Evangeline had chosen a dark green velvet dress that buttoned well above the swell of her breasts. She wore a pair of sturdy black button-up boots—happily, since it looked like they were going to be walking quite a ways. An emerald that had been a gift from Gregorio nestled in the hollow of her throat, just above the first button of her dress. For a moment she stared up the road at the buildings she could see in the distance and trembled. Then Anatol took her hand and they started to walk, Gregorio on her other side, and she relaxed a little.

As they approached the first of the dairy barns, she could see scurrying milkmaids wearing aprons and carrying pails. All of them had strange looks to give them, but said nothing as the three of them made their way up the lane toward the main house in the early afternoon sunlight, following the neat, even white fencing. She wondered if they were all hired hands, or if one of them was Arabella, her supposed younger sister?

The house was a large brick affair with porches all around the outside. It was nothing like she’d ever imagined. Throughout her years at Belai, when she’d even bothered to think of her family, she’d imagined pigs and squalor—but warmth and love as well, though that was something she never would have admitted out loud.

In actuality, there was no squalor at all. This seemed like a well-run farm, and a profitable one at that. And there wasn’t a pig in sight.

As they walked toward the front porch of the house, she tried to imagine growing up here. Would she have been happy? Would she be, even now, hurrying around with those milkmaids in the barn, trying to get all the cows milked before twilight?

An older man came out of the house before they’d even stepped onto the stairs. He was tall, sunshiny in color—just like Evangeline—and reed thin. He walked with a limp.

Evangeline’s breath seized in her throat and she went still, staring up at him.

“Can I help you?” the man—her father, she was sure—asked with a scowl on his face. “Got no milk to sell to travelers. It’s all promised to businesses in Malbask.”

Evangeline tried to speak, but emotion stopped up all her words in her throat.

Anatol spoke for her. “Are you Ban Donnelson?”

“I am.” He smacked his lips together, examining them up and down. “Who wants to know?”

She steeled herself and forced the words out of her mouth. “My name is Evangeline Bansdaughter.” She meant to introduce Gregorio and Anatol, too, but she found she suddenly couldn’t speak again. Her throat was too tight.

“Bansdaughter?” He squinted down at her. “Evangeline?” Realization overcame his face. “You,” he breathed.

“Evangeline.” Anatol’s voice held a hint of warning, but she ignored him.

She nodded, licked her lips, and started walking up the stairs toward him. This was her father. Her mind whirled.

He held up a hand. “Don’t you come any closer. Not a step closer to me, do you hear?”

She stopped on the stairs, confused. He sounded frightened. His emotions felt frightened, too. They broke through her excitement as if she’d been pelted with ice cubes.

Anatol started up the steps after her. “Evangeline, come back down here.”

Just then a woman came out of the door behind him and went still, staring at her. When Evangeline had seen her father, she’d assumed instantly that’s where she’d gotten her appearance, but she’d been wrong. This woman, her mother, most assuredly, was the parent from whom she’d received her looks. Evangeline was her spitting image.

“Oh, sweet Joshui,” her mother breathed. “How can it be?”

Evangeline took another step up the stairs, a flash of a memory whizzing through her mind—playing on a rug with wooden blocks while her mother bustled in the kitchen making dinner. Being held in her mother’s arms when she’d been sick as a child, feeling warm and safe and cared for. These were memories triggered by seeing her face.

Suddenly Evangeline’s arms ached to embrace her mother, to make up for all the lost years. In that moment she hated Belai, hated being Jeweled, hated even her magickal gift. If given the choice to go back in time, she would have traded all of it for a chance to grow up here, on a cow farm in Cherkhasii, with a father, a mother, and a baby sister named Arabella.

She ached for that loss. Her chest went tight and her eyes became moist.

A warm, light feeling of love and joy filled her heart and she took the stairs more quickly. “Mother?” she breathed. “Is it really you?”

“Evangeline,” said Gregorio behind her. He sounded worried. Why was he worried? This was the best day of her life. She’d found her family!

“I told you. No closer!” her father yelled as she reached the top of the stairs.

