Page 147 of Mark of Love (Love Mark 3)

Weird. I never would’ve pictured him as the protective-parent type.

“They’re the only chance I have of possibly ever coming out of hiding someday,” he went on. “I just need to raise them to maturity, kill two to take on their powers, and keep the third alive to continue the family line and build up our Graykey numbers again so our house can return to greatness, and we can fight off all our damned oppressors once and for all.”

Oh.

Never mind.

I guess Qualmer wasn’t exactly the protective-parent type after all.

Sniffing, he looked down at the map where his name was posted above a dot, overlapping the dot with my name above it. Then he shook his head and swore. “I can’t believe the procedure worked. Dammit!”

I tried to focus on the map as well, but I couldn’t read details at the moment, although I was pretty sure his kids were being kept in the caves north of New Gill. But how could any Graykey still be hiding in the kingdom of Lowden? After the invasion of High Cliff and the Great War, the entire family there had been decimated. Anyone who was able to hide and survive after that would have to be insane to stay.

With a savage curse, Qualmer reached out and tried to grip the chunk of map that contained his name. But it refused to tear.

“Son of a bitch.” He rose. His boots shifted as if he were turning in a circle and looking around the room in search of something to help him destroy the map.

“Hey,” he muttered after a bit, his boots tromping away. “Is this my damn necklace? I lost this years ago. Did you steal my fucking pendant, Quilla? You little bitch. I’m taking this back.”

For a second, I had no idea what he was talking about. Then it occurred to me…

The amulet.

Everett must’ve taken the one I’d been wearing when I was caught and then he’d no doubt tossed it among his things after he’d stripped me bare and shaved my head with no idea how important it was. And now Qualmer assumed my amulet was the one he’d lost years ago—the one Indigo had kept all this time.

Jesus, that was right. As soon as I could speak and walk again, all I had to do was get my hands on that amulet, chant the words, and I’d be free. I could go to Melaina and Taiki and the others on Earth. I could escape.

It wasn’t like I had a reason to stay here anymore. Indigo was gone and—

Indigo.

His death struck me anew, tears welling in my eyes. I couldn’t believe he was really gone. I didn’t want to continue without him. He’d given me a new reason to live, a fresh dream. One that was sweet and beautiful. And with him not here, nothing seemed to matter.

But I didn’t want to be taken prisoner by my cousin either. I had no idea if he’d be just as cruel as Everett, but exchanging one cage for another wasn’t my idea of survival.

“I imagine you’re wondering how I can be living in Lowden right now and haven’t gotten caught yet, aren’t you?” Qualmer asked conversationally, his voice moving across the room as he picked through Everett’s things and pocketed whatever he found interesting.

I tried to speak, but my swollen and cut mouth along with the retractor kept me basically mute.

“Hmm?” he asked. “What’s wrong, cousin? Cat got your tongue?”

He had no idea how close to the truth he was.

“Oh, well. I’ll tell you anyway. It was really very simple,” he started. “Do you remember how High Cliff gave the rule back to the House of Gill after they took control of Lowden in the eleventh reaping?” He snorted. “All because of some misguided notion that the idiot Gills deserved it? Though let me ask you this; if the oh-so-perfect Gills were stupid enough to let a Graykey take their crown four generations ago, why does anyone in their right mind believe they would’ve been any more capable of keeping hold of it in this day and age? Because they definitely were not. I proved that true with hardly any effort at all. Do you know how incredibly easy it was for me to murder the real Tomrick Gill and assume his identity for the past eight years, so the clueless High Cliff king would personally place the crown on my head instead, giving me the rule of Lowden? It was so easy, Quilla. So fucking easy.”

Wait. Was he saying he’d been impersonating Tomrick Gill the entire time Gill had been the King of Lowden? For eight full years?

Impossible. He’d have to be—

“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” he went on. “How is this possible? A glamour could never hold that well after so long. But not even my mother—the great mistress of disguise herself and the most powerful glamour artist the Outer Realms has ever seen—can hold a candle to my abilities. I’m a blood-born Graykey after all. She is not. In fact, I bet Melaina could stand in front of me in my Tomrick Gill skin and look me straight in the eye, and she still wouldn’t be able to see my true form.

Dear God. This was not good.

“No one’s even once suspected I’m not the real Tomrick Gill,” Qualmer announced. “Not even the poor lout’s wife, and I fuck her quite often.” He gave a low, sadistic chuckle. “The bitch queen would probably drop dead from horror if she knew she’d been spreading her legs for a Graykey all these years. From the way she talks about us, damn, even mentioning the word Graykey gives her the vapors.” He sighed as if refreshed. “I say it’s sweet revenge that she’s the whore who bore my children. Of course, I had to steal them away at birth so she wouldn’t catch on to the truth. Glamoured them all so it’d look like they were stillborn deaths to her, and then I held her and stroked her hair in sympathy while she mourned them. Best act of my life, I tell you. But then, maybe not; she’s quite possibly the most gullible person I’ve ever met, too.”

I heard scuffling and a clunk as he did something near the doorway. “But it works out better for me this way. With the kids hidden away from her and being raised by a trusted source, I can bring them up in the true way of the Graykey.”

The true way of a Graykey? I had no idea what that even meant. But coming from Qualmer, I didn’t figure it was pleasant.

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