This will mean I can’t go with Xander’s troupe. I’ll have to get a job and get custody. With Deb, I had planned to stay in the system until I turned twenty-one. She wanted me to live with her while I went to the local college. She helped me fill out all the paperwork. I can’t believe she went through all that trouble when she wasn’t sure about us. But we don’t need Deb. It just means forgetting that I almost had everything: revenge and a glimpse of the life Mom had before me. I hope it doesn’t make me bitter.

Deb rests her elbows on her knees, her hands coming together in a tent.

“There’s something Jacob and I want to talk to you both about.”

She smiles. Jacob’s grin stretches across his face.

The ball of dread in my stomach morphs into something else altogether.

“We both already consider you part of our family, but we want to make it official.”

“What?” Parker’s eyes water as Jacob bounces up and down on the couch, making the rest of us wiggle with him.

“Brothers, man. We’ll be brothers. I always wanted a brother.”

He doesn’t say anything about a sister.

Parker and Jacob chatter about all the things they’ll do as brothers, which is pretty much the same things they do now.

I try not to cry. I’d like to pretend the threatening tears are made of joy. I can still go. I can still train with Xander, but this means Parker won’t come with me once I’m an established magician. He’ll be fully attached to another life by then.

Still, part of me always wanted this for Parker—a real family. I wanted it for myself once upon a time when fairy tales were something I could hold on to. I’m past that point. This isn’t for me, anyway. Deb and Jacob want Parker, and they’re willing to let me come along too.

“Ava?” Deb asks.

For once, I want her to say my name and have it not be a question. If she can’t do that, how can she really want me?

I just stare at her.

“We want you, too. I know you’re eighteen, but it’s never too late to be a part of a family. It’s not too late.”

I want to believe her, to stay and pretend like I’m just as much a part of this family as Parker.

Parker and Jacob’s excitement spills around the room. It seems to touch Deb, and she glances toward them and smiles before looking back at me. It doesn’t touch me. It builds around me like a suffocating cocoon, but not one that will give me a shield to grow so I can finally break out and join. It’s one I will wither and die in.