His words cut off as his head drooped. Heartache clenched my chest, and I curved my hand around Jenks, wishing I was smaller so that I could give him a hug, and then maybe a shake. “He’s been misled,” I said softly, and Jenks angrily wiped his face, his hand glowing with a silver dust. “He’s your son, Jenks. Whatever happens.”

Clearly depressed, Jenks sat down where he was, his legs crossed and his head down. “I don’t think my son will be spying on us anymore. I scared him. I scared him into believing I’d kill him if he ever came home again.”

“Jenks . . .”

“I’m fine,” he said with such bile that I knew he wasn’t. Head coming up, he flew to the sill, standing beside the overturned water glass and looking out the window with his back to us as he gazed into his garden, shadowed in the coming sunset.

I exchanged a worried look with Ivy. I had no comfort for him, nothing to say.

“He will forgive you.”

It had been Ivy who spoke, and Jenks spun, the anger so thick on him that I was glad I hadn’t tried to make it better. “What do you know?” he snarled, his wings humming to a transparent brightness, but his feet were nailed to the sill.

Ivy didn’t look up, staring at the light glinting on the cool length of steel as she held it up. “I scared someone I loved like that,” she said softly. “I was young and stupid. The sex play got out of hand. I cut him deeply and wouldn’t stop. I ignored him when he told me no. I carved deeper when he begged me to stop.”

The sword dropped, and her head drooped to follow the steel in her hand. “I knew he could take more and that his pain was fleeting. I thought I had a right to correct his assessment of his abilities, but what I was doing was confusing his mental limits with his emotional ones. I was riding high on his fear, and I bled him within an inch of his life.”

Only now did she look at Jenks. “He forgave me. Eventually. Jax will, too.”

I shifted uneasily, guessing she was talking about Kisten. It sounded about right. Kisten could forgive anything, since he’d done terrible things himself. I thought about that, wondering if only those who did horrible things would ever be able to forgive me. This had to stop, I thought, feeling the bump of the rings in my pocket.

“Your son made a serious mistake,” Ivy said, and Jenks shuddered. “You beat him, told him he was making an error that was going to end his life, and you told him to walk away before you came back and finished the job. You saved his life. He will forgive you.”