Lagar stepped closer, dropping his voice. "Forget Gustave. Forget Genevieve. Your parents are gone, Cerise. There's nothing you can do."
The cold knot in her stomach broke and turned into rage. "Do you have them, Lagar?"
He shook his head.
Her horse sensed her anxiety and danced under her. "Who has them?" No matter how far away the Sheeriles had hidden them, she would find them.
A thin smile curved Lagar's lips. He raised his hand, studying it as if it were an object of great interest, watching the fingers bend and straighten, and looked back at her.
The Hand. Louisiana spies.
Ice slid down Cerise's spine. The Hand was deadly. Everybody heard stories about them. Some of them were so twisted by magic, they weren't even human anymore. What would Louisiana spies want with her parents?
Lagar raised his voice. "I'll send a copy of the deed to your house."
She smiled at him, wishing she could let her sword slide across his neck. "You do that."
Lagar bowed with a flourish.
"This is it," she said. "No turning back."
He nodded. "I know. Our great-grandparents started this feud, and you and I will finish it. I can't wait."
Cerise turned her horse and urged it on. Behind her, Mikita and Erian rode through the rain.
Her parents were alive. She would get them back. She would find them. If she had to paint their trail with Sheerile blood, all the better.
CERISE burst into the yard at a canter, her mare's hooves splashing mud. She'd asked Erian to ride ahead to get everyone together. He must've done a hell of a job, because Aunt Murid stood on the verandah with a crossbow. Up to the left, Lark sat in the pine branches, and to the right, Adrian had climbed up into a cypress. Both had rifles and neither missed often.
Derril ran up to take the reins from her, his eyes wide.
"Is Richard here?"
Her cousin nodded. "In the library."
"What about your uncle Kaldar?"
Derril nodded again.
"Good."
During the ride, her fury had crystallized into a plan. It was a ridiculous plan, but it was a plan. Now she had to convince the family to follow it. By the last count, the Mar clan consisted of fifty-seven people, including the kids. Some of the adults had seen her in diapers. They listened to her father. Making them listen to her was an entirely different matter.
Cerise locked her jaw. If she had any hope of seeing her parents again, she had to catch the reins her father had dropped and grip them tightly now, before the family had a chance to think things over and argue with her. She had to hold them together. Her parents' lives depended on it.
Cerise walked up the stairs. Mikita followed at her heels.
She paused by Aunt Murid, who was standing at the door. Six inches taller, dark-haired, dark-eyed, Murid rationed words like they were precious water in the middle of a desert, but her crossbow never failed to make a point.
Cerise looked at her. Are you with me?
Murid nodded slightly.
Cerise hid a breath of relief, swung the door open, and stepped inside.
"No hesitation," her aunt murmured behind her. "Walk like you mean it."
The library lay at the end of the hallway. The largest room in the house, with the exception of the kitchen, it often served as the gathering place for the family. By now, the news of her parents having gone missing would have spread throughout the Rathole. The library would be full. Her aunts, uncles, cousins. All listening to her as she came down the hall.
Cerise took a deep breath and strode down the hallway, not caring about tracking mud.
She walked into the library, cataloging the familiar faces. Aunt Emma, Aunt Petunia - Aunt Pete for short - Uncle Rufus, in the chairs; Erian to the left, his slender blond body draped over a chair; Kaldar, his dark hair in wild disarray, leaning against the wall; half a dozen others; and finally Richard, the oldest of her cousins, tall, dark, with the poise of a blueblood, waiting by the table.
They all looked at her.
Cerise kept her voice flat. "The Sheerile brothers have taken Grandfather's house."
The room went quiet like the inside of a grave.
"Lagar Sheerile showed me a deed of sale to Sene Manor signed by my father."
"It's a forgery," Aunt Pete said. "Gustave would never sell Sene."
Cerise held up her hand. "My father and mother are missing. Lagar said they were taken by the Hand."
Richard's face paled.
"The Louisiana spies?" Kaldar, slim, his hair dark like Richard's, peeled himself from the wall. Where Richard radiated icy dignity, his brother lived to have fun. He had wild eyes the color of honey, a silver hoop in one ear, and a mouth that either said something funny or was about to break into a grin, sometimes just as he sank his blade into someone's gut. Richard thought like a general, while Kaldar thought like a criminal, and she desperately needed both of them on her side.
Kaldar leaned forward, a hard, vicious light sparking in his eyes. "What the hell does the Hand want with us?"
"Lagar didn't say. As of now, the feud is officially on. I need riders sent to Uncle Peter, Emily, and Antoine. We're pulling everyone into the Rathole. Someone needs to warn Urow, too."
"I'll take care of it," Uncle Rufus said.
"Thank you." Cerise wished she knew exactly what to say, but whatever words she had would have to do. Here we go. "We must take back Grandfather's house. First, my parents disappeared there. If any clues exist, they would be at Sene. Second, I don't have to tell you that the Mire runs on reputation. We're only as strong as others think we are. If we allow the Sheeriles to bite off a chunk of our land, we might as well pack it in."
No arguments. So far so good.
"Kaldar, how much time do we have to dispute the deed?"
Her cousin shrugged. "We have to file the petition with the Mire court by tomorrow evening. The court date could be anywhere from ten days to two weeks from then."
"Can you stall?"
"I can get us a day, maybe two."
Richard's narrow lips bent into a frown. "If we go through legal channels, we'll lose. To dispute the Sheeriles' deed, we have to have the original document granting the Sene Manor to Grandfather. We need his exile order. We don't have it."
Cerise nodded. That document and many others had perished four years ago in a flood that had nearly demolished the storage buildings. She'd thought about that on her ride over as well.
"Can we get a replacement?" one of the younger boys asked.
"No." Kaldar shook his head. "When Louisianans sentence someone to exile, three copies of the orders are cut. One goes straight to Royal Archives, the second is carried by the marshals who transport the exile and is surrendered to the Border Guard when they reach the Edge, and the third is given to the exile. The Border Guard isn't going to fall over themselves to find that order for us. We'll never get close enough to ask. They'll shoot us and string our corpses on the trees along the border."