I grab her by her narrow shoulders and duck to look up into her eyes. “How do you know? I thought only Mrs. Vykotsky and Boss Olan knew.”

My mother sniffs but the tears keep falling. She makes no move to scrub them away. My father reachers out with a handkerchief and gently pats the skin under her eyes. “Ana Vykotsky wasn’t supposed to tell me.” She doesn’t look at any of us as she recounts the memory. “She was sworn to secrecy by virtue of her position, but she thought I needed to hear it, so she told me anyway. Ana only cared for rules she herself created. It was about a witch much like myself, one in love with a Son, one about to leave Haxahaven to be with him, which Ana regarded as being the biggest mistake of my life.”

“Mom, I know.” I interrupt her. “Dad told me this story already.”

My mom shakes her head. “But your father doesn’t know the ending.”

Next to her, my father places a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Ingrid was a gifted witch, she knew magic demanded balance.” My mother explains, “She felt the veil calling for her. So she—” My mother hiccups a sob and forces the last part out. “So she flung herself into the veil, dead and gone, and magic was restored. Mrs. Vykotsky wanted to dissuade me from falling in love with a Son. ‘Look at where it leads,’ she told me. ‘Nowhere good.’ ”

The truth feels like a slap to the face. Right in front of me, something I should have seen coming, but it stings all the same. The key was nothing. A diversion created by the Sons. This is the real price. The veil demands life, my life.

We stand in stunned silence as the weight of her story settles. I watch the shadows from the torchlight dance along the wall, unable to let her words sink in.

I think of my mother and father, both cursed by the veil in such different ways. My mother was told to stay away and picked my dad anyway. She paid in a life of loneliness. My father in his attempt to avoid ruin left a pile of wreckage in his wake anyway. His price is guilt.

My heart is broken in so many places.

But I know without a doubt, this needs to end tonight before another innocent boy like Benny ends up with a sword in his heart.

“We’ll find another way,” Lena speaks up. “This can’t be the only way.”

My mother nods rapidly. “I cannot lose another child. Please. I came here to stop you. I saw what happened to William but I couldn’t stop it. I can still stop this. Let me stop this.”

But I feel the way the veil is calling for me, and I know she is wrong. This is the answer we’ve been so desperately searching for.