Sorrow welled in her chest. What about all the innocent people who’d gotten caught in the Brotherhood’s crossfire? Or what about people like her, corrupted by magic through no fault of her own, hunted down like she was some kind of murderer? The Brotherhood’s reach had spiraled out of control. Even she could see that now.

Yet she’d been a willing part of this system, refusing to let herself think about the casualties and the collateral damage. After all, in a war between good and evil, anything was justified, right?

“I can see how the Brotherhood’s methods are… problematic.” She glanced at Caine. For once, he was keeping his mouth shut. Maybe he understood that her whole future was collapsing before her. “I suppose my loyalty to the Brotherhood is just another example of my chronic wrongness.”

“It’s really the primary example,” he said.

Grief overwhelmed her, and she fought to keep the tears at bay. She’d been thinking of the Brotherhood as her family for so long. But maybe they were a severely dysfunctional, abusive family—not unlike Mason. And if they were coming after Tammi, it was time to move on. “I won’t go back to the Brotherhood. I still want to protect humans and fight the real monsters.” Suddenly exhausted, she rubbed a hand over her forehead. “Maybe the monsters aren’t as easy to identify as I once thought. Only the really horrible ones, like Bileth, and the mage inside me.”

Tammi crinkled her brow. “The what inside you?”

Rosalind glanced at her friend. “I’m possessed. By the ghost of a crazy lady.”

Tammi narrowed her eyes. “That’s what they told me in the church I used to go to.”

“Yeah, but mine is a real possession. I have access to magic, but I can’t use it without being possessed by a maniac. And not only that, but if I take my ring off, my skin starts burning, like I’m standing in the center of an inferno.”

Tammi’s eyes widened. “Holy shit, Ros.”

“There was one way around that, if I recall,” added Caine.

“I can’t throw myself at you every time…” Flustered, she let her sentence trail off.

Tammi twirled a strand of blonde hair around her finger, eyeing Caine. “That doesn’t sound so bad to me.”

A smile played over Caine’s lips. “I told you your friend was sensible.”

When she thought of taking off her ring, panic blazed through her nerves. “Forget it. How soon can we go see the sybil?”

“You still want to do that?” Caine asked. “Even though you’re starting to understand that the Brotherhood are wrong about everything—including that magic is evil—you’re still running away from your own power like a scared child.”

The way he spoke to her still irked her. “Yes. I want the exorcism. But if you need to hear it, you’re right about the Brotherhood, Caine, and I no longer have a future. I hope that makes you feel better. You obviously like control over things, and now another thing is going your way.” Still flickering between anger and a burning disappointment, she felt a sudden need to lash out at him again. “Out of curiosity, does anything ever not go your way, or do you just seduce or hypnotize your way into getting anything you want?”