Bryde was there, blood all up and down one arm with no sign of where it was coming from. He stood silent as Angelica screamed in his face.

The children were all crying.

Katie was curled up small, her arms linked around her leg braces, whimpering. Yesenia was sobbing and occasionally babbling, hoarse when she did. Stephen was trying to look stoic as he watched Angelica let Bryde have it, but his mouth was crumpled and his chin dimpling in a way that reminded Ronan uncomfortably of when Matthew was upset. Wilson and Ana clung to Angelica, faces buried in their mother’s shirt. There was blood on her clothing, too.

“What the hell,” Ronan said, but his words were lost in the cacophony.

“Accidents happen,” Bryde said. “And surely you can tell by looking at her she didn’t mean to do it.”

“It doesn’t matter that it is an accident,” Angelica barked back. “Traffic collisions are accidents—that doesn’t mean I send my children to play in the street!”

“I was only a minute behind her in the dream,” Bryde pointed out. “They were never in danger.”

Angelica swept her arm over the children. “You and I have a very different definition of danger! I saw those things—that thing. I saw it. It …” Her anger had to disappear for a moment as she choked down a horrified half sob.

Hennessy looked up at Ronan, her expression quite calm. But when she blinked, two tears immediately broke free and raced down her cheeks.

Then Ronan got it.

She’d taken out the Lace.

Bryde had dispatched it somehow, but Ronan knew that didn’t really matter in the relative scheme of things. The injury of the Lace wasn’t whatever sparring had caused that blood. It was the mere existence of the Lace. It was that before you saw the Lace, you didn’t know something like the Lace could exist. Especially if you hadn’t known, before that minute, that anything could hate you that much. Especially if you hadn’t known, before that minute, that you could hate yourself that much.

Katie had stopped whimpering and was staring off at nothing, her eyes lost.

Hennessy looked at Ronan and shook her head as another tear escaped.

“I’m so sorry,” she told Angelica. “I’m so sorry. I’m so—”

“Who are you to have that in your head?” Angelica said. Then her eyebrows sort of got themselves together and her entire expression got harder. Ronan could tell that whatever she said next was going to be absolutely true and would absolutely destroy Hennessy. Before she could say it, Bryde held up a hand.

He turned to Ronan and Hennessy. “Get your things. Then get in the car.”

“Why?” Hennessy asked in a hollow voice.