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“Okay?” Dallas stuffed her feet into her shoes, not bothering to untie them first. “And how are we going to do that?”

“I was doing some thinking last night,” Max began as he laced up his right boot.

“I knew it,” Dallas said with a playful tone. She yanked the elastic off her wrist and tied up her hair. “You haven’t slept at all, have you?”

Max ignored her. “I have fire magic. And if my family heritage is anything like Darien and Trav’s, then there’s a very strong chance that Blue is right, and Maya had fire magic too.” He moved onto the left boot. “Which means,” he said, pulling the laces tight, “that someone started that house fire on purpose.”

Dallas blinked. “Who would do something like that?”

Max finished tying a knot and got to his feet. “My fucking mother.”

Pamela Reacher had lived in many houses in Angelthene, but her current rental down by the airport took the cake for most disgusting.

It hadn’t taken Max long to track her to this trailer park—a pigsty of a neighborhood whose view of the ocean was the only thing it had going for it. The homes were so close together they were practically stacked, and yards that should’ve been home to manicured lawns or flowerbeds were covered in junk.

He slowed the SUV to a stop out front of a single-wide home with a small covered porch. The number four was nailed to the siding next to the door, the iron rusted. The for-sale sign out front was bent, its sad appearance suggesting it had been ripped out of the dirt and thrown a handful of times.

His mother had been known to do such things. As a chronic tenant, she’d had to bounce around homes a lot, and whenever her landlords decided to sell, she never took the news gracefully.

Max blinked his Sight into his vision and scanned the interior of the house, looking for auras.

Two people were inside—a man and a woman, the former snoring in the recliner in front of the television. As for the woman, she was seated on the couch, smoking a cigarette while typing one-handed on a device that Max assumed was a cell phone.

Yeah, that was his mother alright. She’d never had enough money to hide her aura, and regardless Max knew she didn’t value her life enough to bother. The spells over the house were evidence of that, the protection thinner than tissue paper. Barely enough to keep out the smaller of the storm-drain breeds. How she hadn’t been eaten yet was a mystery.

And a tragedy.

“I wish I had the Sight,” Dallas grumbled. She was in the passenger’s seat, studying him with envy. Max was so distracted by the sight of the woman who’d done a shit job at raising him that he’d nearly forgotten Dal was there.

He cut the engine and pocketed his keys. “Another great mystery we haven’t solved yet.”

Double-checking that his weapons were in place, he undid his seatbelt and opened his door. A sprinkle of rain swept into the vehicle, and Max breathed it in, the fresh air filling his lungs.

“What do you mean?” Dallas opened her door as well, checking for the third time that morning that the pistol he’d given her was tucked into the back of her acid-washed jeans, safety on. Max had to admit, the sight of his gun on her—tucked into her pants, no less—was a major turn-on.

“You’re a witch, but your parents have hellseher blood from the Well,” he explained, forcing himself to focus before he got a raging hard-on.

“So you think I should’ve been born part hellseher?” Judging from the way she said it, the thought had crossed her mind before—several times.

“Looks like your coffee’s finally kicking in,” Max joked. Two vanilla cappuccinos sat in the cupholders, both of them drained to the dregs. Dallas wasn’t a morning person—or an afternoon person, really—so her stipulation for coming with him today was a drink from her favorite café.

“Ha-ha,” she said flatly as she exited the SUV, Max doing the same on his side.

He led the way through the white picket fence and across the yard, past a dried-out birdbath, a set of old tires, and a couple soggy rolls of newspapers no one had bothered picking up.

The porch steps sagged under his boots as he ascended to the door, Dallas following on his heels. Recent life events and her training with the Fleet had served her well; her aura was steady and determined, a drumbeat that never faltered.

Max wasted no time in knocking. Bang. Bang. Bang. The pounding of his fist rattled the unit number that was nailed to the siding.

Inside, the man stirred but kept snoring. The woman was the one who came to the door.

She approached with hesitation, her rail-thin arms crossed tightly over her chest. “Who’s there?” she called in a croaky voice.

Max didn’t answer; he simply watched her silhouette walk down the hallway, remembering all those years he’d spent under the same roof as this woman. Years that had managed to both shape and destroy him.

As she stepped into the faint wash of light, her bare feet sticking to the floor, recognition flickered across her tired face. “Oh, it’s you.” His mother’s lip curled with a sneer. She leaned against the wall inside the door, her bony, cigarette-stained fingers grasping the sleeves of her ratty housecoat.

“Is that all the greeting I get after seven years?”