“Parking.” I’d also sent him on a bit of a wild-goose chase, giving him a few places to look for Pamela while I talked to Patrick. The truth was that the closer we’d gotten to Cainsville, the more I wondered if Patrick would actually do anything.

Which meant that Pamela might have already succeeded. If she had, then Gabriel shouldn’t be there.

“Can you stall him?” I asked Pepper. “Please?”

“Gaze up adoringly at him,” Grace said. “Like you did when you first arrived. Call him Gwynn, mighty king of the Fae. He loves that.”

Pepper shot her the finger.

Grace cackled and said, “Just stall him, girl. He has a soft spot for you. Play up your disability. It’s good for that, at least.”

Another flashed middle finger as Pepper took off back down the stairs while we continued to climb.

“Any clue what this is about?” Grace said. “A summary will do.”

“Pamela’s free, and she’s come to kill Seanna.”

“Cach.”

“Exactly.”

I yanked open the third-floor door to see Patrick lounging in the hall.

He straightened. “Liv. And Grace. Lovely. Come to keep me company in my murder-watch? No sign of Pamela yet, but I’m really hoping she’ll show. I do hope to meet her.”

“Where are Helia and Alexios?”

He pointed at the apartment door. “In there, of course. I decided I was more comfortable out here. They can be rather tiresome.”

I started for the apartment.

Patrick caught my arm. “Before you go in there, I wanted to ask—”

I yanked away. “I need to see her.”

He leaned in to my ear. “Don’t worry—I’ll help with any excuse you need. Just another minute and it’ll be over, and we’ll all be much happier.”

“You— She’s—”

I wrenched from his grip and lunged for the door. He tried to grab me, but Grace interceded, throwing him aside like a prizefighter with a toddler.

I opened the door and raced inside. Helia and Alexios lay on the sofa, curled up together, fast asleep, a bottle of wine on the coffee table. I tore into the bedroom. And there was my mother, with a pillow poised over Seanna’s sleeping face.

I saw that, and I stopped. I just…I couldn’t process. That sounds ridiculous. I knew what my mother was. I knew she’d killed four people to cure me. Murdered them in cold blood. But I ran through that doorway, and I saw her poised over Seanna, and a memory flashed, a woman leaning into my crib, brushing back my hair and kissing my forehead as she whispered, “I’m going to fix you, baby. Whatever it takes, I’m going to fix you.”

“Mom?”

Pamela froze. Lifted her head, saw me, and backed away, pillow in one hand, a knife in the other.

“Stay away, Eden,” she said.

“Or what?” I said. “You’ll kill me, too?”