“You know, it’s not polite to stare,” she says, but she isn’t talking to me—she’s addressing her mother. Nora is looking at me so intently, it’s as if she’s trying to see my parents’ faces in mine.

I try to wipe the ridiculous look off my face. “You knew my parents?” My heart feels as if it’s detached from my chest, tumbling around in my stomach like loose change.

Elaine tucks some escaped strands of black hair into her messy bun. “Sure,” she says in a gravelly voice. “Your mother grew up in Wick, and she and your father were regulars at Ravenfall. We spent a lot of time here together before they stopped coming about eighteen years or so ago. Wanted to quote, ‘step back from the magical world,’ wasn’t it, Nora?”

Nora is still watching me. “Yes, because of the birth of their first son,” she says tightly, and I get the feeling that’s not the whole story.

I glance at Anna, but she looks as confused as I feel. Some small part of me takes comfort in knowing that she’s out of the loop for once too.

Elaine settles into a chair across from me. “How are they doing, anyway? It’s been a long time.”

My voice sticks in my throat. Suddenly the sight of all the food on my plate makes me nauseous. For days, the truth of what happened has crouched in the back of my mind, an unrelenting presence. But as long as I kept it to myself, I could control it. To say it out loud…

The sound of the band and the chatter of the guests fades as if slipping underwater.

“They’re dead,” I whisper at last. “They were murdered a few days ago.”

Elaine’s lips form a very round O before she turns sharply to look at Nora. “You didn’t know?”

“They were incredibly well warded!” Nora replies hotly. “I didn’t…I couldn’t—” She sets her jaw. “They didn’t want to be found, Elaine. Least of all by us.”

Elaine drops her head into her hands. “Still, how could we not have known they were gone?”

“We haven’t heard from them in eighteen years.” Nora’s voice warbles, and I realize that she’s trying not to cry as much as I am. “There’s nothing we could have done. Nothing they—” She stops, looking in my direction.

Elaine curses under her breath, the palms of her hands digging into her temples. “That was eighteen years ago, Nora. It shouldn’t matter now.”

Back and forth they go. I catch snippets, but I’ve begun to feel dizzy. Listening to them talk about my parents is too much. The room starts shrinking, the noise and smells pressing in. Anna tries to interject, but the adults don’t respond.

I swear the room is spinning, everyone’s voices growing louder and louder.