Free The Tower of the Forgotten by Sara M. Harvey Page A

houseguests. They played cards while they surreptitiously planned and
plotted, half in whispers, half in thoughts.
    A minute tremor ran through the building.
Portia reached for her axe, letting her cards drop face-up onto the table.
Imogen, Radinka, and Kendrick were already on alert, and she could feel their
senses sharpen and cast about the property.
    The
sitting room door opened abruptly, and Gelender strode in. "Get up," she said sternly to
Radinka and Kendrick. "You are both being
confined to your rooms, immediately."
    "What’s going on?" Kendrick stepped
protectively in front of Radinka.
    "Little
fools, you’re in danger. What other reason could
there be?" She grabbed them each by the sleeve and
turned from the table.
    Portia
intercepted her. "Where’s Lord Alaric?"
    Gelender
looked her up and down. "You were poorly raised."
    "That,
my lady, is irrelevant. Where is Lord Alaric?"
    "Gone," she answered, her mouth puckering with distaste. "And I don’t know where he’s gone or why. I don’t ask impertinent and
inappropriate questions. Especially for someone who is a guest in his house."
    "You
don’t intimidate me."
    "I
am not trying to intimidate you. Not everything in life is a challenge,
Mistress Gyony; you’d do well to remember
that. And to recall that you are not a fully recognized member of your house,
nor have you achieved your age of majority. You have no right to question me or
Lord Alaric. Yours is to humbly submit to our will as a lord and lady of the
Grigori."
    Another
tremor rattled the antiques in the curio cabinet. This one was larger. Portia
knew what they meant, or at least where they came from. The tower.
    "That’s it. I’m finished with this
polite nonsense." Portia brandished the
axe, and Gelender stepped back, letting go of the two wards.
    "You
wouldn’t kill me!"
    "Of
course not. Who the hell do you think I am?" She swung the hammer
end up toward Gelender’s head.
    Panicked,
the governess tried to bolt and ran straight into Imogen.
    Imogen held her by the shoulders and gazed
directly into the woman’s eyes. " Sleep ," she said in a voice that was
not quite her own.
    Gelender crumpled to the floor.
    "Are you ready?" Portia looked at Radinka, whose ivory
complexion had paled several more shades.
    The
girl nodded and reached out for Imogen’s hand. "You must stay strong there. It will be the hardest for you," Imogen said. "I will be right beside
you, and so will Portia and Kendrick." Leaning into the girl’s ear, she whispered, "He wants nothing more
than to be a Gyony."
    "Enough.
Let’s go. Radinka, show us the way."
    Radinka
quailed a moment before straightening her spine and nodding. She led them
across the foyer and into Alaric’s sitting room. She
opened the bookcase expertly, and Portia knew she had done this before. It
pained her. Although Radinka was far older than she looked, she was still
considered a child by Nephilim standards and should not have been anywhere near
her training to join a House of the Grigori. She should have been still home
with her family, or playing in the halls of a chapter house somewhere. But that
childhood had ended long ago in the halls of Our Lady of Precious Hope convent,
and at the hands of those who had been sworn to protect her.
    The
small room within surprised Portia, looking more like an oversized closet than
any kind of sinister secret passage.
    "What
is this place?" She could feel,
however, that it was not as innocent as it seemed.
    Radinka
pointed to the shelves built into the walls, each one crowded with all sorts of
strange keepsakes and knickknacks, from jewelry to photographs to silverware
and more.
    They
are the mementos of a hundred people, or so. Anchors, he calls them, bindings.
Each one of these little things meant the world to someone. And he knows it and
he uses it to his advantage." She picked up a large
monkey wrench. "This belonged to an
Insinori girl, one of the youngest ever to be elevated to full house standing.
Her name was