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The room darkened, the windows rattled.
“Mom.” Lily turned, sat next to Hazel and took her hand.
The magic charging the air relaxed, lost its menace.
“I’m all right.” Hazel squeezed Lily’s hand, closed her eyes briefly. “It’s just…”
“I know.” Lily’s eyes glowed again with fiery sparks, her banked outrage at the fact Rose had been sold probably stoked by the memory of how Lily, too, had only recently been auctioned off among demons. Like Rose’s captors, those demons had met a bloody and painful death.
“She’ll get stronger again,” Hazel said. “I’ll make sure of it. There’s no irreparable damage. Given enough food, rest, exercise, and time, she’ll become what she was born to be.”
Lily startled. “Mom—I just realized.” She clapped a hand over her mouth, then let it fall back on her lap. “Our line hasn’t ended, has it?” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, and her voice grew husky. “After I was turned into a demon, I was so worried about it. I felt guilty when I decided to stay demon, but I thought—hey, at least Basil might keep the bloodline going. If he has kids, they might inherit the magic, right?” She paused, inhaled sharply. “Now I know why you were so reserved when I mentioned how I hoped Basil could carry on the line. You knew he couldn’t.” She uttered a choked laugh, then sobered. “But now…with Rose… The Murray magic lives on. She’ll continue our line.”
Hazel’s face was tight with silent pain. “I wish I could have told you.”
“So,” Basil chimed in, “Rose’s magic… Isa said Rose never actually used it. They didn’t let her. When they started taking her blood, it was enough to reduce her powers to a level where they could easily control her.”
Rose’s captors had apparently been privy to a well-kept secret among select fae—that ingesting witch blood enhanced a fae’s own magic temporarily and acted as a potent drug. They’d kept her as a living source of intoxication and stimulants, keeping her at the edge of death for long stretches of time, providing just enough food and other essentials to assure she was able to bleed for them. The mere thought of what the better part of her adult life must have been like turned his stomach and heated his skin with a primal rush of rage.
Hazel proved why she deserved a place among the ranks of Elder witches with the icy control she maintained on her powers, since the wrath she surely harbored had to be a thousand times hotter and more devastating than what Basil felt. Unleashed, that wrath could, without a doubt, raze their entire mansion to the ground.
As it was, the flicker of the lights and the electric buzz in the air were the only signs of her ruthlessly restrained rage. “Her magic will become more powerful as she regains her strength. I will be there with her, every step of the way. I’ll teach her how to control her powers, and how to wield them.”
“It’ll still be hard for her to adjust.” Lily looked out at Rose again.
“It’s too bad,” Basil said, his voice gone quiet amid a surge of grief, “that she never got to meet Maeve.” He swallowed hard, his throat tight and hurting. “I’m sure Maeve would have taken to her right away. They have a lot in common.”
The silence that descended was heavy with loss and heartache, the hole ripped in their midst still raw and gaping.
“Has Alek heard anything?” Hazel asked, her voice thin.
Lily shook her head, the lines around her mouth tensing. “Nothing.”
And with their only link into Arawn’s network—Alek—unable to gather any intel about Maeve, they were all left to drown in a sea of uncertainty about her fate.
Basil couldn’t keep thinking about it, not when he wanted to maintain a functioning brain, so he switched to a subject he’d been meaning to broach ever since they traveled back from Faerie.
“Mom,” he said, deliberately using that name, “now we’re back… There’s something I want to ask you.”
“What, honey?”
“Since I found out I’m not your son…” He took a deep breath. “I’ve been wondering—if you ever—” He balled his hands to fists, gritted his teeth.
“If I ever what?”
“Resented me.”
The air stood still at Hazel’s palpable shock. “Why would you think that?” she whispered, her expression stricken. “Did you feel unloved?”
He swallowed again, this time past a lump that formed with unsettling speed. “No. Not really. I mean, I thought you loved me. But knowing you had to give up your daughter and got me instead, I was wondering…if maybe sometimes you looked at me and thought—”
“That you were to blame?” Hazel’s voice trembled with quiet outrage.
He shrugged and looked out the window, his chest constricted, his stomach one fucked-up knot.
“Baz.” Hazel grabbed his hand and held it so tight he faced her again. Her expression was drenched in such raw pain, it struck him deep. “I have always loved you, Basil. Yes, I wanted my daughter back, and I cried for her when no one would see me. But—here is where I am selfish. I wanted the fae to return Rose…but I didn’t want to give you back. Even knowing we had a deal, knowing you’d belong with your kind if they ever came for you—I would have fought to keep you. I would have bargained for you. That is how much I love you, as my son.”
Her lips quivered, and she squeezed his hand. “I never resented you. Not for one second. You were a baby, Baz. A sweet, innocent child. My child. You stole my heart the moment I took you in my arms, and you will always be my son. I’d give my life for yours, without even thinking about it.” She curled his fingers around his. “I love you, sweetie.”
