“This is so unreal,” Lily muttered, staring out the kitchen window into the backyard of the Murray mansion.

Basil followed her look to where Rose lay on the lawn, face turned up toward the starlit night sky, her fingers twined in the grass. She’d been like this for an hour already, Isa keeping her company and talking to her in Fae, while Rose soaked up sounds and sights and sensations like someone criminally underfed. Which she was, in a lot of ways, not just in terms of nutrition. From the bits and pieces about her captivity that Isa had gotten out of Rose so far, she’d mostly been kept indoors and underground, had only been allowed out on rare occasions…when she’d been “good.”

She was so starved for nature and fresh air that, even after the journey here from Faerie, which had taken several days, she still couldn’t seem to get enough of the outdoors.

“So. Unreal,” Lily said again, gaping at a twin she’d never known existed.

Their first meeting had been…interesting, to say the least. Lily, who always seemed to have a comeback for everything, who had a witty or sarcastic remark for every situation, and who tended to indulge in running commentaries about what was happening—even when it was in her best interest to shut up—just stood there in shocked silence for a full five minutes when they presented her with Rose.

Basil had to pinch her to snap her out of it. And Rose…indigo eyes wide, slack-jawed, marveling at the sight before her, raised a hand to Lily’s face, as if to trace the features that so resembled her own, only to draw back with a flinch. She started to apologize in Fae—translated by Isa—when Lily grabbed her hand, raised it to her face, and let Rose touch her.

That moment still gave Basil goosebumps.

“Seeing her next to you,” Basil said from his seat at the table in the breakfast nook, “drives home just how frail she truly is.”

Compared with Lily’s strength—not only from her demon nature, but from years of exercise and martial arts training—with the healthy glow of her skin, the humor in her smile and the sparkle in her eyes, Rose was a wraith, a haunting specter of what Lily might be if faced with years of neglect and starvation. It was unsettling, infuriating, this stark reminder that Rose should be just as healthy, her magic just as strong, her spirit unbroken.

“I wish,” Hazel whispered, “Tallak had left them alive.” Her brown eyes bore a hard glint, and her nostrils flared, as she looked out at her daughter. “So I could deliver the slow and painful death they deserve.”

“I second that.” Lily narrowed her eyes—which had started to show red specks, a sure sign she was getting demonically pissed—then took a deep breath and exhaled roughly, her eyes returning to deep blue once more. She was getting better at controlling her new otherworldly instincts. “So this kind of treatment was okay with the fae who swapped her? Didn’t she say Rose was going to be well cared for?”

Basil and Hazel were still in the process of bringing Lily and the others up to speed on everything that happened—as much as they knew, at least. Some details were missing yet, and it would take time to piece it all together. Rose needed to adjust, and they didn’t want to pressure her into a bare-your-soul therapy session.

“From what she told Isa so far,” Basil said, “it seems those fae we freed her from were not the ones she was originally placed with when she was brought into Faerie. The fae couple whose tracks Isa and I followed had Rose for the first few years. Rose mentioned that the fae who gave her to that couple did check in regularly for some time, but stopped doing it after some years. By the time Rose’s powers kicked in when she was seven, the couple hadn’t heard from the fae in a while, and they assumed she wasn’t interested in Rose anymore. Apparently they didn’t know how to handle Rose’s awakening witch magic, and were glad to get rid of the burden when another fae approached them and asked to buy her.”

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.”

“I love you, too, Mom.” Basil blinked to clear his eyes, inhaled on a shudder, and turned to the sobbing mess of a sister sitting next to him. “Want me to fetch you the entire roll of tissues from the counter? We have ten more in the garage. You look like you might need them all.”

Lily uttered a keening wail of unintelligible sounds, smacked him upside the head, then lunged for him and sobbed against his shoulder. He hugged her, patted her back, and laughed until the tightness in his chest eased and Lily started pinching him in the side.

“Mom,” he said when Lily eventually went to get the roll of tissues. “There’s something else I’ve been thinking about. You said you think the fae magic changed Robert, that it poisoned his mind somehow, and made him turn on you like that.”

Hazel stiffened.

“I don’t think it’s true,” he went on. “I mean, it’s possible, sure, but what if he was just an assh—a narcissistic jerk all along?”

“But he wasn’t like that in the beginning.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean he changed because of magic. He could well have been a narcissist all his life and simply managed to charm you for a while. That’s what abusers do.”

Hazel opened her mouth, closed it again. Basil could see her mind working behind her warm brown eyes.

