"we'll keep trying, emma, until you remember more."

"and if i don't?"

"we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. but i want the truth, emma. nothing more and nothing less."

"fair enough," she said. "will you tell me the truth, then?"

his eyes narrowed. "it depends on the question."

"if you can't tell me the truth, tell me nothing at all," she said. "i can't stand a liar. how did they die? my father and the others?"

he shifted his gaze away. "do you really want the details? i mean-we don't have to-"

"i'm not like other people," emma said. "i've been told that all my life. and i want to know how my father died."

"very well, if you insist," rowan said. "greenwood- your father-had a deep cutting wound to the thigh. he had some . . . he was burned, and he'd been cut by broken glass, but what killed him must have been blood loss."

"and the others?"

"two of the dead, including my sister, were badly cut up, too. stabbed and slashed. one was shot. the others didn't have a mark on them. we've seen that before. so we've been thinking there were several attackers, using different weapons."

"did you call the police?" by now, emma was fairly certain he hadn't. "did you even do an autopsy?"

rowan rolled his eyes, as if emma were a hopeless case. "that would be a colossal waste of time."

"really? maybe you could use the help. you don't seem to be doing such a great job on your own." emma's anger was bubbling to the surface again, despite her efforts to contain it. "tell me this," she said. "what were your sister and those others doing at my house? i assume they weren't looking to book a gig."

rowan chewed on his lower lip a moment, as if debating how much to say. "we've been looking for people with a connection to thorn hill. we think there's a connection between what happened there and a series of murders going on now. including the killing of my sister and your father."

chapter thirty

ask me no questions

"thorn hill?" emma asked, playing dumb.

"it was a weir terrorist camp in brazil. all of the underguilds were involved, to a degree, but it was mostly sorcerers. they flocked their to work in secret on weapons they could use against the wizard guild."

"that's not what i heard," emma blurted, recalling what tyler had said. "and not what i remember."

rowan's eyes widened in surprise. "you were there?"

brasilia. memory poured over her. the scent of jasmine and four o'clocks in the gathering dusk. emma and her mother, riding in a jeep on a rutted country road, hitting bumps at full speed and flying through the air. emma shrieking with laughter. go faster, mommy.

of course, as a five-year-old, she had no way of telling what else went on there.

with that, emma's beaten-down memory struggled back to life, surfacing a scrap of conversation she'd had with tyler. about her mother.

she was working for mr. devries at the time.

mr. devries? who's that?

somebody you never want to meet. a wizard.

that was why the name devries was familiar. rowan's father was the wizard her mother had worked for. the one she was frightened of. the one she fled to brazil to get away from.

"emma?"

emma looked up to find rowan devries staring at her. "what is it?" he said, leaning toward her, his hands on his knees. "what do you remember?"

"i was there. when i was little."

"and? "

two impulses warred within her. her first impulse was to withhold as much information as possible. but she realized that this might be an opportunity to learn more about her mother.

"tyler told me that my mother used to work for your father," emma said finally.

"did she?" he didn't seem surprised.

"and she ran away to thorn hill to get away from him."

"that's certainly possible," rowan said, nodding. "so?"

"is it true that she used to make poisons?" emma knew that she was taking a risk, poking and prodding, digging up the truth about her mother. if your mother is dead, and if nobody will tell you a thing about her, you can make up whatever kind of mother you want. but she wasn't interested in made-up mothers. emma was a person who liked to take the truth by the throat and shake it. if there was one thing she couldn't stand, it was a liar.

rowan rubbed the back of his neck. "does it matter now? some things you're better off not knowing. maybe you should just leave that be."

"you mean, like you let tyler be?"

rowan sighed. "i don't know specifics about your mother, but it seems likely that she made poisons. the sorcerers who worked for my father were primarily involved in making them." his voice was flat, matter-of-fact. "if so, she must have been good at it. he only hired the best."

"what-what would he want with poison?" emma forced the words over a dry tongue.

