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I snapped my head toward Lobato. Her golden eyes were wide with panic, scanning the darkness.

Devlin staggered. His body swayed before slumping forward and crumpling onto the ground with a dull thud, his shadows dissipating like mist.

“Devlin!” I cried, lunging forward. His body was a deadweight as I pulled him into a sitting position, my arms barely managing to brace him as he slumped against me. His head lolled, his eyes rolling back into his skull.

Lobato’s voice was a low, urgent hiss. “The pie... it was spiked.”

“What?”

She shot to her feet, head whipping back and forth, nostrils flaring. “I cansensewhen something threatens my hoard.”

What the actual fuck is going on?

Poisoned pie? Devlin unconscious at my feet?Hoard?

A sharp crunch of leaves echoed from the tree line. My breath stilled as something shifted in the shadows.

Lobato’s lips parted, and a forked, reptilian tongue slithered out, tasting the air in quick, sharp flicks. A ripple of golden scales shimmered down her arms before fading just as fast.

BooDini snapped into action, stepping in front of me, its arms spread wide in a defensive stance. Its head whipped left and right, searching the darkness for a threat.

But none of it registered. Because my gaze was locked on the screen.

Itwasn’tmy parents walking toward the car.

The hooded figure had returned.

My pulse pounded in my ears as I watched the shadowed figure move toward the vehicle. They opened the door, rolleddown the window, and shut the door, before clutching one hand around the steering wheel, the other braced on the window frame. The car rocked slightly as they shoved their weight against it before finally giving way, allowing the straining hooded figure to push it down the drive.

My parents... they hadn’t evengotten into the car?

A twig snapped, and my head whipped toward the sound. A hooded figure stepped forward, their bare feet sinking into the foliage.

The air around me seemed to shrink as they tilted their head, their voice cracking with emotion as they said, “This would have been so much easier if you had just eaten the damn pie, Jennifer.”

Chapter 26. Jen

Confusion crashed over me as Lobato issued a low, warning, predatory hiss. Instinctively, I moved my body to cover as much of my unconscious mate as I could.

“Mr. Cadmus?” I asked, disbelief thick in my voice.

The hooded figure took another step forward, the underbrush crunching beneath his bare feet. Then, slowly, he reached up and lowered his hood.

The old man stood before me, his weathered face illuminated by the flickering glow from the fire. But there was no malice in his expression—only sorrow. A deep, aching sadness settled into the lines of his face, the corners of his mouth dipping as though the weight of what he had done had long since crushed him.

“Please believe me, Jennifer,” he murmured, voice heavy with resignation. “It gives me no pleasure to have to do this. It would have been so much more peaceful if you hadjust eaten the pie.”

Ice slid through my veins.

“What is going on?” My voice wavered, the question falling from my lips before I could process it.

Mr. Cadmus sighed, his expression softening into something almost paternal. “It was an accident...” he murmured. “My wife... she was confused. And it was an accident...”

Accident...

Ms. Cadmus had mentioned that word before, over and over again, speaking about an accident in fragmented murmurs. But Mr. Cadmus had always brushed it off—made it seem like a moment of frailty, an embarrassing lapse of her control. Had he twisted the narrative, implying she’d soiled herself in front of my parents, something humiliating but harmless? But what if that wasn’t what happened at all? What if, in her confusion, she hadshifted? What if her basilisk stare had fallen upon my parents and killed them?

“Ms. Cadmus... she killed my parents?” My voice was barely audible, each word fragile, trembling on the brink of shattering.