“Funny, I didn’t pick up on that,” I said as I walked toward the two girls. One feathered; one full of magic with no one to train her. Shit, even Milly had Giselle to guide her. With Milly dead, who did I trust to continue Pamela’s training? Deanna could do it, but there would be no training in the ways of fighting. It would be healing and growing plants and shit like that.

Marco stepped in front of me, blocking my way. “You need to help her deal with it before you go further.”

I glared up at him, would have liked to pull a blade and have him at the end of it to make my point. “Listen, we are all dealing with shit right now, every single one of us. She’s going to have to just figure it out.”

He shook his head, feathers literally ruffled. “You can’t ignore this. This darkness will grow in her until there is nothing left.”

Jaw tight, I stepped around him. Fucking bird brain, what did he know about witches?

A soft voice, one that sounded suspiciously like Giselle’s, whispered to me. And what do you know? Not much, other than what little we gleaned from Milly.

I stopped and put my hands on my hips, feeling the pain in my fingers and for the moment, relishing it. Pain had a way of clearing out emotions, of making everything simple.

Pamela needed help. And the only person I had was Deanna. Fucking hell, I did not want to send Pamela off on her own. Not when I needed her to help me get the other kids out.

“How long before this is a crisis?” I asked Marco without turning around.

“I do not know. Not long.”

I strode to where Pamela sat on the edge of the house’s foundation, her legs dangling over the burned and hollowed out shell. Crouching beside her, I stared into what had been my home, the one place I thought I’d always be safe. “I need your help, Pam. We have to go after those three kids.”

Her eyes never lifted. “I’m not strong enough to help you.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” I snapped. “You’re almost as strong as Milly right now, and you’ve been doing this only five months. Experienced? No, you aren’t. But you are a fucking powerhouse.”

Her back slowly stiffened. “You aren’t mad at me for not being able to heal you fully?”

I blew out a breath. “Look, it was some sort of funky magic fire to do with Orion and me being a Slayer. I don’t think it has anything to do with you.”

Her eyes, rimmed with tears, finally made contact with mine. “I don’t want to let you down.”

“You never have.” I brushed hair back from her face and gave her a smile, though I had no doubt it was rather fatigued looking.

Her lips trembled, but she fought through it. “Okay. Let’s get those kids.”

Eve gave a happy squawk and flapped her wings. “Where are we going?”

“Boston. But not yet. There is one task I have to do first.”

Everyone looked at me and I struggled to put the words into a sentence that wouldn’t leave me gasping for air around tears. “Berget’s opal is failing. Frank is going to open the veil when the sun sets here, and get her across the veil.” I didn’t make eye contact with anyone, chose instead to stare at the barn, right where I thought she’d come through. “Pamela, I will need you to hold her. I don’t think she’ll fight you. I’ll take her head.”

No one said anything, no one questioned me, and a part of me so badly wanted them to. To say that maybe there was another way. But we all knew that once Berget’s opal failed, her adoptive, psychotic parents would be fully in charge once more and we might not get another chance at eliminating the threat they posed. Even if it meant ending Berget’s life.

Pamela moved beside me as I stared at the barn and Alex slid up to my other side, butting his head into my hand gently. I focused on breathing slow and even, not thinking about what I was going to do. I’d fought so fucking hard to keep her alive, to save her, and to have it fail now … I closed my eyes as the sun set. The twilight darkness fell swiftly and seconds ticked by. Maybe I’d done wrong by Frank, maybe the kid wouldn’t be able to pull it off. What if Berget killed him too? Fuck.

The tension rose, and when I thought I’d for sure sent Frank to his death, the air in front of the barn door shimmered and opened. Berget stepped through, Frank right behind her.

“Rylee said she wanted to see you,” Frank said, his eyes flicking up and squinting into the darkness as he searched for us. Behind them, the veil closed.

Pamela lifted her hand and Berget stiffened as the spell took hold, pinning her in place. I walked forward. “Thank you, Frank.”

Berget’s eyes were on mine, full of tears. “Rylee, I’m so sorry. I thought I had them under control. But I went too long between feedings. That was why they got out of hand.”

“How can I trust that? How can I know you will be safe around our allies?” I whispered the questions, wanting there to be some way out of this fucking mess.

She shook her head. “They are not truly loose; they got away just that one time.”

I exploded. “And you killed Thomas. He was an ally, a powerful one! We needed him, Berget!”

“I can control them!”

My hands flexed and the pain soared through them. No one else needed to hold the burden of having to kill her. But how the hell was I going to do it when I couldn’t even hold a sword?

“What happened to your hands?”

“Orion.”

Her head lowered. “If you shared blood with Doran, he could heal them the rest of the way, you know that.”

Shit, she was right. But that would mean taking another side trip to London, then back here and, without Thomas, I wasn’t sure how much Frank could do. “How much juice do you have left, Frank?”

He cleared his throat and ran a hand over his hair. “One jump, maybe two if I have a rest.”

“Talk about a fucking quandary,” I muttered. Then again, I knew in my heart I was desperately looking for a reason to not kill Berget. I did not want to make my parents right, to become the murderer they’d accused me of being all those years ago.

The best I could do was keep Berget close and hope to hell I could handle her and any other blow ups she would have. A part of me knew I was being delusional, that eventually it would come to that. But I would put it off as long as I could.

Erik cleared his throat. “When did you last feed?”