Blackhearted Betrayal by Kasey Mackenzie Page B

and proud, a good half foot above my own height. She wore the red leather Fury uniform I hadn’t seen her in since my childhood—back on that fateful day she and Mom went hunting Nan’s sister, Medea, who had lost her battle with magical Rage and Turned Harpy. They’d succeeded in their quest—putting the former Fury out of her misery—but at too high a cost. Losing Nan to her coma just before my mother vanished for years had beenagony to endure. It also left me to Stacia’s nefarious clutches, which I’d only later learned had been precisely her plan.
    “My, my, my, lassie,” Nan said now in her lilting Scottish accent, “but aren’t
you
a sight for sore eyes?”
     
    Hearing her speak helped me conquer my bewilderment. “N-Nan?”
     
    She stopped a step below me—putting us on eye level to each other—and smiled. “Of course it’s me, lassie. Surely you’ve been expecting me?”
     
    “I—I …” Okay, maybe I’d only
partially
conquered my bewilderment. “Of
course
I’ve been expecting to see you, but Mom said—”
     
    Nan shook her head sadly. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear, lassie, not even from your mother.”
     
    Okay, that
lassie
thing was starting to unnerve me. Nan
had
often called me
lass
growing up, but rarely
lassie
after I explained why her doing so made me want to bark like a collie. I had vague recollections of someone else’s calling me that, but couldn’t quite dredge up a face or name. I focused on Nan’s flowing red hair—odd, she’d always worn it tightly braided along the crown of her head—and familiar blue eyes. The exact shade shared by Mom, Cori, and me; a thought which had me remembering our shared danger. “
What
is going on, Nan? What were you
thinking
to challenge the Moerae days after waking from a coma?”
     
    She raised a hand and gave a soft chuckle that sounded huskier than usual. Déjà vu struck again. That wasn’t Nan’s laugh, but it
did
seem familiar. “Slow down, lassie. I
am
only newly awakened.” When this didn’t produce answering amusement, she sobered. “Gods’ truth, Marissa, I hadn’t planned for things to go this way, but since theyhave …I hate to be the one to break this to you, but your mother just can’t be trusted. Something’s
wrong
with her.”
     
    I managed to mask true emotion behind a poker face. If
that
wasn’t the pot calling the kettle black …The more Nan spoke, the more convinced I became that Mom was right. This wasn’t Nan—not the Nan we’d known and loved. “Why do you say that?”
     
    She gave a heavy sigh. “Haven’t you wondered
why
she suddenly changed her mind about hating politics after the debacle where she lost the election to Ekaterina, only to go after a Conclave seat again once freed from captivity?”
     
    “Couldn’t the same be asked about your changing
your
mind about politics?”
     
    A calm expression came my way. “I have little interest in the Moerae’s seat, Marissa, and more concern in bringing a traitor to justice.”
     
    I couldn’t hide my frown this time. “Traitor? The Moerae?” I’d suspected her of that very thing myself, blinded by my loyalty to Stacia and innate dislike of Ekaterina, a mistake I would
not
easily repeat.
     
    Nan nodded gravely. “Aye, the Moerae.
She
gave your mother and me the information leading us to Me—Medea twenty years ago.
How
else could she have such intimate knowledge of Harpy identities and locations if she weren’t in collusion with the nasty creatures herself? Your mother and I found Medea—along with several other Harpies waiting in ambush—exactly where
she
said we would.”
     
    I blinked at that revelation. Mom had never let that tidbit slip; but, then again, barely a year went by before she disappeared, and I’d been too young for her to sharemany of the details with. “So you think that—what—Ekaterina set you up?”
     
    She nodded again. “Wholeheartedly. She and Stacia—” Her words cut off when I