Besides, you had to respect anyone who was willing to confront Grandma.

When the butler opened the door to the great house on the Hill, Mateo put on his best smile. “Yeah. I’ve shown up three times in one year. Crazy, huh? It’s like I’m ready to move in or something.”

“ … Mrs. Cabot has retired.”

It took Mateo a moment to realize that he didn’t mean Grandma had quit her job; so far as he knew, she’d never had one. She was just in bed. “Well, we need to see her. It’s important.” Then he paused, remembering the ghastly scars on his grandmother’s face and how badly they must have hurt. More quietly, he added, “Tell her I’m—reasonable. It’s okay. My friend just has some questions about our family history that only Grandma can answer.”

The butler didn’t seem to think much of this, but he showed them into a side parlor and went upstairs. “He has to wake up Grandma,” Mateo explained as he took a seat on the long antique sofa, with its wooden frame and gold silk cushions. “That guy should get combat pay.”

Nadia didn’t sit by his side; instead she paced the length of the parlor, a long, thin room with ornate green-and-white wallpaper and endless overstuffed, heavily carved furniture, all slightly hazy with a layer of dust. At first Mateo thought she felt awkward—and no wonder—but then he realized she was staring at one of the oil paintings on the wall. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “Have you never seen this?”

“Seen what?” Usually he got in and out of Grandma’s house as fast as possible, so he hadn’t spent much time studying the wall décor. But as Mateo went to her side, he realized she was pointing at an old family portrait … really old, from the looks of it. The faces were flat, the sense of proportion skewed: It reminded him of paintings of George Washington or Benjamin Franklin he’d seen in history textbooks.

“Mateo, look,” Nadia insisted. “Really look.”

It was almost as if he had to force himself to do it. Why? But slowly the realization crept in as he focused on one figure in the back of the family group, standing slightly to the side—an older woman whose long, curly hair was half-chestnut, half-gray, and there was something about the eyes—

He whispered, “Elizabeth.”

Even this far back, she’d always been there, like a leech or a remora on the side of his family, sucking them dry.

“You’re important to her.” Nadia never took her eyes from the portrait. “All of you. Her magic may be linked to your family in some profound way we haven’t yet guessed. The visions—as horrible as they are, as devastating as they can be—that’s not all she’s done to the Cabots. Not all she’s done to you. We’ve only just started to figure her out.”

Mateo’s mouth felt dry. The rage spiked within him again, white-hot and blinding, but he refused to give in to it. Going crazy over this, no matter how understandable it might be—that was just what Elizabeth wanted.