“Your mom. Is. Here.”
“What?!”
The ground dropped away beneath her feet.
Her mom couldn’t be here.
This couldn’t be happening.
She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
“Maya.” Corin’s voice anchored her, bringing her back to earth. “What do you need?”
I need my mom not to be here.Her stomach twisted. What sort of daughter was she, thinking something like that?
“I need your help,” she said, delaying until her mind gave her something better to say.
Corin’s fingertips brushed beneath her chin, tilting her head up to meet his eyes. “You have never asked for my help in allthe time we’ve known each other,” he murmured. “Please let that change now. Tell me what you need and allow me to help you.”
She swallowed. “My mom doesn’t know about shifters.”
Corin’s eyes crinkled. “Now might be a good time to tell her?” he suggested. Her alarm must have shown on her face, because he immediately backtracked. “Or we can wait until you’re ready. Very well. Mrs. Flores must not discover the existence of shifters while she is here,” he announced, raising his voice. “Apollo, Felicity, you have a system for keeping Hideaway Cove’s secret, don’t you?”
“Yes. I’ll tell the others,” Apollo said, while Felicity took one look at the situation and pointed a finger at the Dans.
“You three listen to me,” she said. “Here’s what we’re going to do, and here’s what’s going to happen if you don’t do it…”
“It’s going to be fine,” Corin reassured her. She nodded absently.
“I just—” She bit her lip. “I just need time to make sure I do this right. Telling her everything.”
“And we will make sure you have as much time as you need.”
“It’s only until I can figure out how to tell her!” Oh god. She sounded panicked. Shewaspanicking, sure, butsoundinglike it was even worse.
She took a deep breath, then another, and neither of them helped at all.
“I am going to tell her,” she said quickly. “I have to! Her grandson is a shifter! I just—how do you tell someone?”
“I am not the person to ask,” he reminded her with a wry grimace. “But we’ll handle this until you figure it out.”
Her stomach churned. She believed him. That wasn’t the problem.
Shewas the problem.
Magic and weird draconic traditions were one thing. She could handle those.
But telling her mom that she’d been hiding so much of her life from her, for so long, without hurting her?
It didn’t seem possible.
Felicity hurried the Dans away. Apollo reassured them that the call had gone out to everyone in town, warning them a human was incoming and to keep their magic on the down-low. And with every moment, Maya’s heart hurt more.
All her friends were coming together to support her.
To help her keep up her lie to her own mother.
“Only until you figure out how to tell her,” Corin reminded her. He was looking up the hill, to the long road that wound down into town. A single car was making its careful way down it, as slow as though it were stuck in traffic, not the only vehicle on a recently resurfaced road. “These past few days have been full of things outside your control. But you can take this on your own terms.”
