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Fuck. Even if their relationship was toxic, how did you tell a person their mother was dead? I’d never even met mine—I’d been left at a hospital as an infant. That connection, waxed poetic in movies and books, had always been an unfamiliar concept. Family was those I chose. My team was my family, a very narrowly cultivated one, but one I trusted with my life.

“What’s wrong?” Jude asked, setting his palm on my cheek as if he sought to comfort me.

I leaned in to whisper.

“Your mother...” I paused, trying to find a way to soften the blow. “She was at the warehouse. Dead.”

He sucked in a deep breath. The words hung between us as he pulled back to study my face, searching for a lie.

There was none.

“How?” His voice was flat, tight as though he held his emotions by the barest thread of restraint.

“Initial reports say suicide. But nothing’s been ruled out yet because of the location.” I swallowed. “I’m so sorry.”

He blinked at me for a long minute, silent in a way he rarely was. Processing, I realized. There was a difference between cutting family out of your life to save yourself from trauma, and finding out they were dead before you ever got the chance to heal from what they did to you.

“I don’t...” He stopped. Started again. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.”

“You don’t have to feel anything,” I said. “Or you can feel everything. There’s no right way to do this.”

He nodded, but his gaze drifted to Ivan. Ivan sat frozen on the couch, Peanut Butter clutched in his lap like a lifeline. His face was pale. His eyes were wet, but no tears fell. Not yet.

“Ivan,” Jude said softly.

Ivan didn’t respond. Just stared at the wall, his breathing shallow.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have sat everyone down and told you all at once.” I hadn’t meant for him to overhear.

“She was...” Ivan’s voice cracked. “She was still my mom. Even if she wasn’t... even if she didn’t...”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. I didn’t blame him.

Jude crossed the room and sat beside him, pulling Ivan against his side. Ivan didn’t resist. Just leaned into him, face buried in Jude’s neck, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

Jude caught my gaze over Ivan’s head. His own expression was shattered. Conflicted. Grieving someone he didn’t even like, because she was still his mother, and now there was no chance of ever making peace with that.

I wanted to go to them. Hold them both. But my arm was useless at my side, and I didn’t know how to help with grief I’d never experienced. I’d never had a mother. Never had someone to lose that way. The only family I’d ever chosen was the one in this room.

So I stayed where I was. Watching. Wanting to be useful.

“We’re still looking for your father,” I said, because it was the only thing I had to offer. “And there are reports that he was trying to get Ivan moved to a special variant-only facility. In Florida.”

Jude’s eyes went wide. “What?”

I flicked my gaze to Ivan, who had gone still against Jude’s shoulder. “There seems to be indication that this whole mess is some sort of ring of parents trying to redesign their kids.”

Ivan pulled back, eyes red, expression shifting from grief to something sharper. Anger. Betrayal. “What do you mean, redesign?”

I hesitated. This wasn’t the moment. But there was never going to be a good moment.

“Parents trading children to supernatural entities. Or to facilities that promise to... fix them. Make them what the parents wanted instead of what they are.”

Ivan’s jaw tightened. “And my dad wanted to send me away.”

“He filed papers. Multiple times. We’re still digging into whether he acted on them.”

Silence. Thick and heavy. Ivan looked at Jude. Jude looked at Ivan. Neither spoke.