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Allie looks supremely uncomfortable, glancing back and forth between her mother and me like she’s expecting to have to break up a fight. When they reach me in the clearing, she steps in between us.

“Eren,” she says cautiously, “my mother wants to speak with you.”

“About what?” I want to reach for Allie, pull her close, convince myself she’s alright, but I let her take the lead.

Esme clears her throat. “About the state of the bargain and the magick between our realms.”

“The coven can’t offer any help,” Allie explains.

I look between the two women. “Then what needs to be said?”

“We plan to seal the Veil,” Esme says simply and without any further preamble. “At least the portion of it that links this realm with the demon realm.”

The words are devastating, but not wholly unexpected. From the time the bargain began to fail, I had my suspicions it might come to this if the witches got spooked. It’s no great leap of logic to guess that they would do just about anything to protect the souls in their realm.

Still, as much as the terrible implications of that choice and what it means for my realm start to sink in, I feel it on Allie’s behalf even more keenly. How must it affect her to know her mother would do this, that she would doubt Allie’s abilities to fix it and make her choose between realms?

A sudden panic grips the bottom of my soul. Is this why Allie brought her mother here? To tell me she’s choosing the coven and this realm?

Without a moment of conscious thought, I reach a hand toward my mate. I need to touch her. I need to feel the steady beat of her pulse and have her warmth beside me. There’s nothing else that matters.

To my surprise, she comes to me easily, willingly, taking the hand I offer and pulling it around her waist. Positioning herself beside me and tucking herself tightly against me, she turns back to her mother.

“The next full moon?” she asks.

Esme nods, though she doesn’t answer right away. Her keen gaze darts between us, taking in every detail. When her eyes finally land on her daughter and stay there, I can see echoes of pain and duty both within them.

I wish I knew more about the relationship between mother and daughter. I wish Allie had trusted me enough to tell me, so that I might support her better in this moment.

The complexities between them are obvious, even to my uneducated eye. Love, duty, regret, years and decades of unspoken memories and tension. They even look so much alike—the same dark hair, the same heart-shaped faces. Esme’s eyes are hazel to Allie’s green, and her hair is streaked with silver, but the similarities are striking. Even down to the pulses of their magick, and the faintest note of lightning in Esme’s iron. A bit of petrichor she’s given to her daughter.

“I can’t say anything to convince you?” Esme asks, her meaning clear enough as she glances over both our heads to where the Veil shimmers behind us.

I can’t stop the low growl that breaks from me at the question, or the instinct that drives me to pull my mate closer.

“No,” Allie says, utterly certain. “I don’t think you can.”

Esme turns her attention back to me. “I trust you to take care of my daughter.”

Beside me, Allie scoffs.

My hackles are still up at her inference that she wants Allie to leave me, to say here in the human realm, but I calm myself enough to answer. “You asked me that on the night of the Tithe, and my answer has not changed. Though I believe Allie is more than capable of taking care of herself.”

Esme nods slowly, looking again between me and her daughter. “The coven will be here, on the next full moon. After that… I can’t help you any more after that.”

“I know,” Allie says.

The words are firm, final, and she stays right by my side as she says them. Some animal part of me roars in triumph even as fear and concern for her coils low in my belly.

Apparently having said everything she needed to, Esme turns to go.

Allie tenses against me. “Mom?”

Esme stops, turns around, and Allie leaves my side to go to her. The two women embrace, and just like on the night of the Tithe, there seems to be more between them than either of them can express. When they part, Esme runs a hand over her daughter’s cheek.

“I love you always, Allison,” Esme says.

Allie doesn’t respond, but closes her eyes for a moment and leans into the touch. When they part again, and Esme disappears between the trees, Allie lets out a long breath.