On all sides, I’ve been surrounded by people dealing in deception, trying to outsmart each other at a game where I’m the grand prize. Gunnar, Daphne, Mr. Strauss … and now even Ximena, a woman I’ve known almost my whole life. I get why she didn’t tell me she’s an actual sorceress, because I never would’ve been able to keep it a secret—but she knows something, and when I turned to her for help, she deceived me.

The amazing irony in all of this is that Jude Marlowe is the only one who never lied about what he is.

“It’s early,” Ximena remarks when we’re all gathered in the living room, Adriana and I side by side on a love seat near the front window. “Would you like some coffee?”

“Sure. Do you have sugar, or just more lies?”

Adriana shoots me a nervous frown. “Auggie.”

“No, mijita, it’s okay. He has a right to be upset.” Ximena seats herself in a high-backed wing chair—one Adriana’s grandpa used to favor when he was alive—and she picks up a mug of coffee from the table beside her. “So, Auggie. What is it you’d like to know?”

I scowl deeper, annoyed, the question designed to back-foot me. “How about we start with why you really yanked out my hair.”

“I needed some of your hair for a spell to determine whether or not the Corrupter was truly Rising inside you,” she says evenly, her eyes on mine. “But given the circumstances, I’m guessing you already know that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” My eyes film over, and I struggle hard not to fall apart, but that’s a battle I almost always lose. I didn’t mean to ask this question so early, to go right to what hurts me the most. From a lifetime of being “different,” I know how dangerous it is to expose your insecurities at the beginning of a confrontation. It’s the equivalent of handing your opponent a sledgehammer and a guidebook to your kneecaps.

But Ximena’s expression softens immediately, and she sets her coffee aside. “What could I tell you? It would have been cruel to say something before I was certain, to fill your head with scary stories that I couldn’t explain without first fessing up to something I’ve worked hard to keep hidden all my life. And after the spell was cast…” She falters, glancing away—and what’s left of my hope drops through a trapdoor and into a moat filled with alligators. “It’s not easy news to give someone, and there’s still a lot you don’t understand.”