“Rue.” The daemon gripped my upper arm. “Look.”
Mom had meant what she said literally, her hands clenching the roots to hold herself still. The strain in her body became evident the longer I stood there, and then her fingers lost their purchase.
Her magic slammed into my knee. The joint wrenched, popped, and I hit the ground on all fours.
A trembling wand hung from Mom’s fingers, the tip glowing bright, and tears wet her face.
“I can’t control myself.” She blasted me again. “Run.”
The daemon saved me from myself, yanking me up and tucking me under his arm. He ran as fast as he could, weaving through trees, putting as much space between Mom and me as possible. Distance helped. The farther we got from her, the less the compulsion laid on her compelled her to act.
Without her bones, we had no way to stop her. I could blast her apart, as I had Old Man Fang, but this was my mom.
I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to end her, not after a lifetime of the director telling me I had been the one who killed her. I didn’t want to make his lies my truth. Even though she was already dead, I didn’t want to be the reason she winked out of existence for good.
A distant worry sprouted in my mind, a tickle in my brain as a certainty took root.
Whoever possessed her bones had kept them close. For decades. That explained why I couldn’t contact Mom, why Meg couldn’t find her either. She hadn’t been on the other side of the veil. She had been trapped here, and I could only imagine one person who would have treated her so cruelly. The man I had suspected from the start.
The director.
But if he had her bones, and she had been summoned, that must mean…
…he was here.
The only person who knew his whereabouts was Parish, and Parish wouldn’t tell me even if I ripped out his heart and ate it in front of him. It was the principle of the thing. He hadn’t survived being the director’s right hand this long by giving away his boss’s secrets.
A branch raked through my hair as the daemon hiked me higher on his shoulder, but the whoosh of debris flying past kept me from checking behind us. The pain radiating through my back told me I had taken a projectile to the left of my spine, but I had to suck it up and deal.
A mournful howl pierced the night, others raising up that voice, and hope surged through me.
The sound distracted Mom too, who searched for the source and forgot to attempt to murder me.
A massive wolf I recognized as Derry dashed out of the darkness and fell in step with the daemon. Four other wolves emerged, flanking us, herding us toward some distant point. Their yips and barks told me they were having a blast, which made me wonder if they thought Old Man Fang was on their heels and not Mom. Either way, I was grateful for the assist.
“Derry-wolf says this way,” the daemon cut into my thoughts. “Old cemetery.”
A crumbling stone marked the corner of a family cemetery that hadn’t seen visitors in decades, based on the overgrowth. A long slab proclaimed it the Lacky family cemetery, not Old Man Fang’s original resting place.
The daemon skidded past the markers, almost dropping me in the process. Using his momentum against him, I broke his hold and flipped over his arm. I landed on my feet, my knee screaming from impact, and freed up my hands for casting.
I didn’t want to attack my mother, but I would if there was no other choice.
You can’t value the dead above the living.
Twisting to glance over my shoulder, I groped for the edges of a wound I couldn’t see. “Can you help?”
The daemon grumbled about scurvy, proving Colby failed to define it for him, then fell silent.
“Nothing there.” He lifted my shirt and sniffed, which tickled. “Old scar. Smells weird. That it.”
“That can’t be good.” I had plenty of scars, but none that had ever tickled his nose. I reassessed my knee while I was at it, and it took my weight without buckling. I was healing. Fast. But how? “Do you think the choker...?”
The daemon parted his lips to answer, but the wolves broke into warning snarls that deafened me.
On legs that fought against bending, Mom approached me, her battle with the compulsion evident.
“You need to end this,” Mom murmured, her voice a thousand whispers. “I don’t want to hurt you.”