Sil threw back his head and laughed, revealing his brown and jagged teeth. I might have looked better, but he looked worse. Less like a Japanese businessman, and more like an animal. More savage. And more crazy, if that was possible. “It’s more than paint on your face. You never belonged in that dead place. You are completely alive.”

His hand closed over a fistful of my mother’s hair, and he jerked her close, rubbing his nose along the edge of her face. She made this pathetic mewling sound and put her arms around his waist, turning my stomach as she tilted her head up and allowed him to give her a kiss so deep that he must have been licking her tonsils. Then he wrenched her head away, and his eyes swept back to mine. “I was so happy to find Rita here. She reminded me of you immediately. That’s why I took her, actually. I had no idea how you were linked. Such a nice surprise.” His hand slithered across her chest, squeezing and pinching, making me clench my fists.

“Where’s Tegan?” I asked, taking a step forward.

“They’ll bring her up when I have you secured.” He nodded across the room, where a table had been set up in the open space on the other side of the bar. Ropes had been tied to each of the table legs, and incense smoked up from four pots set at each of the corners. “But I wanted a chance for us to have a family chat first.”

“She’s not my family,” I snapped. “She hasn’t been my family for a long time. Nice try, though.”

He buried his face in my mother’s hair, but raised his head when he heard the glass crunch beneath my soles as I took another step toward him. “Ah, but you’re wrong. You risked your life to save hers. You took an arrow meant for her. You betray yourself, Lela girl. And our Rita … she cannot get her mind off you, no matter how hard she tries.”

The Rita-Mazikin gave me a tremulous, tender smile. “Mija,” she whispered.

Sil giggled, running his hands over her in a way that said one thing: he owned her. “You see? This Rita is bad,” he said, his voice soft and gentle as he nuzzled her neck. “She is bad and weak. This is her first time away from our Mazikin realm. And this body … its brain is rotten. It has made her very confused. She has lost touch with who she really is.” He snorted. “She forgets where her loyalties lie.”