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“I hate to say this,” Joan says when I’m finished. “But I think you’re going to have to talk to your mom.”

“I know,” I tell her, rubbing a hand over my temple to relieve some of the tension that’s building there. “I don’t know why I was hoping to avoid it.”

Joan’s eyes darken. “You were hoping to avoid it because what she did to you was bullshit.”

“Jo…” I start, tentatively, fully recognizing she’s about to go on a tear.

“No, Allie,” she says, raising a hand. “Don’t excuse this. She left you completely out in the cold here. You’re a High Priestess’s daughter, for fuck’s sake. How she and the rest of the coven council didn’t think you had just as much chance as any of the others to be chosen is beyond me.”

“Power might have had something to do with it,” I remind her, dryly. “It’s not like I was brimming over with it. There was no reason for my mom to think—”

“Bullshit. You’re her daughter. Even if she wasn’t going to let you into all those fancy-ass magick lessons with the other coven princesses, she could have at least sat you down and given you some kind of warning. Just in case.”

She’s right. I know she’s right. Still, some small, lost part of me wants to defend my mother’s actions. It’s a reaction I know well, the unconscious urge to explain away everything wrong with our relationship because of me. My lack of magick, the distance I’ve willingly put between us.

“When would she have had the chance?” I ask Joan, not strong enough to ignore that urge. “I hadn’t been home in months before the Tithe.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe before Emilia was chosen a year ago? Or in any of the twenty-five years before that?”

Well. That shuts me up pretty quickly.

Whatever Joan sees on my face, it softens some of her anger. “Sorry. I’m sorry, Allie. I’ve just been so angry and so worried these past few days. I’m taking it out on you, and that’s not fair. I know how complicated things are with Esme.”

“Thanks,” I tell her, meaning it. “I’m going there after this, anyway. So I guess we’ll have to hash a few things out.”

“Do you think she’ll be able to help?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. Maybe.”

Joan thinks for a few seconds. “Maybe they’ve found something out from Emilia.”

I nod, but a sudden, anxious tightening in my throat prevents me from speaking. Some part of my mind has tried to avoid thinking about Emilia any more than I have to. Maybe it’s cowardly of me, but knowing what she went through—chosen as a Tithe bride and sent to the demon realm with her husband, only to be spat back out, weakened and separated from him—feels like more than I can comprehend. Or more than Iwantto comprehend, more accurately.

Thinking about that same fate for myself makes me feel sick.

In the end, I can only offer Joan a weak smile. It’s one she seems to see right through as she gets up from her side of the desk and comes around to wrap me up in a hug. It’s a little awkward, given that I’m still sitting and crushed up against her boobs when she pulls me to her, but comforting all the same.

“I should probably get going,” I tell her when she releases me, standing up from my chair. “Eren’s going to take me back to the coven hall. Did you know they can portal even here in our realm? It’s pretty trippy.”

“He’s here?” she asks, ignoring my demon fun fact. Her eyes dart to the closed office door like I might have actually brought my husband strolling into the middle of Beech Bay.

“Yes, Jo. The king of the demon realm came right into town with me.”

She gives me a flat look, unimpressed.

“I left him in the woods at the nature preserve,” I explain.

“Oh, good, so he can terrorize a few hikers, start an urban legend or two. Nice.”

Snorting at that, I turn to head back out into the shop. I’ve only made it a couple of steps, though, when something stops me.

“You said you had something for me. On Tithe night. You mentioned you had a book you meant to give me. A grimoire?”

The memory is a prodding nettle, a thorn stuck into some stubborn corner of my brain. Intuition, telling me this is important. I shake my head slightly to clear the strange sensation.

Joan’s eyes light in memory. “Yes, I did.”

She turns to the shelves behind her desk to find it, and that nagging sense of purpose crests. It’s strange. Not quite like my own magick, but something almost similar to the rush of power between Veils, swirling and off-kilter and disorienting.