The next morning Brand dismissed the servants and left the tower. The girls could run the place on their own. Let them figure out how to start the fires, draw water, kill livestock, chop wood, tend the garden, and cook. He knew them; they were soft ladies. As soon as they were deprived of their comforts, they’d throw up a fuss. Then Seri would have to deal with her own rebellion. See how she liked that.

Revenge felt good, he thought as he flew from his tower. He’d forgotten the feel of it. Kidnapping these girls had gotten so routine, he almost forgot why he did it. It wasn’t for the company. Female companionship was easy to find.

At the nearest free town, Brand dropped his illusion and let his true form show. He was not unattractive to look at—one might even say handsome. More than that, he knew how to talk to ladies, when it suited him. He had been well-taught, he thought bitterly. But he was tired of women and their cattiness. So instead, he visited taverns and sought the company of men.

He didn’t talk much, but he was happy to be around them and hear them complain about the women in their lives. It was good to have a few days away, to drink, to relax, to clear his head.

Revenge, he mused. It had grown stale. But why?

The first few years, his targets had been personal. He’d revisited all the places he and his mother had begged for help and been rejected. He took the daughters of those who had wronged him and used them to gain access to their castle’s sacred treasures (for only ones of the bloodline were immune from protection spells). He’d felt good robbing them of magic. And if the lord’s daughters turned out to be whores, well, he felt a secret delight in that as well.

But eventually, he’d run out of those targets and now he was just looking for any girl whose family tree was questionable. Any girl who might harbor a secret lineage. The number was surprisingly high. But that’s what made revenge so complicated. He didn’t know who he was seeking revenge against.

The heir of Willmarr of Castle Elbe-Antona.

Brand could hear his grandfather’s voice in his head. It pulsed like a migraine. Brand took another swing of his beer. How often had he heard his grandfather repeat the name, beating it into his memory, so that Brand couldn’t forget it if he tried.

You must find Willmarr’s heir.

All well and good, if the whole family hadn’t gone into hiding. Abandoned their castle, forged new names, married into castles with pristine lineages. Even his grandfather, after years of trying, hadn’t been able to root them out.

It will only take one girl; and then we shall be able to find the entire family.

The dragon curse would reveal his target, sooner or later. Until then, there wasn’t much for Brand to do except wile away his time and sort out the good girls from the bad.

And to be fair, most of the girls he stole weren’t really bad. Some were annoying. Even Seri, for all her pride and stubbornness, was at least honest and stuck by what she said. Under different circumstances, he might have liked her.

Brand sighed. Why was it that most of the bad girls, the worst ones, came from his enemy’s lands, early on in his quest for revenge? Had he and his mother just been unlucky? Had his judgement been skewed by anger? Brand ordered another beer. Maybe he was too lenient now, too quick to forgive the girl’s faults and let them have run of his castle. He ought to be like his grandfather, ruthless and iron-fisted.

No. Brand drank down his beer. He’d never be like that man.

His grandfather had kept Brand and his mother locked in an invisible tower in the Abnoba Woods for the first thirteen years of his life. They were hidden from the world, his mother’s name blotted from the family tree and Brand’s name never written upon it. His grandfather, Lord Arnaud, visited them infrequently. When he did, it was only to drill Brand on magic and lecture him on revenge. If Brand failed in his studies, his punishment would be swift and painful, for his grandfather did not hesitate to use bindings and force.

But worse than his grandfather’s punishment was his neglect. There were no servants, no doctors, no help whatsoever, and the supplies that came every three months were often inadequate. Once Lord Arnaud died, the spells that kept them rapped in the tower lifted. Brand thought it would get better. It did—but not by much. He and his mother had nowhere to go, and Brand had no notion of how to interact with people, no concept of how the world worked.

Brand had survived. His mother had not.

I should put flowers on her grave, he thought. He’d missed the last anniversary of her death. Four years now. He thought about her less, but it still hurt whenever he did, a needle in his heart.

What sort of flowers should I bring?

His mother loved flowers. All flowers—wild or cultivated, it made no difference to her. Brand typically went with tulips, because they were rare and expensive, but for some reason, he was thinking of white lilies. He didn’t know why, until he remembered that Seri was picking them. The last thing he’d seen before he’d lifted her over her house was a bouquet of them, fallen from her basket and sinking in the mud.

Lilies would be nice, he thought.

But it was too far to visit his mother’s grave right now. He’d go in September—by then, the last of the girls would be gone. So would the lilies. He’d buy his mother whatever flowers he could find and head back to the Abnoba Woods. Back to hiding in his tower, back to researching family trees, back to repeating the cycle of kidnapping and curses.

Unless, of course, I find her. Willmarr’s heir.

The only one whose curse I can’t break—at least not in the usual way.

Brand downed his beer and settled his tab. He doubted he’d be that lucky.