I stood staring into the dark, hands clenched so tightly into fists that I could feel my nails slicing crescents into my palms. My chest banged as I fought to stay calm, to keep from shaking apart. If I started trembling now, I’d never stop.

Over the sound of my labored breathing, the crunch of gravel.

“Son--”

“No.” I couldn’t look at him. In thirty seconds, my world had rearranged. He was no longer the man I thought he was. Maybe he had never been.

Lamely, he began, “I...was going to tell you--”

That broke me, and I swirled around to face him in all my wild-eyed glory.

“When? When you felt like it? When you decided I was ready? When I became a man?” I threw my fingers up into the most sarcastic air-quotes the world had ever seen. “Just tell me that wasn’t her. Tell me she--she isn’t really--really my--”

My mother. The words stuck in my throat as my stomach heaved. Spinning around, I fell to my knees and retched.

Dad reached for my shoulder. “Let’s go inside--”

I smacked his hand away.

“Don’t touch me,” I croaked, wiping my chin with my sleeve

His hand fell back against his side so heavily I heard the smack.

“I’ll tell you everything,” he said quietly. “But let’s get out of the open, okay?”

Shooting to my feet, I marched past him without a word.

Beni and Espy still hovered on the sidelines, frozen by indecision. Head held high, I didn’t look at either of them as I stormed in the house.

***

My stuff was still in Beni’s room, so that’s where I went. I was rummaging through my duffle when Dad knocked at the door. It couldn’t have been anyone else. He hovered in the doorway.

“Are you going somewhere?” He asked as I zipped up my bag.

“I have to find Evan.” My heart squeezed as I said his name, but I kept my tone flat.

“Son…” he sighed. “I’ve been looking for years. Their lair is hidden.”

Crossing my arms, I finally turned to look at him. “Well, I’m going to find it.”

“I know he’s your partner, but there’s nothing you can do,” he said.

Fear that he was right skittered through me. “You have no idea what we’ve been through together. I’m not leaving him.”

Dad sat on the end of the bed, running a hand through his hair. “I thought you wanted to know the truth?”

I hesitated.

“Please sit.” He patted the bad next to him.

“I’ll stand.” My voice dropped the temperature in the room by several degrees.

He sighed again. “Alright then. Where would you like me to start?”

“How about the beginning,” I said. “Mom supposedly died in labor. How did you fake something like that?”

Swallowing, he dropped his eyes to his hands. “First I have to tell you why.”

“Fine,” I snapped.

“The night you were born, I was so happy,” he said. “We both were, I thought. But then, just before sunrise, I heard you crying in the nursery. I went to check on you…” He looked up at me. With a jolt of shock, I saw tears forming in the corner of his eyes. “Your mother was holding a pillow over your face.”

My back hit the dresser before I realized I’d been backing up.

“You were so small,” he went on, voice empty. “Practically the size of the pillow yourself. I lost it. I stopped her, but she fought me. She was rambling about angels, not making any sense. By the time I made sure you were okay, she was gone.”

That was too much, too enormous, I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. It was all I could do to stay upright, so I focused on a much smaller detail.

“That still doesn’t explain how you faked her death,” I said. “What about her body? The rites? Cassiel’s song?”

Reluctantly, he answered. “There are always places to find the victims of the Damned, if you know where to look.”

For a moment, I thought my stomach would rebel again. “You burned some random woman’s body?”

“Yes,” he said.

“What about Grandpa?” I swallowed to keep the bile from rising. “How did he not know?”

“Your grandfather is a very traditional man,” Dad said. “He believed that no male had any business near a laboring woman. He wasn’t even in Empyrean that night, off on some job to distract himself. I told him over the phone, but by the time he made it there was nothing but bones and ash.”

“And he just bought that?” I asked. “With no ceremony?”

“It was...controversial,” he answered. “But I was a grieving widower with a baby. Ultimately, no one questioned it.”

“But why?” My voice was barely a suggestion. “Why do it all, why not go after her?”

“I tried,” he whispered. “I left you with your uncle, and followed her trail. It wasn’t easy. She had the same training we all do, but I followed her. Here. And then the trail went cold, like she’d vanished off the face of the earth. I…” he paused, eyes working, as if whatever he was seeing wasn’t here in this room. “I think I knew, even then, why she had vanished, why her trail went cold. She had gone into the night that very day, but I didn’t let myself believe it. Not for years. Not until I met--”

“Song.”

He looked at me in surprise.

I scoffed. “We’ve met.”

“I see.” His eyes studied me in a new light. “Are you--”

“I’m fine.” The whole blood curse thing would just derail the conversation, so I kept it to myself. “What then?”

“I discovered the same thing you did,” he continued. “That the Damned and the Songs were united in a conspiracy against the vila.”

I blinked. “Vila?”

“That’s what she is now.” His eyes hardened. “Not just a vampire. The worst of the worst. Even other kinds of the Damned fear the vila.”

“Why?” I asked.

“You have to ask? After tonight?” Dad scrubbed his hands over his face. “I’ve searched for years, but there’s so little reliable information. Some say they’re demons of the old world. Some, that they’re barely vampires at all, patron goddesses of scorned women. Still other writers insist they don’t even exist.”

I frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. If they’re so secretive, how did--she find them?”

“I wish I knew,” he said. “After eighteen years, all I know is that they supposedly live in some kind of underworld, but I have no idea where it is, or how to get there.”

“The...underworld,” I said slowly.

“I know what this sounds like,” Dad started.

But I cut him off. “I really don’t think you do. She’s not dead, just in the underworld.”

“Yes, the underworld.” He sounded a little frustrated for the first time. “Do you understand now why we can’t go after Evan?”

“Of course I don’t!” I stepped forward, hands still balled into fists. “I don’t understand any of this! Do you know what this feels like for me? I’ve spent eighteen years mourning my dead mother, and now you’re telling me she was never dead at all.”

“She is dead,” he said. “You saw what she’s become. That thing out there isn’t Sera.”

“Do you think that changes anything?” I yelled. “I blamed myself!” Dad flinched. “I thought she died because of me, and now you’re saying I’ve been sitting with all this for nothing? All the pain, all the guilt?”

I don’t cry in front of Dad much, but I let tears gather in my eyes. “I thought I killed her, just by being born. How could you let me think that?”

Dad stood, reaching for me. I let him. We embraced, my clenched fists resting against his upper back.

Wrapping his arms around me, he mumbled against my hair, “I’m so sorry, son. I never wanted you to feel that way, but if you knew she was out there, nothing would stop you from searching for her.”

“You’re right, Dad.” From behind, I jammed a syringe into his neck.

“Hnn!” He wheeled backwards, pulling it free, staring incredulously.

“You won’t stop me.”

Such a small, hand-sized syringe had been specially formulated to bring a grown man to his knees in seconds. We used them on humans who followed the Damned willingly, a way to immobilize them without casualties.

“Ssssson, you caaaan’t,” he slurred, already going down. He reached for me. “Ssssoldier, please…”

“I’m not your perfect little soldier anymore,” I said coldly.

I stood over him until his eyes drooped shut, and his breathing slowed. I watched the rise and fall of his chest for several seconds, just to make sure he was out.

A whistle from the doorway. “Damn, Sethary.”

I turned to Beni. “I’m going after Evan. You coming?”