I turn and lean back against the counter and take a drink, but it doesn’t touch the weight of any of it. I started this, so I’m the one who has to finish it. That means going back into the Glen, and before that, I have to find Eric.
I set the glass down on the counter and lift my hand, because I already know what’s coming. A portal tears open in the middle of the kitchen, a clean line of blue and gold that gives onto mymother’s cabin at House of Zorah. She comes through it already swinging, that long thick stick cocked back over her shoulder, the one Amir and Seth both swore she’d come at me with.
“Yes, I’m dealing with your hard-headed ass right now,” she says, and brings it down.
I catch it with my magic before it lands, holding it still a foot from my head. Then I think about it being gone, and it vanishes out of her grip entirely. My mother stays frozen for a moment with her arm still raised and her hand still curled around a stick that isn’t there. She turns it over and stares at her empty fingers, the swing caught in her arm with nothing on the end of it.
Behind her, through the open portal, my sisters are crowded into the cabin with Seth wedged between them, and every one of them is snickering. Tiana’s the worst of them, both hands clapped over her mouth and failing to hold it in. I shoot them a look, and they scatter the moment Jacob appears behind them. He groans like he already regrets every part of this and steps through after my mother. The portal seals shut behind him.
My mother pulls her hand back and plants it on her hip, looking from her empty fingers to my face. “How did you do that? And what in the hell happened tonight?”
I open my mouth to answer, but she pops me on the back of the head before I get a word out, quick and sharp, the way she’s done since I was a boy. I grunt and step out of her reach, a hand clapped over the sting of it. “Damn, Ma.”
“I knew there were answers in the Glen.” I move past Jacob and out of the kitchen, and she’s right behind me. “Apparently you knew too.”
“You don’t have a clue what’s going on, Aaron.” She stays on my heels, not letting me walk away from it. “The Witching Glen is a wasteland.”
I stop and turn around. I’ve been carrying this since I felt every soul in that realm at once. “Because you gave up on them, the same way Eric gave up on me.”
The breath goes out of her, and her mouth drops open. For a moment she’s got nothing at all. “What did you just say to me?”
“Something happened to me in there, Ma.” My voice cracks on it and I let it. “I felt all of it when I siphoned their magic, every soul in that realm at once, and you want to know what I felt more than anything? Abandonment. The exact thing I’ve carried my whole life. So tell me why you turned on them.”
She groans and plants her hands on her hips. Then she has the nerve to shrug at me. “I didn’t want to, Aaron. They got it in their heads I was carrying some kind of prophecy, that I was meant to come back and rule the Glen, and I’ve got a pup to raise and a whole realm that needs me here. I couldn’t.”
“You’ve got three grown kids besides me. Tiana and Kiara and Samara, and you could’ve said something to any of us.”
She throws her hands up. “Well, now you know the truth. Are you happy now? I didn’t want you stuck in that swamp of a realm for the rest of your life. I did what any mother would do, Aaron. I protected my children.”
“And look at what your protection just got us.”
Her finger comes up at my face. “You watch your mouth.”
“And did you have any dealings with Eric when you went to see him in the Glen, and never told me about it?”
I groan and look to Jacob, but he gives me nothing. He just stands there with his arms folded, not saying a word. We both know he won’t take a side in this. He isn’t here for me, he’s here for her.
Then I hear the stairs. I look up, and my mother hears them too—she clears her throat and pulls her shoulders back, smoothing the temper off her face before Mara even comes into view.
Mara reaches the bottom in one of her nightgowns, her hair still damp from the shower. She crosses straight to me and slides her hand into mine, her tail curling slow around my leg as she looks up at me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, baby.” I lean down and kiss the top of her head. “Just me and my mother getting some things straight.”
Mara looks over at my mother and dips her head, and my mother dips hers right back. The two of them are careful with each other. Then Mara’s nose twitches. “I’m thirsty.”
“I’ll get you some water.” I start to turn, but she catches my wrist. “No. I’ve got it.”
I watch her go. On her way past Jacob she smiles at him, and he bows his head. Then she disappears into the kitchen.
My mother’s shoulders drop. “They wanted to keep me there, Aaron. They wanted me to stay and rule them.”
“Then they shouldn’t be locked in there alone,” I say.
“I didn’t know how to help them.” Some of the fight goes out of her with it.
“They need a leader who’ll be patient with them, that’s all.” I keep my voice steady, even when nothing else about me is. “Witches and warlocks might have ended up on the wrong side of the war against the rest of us, but they suffered, Ma, every bit as much as anyone, and you don’t get to make them the black sheep just because they’re hard to love.”
She plants her hands back on her hips. “Don’t you dare tell me you’re going to rule over that Glen.”
