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Priya went white. Callie’s grip crushed my fingers.

Clemency’s eyes, which were the color of smoke in the glass, moved over me.

“You are not my blood. I would know it. Why is my locket around your neck?”

“Your great-granddaughter gave it to me. Branwen Foxgrave. She’s the one who sent me to you.”

She stared back at me, scrutinizing me from beyond the veil.

“Want is cheap,” she said. “Women have wanted him ended before. Women want a great many things, until the moment they are asked to bleed for them. Why should I indulge four more girls in a temper?”

“What’s she saying?” Priya whispered.

“She’s asking why she should bother,” I murmured.

“Because we refuse to be wedded to a parasite, and we refuse it on behalf of all other women,” I said to the mirror. “Because Branwen’s grandson is trapped in the coven, and he and Branwen have asked for our help.” And then, because somehow, I’d been emboldened: “And because he really, really needs to die.”

“You believe you are brave,” she said, like an accusation.

“No,” I said. “But I’m here. That’s the best I’ve got.”

For the first time, Clemency’s expression softened ever so slightly. Not enough to be warm in the least, but just enough that I no longer felt like I was embarrassing myself.

“You, at least, may be worth my words. The others I will judge as they earn it.”

I breathed out shakily.

“She’ll talk to us,” I whispered. “Sort of. She’s… still in my head.”

“Cool,” Jess said, in a voice that was in no way cool. “Extremely normal.”

Priya had gone very still. “Ask her how we kill him.”

“How do we kill him?” I asked.

Clemency looked at me through the glass like she was weighing whether the answer was worth the breath I’d make her spend on it. The dogs watched me with a stare that was just as flat and loveless as hers.

“You must feed him what he cannot stomach,” she said. “The severing is the inverse of everything he has ever been given. Every woman’s rage. Every woman’s grief. Every refusal he swallowed and never digested. You gather it. You condense it. And you drive it into him at the moment he opens himself to feed.” She paused, calculating whether I’d understood, then went on: “He will choke on it like spoiled food. And he will break.”

I relayed it in mumbles, my mouth struggling to keep pace.

“When he breaks,” she went on, “the bond that ties him to the coven breaks with him. Their working dies. After that, they are only women standing in a circle.”

I relayed that, too.

“Only women with a wellness empire,” Priya muttered.

“Women can be dealt with,” Clemency said. Her certainty ran off my tongue before I’d understood the words.

“What do we actually do?” Priya asked, a little braver now.

Clemency seemed to approve of the bluntness.

“The vessel first. A silver bowl from my line.”

“We need a silver bowl from Branwen,” I murmured.

“That is the gathering point. Then blood. Each of the four of you. Willingly given. Blood is the channel.”