Hazel waves a hand. “Don’t tell me. Wait until we start the revival, then recite ’em all in reverse order so that them in the ground can hear and know who you’re trying to reach.”

“Mm-hmm,” Lu says, crossing paths with her wife and slipping the joint in her hand. “Almost done. Then you’ll stay there, say their names with your whole chest, and we’ll get started.”

“Did you bring a blade?” Hazel asks.

I pull my trusty safety pin from my pocket and rest it on my knee, sharp, freshly disinfected tip closed in. “Yep.”

She eyes the tiny silver pin and huffs a laugh. “Guess that works too.”

“Blood is blood.” I shrug.

She and Lu circle one more time, until there’s a deep trough in the dirt in a near-perfect circle around me. They brush off the bottoms of their shoes and sit on opposite sides of the circle. Hazel gets settled, then explains the revival ritual once more. “Think of this place and ceremony like an amplifier for the ancestral stream. Volition and the communion circle will boost your call so you can talk to all of them at once, ’stead of one at a time, and ask for who you need directly, no guesswork.”

I nod. We’ve gone over this before, but it’s a good reminder. The last time I saw all of the women in the Line of Vera at once, I was sweating bullets on the hardwood floors of the Lodge, burning up inside a flaming circle. The last time I had this much ancestral juice at my fingertips, I was in the ogof y ddraig, blowing flames at imps. This circle will contain anything that happens to me, or anything I do—and the barrier over Volition is a second layer of protection. “Okay, I’m ready.”

I press my finger into the tip of the pin, then smudge it on the links of my mother’s bracelet. “By my blood…”

Immediately, a bonfire of golden root flames explodes into existence in the center of the circle.

“Holy…,” Alice whispers, somewhere behind me.

Amplifier indeed, if even Alice can see Rootcrafter magic.

I knew I would call my mother’s name, but knowing is not the same thing as saying it, out loud, for the first time in a very long while.

“Faye.”

For a moment, nothing happens. Then, the yellow and orange bonfire in the center grows, burning brighter, until it is tinged dark Bloodcraft red.

Then, out of the flame, my mother steps forward.

She is just as I remember her, but illuminated. Shimmering in gold and white and wearing a dress edged in crimson. Her smile is wide and warm as she walks toward me, barefoot over the sandy earth.

I am running toward her, hoping, praying that I can touch whatever matter she’s made of now. Please. Please, just one hug.