I peered at him. “How long did my mother last before she…went dark?” He blew air through his lips, seemingly rolling that question over in his mind for a long time. Something flashed across his face that I couldn’t quite read—regret? “If I’m being honest, she was dark from the day I met her at age sixteen.” I gasped in shock, and he frowned. “Marissa Bane grew up on the West Side with an adoptive family. Her birth parents were”—he cleared his throat—“murdered by the current Gilded City King at the time.”
