“If it had wanted to get away,” Mia said quietly, “it would have.”

“Why would it bother fooling me?” Susannah asked, but she didn’t need Mia to answer that question, not now. Because it had needed her, of course. It had needed her to carry the baby.

Roland’s baby.

Roland’s doom.

“You know everything you need to know about the chap,” Mia said. “Don’t you?”

Susannah supposed she did. A demon had taken in Roland’s seed while female; had stored it, somehow; and then shot it into Susannah Dean as male. Mia was right. She knew what she needed to know.

“I’ve kept my promise,” Mia said. “Let’s go back. The cold’s not good for the chap.”

“Just a minute longer,” Susannah said. She held up the pokeberry. Golden fruit now bulged through ruptures in the orange skin. “My berry just popped. Let me eat it. I have another question.”

“Eat and ask and be quick about both.”

“Who are you? Who are you really? Are you this demon? Does she have a name, by the way? She and he, do they have a name?”

“No,” Mia said. “Elementals have no need of names; they are what they are. Am I a demon? Is that what you’d know? Yar, I suppose I am. Or I was. All that is vague now, like a dream.”

“And you’re not me … or are you?”

Mia didn’t answer. And Susannah realized that she probably didn’t know.

“Mia?” Low. Musing.

Mia was hunkering against the merlon with her serape tucked between her knees. Susannah could see that her ankles were swollen and felt a moment’s pity for the woman. Then she squashed it. This was no time for pity, for there was no truth in it.

“You ain’t nothing but the baby-sitter, girl.”

The reaction was all she’d hoped for, and more. Mia’s face registered shock, then anger. Hell, fury. “You lie! I’m this chap’s mother! And when he comes, Susannah, there will be no more combing the world for Breakers, for my chap will be the greatest of them all, able to break both of the remaining Beams all by himself!” Her voice had filled with pride that sounded alarmingly close to insanity. “My Mordred! Do you hear me?”

“Oh, yes,” Susannah said. “I hear. And you’re actually going to go trotting right to those who’ve made it their business to pull down the Tower, aren’t you? They call, you come.” She paused, then finished with deliberate softness. “And when you get to them, they’ll take your chap, and thank you very much, and then send you back into the soup you came from.”

“Nay! I shall have the raising of him, for so they have promised!” Mia crossed her arms protectively over her belly. “He’s mine, I’m his mother and I shall have the raising of him!”

“Girl, why don’t you get real? Do you think they’ll keep their word? Them? How can you see so much and not see that?”

Susannah knew the answer, of course. Motherhood itself had deluded her.