But there were other shapes in the darkness. Other relatives.

She recognized Zofi first. Her veins ran hotter than anyone else’s, the blood brighter, the pulse faster. She smelled like running on a windy beach, or diving off a cliff into the sea.

Florencia’s blood ran slower, smelled of perfumed dances and sly sideways smiles.

And beside Ren, another presence. Vast and wild, dancing around the edge of her perception. This person felt harder to sense, almost… hidden. She couldn’t see their veins or heart or pulse. The scent, however, was harder to mask. This thing smelled familiar. Like sweat and fistfights and screaming at the top of your lungs, The world is so damned wrong.

She tore her mind from the black hole of that presence, refocused on the task at hand. Healing Father.

Akeylah concentrated on his outline. She reached into his blackened veins, and groaned as the stench filled her nostrils, invaded her mouth. He tasted of bile, of guilt and loneliness. She wanted to puke. She wanted to lie down and die alongside him.

Last time, this part had been simple. She’d planted a seed—a tiny drop of cursed blood. Now, she had to rip up a whole root system. Tear out the venomous plant she’d grown in him.

Her forehead creased in concentration.

The curse wove through his veins. It had grown enormous, from that one drop. She reached for his body as though pushing through a membrane, until her fingertips curled around the black poison.

It was slippery, hard to grasp. She raised both hands, wound the curse’s roots around her knuckles and pulled.

Somewhere in the distant corner of her mind still connected to reality, she heard a shout of pain from the adjacent room.

She ignored it, yanked harder. Threw all her weight into this, fists clenched so tight they shook, her whole body leaning away from her father’s. She channeled all her weight and focus behind the movement.

She felt the curse begin to give. The black web creaked, and a few tendrils snapped. In those places, she glimpsed clean red bloodstream, Father’s veins beginning to return to normal.

Underneath the regret-rot scent of the curse, she caught whiffs of another scent. A smell like sunrise on a craggy cliff or an overstrong abraca brew. She gritted her teeth, wrenched at that black web again. This time, she couldn’t tell whether the cry of pain came from herself or her father. But she bent into it, pulled and pulled and pulled until, with a sharp cracking sensation, the curse broke.

Akeylah fell backward, and the world slammed into view. The tile floor, dotted with her blood. The glow from her scar, twice as bright now, lighting the whole room.

She moaned. It hurt.

But Akeylah was used to pain.