Before she could say anything, he added, “Think about it. For years now, you’ve been beating yourself up because you believed the whole thing with the changeling swap and the spell being put on him was the reason he treated you like shit.”

“Language,” Hazel said, but her rebuke was mild instead of sharp this time, her expression thoughtful.

“What if he just managed to hide his dark side from you until after the delivery? If you look at it this way, it means you don’t have to feel guilty about anything. There’s literally nothing you could have done. He would have shown his true colors sooner or later anyway, with or without anything ‘triggering’ him.” He met Hazel’s eyes as she focused on him again. “It really wasn’t your fault, Mom.”

Her voice was barely audible when she whispered, “Thank you, baby.”

“So,” Lily said as she plopped down next to him and sniffed in a most dignified Lily kind of way, “what’s the status quo with your demonic father? Oh, and by the way, knowing you’re half-demon explains so many things—” She dodged his mock swing and grinned.

“Well.” He grasped the nape of his neck. “We’re sort of…friends? It’s a bit weird, to be honest. We talked on the way here from Faerie. We both missed out on so much time we could have spent together, and he never saw me growing up. I think it eats at him that he didn’t get to have the experience of being around me while I was a kid. And it’s strange for both of us to meet as adults.” He shrugged. “I mean, I have a hard time relating to him as my father.”

“Yeah.” Lily frowned. “He looks like he’s your age.”

Basil grimaced. “Apparently, hæmingr demons live pretty long, and can stay young for most of their lives.”

Lily raised a brow. “Good for you. Plus, there’s that nice shapeshifting power y’all got. Have you tried it yet? Can you do it?”

He gave her a slow smile, leaned back in his seat—and morphed. Power rippled over his skin, through his cells, and with a feeling of being folded and turned over in a million tiny ways, he changed his shape.

Lily shrieked and jumped back from the table. “Oy!” She pointed a finger at him. “Stop that. It’s weird enough seeing just one other version of me walking around.”

He laughed and let go of Lily’s form, shifting back to his own appearance.

Hazel smiled. “Impressive. Although without having absorbed the magic of the person you’re changing into, you can’t imitate their aura, can you?”

“Right. Which means this kind of power is only good for fooling beings with dull senses, like humans.”

“Or for shocking unsuspecting relatives,” Lily muttered.

Basil grinned and winked at her.

“I still think,” Hazel interjected, crossing her arms, “that Tallak should be punished for slaughtering the fae court.”

“Mom…”

“It wasn’t right.” She shook her head. “No matter how nasty some of them supposedly were.”

Basil exhaled through his nose. “He spent twenty-six years in their dungeon. I think that was punishment enough, even if it was before the fact.”

“And what about the fae he killed before he was imprisoned? The ones whose powers he stole to conceal himself in Faerie. He’s a murderer.”

“He’s changed.”

Hazel gave him a look that spelled out Oh, really? in an extra-italicized, sarcasm-dripping font. “It’s been less than two weeks since he butchered the royal court.”

“Who tortured him for a quarter of a century.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Mom, please. I only just found him. Leave him alone. He just wants to get to know his son and enjoy his newfound freedom.”

Hazel arched a brow, the move so reminiscent of Lily’s best withering glare. “It’s the latter one I’m especially concerned with.”

“He promised he won’t cause any trouble.”

“Well, you tell him I’m holding him to that. I’m watching him. If he takes even just one step out of line, he’ll find our dungeon to be as cozy as the fae court’s.”

Basil swallowed. “Got it.”

He looked out toward the lawn, where Isa stood up next to Rose. His mate’s movement inexorably drew his attention to her sleekly muscled body, to those gray eyes—incandescent with the inner fire he’d actually, literally touched while he unmade her—and everything else fell away.

He inhaled on a rush of need that set his blood ablaze, and got to his feet to follow the invitation in the sly smile she sent his way while she strolled toward the second backyard entrance to the mansion, which was around the corner…and happened to feature a staircase leading up his room.

“I’ve…gotta go,” he murmured to whoever else was in the kitchen with him, his feet already carrying him into the foyer.

He barely heard the snickers that followed him out, his mind and body focused on the sole reason his heart was beating. And when he intercepted her as she sprinted for his room, when he caught her around the waist, shouldered her amidst her giggling protests, and dumped her on his bed so she bounced off the mattress with a gasp, that heart of his, the one he’d fused inextricably with hers when he wove her back into life, threatened to burst with too much love.

“Never too much,” she whispered, and held out her hand.

He smiled—and pounced on her instead.

* * *

* * *