KNOX’S POV
I don’t move.
“I think everything goes way back to your family’s past,” she says, and it’s coming faster now. “What if this s**t started with Lady Ida? Think about it. She was a trader. She had a perfectly normal excuse to disappear for months, cross borders, come back with crates nobody questioned because she was family. Everybody already knew she was strange, so every weird thing became Oh, that’s just Ida.” Her hands are moving now. “What if the East never needed to sneak somebody through your gates, Knox? What if your family literally married the f*****g spy in and then spent years laughing about her weird books? Doesn’t that sound far too familiar?”
The water has gone almost cold.
“Hale. She grew up glued to Ida,” I say.
“Exactly. She might be finishing off whatever it
