“Praise the Lord,” Lisbeth said, stepping around the vomit. There was no relief or joy in her sentence. She wrapped her fingers in an iron manacle around my upper arm as she yanked me to my feet. “He promised to do whatever it tookto get you away from the demons.”
“Who did?” I asked, clutching my stomach. It didn’t matter that I was three months away from my twenty-seventh year on this rock. I was a punished child once more, shrinking against her wrath, terrified of her anger. My bones liquified around her.
“Dressed like a whore,” she said icily as she dragged me toward the couch. “The whole world knows that’s what you are, now. Lisbeth Thorson’s daughter: the whore.”
She released me as I stumbled backward toward the sofa. The TV continued playing, the anchor pointing and frothing as he gave his impassioned speech while the familiar faces of Poppy and Dorian remained frozen in a still image over his shoulder.
I got to my feet, arms out at my sides like a burglar caught with a spotlight against a brick wall.
“Sit back down,” she snapped. “They’ll be here to deal with you in a moment.”
The police? The church elders? My father? It was hard to imagine who my mother would call to punish and humiliate me, but they all triggered the same terrified child within me.
I shook my head tearfully as I headed for the exit, never turning my back on her. I took several steps toward the front door, hand feeling for the knob once I bumped into it. My hand closed around the knob, but it refused to turn. I whipped to look at the thing and frowned in confusion. There was no button for the interior lock. There was a keyhole where the deadbolt should have been.
I wiped the tears away as I stared her down, confused.
“Two-way locks,” she explained from the far side of the room. “You see, Marlow, I’ve done all I can to save your soul. But at this point, it’s up to God to decide your fate.”
The blood drained from my face. “What did you do?”
Lisbeth Thorson, mother, wife, beautiful Nordic blond, unwitting fae, powerful psychic, and fanatical religious woman, smiled. It was not the smile of a parent looking ather child. It wasn’t even the smile of a human. She looked like the Cheshire cat.
“What did you do?” I repeated, but though the words were the same, what I meant was:How could you?
My hand flew to the place on my waist where the broach continued to press into my skin, but I had no idea how to use it on my own. I’d only ever been an unbound passenger with a free-range ticket. But there had to be another way out.
This was not the house I’d grown up in. This place, these people, were strangers to me. But I’d been here once before with Fauna. I struggled to remember my search of the house as she and I had torn the place up looking for the sølje.
I took one step, then another as I moved toward the kitchen. There were French doors off the formal dining room.
Lisbeth stayed put, watching me with a mixture of ice and disgust as I ran from the living room. I stumbled past the table, nearly tripping on a chair as I grabbed for the French doors. The moment my fingers hit the handle, my face fell.
Heels clacked behind me as she slowly approached, but I couldn’t stop staring at the device. A hard, plastic sock engulfed each handle, holding the twin doors together with two separate metal rods. I didn’t so much as blink as my brain short-circuited.
“How long have you been planning this?” I asked breathlessly once the steps ceased.
“He promised me he’d get you back the day you left with that demon. And once I had you, I knew I needed to be ready.”
“…who did…?” I tried to ask. My mouth was so dry. My voice was so hoarse. As far as I knew, there was only one being who fit the description.
But he’d defected…hadn’t he?
I truly looked at her as I turned. There she was, sandwiched between tastefully framed 1920s movie posters in jeans, a white, long-sleeved shirt with a high neck tucked into herbelt, a white-gold cross necklace, a full face of makeup, and stick-straight hair. She shouldn’t have been ready for the day at twilight, whether it was the purple hours of dawn or dusk. Not in the summer. Not even on a Sunday.
“You knew I’d come,” I said slowly. And I didn’t just mean the process of installing the locks. She knew I was coming today. Whether she’d had some through-the-veil vision or had been tipped off, I was certain: She had been ready for me.
“…fantasy author Merit Finnegan…” drifted the anchor’s voice from the other room.
“It’s been one heck of a week for you,” my mom replied, making a disapproving tsking sound as she did so. “First, I see you on the news because of a senator. My church family mourned with me, washing away the shames of my daughter. But what did I see last night on the news before I fell asleep? Well, if that wasn’t my daughter once more at a concert in Las Vegas with the very angel who’d promised to bring her back. I knew he was making good on his promise.”
Whatever was left of my shriveled, terrified heart broke fully in half.
Silas, what have you done.
“The world is still trying to make sense of what happened. Then, I see you on the stage with a new demon. Not the redhead who took you from my home, but one with horns. And then these demons speaking Greek made the news, claiming to be Hades and Persephone. All deceivers. All liars, leading men astray from the One True God. When you disappeared from the footage, I knew he was bringing you here.”
I tried to shake my head, but my neck wasn’t working.
