Evdokia turned to her. “There is nothing wrong with my son marrying them. It will be the best wedding and he will be the best priest.”

Maria opened her mouth.

“You better be careful what you say next,” Evdokia said.

I raised my voice. “This isn’t helping.”

“You have to defeat him,” Sienna said.

Nice how she avoided the word “kill.”

An odd anxiety claimed me. I didn’t want to kill my father.

It made no sense. He was a monster and a tyrant. If it was a choice between my life and his, he would take mine. I’d wanted to hurt him this morning. But he was my father. What the hell was wrong with me?

Thinking about it was too complicated so I shoved it aside. There would be time to puzzle over this later.

“Have you made any progress with the ifrit’s box?” Evdokia asked. “You’ve been talking to Bahir and his people. Did you learn anything?”

“I can’t figure out how it works. I talked to some very smart, educated people about it. They can’t figure out how it works either. We don’t have the box itself anymore, so we can’t examine it. All we have are the incantations, which are a variant of a typical ward, infused with divine power. I don’t know where to go from here.”

“None of us have as much power over the future as you,” Sienna said.

“She means you have to do something,” Maria snapped.

“Do what?” I looked at her. She had been powerful for too long to flinch, but a hint of uncertainty showed in her eyes. “Well? I’m waiting for your wisdom.”

“Do anything,” the crone said. “We gave you this city—”

“No. I took the city. I took it by myself and I protected it from my father’s claiming. You didn’t help. You weren’t there.”

Maria’s eyes blazed. “Remember who you’re talking to!”

“You should take your own advice.”

The cave fell completely silent. The witches stared at me. Sienna rubbed her throat, as if something was choking off her air.

The storm I’d had to contain this morning simmered under my skin. My father would kill Curran or our son. There was nothing I could do to stop him.

The magic inside me boiled. I had to vent or it would tear me apart. I looked up to the patch of light and sky above me and let it go.

The magic burst from me, surging upward, into the sky. The water of the basin rose in the air, stretching into a thousand glittering strands, revealing the rocky bottom of the pool. Power and fury poured out of me, flowing like a raging river.

The pressure eased. I shut off the current. The water crashed back into the basin.

“Oh, Katenka,” Evdokia whispered.