She looked through the blinds, out at the parking lot and the little storefront with the pink neon “Psychic” sign. A woman stooped over, putting something on Aurora’s doorstep.

She opened the door.

The woman stepped back, startled. Dog went to sniff her leg, then stuck his nose into the basket she’d placed by the front step.

“Nephy?” Aurora said.

Nephy, her half-sister, the woman who’d betrayed her, stood and looked at Aurora.

“What are you doing?” Aurora said. “How did you find me?”

Nephy had cut her hair short and she wore all black. Her long acrylic nails were gone, her skin bare of makeup. She looks like me now, Aurora thought, though her own hair had mostly grown back during the pregnancy.

“I kept asking Ted. He finally told me. I think he was worried about Jack.”

“Who? Why are you here, Nephy?”

“I can’t keep him,” Nephy said. “Please, you have to keep him for me, Izzy.”

“That’s not my name.” Aurora peered into the basket. The child lay there looking up at her with eyes like slivered obsidian. A shock of black hair stood straight up on his head.

“His name is Jack,” said Nephy.

Cyrus and Nephy’s child.

Cyrus, her lover. Maybe, though Aurora didn’t want to believe it, they’d all been under some spell, under the enchantment of the myth. But if she were ever to feel that she had free will, she must accept that Cyrus did, too. And that he’d betrayed her.

“How the fuck did you even find me?”

“Please,” Nephy said. “We drove all the way from the desert. Can we come in at least?”

The baby had started to whimper. Aurora stood back and let Nephy bring his basket inside.

Dog settled by Keaton’s bassinette, boxy jowls hanging, eyes grievous and ever-watchful.

Nephy put the basket down, but she wouldn’t sit.

“You can’t just abandon your child,” Aurora said. “What the fuck, Nephy?”

“You could take care of him,” Nephy said. “Until I get myself together at least. I haven’t been well since—”

Since Cyrus had died and it turned out that Cyrus, Aurora, Nephy, and Seth were half-siblings. Since Seth ran off with Nephy as his shield and was then arrested for killing Cyrus and trying to kill Ever. Since Nephy had given birth to her half-brother’s child. Who could blame her for not being “well”?

Aurora wasn’t sure she was either, though.

“You were going to just leave him there? On my doorstep? Like some crazy changeling shit?” she said, thinking of Leanne’s stories.

“I’m sorry.” Nephy put her hands over her face and began to cry. “I’m sorry for everything. Cyrus and me—it was just for a short time, I swear. It was my fault. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just needed Cyrus.”