Her eyes stung with a similar acceptance. “Ask the question”—she materialized a knife and held it out to me—“then give an offering.”
“Blood.” That was how I used Praetervado the last times. I’d been wounded and bleeding. “Will it even work in here?”
“No. You’re going to have to slip out of his arms, block your pain, dream-walk, then meet me back here.”
“How do I know he won’t freak out like last time? Or Aspen, for that matter?”
“Don’t block the entire thing. You don’t need that much power. Only block your pain. Then focus on one or two emotions and bury the rest.”
“Fine.”
I opened my eyes and slipped from Ronen’s arms. Surprisingly, he didn’t wake, which meant the day’s events had taken their toll. The nightly ones too. But I didn’t regret a second of exhausting him with that. Unfortunately, Rune woke up and followed me into the sitting area.
Her head tilted as I pulled one of Ronen’s daggers from his weapons wall.
“Don’t wake him,” I warned Rune. “This will help the war.”
She dipped her head.
I settled into one of his leather chairs, wrapped my Infernus loosely around my mind, stabbed my hand, then thought of the question.
What secret was my mom so ashamed to tell me?
I knew exactlywhere I’d ended up the moment I noticed the jewel-toned sitting area. I didn’t think I’d ever forget the fancy wallpaper or the place where Oliver and Aspen’s mothers were murdered.
A door opened and closed on the other side of the wall. Two sets of boots strode toward me.
I scrambled into the unlit kitchen, crouching low beside the dark wooden cabinets and hiding within their shadows.
“You’ve seen how we’ll take the council down?” Her familiar voice snuck into my chest and squeezed.
“Yes,” Miriam replied, foreboding filling her tone. “But it won’t be easy for either of us.”
“I don’t care. Tell me,” my mom urged.
A desperate part of me itched to peek around the wall, to see her. I missed her so much. But I knew if I did, I wouldn’t only risk exposure but the future.
“It won’t be us. It’ll be our children.”
“Children?” my mom said in disbelief. “Miriam, are you okay?”
Miriam answered with silence. But it was what my mom needed. She needed time to remember who Miriam was despite the fact angelic females weren’t capable of having children. If she said children, she meant it.
“How is that possible?” my mom asked.
“The how doesn’t matter. What matters is what you’re willing to give. This won’t be clean, and it won’t leave us unchanged.”
“We need to bring the council down. We need to save our world, Miriam.”
“And him?” she pressed.
“And Lucifer.”
I dropped my head forward, her words like a cement block on my neck.
Miriam sighed. She probably already knew what would become of my father. Hell, I had a bone-weary suspicion she had planned her death and, inadvertently, Oliver’s mother’s. She had told Azazahl to tell Lilith something five years after Aspen’s birth. I didn’t believe it was a coincidence that she then died during that time.
“Tell me what needs to be done,” my mom demanded.