"my father, andrew devries, founded a syndicate known as the black rose. its members solved all kinds of sticky problems for their clients, but they specialized in contract killing of the gifted. wizards, mostly. to be blunt, i come from a family of assassins."

emma's heart squeezed painfully as the realization hit home. my mother was a murderer. an accessory to murder, at least.

"the syndicate was successful from the very start. after all, why butt heads with an opponent when you can take him out of play entirely? why negotiate with rebellious underguilds when you can eliminate their ringleaders and frighten the rest into submission? a little judicious killing can reduce the need for bloodshed later on.

"my father didn't take sides . . . he was apolitical. he sold his services to anyone willing to pay the price. of course, some in the wizard houses were disdainful of him . . . at first, anyway." a trace of a smile quirked rowan's lips. "they considered poison a weapon of the underguilds, an inappropriate tactic for wizards. they preferred to settle disputes via the anachronistic elegance of the game."

"the game?"

"you've not heard of it? they used warrior gladiators as proxies to settle disputes. they would fight one-on-one, winner take all, under a set of rules that go back to the sixteenth century." he rolled his eyes. "rather silly, really. it leaves way too much up to chance. my father was nothing if not efficient. people soon learned to get out of his way."

horrified words crowded together in emma's mind, competing to escape. "b-but . . . what would he . . . i don't understand why she would-"

"there's a lot i don't know, all right?" rowan snapped. "i was twelve when my father was murdered. rachel was eight. we were not involved in father's business; we were attending private schools under aliases for our own protection. i was fourteen before i found out my real name."

"who killed your father?" emma asked.

rowan straightened his sleeves. "who indeed? so many suspects to choose from."

"why are you interested in thorn hill?" emma asked.

"the sorcerers who went to thorn hill had expertise in a number of areas that are of interest to us now. much of that knowledge was lost in the accident. we're hoping to salvage something."

"the accident?" my father called it a massacre, she wanted to say. "what happened?"

rowan shrugged. "apparently some of the poisons they were working on contaminated the water supply. nearly everyone died. a few children survived-and many of them were horribly disfigured." he frowned, appraising emma. "you must have left before then," he said.

"i guess i must have," emma said. "how many people died?"

"several thousand, from what i understand." he grimaced. "so much expertise was lost. what a shame."

"yeah. a shame about the expertise," emma murmured. "why does that matter now? have you decided to go into the family business?"

"recent events have forced my hand," rowan said. "what do you mean?"

"somebody is murdering wizards. we believe we know who's doing it, but right now we're helpless to stop it. thorn hill was also a center for research into weirstones. specifically, research on ways to modify them."

"why would anyone want to do that?"

rowan shrugged. "i don't know . . . maybe they wanted to create a mutant army to kill wizards?"

"that's ridiculous," emma said. "my parents would never be involved in something like that."

"you mean your mother, the assassin's accomplice, or your father that you just met?" rowan laughed. "we're alike, you and i . . . we both spring from tainted stock."

"why do you want to modify weirstones?"

"all of our weirstones are dependent on the dragonheart, the source of magical energy. a small group has seized power over the weirguilds by taking control of the dragonheart. we're looking for a way to free ourselves from dependence on the dragonheart while retaining our gifts. until we're able to do this, we're helpless to fight back.

"we'd been looking for your father for a long time. some records seemed to connect him to the black rose-perhaps through your mother, i don't know. he was connected to thorn hill as well . . . he spent some time there. so we thought perhaps he might be the link we were looking for. "rachel had reason to believe that she'd finally located him. she and the others went to question your father and verify who he was." pain flickered across his face. "i should never have allowed her to go, but she was excited, hoping this would be her first big breakthrough. and i thought, of course, he's a sorcerer-what chance would he have against eight wizards?" he grimaced. "but somebody else showed up, maybe somebody who knew they were coming. my sister called for help, but i got there too late."