When his body spasms, I release him and let him crumble to the floor before approaching my mother. I bend down so that I’m at her level and cup her face in my hands. I swear to the Divine she’s aging before my eyes.

She mumbles for mercy, but she’s so vain that if she could see how she looks right now, she would want to die.

“I’ve not met every mother in Lunameade, but I still am certain you are the worst of them. After today, I will never think of you again, and my life and this city will be better without you in it. I hope that Asher does deliver you beyond the veil so that you have to acknowledge all your deeds and the harm you’ve done and stop being ignorant.”

“What will the Divine think of this?” she rasps as her body begins to spasm.

I give her a pitying look. “Oh, Mother. The Divine have always settled scores. To err is human. To avenge is Divine.”

I toss her to the side harder than I need to. When her body hits the floor, a muffled, pathetic yelp rips up her throat, and then she goes still.

I stare at my parents’ empty bodies. The tunnel key around my father’s neck glints in the candlelight.

“I was so close.” My voice sounds so small—so young. I’m talking to myself more than Kellan. “I was going to get her out. We always talked about escaping to somewhere beyond the mountain. It didn’t even matter where, as long as we had each other. I thought I still had time—that I could earn the key by betraying Henry, grab Aidia, and take the tunnel to freedom.”

I turn my attention back to my brother. “What good is the key without her?”

He doesn’t say anything, so I start toward the dining room door.

“Low,” Kellan says. “I will take care of the bodies. But what are you going to do about Able?”

I turn to face him. “Can we defend the walls with well water?”

He nods. “We could also temporarily seal off four of the gates to focus resources if necessary.”

“Did Able know what Rafe did?”

Kellan sighs. “Yes. He knew because he was heir, and Electra knew because she erased the memories of the guards and servants. And obviously I knew because I know everything. But the rest of the family doesn’t know what actually happened. They think she jumped. You know how they all were—afraid of our parents and baffled by Aidia’s resistance.” He looks down at the bowl in front of him. “Was mine poisoned too?”

I cock my head. “Did you let it all happen that day, like you let us be beaten for years?”

He stands so fast, his chair crashes to the floor behind him. “Divine dammit, Low! I was only two years older than Aidy. What did you want me to do?”

“You have a blessing from Polm. I wanted you to manipulate him!” I shout.

“My position only stayed as it is—I only stayed alive, Harlow, because he thought I was loyal to him!” Kellan’s voice is shrill. “I had to be strategic and pick my spots. It’s almost impossible for me to use my blessing on any of you without you seeing me do it. When exactly did you want me to risk manipulating him and becoming his next target?” He points at our mother’s bloody body. “Do you know what our mother said to me the day my blessing manifested?” he asks. “She saw my excitement and she said, ‘You better never disagree with your father or he will kill you.’ I have always had to be careful, and I have protected you in the moments I could—or did you think I really didn’t know you were the Poison Vixen?”

I lean my hands against the table, and the tension in my shoulders starts to unravel. “What gave me away?”

“I admit it took a bit. When everyone kept describing the suspect with different features, I thought it was a group of women. But then there was the timing of it. It all started when you finally began leaving your room again after Aidia died. And one night I ran into Gaven while he was out searching for you after hours.”

“Fucking Gaven blew my cover.” I shake my head, but I want to cry, both because I miss him and because I’m disappointed that he lived up to my expectations.

“I protected that secret because I swear to the Divine, if our parents had known, they would have drugged you every night like Able.” He looks down at his bowl. “Did you poison my soup, Low?”

I meet his lilac eyes. “Are you telling the truth? Were you the captain of the city watch, or were you my brother?”

“I was both, Low. You’re not the only one who loved her—who lost her. You’ve been hoarding it for months. You were alone with your grief and you left me alone with mine, too. I know you can’t understand now when you’re this angry, but that day changed everything for me.”

Kellan looks wrecked. I’ve never seen him look so devastated. I turn away to ease the burn of tears in my eyes.

I can’t shoulder his grief when my own is already too heavy.

“Did you know they were going to let Rafe do that?” I ask.

“No. If I had known, I would have been there, and there hasn’t been a day in the last six months that I haven’t woken up wishing I had been. Libby had—” His voice breaks, and I turn to look at him.

His eyes are glassy with unshed tears. “Libby had a feeling something was off that whole morning, but you know how her magic is. Harvain’s whims, as she likes to say. She doesn’t always know what the foresight feelings mean or what they pertain to. She couldn’t place it until right before it happened.”

He blows out a shuddering sigh and looks away. “Low, I ran. I got here as fast as I could, but I was too late. I found you in the bushes and I thought you were gone, too.”

It’s not his fault. I’ve always known deep down that he is as much a product of my father’s violence as Aidia and I are. There’s no way he escaped the things we bore. But my parents are dead, and this fury remains, and there is no one else to rage at.

I want to break things. I want somewhere else to channel my anger, but I know that he’s telling the truth. My sister-in-law has a blessing of foresight, but it’s a tricky kind of magic to understand. The lack of clarity makes me want to curse the Divine who blessed us both. How tragic to give you glimpses of the future but not allow you to save the people you love. How heartless to make you want affection but never allow you to kiss anyone without killing them.

It’s all just a cruel Divine joke. Maybe someday I’ll be able to laugh about it, but right now, true laughter seems a distant memory.

I stand and look into Kellan’s pleading eyes. This is the most emotion I’ve seen out of him since childhood, and I’m not ready to forgive him—or maybe I just don’t know how. Maybe I never will.

“Low—” His voice is a rasp. “Did you poison my soup?”

My hands shake, and I shudder out a ragged breath as I turn away from my brother. I walk to the dining room door and pause in the threshold.

I don’t look at him as I whisper, “I did what I thought would bring me peace.”

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61HARLOW

Sitting on the boarding house window seat, I don’t feel a shred of guilt for what I’ve done. I feel more cleansed from my anger than I did from my bath.

Ever since my magic showed up twenty-five years ago, I’ve stuffed my rage down and allowed it to rot away at me.

Now that my violence is spent, and I’m alone in the quiet waiting for Henry to return to our room, all I feel is soul-deep sorrow.

Grief is not an absence. It’s a presence. I feel it in every silence, in every breath.

I’ve lived six months without the other half of my heart—so bereft that my mind fractured and summoned a world where she was still with me. Remembering is like losing her all over again.

I don’t know how to survive without this. Saving her has been my singular purpose—the last thread of hope I clung to for the last year. Without it, I’m nothing but a woman with a mind as shattered as her heart.