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I shoved my hand through my hair. “What was the source of this latest meltdown?”

It was the worst one she’d had thus far.

Actually wounding Lucian? A member of our family? Her Papa? It was beyond.

“She became frustrated when she had trouble drawing at her desk in her playroom. It escalated quickly and she began destroying her art supplies, melting her crayons with her magic, then crushing her furniture to kindling as well. When I tried to intervene and have her take a breath and remove herself from the situation, she turned her power on me.”

I shuddered at Lucian’s report.

Before we could get into it further, Jaxon rounded the corridor with Ariana attached to his hip. She was pulling at his white tank, all worked up.

“Now, Daddy,” she was insisting.

“Look,” he said, gazing at me for a moment, before I focused on Ariana twisting around to see me standing there.

“Mama!” she cried, pushing herself from Jaxon’s hold and rushing over to me. She hugged my legs, but didn’t let me pick her up, because she was focused on something else, and she stepped back and looked up at me, asking, “Can you conjure me art stuff? I need more.”

“And why is that?” I asked, obviously already knowing the answer thanks to Lucian and Ryker.

She stomped her foot. “They’re stupid. I need better ones.”

“Do you have any supplies left?”

“Some, yeah. But I told you, they’re stupid, Mama!” She pointed her finger at Lucian. “I told Papa. He didn’t care.”

“That’s not true now, is it?”

“I… maybe. Pops didn’t care.”

“Is that the truth, Ariana?”

She stomped her other foot. “Doesn’t matter, Mama! I need more! You’re gonna draw with me tonight. You promised!”

“I did promise, that’s very true. But because you destroyed lots of your special art supplies, we’ll have to do it with what’s left, make do with what we have.”

“I want more!” she yelled, clenching her fists.

“I said ‘no’, Ariana.”

“Mama!” she shrieked. “More!”

Jaxon crouched down beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Take a deep breath.”

“No!”

She pushed away from him and her silver fire erupted on her palm, headed straight for the corridor wall.

Ryker instinctively went to react, but his power was most definitely drained from healing that Celestial wound, because he couldn’t call it in time, and her magic blew through thewall, taking a mammoth chunk out of it, the force of it even reverberating through the house, too.

Ariana screeched and went to do it again, but I snatched her hand and called my magic forth at full force.

She pushed against it, but I held firm, keeping it at bay.

Her eyes went wide.

It was the first time I’d ever challenged her power.

I hadn’t wanted it to come to his.