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possibility. And so, if you will forgive the melodrama, with your survival, we now have hope for our own restored.”
    For a moment, he fell silent, reflecting, and when he resumed speaking, the topic had been abandoned.
    “But your father kept you ignorant of this. When the first Taliesin attack destroyed his own father and family, he took you far from our battles. He even changed your name. You were Ashley Carrington in those days, not the black-market identity he arranged for you later and kept secret even from us. But most importantly, he bound your abilities away from both you and your sister – a spell that held for eight years until his death. He wanted to keep you safe, to bury you away from the world and to prevent you from inadvertently drawing attention by using your magic if an enemy wizard ever passed by. Because while a bound wizard’s magic might still be detectible to some degree, it is substantially subtler than one who is unbound. Were the worst to occur, it was his intention for you and your sister to hide till he or his guards could save you.”
    She swallowed, her jaw muscles cramping at the effort of keeping her face from giving anything away.
    “Unfortunately,” Darius said. “Matters did not go as planned. We’ve kept word of your father’s death from the others for the past month, and due to the protections the king put in place for your sake, no one outside these four walls knows yet who you are. We told the guards only that you and your sister were persons of interest, to be captured alive at all cost, but nothing more. For all intents and purposes, you both ceased to exist eight years ago, and thus no one has connected the television newscasts with the Merlin royal family.”
    He paused. “And, for that, I must apologize. We may have found you sooner, had word of your father’s death been spread, and you would have been spared tremendously. It was the decision of the council, however, that we couldn’t take the risk. To prevent a catastrophic loss of morale, we could not tell our people that the Merlin’s Children may well have been destroyed. Your family is all that stands between us and annihilation by Taliesin’s king, and our people know that. For them to learn you might all have been killed…” He shook his head. “Panic would have ensued. And amongst our soldiers, the loss of will to fight may well have cost us the war.”
    Darius met her eyes. “You are a symbol to our people, as much as anything. Your family represents hope against the incredible odds we face, and leadership in the midst of the chaos of war. Merlin and his Children have been the stabilizing force that has led our people through five hundred years of peace and two eras of bloody war. I cannot overstate the significance you and your sister have to us, which is why, once again, I can assure you that you both are indeed completely safe in this place.”
    She shivered as he stopped talking, and no matter how she tried, she couldn’t stop the shaking. Her gaze left his, moving around the table. The other wizards were still watching her. They just wouldn’t quit.
    “Though,” Darius began again, his tone careful. “From the news, it sounded as though you and your sister had become separated.”
    Her gaze snapped back to him. He glanced to Cornelius with a hint of question in his eyes, but Cornelius simply looked to her.
    “Is this the case?” Darius asked.
    She couldn’t trust herself to speak. In a short, jerking motion, she shook her head.
    “Then we will send out–”
    He cut off as a hoarse noise escaped her. Wetting her lips, she tried again.
    “Lily’s dead.”
    The silence in the room became palpable.
    “They…” She cut off and regrouped. “She died a month ago.”
    Because they only needed one of us.
    She thought her bones would break from the shaking she was fighting to hide.
    For the first time, the wizards looked away. Her eyes tracked across them, watching the reactions breaking through