A tremulous, radiant smile curved her lips. “My dear, sweet MacKayla!” she exclaimed.

I wanted to touch her, be in her arms, breathe in the scent of my mother, and know I belonged. I focused on my only memory of her, deeply buried until this moment. I focused on it hard, thinking about how treasured it was. How I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten it all these years. How my child’s mind had taken a single snapshot: Isla O’Connor and Pieter staring at me with tears in their eyes. They’d been standing by a blue station wagon, waving good-bye to us. It was pouring rain, and someone had held a bright pink umbrella with green cartoon flowers above my baby carriage, but the wind had whisked a chill mist beneath it. I’d flailed my tiny fists, cold and crying, and Isla suddenly broke away from Pieter to tuck the blanket more securely around me.

“Oh, darling, it was the hardest thing I ever did that day in the rain, letting you go! When I tucked you in, I wanted so desperately to snatch you up and keep you with us forever!”

“I remember the umbrella,” I said. “I think it must be where I got my love of pink.”

She nodded, eyes shining. “It was bright pink with green flowers.”

Tears stung my eyes. I stared at her a long moment, memorizing her face.

Isla opened her arms. “My daughter, my beautiful little girl!”

Bittersweet emotion flooded me as I moved into my mother’s arms. When they closed warm and comforting around me, I began to cry.

She stroked my hair and whispered, “Hush, darling, it’s all right. Your father and I are here now. You don’t need to worry about a thing. It’s all right. We’re together again.”

I cried harder. Because I could see the truth. Sometimes it’s there in the flaws.

And other times it’s there in too much perfection.

My mother’s arms were around my neck. She smelled good, like Alina, of peaches-and-cream candles and Beautiful perfume.

And I didn’t have a single memory of this woman.

There’d been no blue station wagon. No pink umbrella. No day in the rain.

I slid the spear from my holster and drove it up between our bodies.

Straight into Isla O’Connor’s heart.

47

Isla inhaled, sharp with pain, and went stiff in my arms, clutching at my neck.

“Darling?” Blue eyes stared into mine, blank and confused. She was Isla.

“You stupid little bitch!” Blue eyes stared into mine, fiercely intelligent, furious, hard with rage. She was Rowena.

“How could you do this to me?” Isla cried.

“If only I’d killed you that night in the pub!” Blood-tinged spittle sprayed from Rowena’s lips.

“MacKayla, my darling, darling daughter, what have you done?”

“Och, and ’tis because of you all this happened!” Rowena spat. “You bloody damned O’Connors, bringingnaught but trouble and misfortune to us all!”

I felt her legs buckle, but she caught herself on my shoulders and didn’t go down. She was one tough old woman.

I shuddered. I’d never been talking to Isla. It was Rowena all along, carrying the Sinsar Dubh, possessed by it. But now she was dying, and the Book’s ability to maintain a convincing illusion was dying with her. She was flashing back and forth between the illusion of Isla and the reality of Rowena.

“Did you kill my sister?” I shook the old woman so hard her hair spilled loose from its tight bun.

“Dani killed your sister. And the two of you were always cozying up. Och, and I imagine you feel differently about her now!” She cackled.

I used Voice. “Did you order her to do it?”

She writhed, mouth contorting. She didn’t want to answer me. She wanted me to suffer. “Yesss!” the word exploded in an unwilling hiss. I hoped it hurt.

“Did you use your mental coercion to make her do it?”

Her jaw locked and her eyes narrowed to slits. I repeated the question, rattling the windows in the study with the multilayered thunder of compulsion.

“Yesss! ’Twas my right. ’Tis why I was given such gifts! And the cleverness to use them. It requires the layering of many subtle commands, knowing precisely where to nudge. No other could have done it.” She gave me a smug stare, proud of herself.

I grimaced and looked away, stilled by the horror of it.

Here it was at last—the truth of my sister’s murder. I finally knew what had happened to Alina.

The day she’d discovered Darroc was the Lord Master, the same day she’d called me, crying, and left a message, was the day she’d been killed—but not at all for the reasons I’d thought. If it hadn’t been for Rowena, Alina would have lived through that day.

I’d have gotten a new phone, called her in a few days, and she’d have answered. Life would have gone on for the two of us. She and Darroc would probably have gotten back together, and who knew how things might have turned out? Her message had been misleading from the beginning, but she’d had no idea this old woman was her enemy.

This bitch, this meddling tyrant who believed it was her right to use her “gifts” to force a child to kill, had ordered Dani to take Alina to a dark alley to be murdered.

My hands trembled. I wanted to kill her the same way.

Had Rowena specified the monsters Dani should find and leave Alina with? Had she insisted Dani stay and watch the deed be done? Had Alina begged? Had they both wept, knowing the wrongness of it? I’d been forced to want sex. Dani had been forced to murder. My sister. At thirteen. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to watch yourself kill someone you didn’t want to kill. Had Dani known Alina? Liked her? And been compelled to kill her anyway?