Her steps faltered and her smile faded. The warm, joyous sensation in her chest turned leaden. Neither of these people looked happy to see her. Her father looked angry and her mother cowered near the door, her eyes wide and her mouth agape—with fear. Her own joy had blocked her ability to clearly sense their emotions, just as Anatol had been unable to see any truths while looking at his mother through the hatshop window.

She aggressively reached out with her magick and felt the same emotions she saw on their faces—dread, shock, and anger. No happiness. No love here. They were not happy to see her.

“Why?” Evangeline stopped at the top of the steps. “I don’t understand.” She took another step closer and her father rushed forward with a bellow, his face twisted with panic and hatred.

“Stay away! You’re no daughter of ours!” His hands made contact with her shoulders, pushing her away.

Evangeline took a step back on the steps, her gaze flying to her mother and then to her father a scant second before her boot slipped on the top step and she tumbled down. Pain exploded in her head as it cracked against the stairs. She rolled to the base, hitting her knees, hips, and elbows as she went.

Everything went black and then Anatol was looming over her, saying her name. His mouth formed the words, Evangeline, are you all right? But she couldn’t hear anything. She lay stunned for a moment, then sat up, shaking her head and assessing her injuries. Nothing broken, though her head throbbed.

Oh, please, sweet Joshui, make me a stone. She remembered making a similar plea when she’d been brought to Belai as a child.

Joshui had granted her wish. Her emotions were numb—her old walls back up and firmly in place. She felt almost nothing. Hardly any emotion from herself or from others.

Sounds began to filter into her awareness once more. Anatol fussed over her, asking if she was all right. Gregorio was shouting on the porch—angry, bitter words were being yelled back and forth between him and her father.

Feeling disconnected, the way she used to feel, she looked up at the men on the porch. Gregorio had her father up against the wall of the house, gripping his shirt and shaking him while he bellowed into his face. Her mother had apparently retreated into the house.

Wincing from the pain in her head and body, she stood with Anatol’s help. “Gregorio,” she said softly, cradling her sore arm. She was going to have a bad bruise on her elbow. He didn’t hear her. “Gregorio!”

Gregorio stopped, stared her father down for a long, dangerous moment in which she wasn’t sure what he’d do. Violence seemed to emanate from his body. Then he turned toward her.

“It’s all right, Gregorio. Let’s just go.”

“It’s not all right, Evangeline. It’s not.” Gregorio’s hands were clenched at his sides.

But it was all right. She couldn’t feel a thing and it was wonderful. She was a stone, just as she’d asked Joshui. “No, really. It’s all right.” She turned and began to limp her way back down the road.

“You never come back here, do you hear me?” her father yelled after her retreating form. “We cut off your tainted branch of the family tree as soon as we could! You’ve been dead to us since you were four!”

Evangeline didn’t turn around. She made no indication she’d even heard him. More shouting met her ears, a thump, a muffled sound, and then silence.

Gregorio and Anatol caught up to her near the dairy barns.

“Are you all right?” Gregorio growled, looking over his shoulder.

“I don’t think I broke anything, but I have a headache. I’m probably bruised.”

He whirled her to face him. “I can tell you’re all right physically. I didn’t mean that.”

She blinked. “I’m fine. I prayed to Joshui to give me my walls back and He did. I feel nothing but a headache and some aches in my arms and legs, really.” She pulled away from him and began walking again.

For several moments she traveled down the road alone, then the men fell into step beside her. They walked in silence. This time when they passed the dairy barns, the milkmaids didn’t just cast the occasional curious glance their way. This time they stopped and stared.

One blond woman wearing a more fashionable blue dress stood out from the rest. Evangeline gave her a critical head-to-toe sweep as the woman wavered in an indecisive manner for several moments, then suddenly bolted toward them. “Wait!” she yelled, her long, fair hair streaming behind her.

Feeling deliciously numb, she turned to face the woman who was most assuredly Arabella Bansdaughter.

“Are you my sister?” the woman asked, coming to a stop. She was out of breath.

“I’m Evangeline. I’m apparently your sister, yes.” She blinked. “In blood, at least.”

