“I come on behalf of the first Heart Queen of the Second Age, Amara.”

“You do? Why? Where have you been?”

“She thought it might be better to hear it all from me,” she says. “And I’ve been with your father.”

“Is he here too?” I ask, hope flaring in my chest, but she shakes her head.

“Alas, it could only be us. A former Primary and her future.”

“Oh,” I say, trying not to let that disappoint me too much. My mother is here, and that’s more than I ever dreamed possible.

“Where is he? Where have you been?”

“We were granted passage into the Evanescence upon our deaths,” my mother says. “The Artefacts agreed that while I never ascended, they would still afford us that honor.”

I remember what Cedar and Elswyth said when we were in The Woodlands, realizing this explains why they never found our parents’ bodies. Though Tristan and I fantasized for a brief second that they might be alive, the truth is actually comforting, because they deserved this as their resting place.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because of you, my girl,” she says. “While my destiny as the Heart Queen was never meant to be, it lives on in you.”

“That’s kind of what Coral told me.”

She nods. “The magic lives inside you.”

“But if I don’t ascend or have a child of my own, then it will be lost forever,” I say, repeating what Coral told me. “Then Heart will die.”

My mother nods. “That is the message Amara sends as well.”

“I can’t bring a child into this. Besides, I don’t think we have that much time.”

“I think you may be right,” my mother says.

“What did you mean that it might be better hearing it from you?”

Her lips press together.

“I’ve been sent not only to offer some clarity about past events but also to warn you.”

“Warn me?”

“Zerra knows the Empyrium seek a replacement.”

My mother’s gaze slides to me, the expression on her face clear.

“And she knows it’s me,” I say, finally confirming what Nadir and I already suspected.

“She has sought to kill you,” my mother says. “And she will stop at nothing to do so.”

I rub my face. “Yeah, I was kind of getting that from the fireballs falling from the sky.”

My mother smiles. “I’ve missed that dry sarcasm.”

I laugh. “I don’t think you enjoyed it much when I was twelve.”

She laughs too. “Being your mother wasn’t always easy, but I knew that ferocious spirit would do you well in the end.”

“So what do I do about her?”

“You will need to . . .”

“Kill her before she kills me?” I ask, and my mother nods.

“Can’t the Empyrium just take care of her?”