It was like watching the start of a rockslide while being trapped in its path. Gali had worked so hard to keep her worlds apart, to make sure that her friends never found out the kind of family she came from or what it could truly mean, to protect them from all this, from the typhoon of Kincaids whirling in and upsetting everything.
“I built alifehere,” she hissed at Celestial. “Y’all got no right to comein and fuck everything up for me!” Her cousin raised an eyebrow, but Gali didn’t care. This was exactly what she hadn’t wanted, exactly why she had brushed off all Collette’s suggestions that the family come and visit her. “I had something that was just mine, not on some Kincaid shit, and y’all just couldn’t let that happen, could you?”
A ripple of displeasure ran through the aunts at that, and Sage spat on the ground, taking a step forward. “Watch your tone, girl.”
Gali was about to snap at her when Nana Darling interrupted, her voice deceptively light and curious. “What exactly is yours here, the thing you’re fighting for?”
Gali knew better than to answer. She bit her lip and looked away, furious tears burning at her eyes. Nana Darling canted her head to one side, her eyes assessing her granddaughter mercilessly.
“Nana Darling,” Leah began to say, “maybe—”
Their grandmother held up a hand for silence. “Is it the right to rob your friends of their time?” she asked. “To leave them paused and hanging in the air like they were dolls you got tired of playing with?”
Blood rushed to Gali’s face. “I didn’t even know I could do that!” she burst out. “It’s not like I did it on purpose.”
“Oh, and that makes it better?” Nana Darling smiled, unamused. “That makes it all right?” Behind her, Sage was smirking now.
Gali hung her head, unable to answer. “Were they okay?” she finally asked, her voice subdued.
“We let time flow around them again,” Nana Darling answered. “But do you know what we found even after that, Galilee?”
The cousins winced at the tone of their grandmother’s voice, and Gali swallowed hard. “No, Nana Darling.”
Her grandmother took a step closer, her face hardening. “A glamour, Galilee. We found aglamourleft in their minds. Do you have any idea how that might have gotten there?”
Ah,fuck. Gali had forgotten that Lucifer mentioned leaving one so Bonbon and Oriak? wouldn’t remember the last minutes of what hadgone down: the way he hadn’t bled when Oriak? shot him, his demon eyes, the pulse of immortality that had laced the air.
“It wasn’t me,” Gali replied, shame sticking at the back of her throat. She’d let it happen, though. She’d thought it was for the best, but now, faced with Nana Darling’s bruising disapproval, Gali realized exactly how badly she’d fucked up.
“I most certainly hoped it wasn’t you,” her grandmother was saying. “Because the thought that the child I raised torespectthe sanctity of people’s minds would go as far as altering memories?” She shook her head, her eyes bright with disappointment. “Oh, Galilee, I had hoped you were not that lost.”
Gali flinched. Her tongue felt swollen in her mouth, unable to mount a defense. Did it matter if she hadn’t been the one to do it? She’d let Lucifer do it, rather than face the possibility of her friends seeing some truths about who she was and the world she walked in. Nana Darling had taught her better, and truly, her grandmother had every right to be disappointed in her. Memories were Nana Darling’s most precious belongings—sacred gifts that she shared with her family, spinning out those living stories so that people they had loved and lost walked among them once more, just for a merciful spell of time. What did it say of Gali that she’d been basically fine with her friends losing some of theirs, as long as it didn’t threaten her own comfort?
“What are you fighting for?” Nana Darling repeated, and it hurt because she didn’t sound like she was judging or condemning Gali this time. She just sounded gentle, an elder waiting to receive her granddaughter’s confession, and Gali was willing to give it to her. Maybe saying the words out loud would lead to absolution.
“I wanted to keep the illusion intact,” she whispered. “I was afraid.”
Collette sighed and reached over to brush a curl off Gali’s cheek. “It’s not a bad thing to be a Kincaid,” she said. “But it’s not something you can outrun either, my love.”
Gali bit back tears. “I just wanted to benormal, just for a little bit.” Ithad been a brief respite from being increasing amounts of strange, from the ache that emptied her body to the power that moved through it, so deep and terrifying that she hadn’t told a single soul, not even the Devil, the only other monster she had. Even his princes looked at her like she shouldn’t exist—Leviathan’s yellow eyes burning in her memory. “I knew it wasn’t real, but it felt like if I tried hard enough, I couldmakeit real. I could make it stick.”
“Why would you want that?” Celestial looked genuinely confused. “Why would you want to be like them?”
“I didn’t say that,” snapped Gali. “I don’t want tobelike them. I just didn’t want them looking at me like I was fucking crazy.”
Celestial leveled a stare at her and raised an eyebrow. “The way people look at me, you mean.” Gali flinched, because her cousin was right. There was a reason Celestial preferred staying away from the city while Leah and Zélie and the others went in and out freely.
“Hush now.” Shirley frowned at Celestial. “Galilee’s been through a lot, remember? Don’t go jumping down her throat just yet.”
Their concern made Gali want to scream. “If y’all think I’m some victim being ravished by the Devil or whatever, why you here scolding me? This couldn’t wait till later?”
Her grandmother’s eyes flattened as her remaining mercy evaporated. “What you did to your friends wasalsoa violation, Galilee Kincaid.”
The censure in her voice sent Gali reeling a step back, and Collette gave her a worried look. “But you’ll make amends, baby. It’ll be all right.”
Zélie looked curious now. “Butwereyou ravished by the Devil?” she asked. “You certainly smell like it, yet your skin’s unmarked.”
Gali fought the urge to raise her hand to her throat, wondering if Lucifer’s hands had truly left it unbruised.
