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It would be best to hear from me, but when I opened my mouth to speak, half of a crackling word fell out.

Nix placed a hand on my thigh.Do you want me to tell her?

No, I should.

Can you?

No. I couldn’t.

“It didn’t go well,” Nix said, holding Mirobhail closer to his chest and sliding a hand over his back. “Our meeting with Lux… It…”

Mum looked up and down the table, as if just realizing we were missing three people. “Where are they?”

Nix only managed to hold her gaze for a second before it dropped.

“Nix.” Mum’s voice hardened. “Where are they?”

Silence again.

Down the table, Sanvi lifted a hand to her mouth, shaking her head. “No.”

Nix continued staring vacantly at the tabletop.

“I don’t understand.” Araton leaned forward, glancing from Nix, who had tears in his eyes, to me, who held a hand over my mouth to keep any sobs from escaping. “You’re not saying…”

“They’re dead?” Stella looked at me, face screwed up in confusion. “Is that what you’re telling us?”

I held her eyes for a moment, then turned to Mum. Shock and disbelief reflected through her face, and I hadn’t even confirmed.

I nodded.

“No,” Mum said. “They can’t be. They’re eternal.”

“A necromancer can remove a soul from any body,” Rion murmured, wide eyes sliding from Nix to me. “Even one of us.”

Again, all I managed was a nod.

“Where were you?” Mum’s voice was venom when she addressed Nix. “Why didn’t you kill that shite brother of yours before he killed my son? You just let him kill your sister? Yourfather? What were you doing, Nix?”

I was ready to step in to defend him, but nobly, as Nix always behaved with my mum, with tears pearling from the corners of his eyes, he said, “It was the boys. We were outnumbered, and I tried to get to them, but Michael lapsed me outside, and when I got back in, they were gone.”

“Not my Michael.” Stella stood, chair squealing across the floor before falling to it with a clatter. “My son didn’t kill El. Or Hana, or Venark. He wouldn’t have done that.”

“He didn’t,” Nix said. “It was Jegudiel, and Barachiel, and Uriel, and Selaphiel. But Michael lapsed me outside, Stella. You know how much I love those boys, and I don’t want to believe this either, but that’s what happened. Rafael was the only one who stopped them. He said that their plan was to come after all of us.”

“No.” Stella shook her head furiously. “My sons wouldn’t kill me, Nix. You’re wrong.”

I wished he were. I wished that none of this was possible. But there was a reason I’d only given eternal life to Rafael. As much as I loved Michael and Gabriel, they weren’t good men. They’d been beautiful children, and I still loved them more than I loved most things, but I hadn’t given them eternity because I knew they were capable of truly awful things.

Awful enough to kill their mother? To kill their aunts? To kill their uncles?

I hadn’t thought so. But they didn’t stop their brothers from killing Hana, and she did as much to raise them as I had.

And they didn’t resent her for refusing them eternity.

I imagined what they had in mind for me was far worse than what they’d done to my brother and sister-in-law.

“Would you like to see the memory?” Nix kept his tone level. In her position, he wouldn’t believe that our children were capable of this either. “It won’t be easy to watch, but I’ll show it to you, Stella.”