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But this woman has an idea to save her daughter. She’s afire with it.

“If you let her go,” she says, “you’ll never want for another drop.” Exhibiting the confidence of a human with a bad idea, she steps toward me. Her hood falls away. “I’ll stay with you. You can do what you want with me. My blood would be your blood.”

Giulia has good blood. I can smell it. She is the root source of Luna’s, with all its power and tender sweetness.

“All this—this offer—so she can be normal? Go back to Richie ?” The thought of her with this man, who I’ve never met, is repulsive.

“Go wherever she wants.”

“Why wouldn’t I take both of you?”

She looks to the side, calculating a way out of the corner I’ve put her in.

A boy, staring at his phone like everyone else, knocks into her. She steps sideways.

I grab her arm and growl at him. “Watch yourself.”

Unafraid, he sneers, “Fuck off, boomer.”

Then he turns his back on me, exposing the nape of his neck as he stares down.

He’s deaf under his headphones and blinded by his entertainment. I could turn him into a damp bag of sticks in seconds, without breaking a twig or spilling a drop.

“I bet he’s delicious.” She pulls away her scarf to expose her neck. “But Strega is better.”

“There are cameras everywhere.” I echo what Laro told me, and I get the sense we exist in a repeating loop of missing that boy who’s forever transitioning into manhood.

She narrows an eye at me, as if she can see something important by squinting. “You’re lost.”

“I am not.” I indicate the street signs and a city I spent a human lifetime in, many years ago.

“I’ll ask Corragio to draw up a contract. You let her go and take me.”

She thinks she can get the goddess’s consigliere to do her bidding. It would be funny if it wasn’t so risky. If I agree to the contract, I won’t be able to break it. He could see some benefit in trading daughter for mother. I should see the benefit. It’s right in front of me.

“I will never give up Luna. Not for you or anyone.”

“Have you asked her if she wants you? She doesn’t even like you.”

“You’re making that up in your head.”

She flinches. I didn’t see the nerve before hitting it.

“I know what she told you. That I see connections where there are none. I’m a pins-and-string conspiracy theorist. Well, yes, she’s right.

Because there was a part of me that knew there were things in the world no one could see.

Things like you, and the lawyer, and myself—that made it all make sense.

And now I can see it all again and the world has never been clearer.

So I’ll tell you what’s clear to me. She’ll never be yours, Carmine.

Not really. She’ll always resist. She’ll always resent what you did to her.

So forget her. Take me. I won’t resist. I’ll be grateful. I’ll thank you to my dying day.”

It would be so much easier to take a willing source. Once the stake is removed, I’ll need Strega blood to heal. Every problem that Luna adds could disappear for long enough to solve the problem piercing my chest.

I don’t need it to be easy. I need Luna. The coil of my heart sings only her name.

“I appreciate the offer.” I lay a glamour over Giulia, keeping it gentle enough to go unnoticed. I have to be careful. She’s aware of what I can do. If it’s too strong, she’ll realize she’s lost her will and take corrective action when the umbrella closes. “I have another.”

“Tell me.” Her tone is soft and curious. Good. She’ll hear me.

“We should help each other.” A drop of water pats my shoulder, then my face. It’s starting to rain. “Come with me. Let me put a roof over your head.”

“I don’t… trust you.” That’s the benefit of a light glamour. She wouldn’t tell me anything negative if I laid it on thicker.

“Mom!” Luna’s voice bounces off every raindrop. She’s across 110th street, arms crossed, bounding, no umbrella, no fucking jacket, canvas shoes.

She looks left, and I know she’s going to cross against the light while the street is wet. She looks right, and before she can look left again, I’m in front of her. She hops back.

“Get on the curb,” I say.

“What are you doing here?”

“You’re in the middle of the street.”

“I’m two steps… look, it’s green. Can you get out of my way please?”

She skirts around me, and I walk across with her.

“She won’t take help,” I say. “I tried.”

“Did you phrase it like a demand?”

“Rearranging words and adding different punctuation won’t change the habitual defiance she passed on to you.”

“Vampires are supposed to be more manipulative.” She gets onto the other side of the street. “Hey, Ma? Trees aren’t good umbrellas.”

“We don’t melt from a bucket of water, you know. That’s just a movie.”

“You’re soaked through.”

“So are you.”

They seem genuinely concerned for each other. I am in conflict, fond of them both in different ways and still cut out of their bond.

“Take her upstairs,” I say.

Luna, as if she’s being obedient, takes her mother by the elbow and brings her across the street. I follow, eyes on the sky and street. The rain may hide their scent from Charles for a little while, but not forever.

As they cross, Giulia speaks softly. “He has you in thrall. You don’t love him.”

Luna’s face shines red when the walk sign counts down. “I know.”

Two words run another stake through my heart. There’s no way to survive it a second time. I walk behind them like a ghost, an outsider wishing to be seen once… just once.

“Carmine.” Luna turns to me at the other side, hair wet, eyelashes stuck together, crystal droplets a second set of freckles on her cheeks. A glassy half-orb rests on her lower lip, clinging to its beauty. “Thank you.”

She’s going to say more, but one more word will send that water bead off her lip and down her chin to be reclaimed by the rain.

It’s not ending like this. Neither gravity nor mysterious frictions will take what’s mine.

Before the drop falls off her lip, I bend down and kiss it.

The droplet is cool on my tongue then absorbed into me, where everything about her belongs.

Another drop, jealous of the first, lands in the seam between our bodies and runs to the corner of her open mouth.

Then another finds its way onto our tongues.

I hold her by each side of her jaw, feeling it move with mine.

One of her hands threads into my hair, and her other palm presses my most vulnerable place—the hard wound in my chest.

I don’t move her away. I trust her to be there. I want her there. I want her to know me.

I want her to love me, and she can’t.