She lets the light in her hands snuff out as she stumbles toward me to pull me in her arms. I’ve long been taller than her, but she manages to make me feel small as she burrows her damp face in the crook of my shoulder. She’s shaking.

“Shh, Mom, it’s all right.” I comfort her in the quiet voice I always use with her. “What are you doing here?” I ask.

She pulls back and looks at me. “You’re still here.”

I’m confused. “Of course I’m still here.”

From behind me, I hear the moaning of the three boys as my father and the others tie them up. I glance over my shoulder and see the same frozen fear in their eyes as they had when I took control of their bodies. My father is controlling them too. He makes them empty their pockets and wait patiently with their wrists behind their backs, their faces contorted with frustration.

I turn back to my mother. “Mom, please explain, I beg of you.”

“I saw—” She heaves in a breath as if to keep herself from crying. “I saw—”

My father interrupts. “Lena, Maxine, I’ve met. You boys are?”

“Oliver Callahan, sir. Nice to see you again, Mrs. Hallowell,” he calls to my mother.

I see the moment my father’s eyes land on Finn. He lunges at him, landing a blow square in his gut. Finn sputters, gasping for breath.

My father punches again and again until I scream, “Stop!”

Finn heaves and stumbles back from my father, who looks at him with such ire, I’m afraid he might actually kill him.

“Tie him up,” I command. “But please, no more.”

My father nods silently, unhappily, and binds Finn’s wrists behind his back. To my surprise, Finn lets him do it, making unyielding eye contact with me all the while.

I turn back to my mother, who is shaking and clutching herself around the middle. We need to close the veil and get her out of the catacombs as quickly as we’re able. I take off my overcoat and wrap it around her thin shoulders.

I turn to the others. “We have the key, we’re in front the veil, let’s close this and be done with it.”

“But—” Finn protests.

“But you want to be immortal?” I snap. “You’re out of luck.”

Oliver strides over to Finn and reaches into the breast pocket of his coat to pull out the golden key. It looks smaller in the shadows of the catacombs.

He passes it to my father, who rolls it around in his palm a few times, then holds it up to the flickering torch on the wall to get a better look. “We will be deathless?” he translates the words on the key.

“Is it the spell?” It must be.