“He certainly didn’t expect it.” I flexed my fingers again, looking down at my hands. I had killed him with them, using the power Vanessa had restored to me. I was me again. What did that mean?

Cressida clicked her tongue. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy for you to do that to your own brother.” She even sounded sympathetic.

“Actually? It wasn’t too difficult. I couldn’t think about him that way anymore. Everything that ever made us brothers was gone—well, almost everything. Only the blood which tied us together still existed. But that’s only as important as we make it.”

I didn’t share blood with Vanessa, but she would always be my family. I wouldn’t say that in front of her mother for fear of having body parts torn off.

I looked at Vanessa, curled up beside Cressida. The older witch needed to comfort her daughter, her only living daughter. I understood that.

There was plenty of time for me to hold Vanessa and cherish her and order her to never do anything so reckless again.

The memory of the storm she’d brewed flashed through my brain at the idea of ordering her to do anything. Maybe it would be smarter to let her have her head. It would keep me from getting hit with a bolt of lightning.

“You have your powers back,” Vanessa said. “How does it make you feel?”

It took no time for me to reply. “I don’t want them back. Not permanently.”

“You don’t?” Cressida’s jaw dropped.

I shook my head. “They were what made me who I was, and I hate who I was. You would hate me, too,” I added, looking at Vanessa. “You wanted me when I didn’t have them anymore. I want to be that man.”

It occurred to me that she might not want me that way anymore, knowing what she knew.

It was one thing to develop an attraction toward a man without knowing what he was capable of. What if she didn’t care for the human version of me?

Her soft smile wiped every doubt from my heart. “I only thought you might want them back for good. If you’re absolutely certain, I can take them away now.”

I looked down at my hands one more time. I could get used to being powerless. I could get used to anything as long as I had her by my side.

“Do it,” I decided. Seconds later, it was over. I could feel the power leaving me again.

“I don’t know that the coven will be easy to sway when they know you plan to remain with a human,” Cressida reminded her daughter as she stroked her hair.

Vanessa caught her mother’s wrist and held her hand steady.

“Which is why I think you and I need to have a talk,” she murmured.

“I can go,” I offered. I would rather.

“No, please. Stay.” Vanessa’s eyes searched her mother’s face. “Oh, Mom, I’m sorry to say this. But you and I both know it won’t work, me leading the coven while I’m involved with Gentry. And I plan to be involved with him for the rest of my life.”

“Don’t tell me you’re saying what it sounds like you’re saying,” Cressida whispered. She shook her head, chin quivering. “No. No. I won’t lose you both.”

“You won’t be losing me. You could never lose me. But I could never be the High Sorceress I need to be while my coven sisters doubt my choices. I would lose their confidence—in fact, I know I’ve already lost it. They don’t trust my judgment anymore. And I won’t bully them into submission, the way I would’ve done before. I’m not about to stomp my feet and throw a fit to get my way. It’s time to start being an adult.”

Cressida’s teary face turned my way. “And you would allow her to do this? You claim you care for her, but you would let her give up her birthright? She’s the most remarkable witch of her generation or any other. You would allow her to step down from what’s hers?”

“I don’t allow her to do anything,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “This is her decision. I would rather she not have to, of course, and I hate the thought of her losing the coven because of me.”

“But I don’t have another choice,” Vanessa finished. “This is the way it is. If I could have both, I would take both. Of course, I would. Gladly. But that simply isn’t possible.”

“I wanted so much more for you than this.”

“More than being happy? Because I am, for the first time ever. I’m actually happy. Being High Sorceress never made me feel even remotely satisfied. That’s probably why I was so impossible for so long.” She got up and came to me, then slid an arm around my waist. “I love him, and he makes me feel. I don’t want anything else.”

Cressida sighed. “And the coven?”

“You’ll find another High Sorceress. And she’ll… get a new Nightwarden.” Her voice cracked. “I’m so sorry about Holden. He loved me. I should’ve been better to him. I should’ve taken better care of him.”

“He was only doing his job. It’s what he was meant to do.” The way Cressida made it sound, it didn’t matter.

The fact that it mattered to Vanessa told me she could never be the same sort of witch her mother was.

“You won’t lose me. I promise I’ll still be part of your life, if you want me to.”

“You’re my daughter. Of course, I want you to be part of my life.” Cressida draped a coat over her shoulders. “And I suppose I’ll have to clean up this mess, too. As always.”

“As always,” Vanessa agreed.

She sounded like a woman who was used to admitting she was wrong.

Cressida shot me one last look—she hated me, but what else was new—before porting out.

“She’s intense.”

“You have no idea,” Vanessa whispered, leaning against me. “I can’t believe how relieved I am that she’s gone.”

“You’re sure you want to do this?”

“More than sure.” She looked up at me. “I love you. I don’t want anything more than I want you.”

“Good thing, because it might not be safe to go back to my apartment after this. I think I need a place to stay.”

She tilted her head to the side, eyes narrowed. “I think we can work something out.”