It was hard for her to be so abrasive, so rude. But wasn’t there a hint of something different, something just a bit more awake, in her father’s expression? The voices gabbled in agitation and then seemed to arrive at some agreement. Luce braced herself as they came at her: a tangle of boiling winds carrying spinning fragments of grass and torn wildflowers.

“Child of Proteus,” the wheezing old voice gasped out, grating and vicious.

Luce cut it off.

“I am NOT the child of Proteus!” She shouted the words, and suddenly her rage wasn’t an act anymore. “Don’t you ever dare to call me that again!”

The voices wheezed and hissed, debris flung higher and higher in their whispering torrent. Luce knew they were astonished, beside themselves with confusion. This was her chance!

She pressed on. “You want to know whose child I am? I’m the daughter of Alyssa Gray and Andrew Korchak. Alyssa Gray is dead. She’s nothing but memories now, and there is nothing I can do about that! She’s gone forever.” Luce knew what she had to say next, but she could barely make herself do it. It seemed so cruel, especially with her father right there listening. “I’m going to forget her.”

Luce’s hands were shaking now. Her father suddenly looked straight at her, his eyes wide with hurt. She waited with desperate hope for him to argue with her—to yell, “Lucette! Don’t say that!” Luce could practically see the words taking shape in his eyes, but they didn’t come to his lips. Not yet.

The voices came closer, an angry chaos of winds. They lashed out at her with airy tentacles, then just as suddenly pulled back. Luce’s hair jerked in their grip and fell again. “Child of . . .” the angry old voice gasped.

Then it paused uncertainly, and Luce attacked.

“I’m also the child of Andrew Korchak. The man you’ve been keeping here. I thought he was lost forever, but he’s not. He’s still alive, and he can still have a future. He can forget Alyssa, too—forget her enough, anyway, and fall in love with someone else. And maybe he should forget me, and have a new child . . .” Luce gagged on the words even as she said them, and the tangled voices screamed in her ears. They were going insane; at any moment, Luce thought, they would start invading her head again. Their shrieking pierced her thoughts, and she raised her voice to make sure her father would hear her above their wailing. “But I am NOT letting you keep him!”