any of that.”
Matthias stood.
“Then there is something you need to see.”
17
Sera
SERA BATHED IN A LARGE COPPER TUB SIMILAR TO THE one she had used in Agnes’s dwelling.
She was so grateful to be off Rahel’s ship, to be free of her cabin prison. The three days without Leo had been full of anxiety and fear and exhaustion. She’d hoped perhaps that Leela might speak to her again, but the moonstone had remained frustratingly quiet. Whatever Rahel had told her Misarros about Sera seeing her memories, it had definitely frightened them—the only time she had human contact was when a Misarro would bring food for her, and even then they never fully came into the cabin, just slid a plate through the door, like she might hurt them.
So much had happened so quickly and she was only just beginning to appreciate it all now that she was no longer headed to the Triumvirate. She could speak Pelagan! And see memories without sharing her own. Sera itched to try this newfound self blood bond again, but a deep part of her knew that this power should not be taken lightly.
The moonstone was cool in her hand now, at odds with the warm bathwater. She wished she could have seen her mothers as well as Leela, or some part of her City that wasn’t strange and glowing and new, the City that she had known all her life. She remembered what her purple mother had said to her, the day after she was chosen to be sacrificed.
As long as the stars burn in the sky, I will love you.
Suddenly, her skin crackled and the moonstone flared up again like it had with Leela, but this time Sera was not pulled to that strange underground sky garden—she did not move at all, could still feel the freesia-scented water lapping against her body. And yet she could see twelve very familiar dwellings, except they weren’t vacant like they usually were. The round birthing houses were covered in chains of flowers, the field with the obelisk full of people. She caught sight of her old friend Treena, now a midwife, with an armful of blankets. Then she gasped. Her purple mother was crossing the field, a bucket of water in one hand.
“Mother,” she wanted to call, but her lips wouldn’t move.
Sera was shocked to see how vacant and dark her eyes were. She had never seen her mother look so empty or so sad. Her purple mother paused and turned, staring at the obelisk with a furrowed brow, but then someone called out, “Kandra!” and she roused herself and kept walking, leaving Sera with an aching heart. There was another crackle and the image faded until only the walls of the washroom remained. Sera blinked and found tears in her eyes.
She looked down at the moonstone lying innocently in her palm. It was all connected, she thought. Leela was right. If she had visions of Sera on the planet and now Sera was having visions of the City . . . perhaps whatever moonstone was left in the City was finally coming alive again. It just took a Cerulean coming to the planet to waken its power.