Asterin’s black eyes seemed to devour her whole. “You would hear that wind, girl,” she said with expert quiet, “because anyone with Ironteeth blood does. I’m surprised your mother never told you. It’s passed on through the maternal line.” Witch-blood. Ironteeth blood. In her veins—in her mother’s lineage. It wasn’t possible. Her blood flowed red; she had no iron teeth or nails. Her mother had been the same. If there was ancestry, it was so old that it had been forgotten, but … “My mother died when I was a child,” she said, turning away and nodding her farewell to the head cook. “She never told
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