"He burned everything." Marta's voice was barely a whisper. "His enemies. His allies. His wife. Your grandmother died in those flames, Seraphine. And your grandfather never forgave himself. That's why he sealed the egg. That's why he built the wards. That's why he spent fifty years pretending the past didn't exist."
I thought about my grandfather. The old man I'd known, who'd smelled like pipe smoke and old books, who'd taught me how to garden and told me stories about the stars. I'd never known he was a monster. I'd never known he'd burned his own wife alive.
"You want me to follow in his footsteps."
"I want you to learn from his footsteps." Evely, pressed the knife into my hand, hilt first. "The bonding ritual requires blood. Yours and mine. The egg is inside me, but it will transfer to you through the blade. All you have to do is cut."
I looked at the knife. At my hand wrapped around the hilt. At Marta's face, half-human, half-dragon, patient and waiting.
