Charity had tried to fight but had lost the battle before it had begun. She was sweating and scared, her heart beating so frantically she thought it might explode.

What could she do?

How could she save herself?

How could she save her daughter?

Oh, Sweet Mother Mary, why had she spent her life holding on to her lies, spinning more, compromising her soul?

Devota had barked out a threat: “And drop the gun, or I will, right here and now, in front of your eyes, slit your pathetic mother’s throat!” and Charity’s knees had buckled.

Valerie couldn’t be here! Oh, dear Father, no, not after all the years Charity had so rabidly tried to protect her only child.

“Did you hear me, whore?” Devota snarled, her breath hot against Charity’s ear, the thin blade at her throat, slicing into her skin, cold and wicked as it split her flesh.

Charity whimpered as she felt her warm blood begin to flow from a wound already stinging. How could this be happening? Why would Devota, the girl she’d met at St. Elsinore’s when Charity had worked there, the poor child who had broken her leg and had always walked with a limp thereafter, turn on her? How had she become this vile monster? Surely, as God would see to it, there was an ounce of reverence, of piety, of goodness still within her soul. “Devota, please . . . think of the Blessed Mother. Do not give into Satan’s calling.”

“Shut up, you old hypocrite!” Devota hissed. “What do you know? Always hiding your own sins and judging others for theirs. Your time is over, Mother,” she snarled. “You can take it up with God when you see him.” Then, to the surrounding darkness, “You! Valerie Renard! Sister of the whore! Step forward!” She wrenched Charity’s arm, and the older woman squealed in pain. She couldn’t fight—the knife blade was too sharp—and if she complied, perhaps Valerie would be saved....

But she knew better.

Weren’t Camille and Asteria proof enough of that, and probably Louise and Lucia as well? Her knees crumpled.

Devota yanked her to her feet. “I said, step forward!”

To Charity’s ultimate horror, Valerie complied. Blessed Mother of God, please, stop this madness. But she watched in terror as Valerie stepped into the cruel, frail light.

Tall and beautiful, as strong as her father had once been, Valerie leveled her gun directly at Devota’s head. “She is not my mother.”

“Of course she is! Don’t you know that this is what it’s all about? That you were the love child of this old lady and that wheezing skeleton who donated the piano?” Devota seemed amused at that. “That’s where they’ll find Louise, you know, in the piano, but no longer singing, I’m afraid. She’s sung her last solo.”