Chapter 20 · Her Mother's Heart

The signature sat there like a taunt. Fresh ink. Today's date. Mara Nowak, written in the same hand as four hundred years ago.

I couldn't breathe. The air in the archive room felt too thin, too hot. My mother had been dead for centuries. I'd buried her myself, wrapped her in the last clean cloth we had, said words I didn't even believe in because she would've wanted them.

"Someone's using her name." My voice came out flat. "Someone who knows what that contract was for."

Drake was still staring at the page Lucas had handed him. His hands were shaking. Not the small tremor I'd seen before—this was his whole body trying to come apart. The silver in his blood was burning hotter. I could smell it, that acid-metal scent that meant the sanctified poison was eating through his veins faster than my blood could suppress it.

"Drake." I reached for his wrist. His pulse was hammering. "We need to get you—"

"My father killed thirty-two people." He wasn't looking at me. He was looking at the document Lucas had shown him earlier, the one with his father's signature authorizing the massacre.