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“My father?” I asked, one hand raised to shield my eyes from the sun so I could read her expression.

She nodded. “Osiris loved the beach but hated the feel of the sand. How it permeated everything, and always came with you wherever you went next.”

I guess we did have that in common.

I motioned with my hand for her to continue on and I followed at her side, the sand now slipping freely between my bare toes. It was warm against my skin from the baking afternoon sun.

“What did you want to talk about?” I asked, breaking the delicate peace that had settled between us.

I couldn’t imagine things would ever beeasybetween us, but right now, they were especially strained. She had lied to me since the moment we first met, and everything had gone to shit. When I had first thought she was dead I had craved her in a way I never thought I would. I wanted to hear all about her life. Toknowher. Now that she was alive and right before me, I didn’t feel the same. She was simply another person who had lied to me and betrayed me.

“I wanted to… explain,” she began, casting me a sidelong glance.

I kept my eyes on the sand.

“I’m not sure there is anything to explain. You lied to me, pretended you were someone else… and here we are. You left me in the mortal realm and never came back for me, despite telling my mother you would.”

She flinched at the wordmotheras if it physically hurt her. As if she had any right to the word herself.

My mother was the woman who hadraisedme. We might not have seen eye to eye, but she did the best she could for me under the circumstances. She was raising a Shade, not a normal teenager after all. Where was she supposed to turn when Annelise had simply… disappeared?

“I wanted to come back for you,” she replied, her voice tight.

“But you didn’t,” I countered, my voice cutting.

Annelise threw her head back, blinking away the tears that threatened to stream down her cheeks. Her skin was as pale as a seashell against the coastal sun, her cheeks pink. “I did come back, once.”

Once.

Now I was the one biting back my tears as they stung the back of my eyes. I wasn’t ready for this conversation—wasn’t sure I ever would be. I stopped abruptly, my feet planted in the sand, my head shaking back and forth.

Annelise stopped as well, her gaze meeting mine. “You were happy. I didn’t want to destroy what you had built for yourself there. What yourmotherhad built for you there. You were so beautiful. Radiant. I knew the moment I laid eyes on you that I couldn’t take you back tothis.” She spread her arms wide, her head shaking back and forth. “This was no life for a young girl with her entire life ahead of her.”

“Bullshit.” I ground my teeth together, my eyes falling back to the sand as I dug my toes in.

“Diana, I am telling you the truth. You had to have been six, maybe seven. You were with your new family, devouring a cone of mint chip at the creamery in New York. You know the one… the one you always went to with your father.”

I did know. I bit my lip against the swell of emotions that surged forth.

“I couldn’t take you away from that.I couldn’t. There was no life for you here, all that waited for you here wasdeath.” Her words were barely above a whisper.

“You had to have known the spell would wear off. The one that kept my magic spellbound. That my powers would eventually resurface. What was your plan, then? What did you plan to do?”

“I planned to spell you again. I had been keeping an eye on you, and when your mother took your family to Silver Oaks, I knew she was following my instructions. That the spell was wearing off, and you needed to be around other witches your own age.”

“But you didn’t spell me again,” I pointed out.

She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I ran out of time, which was my mistake. I couldn’t get close to you—Fletcher Price and Antonia Finch were preventing that. Then Nikolai showed up and I knew I was too late, that there was no going back now. That everything had been set into motion already.”

“Everything?” I asked, my brow raised at her.

She nodded. “The prophecy. The events that Alastir had seen unfold.”

“And when I was imprisoned in the Stormvault?” I asked, my eyes narrowing.

“I riskedeverythingto get you out. To get you to safety. Donika told me that if she ever laid eyes on me again, it would be for the last time. She spared me in Siraleth, she would not spare me a second time.”

“Spared. As if she were doing you a kindness,” I scoffed, my brows pinching together. “Donika doesn’t have a kind bone in her body.”