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I turned back to the demon, lip curled.

Dominique waved a hand over her face, and my mother’s features dissolved into the most lovely, most terrifying face I’d ever seen. Dark hair framed high cheekbones and a narrow jaw. Her eyes were black from edge to edge. No whites, no visible pupils, only a glossy darkness.

I had spent weeks hating a woman who was never there. I had cursed her, threatened to bind her, even walked through her in the street. The whole time, I’d held on to the hope that my mother had come back because she was sorry for what she’d done that night, and all the other nights.

Dominique had found that desire and feasted on it.

“Adrien, go to your father,” I told him. “Now.”

With the speed gifted to vampires, Adrien made for the door, but when he tried to open the door handle, the chalk protection rune he had drawn went from white to searing red. The marks we’d drawn to protect him were now keeping him sealed inside.

“The coin,” I told Adrien, pointing at the desk where I’d left it. “Hold it and say your father’s name.”

He gave me a wary look. “But, Miss Ravenwood⁠—”

“You promised that you’d listen to everything I said. And you’re a very good listener, aren’t you?” I said with an encouraging grin despite the tremble in my voice.

He nodded slowly, then complied with my instructions.

I let out a breath of relief when he cupped it in his hands and said his father’s name. Gold light shone between his fingers as the summoning charm was activated, but the inward-facing sigil responded, blocking the spell.

He was trapped.

Because… of me.

“Tsk, tsk,” the demon said. “No one leaves just yet.”

I’d thought the guilt of making him ill with my blood was unbearable. Now I would’ve given anything for that to be the worst thing I’d put him through in my very short tenure.

I raised my wand at her chest, gripping it with both hands because I couldn’t make it stop trembling. Adrien was still holding his father’s coin. He had done everything I’d asked of him, and he was watching me as though I must know what to do next.

“You really are a demon.”

My voice broke, and I swallowed hard. I would have begged her to let Adrien go if I’d thought it would help, but she was trapped just as much as we were.

Dominique’s grin widened, exposing her sharp teeth. “You make demon sound like a dirty word. But we both know what you are. What all Kemps are.” She set a hand over the place where a heart should be. “Family.”

My eyes flicked past her before I could stop them. I was still looking for Mama, as if she might step between us and tell this thing to leave us alone.

The realization hurt so badly that I had to press my lips together.

“You are not my family.”

“No?” Her face transformed into mine, and so did her voice.

I stared at my own features, at my mouth curling into an expression of contempt. She even had the tremble in my voice when she spoke.

“Maybe that’s who I am now. Not a Kemp, but one of the Twisted Sisters.”

I shook my head, but I couldn’t look away. She let me stare at myself for another moment before dropping the glamour and giving me a scathing look.

Those had been private words, spoken inside my own head when I was lost and tired and sick in my soul. But Dominique had been there for all of it. Every drunken night. Every mile. Every prayer.

“You call yourself demon-blooded when you want to frighten doormen,” Dominique continued, “but you turn up your nose at me?” She spread her hands. “Why? Wasn’t the deepest desire of your heart a family? Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts.”

Her attention shifted to the lead box sitting on top of my grimoire, only a few steps away. It began shuddering so violently its hinges tore free, and the piece of snowflake obsidian floated into the air. I tried to grab it and shove it back inside the box, but it floated too high for me to reach.

“Never wear the relics. Never carry them. Never draw from them outside a circle,” she said, reciting Gran’s words. “Sound familiar?”