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“What kind of consequences?”

“A whole lot of death. Including yours.”

“Ah,” Ethan said. He scratched his chin. “My choices are to stay locked in this room with you or go back home to my dead wife?”

Neither one of us laughed. We were far past the funny stage of this bullshit.

“If it helps, I suspect your dead wife is feeding from your life force, too.”

Ethan closed his eyes for a brief second. “Wonderful.”

I snickered.

“And you?” he asked. “Your mother did this to you?”

My throat went dry. Talking about what happened to me in that house…

I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready.

“Hey,” he said softly. “I know we ended things in a weird way, and I know you’re seeing that deer asshole, but you’re still my friend, Moira. I want to help you.”

I shook my head. “You can’t. As soon as that door opens, we’ll be strangers again.”

I looked away, hating how small I felt with my next words. “You didn’t even come with Evie to save me.”

Ethan sucked in a breath. “She took you.”

I nodded.

Warm arms wrapped around me. Ethan gathered me close and pressed his nose against my hair, inhaling my scent. “Unforgivable,” he murmured. “There are no apologies sufficient enough, Moira.” He sighed, his breath ruffling my hair. “All I remember is a fog. I know Sarah is there, but that’s all I can remember. I am not myself. When I woke up here and the first thing I smelled was you, all I could think was I am finally home.”

Tears burned my eyes. He wasn’t home. Not even close. Even lying here next to him, his scent filling my nose, I wasn’t sure I was his home anymore.

I didn’t even know if I had a home anymore.

As much as I loved Evie and everyone else, the time with my mother had broken something fundamental inside me, and I wasn’t sure if the pieces could be glued back together. But for now, Ethan was here, and he remembered me, and I could take this moment and tuck it away for the sad days I knew lay ahead of me.

I let him hold me for a while, soaking in his warmth and his scent and knowing it might be the last time. There were so many things I had to do, and part of me was relieved Ethan wouldn’t remember once those vines were gone.

If he did, he’d try to stop me.

Even after being gutted, even after my conversation with Evie and knowing how much I’d hurt her and everyone else, all I could focus on was stopping my mother.

It wasn’t only because of what she’d done to me. A thought had been niggling at the back of my mind for a while now. My mother had always been powerful, but she’d never been this powerful. She’d never been able to use necromancy or hide herself so successfully not even a goddess could find her.

No witch in all the worlds held that much power.

Something or someone else was fueling her magic. Was I a stop on the way to the end or merely a feint while she worked on other darker agendas?

Had she actually needed me or was this her teaching me a lesson—she’d always find me? I’d never be safe.

I knew those things before all this, but this was the closest I’d ever come to dying.

“I can hear your mind spinning,” Ethan murmured against my hair. “Want to talk about it?”

He might be temporarily free of my mother’s spell, but there was no way I’d risk telling him any of my suspicions just in case she had a way of digging these moments out of his brain.

“Thinking about what comes next,” I answered honestly. “I have a home here, but I may want to do a little traveling.”