It cannot be reconciled. Instead, we have come to an understanding. Gabriel will handle her appeal because that helps with Todd’s. I will visit her when she has something useful for me, through the network of fae who curry the favor of Matilda’s fearsome mother.

With Pamela, I got a private visiting room, no glass, no speaker. Ironic, considering she was the actual killer. Also frustrating, when she’d been convicted of the exact same crimes as Todd, given the exact same sentence, and yet she was seen as less of a threat. Women always are.

When we reached the visiting room door, I asked Gabriel, “Have you ever seen Silence of the Lambs?”

“No, but I’ve read the book.”

I had to laugh at that, a soft whoosh of a laugh, relief at breaking the tension. “Touché. But that’s what this feels like sometimes. My deal with the devil.”

“Except Pamela hasn’t eaten anyone.”

“Allegedly.”

I opened the door. Pamela was already waiting at the table. Anyone overhearing me compare her to Hannibal Lecter would laugh on seeing her there, a very ordinary woman with graying dark hair, thirty extra pounds, and a face unadorned by makeup, showing every one of her forty-six years. The type of woman who has settled comfortably into middle age and begun the transition to grandmother-hood, ready to start dandling babies on one plump knee while sneaking them candies from her overflowing purse.

When I first started visiting, Pamela would give me a look not dissimilar to what I get from Todd—unalloyed pleasure, the doting parent happy to see me whatever the circumstances. With Todd, that was genuine. With Pamela…I would like to say it was a false front, but it was more a half mask, one that puts a pretty sparkle on uncomfortable truth. Now, when I walk in, I get my real mother, and in her face I see pride.

I don’t need to wear a mask for my daughter—she’ll see right through it. She’s tough and she’s smart, and she’s a little bit ruthless, a little bit arrogant, a little bit cold. As she should be.

In Pamela’s pride, I see the best of myself and the worst, and it is as discomforting as dealing with Pamela herself.

“Gabriel,” she said, and others might hear a purr in that voice, but my ear heard a snake’s warning rattle. “I met your mother yesterday. Lovely woman. Drug addict. Petty criminal. Con artist. Has a much higher opinion of her intelligence—and herself—than is warranted. I can see the resemblance.”

“Hardly,” Gabriel said. “I’ve never done drugs.”

I laughed under my breath and pulled out a chair. “Now you understand why Gabriel and I get along so well. The common ground of maternal criminality.”

“Seanna Walsh is hardly on my level,” Pamela said.

“True,” I said. “She’s smart enough not to get caught.”