We said good-bye to Madeleine and headed to the car. As we navigated the abandoned castle, the cell phone in my pocket buzzed and I realized I’d completely forgotten to call Ava. I pulled it out and answered. “Sorry,” I said guiltily.

“Where have you been?” she asked. She didn’t seem angry, which made me feel a little better about not calling.

“We got sidetracked,” I confessed. “But we have awesome news. I’m holding the Ring of Solomon right now.”

I heard Ava exhale with relief and relay the news to Marcus. “That’s fantastic,” she said to me.

“How about we find someplace to get some rest?” I suggested.

“Perfect,” she replied. “I’m not sure about you three, but Marcus and I are exhausted.”

“Cadan split from us a few hours ago, so I’ll touch base with him in a sec. While we head back into town, do you want to find a hotel to crash at?”

“Collect Cadan and I’ll call you again when we’ve got rooms somewhere.”

After Ava booked us a few rooms at the Best Western in Aalst, she texted me the address, which I plugged into the GPS. Cadan was closer to the destination than we were, so he met us there. Will and I had our own room, which I was glad for. He was troubled after the reunion with his mother and I worried that he was angry with her. I thought seeing Madeleine again would have thrilled him, despite the shock. Will had accepted her loss and mourned her long ago, and after losing my own mother so recently, I could imagine what old wounds of his had reopened upon seeing her face.

Will took a shower to remove the dust and grime caking his skin from climbing through the crumbling castle, but when he hadn’t left the bathroom after some time, I started worrying about him. The door was cracked, so I knocked once and tapped it the rest of the way open. He stood over the sink, leaning heavily on his hands on the edge of the counter. His face was soaked as if he’d splashed it with water over and over. I touched his arm and kissed his shoulder, looking up into his face.

“Want to talk?” I asked him as I rubbed his back soothingly.

He took a deep, quivering breath. His pain was so naked on his face, etching scars into his skin that weren’t traced by the edge of a blade. “For my entire life, I thought the reason she never came home that night was because she was dead. But she just left. And she didn’t say good-bye.”

“How old were you when she left?” I asked, and leaned on the bathroom counter beside him. I played with the Pentalpha with my thumb and forefinger. I’d looped the leather cord around my neck to keep it safe, as Madeleine had, and it hung just a little lower than my winged necklace.

He didn’t answer right away, his gaze unfocused. “Fifteen.”

I felt my heart break for him, a painful crack right down the middle. I had always been sure that he’d been young, even for a reaper, when his mother vanished, but I never anticipated how young he’d been even for a human.

“I wanted revenge for my mother’s death and I’d only received basic training from her,” he continued. “I went looking for trouble and would’ve gotten myself killed if Nathaniel hadn’t found me. He and my mother had been friends, and then Nathaniel was all I had for a long time. Until you came into my life, anyway.”

He looked back at me and I offered him a small smile. “And now you have your mother again.”

“I can’t tell you how happy I am that she’s alive,” he said, “but I feel so betrayed.”

“I know,” I said softly. “She isn’t perfect. That’s a hard truth to accept when it comes to parents. We idolize them and that isn’t fair to them, or us.”

He became quiet, but I understood how he was feeling. His entire life was spent believing his mother was this unfailing warrior, and now the image he’d woven of her in his mind had begun to unravel. He didn’t want to accept that she was as flawed as the rest of us.

“When you’re able to forgive her,” I offered, “then you two can reconnect. She seems like an amazing person.”

He leaned over me and rested his forehead against mine. “When did you start being so reasonable?”

I grinned. “One of us has to be. Usually it’s you, but I appreciate you letting me have a go at it. Maybe I’m just tired and less argumentative.”

It was his turn to grin, but there was a devilishness to his. “Well, then. I’ll just have to keep you worn out so you don’t bicker with me so much.”

“Oh jeez—” was all I could say before he kissed me.

23

MY MOM PLOPPED DOWN ON THE COUCH BESIDE ME and grabbed a handful of popcorn before passing the bowl to me. I shook it up and frowned. She watched me and rolled her eyes.

“I’m glad you remembered a little popcorn with your salt,” I grumbled and picked through the bowl, glad I didn’t have a paper cut. It’d be like dunking my hand into acid.

“I like salt!” she said with a laugh. “Sue me.”

“Why aren’t you on a heart attack prevention regimen?” I asked. “Dad, help me out here.”

He sat in his favorite chair on the other side of the end table and peeked his eyes over the top of the newspaper he was reading. Besides the TV, the only light in the room was the lamp switched on between us. “She has a point, Diane. How can you even eat that? Salt crunching between your teeth…. It’s disgusting.”