“See what?”

“You said Dad was weak and you’re strong. But all I see is a middle-aged woman whose life is filled with failure. You failed to create a Moonchild when you had my brother. You failed with your stupid idea to unite all the occult orders. You failed when you tried to take over all the orders by force—double fail, really, because you got caught by savages instead of ruling over the occult world like some kind of pope.”

Defensive anger flared behind her eyes. “I am not in jail.”

“No, but you’re a wanted felon who had to leave the order in disgrace and abandon your home to live like a rat. What else? You failed to sacrifice me and siphon my powers last year. You failed to keep your husband alive in the Æthyr.”

“But I slaughtered the demon who killed him.”

“Who cares? What do you have now? The shoddy clothes on your back? You have no family, no friends, no roof over your head. Where’s your occult army? No one’s here to defend you. No one’s got your back. Everything you’ve tried to accomplish has backfired. Hell, even your stupid publishing career was a flop—you never had a single book hit the bestseller lists.”

“That is—” She tried to finish but ended up huffing.

“But you know what was your biggest failure? Me.” I stretched against my bonds to lean closer and spoke in a low voice. “You had all the power you wanted in the palm of your hand, but you couldn’t control me. Not when I was a child and not now.”

In a blink, my bonds fell free. I was standing where she stood, holding her dagger. She was tied to the post. Her shoulders jerked as she fought to free herself, a string of French curses spewing from her lips. Feral eyes pinned me as she tried to calm herself, chest heaving with labored breath.

I could almost see her mind working; even now, she was cocky enough to think she was still winning. It was the same conceit that had buoyed her through her killing spree of the occult leaders and that made her keep pushing forward in the Æthyr to find another way to get at the Moonchild powers, even after my father was dead.

The entire world revolved around her. If she hadn’t possessed the magical talent she did, if she wasn’t the lunatic bound before me, it was still easy to picture her using all that selfish determination to accumulate wealth or status or fame. A dirty politician. Head of some shady corporation. Amoral scientist. Enola Duval could have been any of those things. She would have been married to her job, obsessed with success. And even without a bloody trail of bodies, she still would have screwed over her coworkers left and right, stepping on their backs to climb up some other kind of ladder.

And I still would have grown up in a sterile, lonely house with a mother who didn’t give a damn about her daughter.

I glanced down at the dagger in my hand. “I just want you to know something,” I said in a voice that was surprising calm.

“And what would that be?”

“That even though you were an insane monster who treated me like a science experiment, even though you never truly loved me or even thought of me as more than an inconvenient stepping stone, even though you considered selling me like a slave to Ambrose Dare when you suspected I wasn’t your real Moonchild, even when you abandoned me at seventeen with the FBI on my trail—because of crimes you committed—even when you tried to sacrifice me, I still loved you.”

I brushed away angry tears and stared her down, waiting for a reaction. She didn’t even blink. She simply said, “Then perhaps I am not the one who is insane.”

“Maybe not,” I murmured, sliding my fingers to the handle of the dagger. “But I wanted you to know that. And I also wanted you to know that I forgive you for all of it.”

She stared at me as if I were an unsolvable puzzle or a pet ape that had suddenly developed the ability to use sign language. As if she could almost summon enough humanity to pity me.

Almost.

The dagger’s handle fit in my grip like it had been made for my hand—just the right length, just the right weight.

And maybe I did have some of her crazy genes bubbling inside me after all, because I felt nothing but dizzying relief when I sank the blade under her ribs.

Silver eyes squinted in front of my face. I shifted down from my transmutated state, and within a blink, the silver turned to green. Lon. No horns, no fiery halo. Just the man.

The dagger was gone; I’d dropped it before I transported back. But any doubts about what I’d just done dissipated when I caught a glimpse of my hands; they were roughly fisting Lon’s shirt, one of them staining the cotton with blood.

“Is she . . . ?”

I pulled back and spotted the fallen body next to us. The relief I’d just been feeling melted into a slow, humming sadness. Not regret, though. It was just my mind getting accustomed to the sudden weight of this burden: I had killed my own mother. Never mind that I didn’t have a choice. Just because she felt nothing for me didn’t mean I was an emotionless machine. I was sad that I had to do it, sad that she was truly, irretrievably gone, and sad that I couldn’t save her—not from herself or from me.

But like most things, it would pass. And I’d grieved for her too many times already.

What mattered now were the ones I’d saved by doing this, and they surrounded me.

“Cady?” Jupe said, eyes big and wary. “Are you in there?”

“Yes, I’m here.” I grabbed him and fell against Lon’s chest, embracing both of them. Happy tears streamed down my cheeks as Lon kissed the top of my head over and over, nearly squeezing the breath out of me. Even Foxglove tried to get in on the action, standing on hind legs to paw at Jupe.