“It’s okay with me as long as Kellan’s okay with it.” I looked over with a question in my eyes, but Kellan nodded before he held Aumae tighter against him and started toward the house.

Damien held back and walked around to the other side of the car. He slid his hands into his front pockets and leaned back, giving him the same aloof quality he had the last time I’d seen him outside of the school. “You’re sure it’s okay?”

His eyes had such uncertainty that I reached over and squeezed his hand. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

He shrugged. “Things have changed between you two. I can feel it. It’s much stronger and I’m…not a part of that. I wasn’t sure if you’d want me here or not.”

“Kellan trusts you, otherwise he wouldn’t have let you step foot in the car.”

“It’s my car.”

“He doesn’t care.” We turned for the house, walking side by side. “Do you have news from home?”

He sucked in his breath and stopped before he reached the door. His eyes grew somber, everything in him stiffened. “That’s why I came with Kellan. You need to hear some things.”

A knot formed in my gut, once again, but I knew we couldn’t hide forever. “Does Kellan know?”

“He probably guessed, but he wanted both of you to hear at the same time.”

“Okay. Let’s get this over with.” And I showed him inside.

Aumae insisted she would be a part of the conversation. We congregated in a room on the basement level. One wall was made of glass with the water on the other side. The bottom of the pond was real, but the house had built around it so we were able to see the rocks, fish, and even the seaweed beside us.

“It’s beautiful.” Aumae rested a hand on the glass as she had been positioned in the corner of a couch by Kellan. She wanted to sit up, and no one argued, even though we all felt she should’ve been resting.

“Yes, it is.” I squeezed her other hand as I sat on her other side.

Kellan stood in a corner. He didn’t make eye contact with anyone, nor did he speak. He merely stood there, turned halfway to the corner so we couldn’t judge his face, and waited until Damien stood in the center of the room.

“Your father’s in town.”

It took a split second before I realized that Damien had spoken, and he’d spoken to me. With a quick jerk, I pulled my gaze from Kellan to the other messenger and watched how his eyes looked clouded over. They weren’t as bright as normal and his voice was sad, resigned, but there was another touch of something else in his voice. I narrowed my eyes, concentrating, when I realized what it was.

Guilt.

“What have you done?” I asked.

Damien reared back a step, surprised, but then another look of resignation flared over his features. “I feel that I should’ve done something to keep your father from arriving. I could’ve sent him somewhere else.”

Kellan turned and faced the group. “That would’ve been useless. Her father went there with the excuse of looking for Vespar and Gus. He stays with the real reason of searching for his daughter. She’s been kept from him since she was given life in her mother’s womb. He wants Shay, and he won’t leave without her.”

Aumae sat up slowly, still weak. “Then he has a different sort of fight on his hands, doesn’t he?”

Damien looked between the two and cleared his throat, stuffing his hands into his sweater’s front pocket. “It doesn’t matter. He’s in town, and he’s watching your half-siblings.”

“It’s a trap.” When everyone looked at me, I nodded. “It’s a trap. He thinks we’ll swoop in to get Vespar and Gus out of there, but we won’t. We’ll leave them. I mean, Vespar was going to kill me. I don’t want to go anywhere near him after that. My dad will never know. He’ll watch them, and we can get away.”

“Uh…” Damien sent me an apologetic smile. “That would be all good and everything, but you don’t know where your half sibs are… They’re being held captive by two humans you went to school with.”

“Two humans?”

Kellan groaned. “Dylan.”

“Exactly.” Damien snapped his fingers at him.

“What?”

“Gus said he was into dark magic. He could’ve used something to keep me from wiping his memory and then decided to go after Vespar and Gus when we were gone.” Kellan shrugged. “It’s what I’d do if I were him and I knew dark magic.”

“What?” I snapped, throwing my arms in the air. They were both acting too casual about this. “Dylan and someone else captured Vespar and Gus? What are they doing—torturing them?”

Aumae shuddered behind me.

“Probably,” Damien answered with a blank face.

“Are you okay with that? They might be getting tortured, and you act like you don’t care?”

“Why do you?” he shot back at me.

“Because torture is torture. It’s wrong. It doesn’t matter what the person or thing did—it’s always wrong. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.” My eyes were cold. He was a messenger, at least half of one. Didn’t we stand for the good?

Flinching, I turned away, but I was aware of Kellan’s sudden intense gaze on me. He was studying me, watching for some reaction, but it didn’t matter. Torture was wrong. I wouldn’t want anyone to go through that. As my eyes shifted over Aumae, I shivered at the memory of seeing her tied down by a violated virgin’s blood. Her skin had crawled over her, boiling from the inside up. Vespar wanted to kill me, but I still couldn’t handle thinking of him going through that same torture.