“Evangeline?” She stared for a moment, her hands twisting near her abdomen. “They never told me your name.”

That cut through her emotionless cocoon and made Evangeline flinch.

Anatol made a noise next to her and Arabella’s gaze flew to him. “I’m sorry. Forgive me.” She pressed a hand to her mouth for a moment. “They would never speak of you. I found out by accident. When I asked they said you’d been born deformed and they’d been forced to give you away. When I pressed they called you mentally damaged.” Arabella studied her for a moment. “They said you stole their emotions.” Her voice was almost a breathless whisper. “When you were a baby. That you sucked their joy and happiness right out of them. They said you caused emotional chaos.”

She flinched again, but Joshui had been good to her. Her walls were still mostly intact.

“I do steal emotion,” Evangeline answered. “I steal it, twist it, and trade it. It’s the nature of my magick. It’s why the Edaeii prized me above all others.” She raised a brow. The last part went unspoken—over you. “That’s why the Edaeii wanted me to marry into their family, to bring back the magick to their bloodline.”

“Are you doing it . . . now?” she whispered, her eyes wide and a trembling smile of excitement on her lips. “Are you manipulating my emotions?”

“You are a complete moron, aren’t you?” Anatol exploded. “This isn’t a sideshow act. Get away from her!” Anatol pulled her away from Arabella, who had taken several steps back in the face of his rage.

“Wait!” Arabella called. “Don’t go yet.”

Evangeline turned and looked at her with numb eyes. “I’m sorry I never knew you, Arabella.”

Arabella’s lip quivered. “I am, too.”

In the distance she heard Arabella’s father—for he was no father of Evangeline’s—bellowing for Arabella to get back, get away. Even through her walls and even at such a great distance, Evangeline could feel the love and concern he had for Arabella. There was none of that for Evangeline, only fear, sadness, and shame. He was worried that she would do something with her magick to harm his daughter.

Arabella took one last lingering look at Evangeline and then walked toward her father.

Gregorio took Evangeline’s hand, and together he and Anatol led her down the road.

When they were ten steps from the waiting carriage, the walls that had so protected her shattered like they’d been hit with cannonballs. Her knees went weak and she stumbled on the gravel road, going down on her knees. Bowing her head, she covered her face with her hands and sobbed. Viscous black grief covered her, making her muscles weak and wracking her body with uncontrollable tears. She’d dipped into that well so far down inside her.

Now she was drowning in it.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried this hard. Had she ever cried like this? Maybe when she’d been four and taken to Belai. She might have cried then, but she didn’t remember. It was strange to feel the tears in her eyes, on her cheeks. Odd to have these uncontainable sobs shaking her body like a dog with its favorite toy.

Anatol and Gregorio came down beside her, their heat radiating out and warming her.

“They sold me, didn’t they?” she asked into her hands. “Once they found out about the magick, they became frightened of me and they wanted to get rid of me, so they sold me to Belai.” She shook her head. “My father didn’t get that limp trying to defend me. It was all a lie.”

Gregorio rubbed her back. “I don’t know. Maybe ...”

She looked at him. “It was a lie.”

She’d heard of it happening, of course. The royals had offered substantial sums for families to turn over their magicked children if the line of magick was rare enough. Since she was the only of her kind that she knew about, she supposed she’d qualified. She wondered how much they’d gotten for her. Did they owe the obvious success of their farming operation to her sale?

Gregorio rubbed his chin and glanced away like he was looking for a palatable answer to drop from the clouds. “Maybe someone in the string of record keepers had half a heart. Maybe they tried to give you something to hold on to for later. Maybe, yes, it was a well meaning lie.” He stopped and stared at the carriage for several moments. “But you’re right; your father got that limp from somewhere else.”

“He’s not my father,” she growled, pushing up. “I have no father, no mother.”

Anatol tried to help her and she was grateful for it, but she pushed past him anyway. This only affirmed what she’d always known while she’d been growing up; you always had to stand on your own feet. You could never count on anyone being there for you. She’d almost forgotten that over the past few months, but now she remembered.