A look of pain crossed her face and I was sorry I’d told her that, but then she steeled her face and laid the knife to the coils. Sparks flew from them and they lashed out at her. “I can’t do it,” she said. “It has to be you.”

She handed me the knife. It felt cold and heavy in my hand. She showed me where I needed to cut. I lifted the knife to the coil … but then hesitated. I looked her in the eye. If I didn’t cut the coil, I’d be trapped in this moment with my mother. I could stay here with her forever, with the one person, along with my father, I was sure I loved, who understood me … as she understood me now. She opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it. I was old enough to make my own decision. That look decided me. She had been willing to risk her own safety for me. I touched the knife to the coils …

Something inside snapped and I was back on the porch. Duncan was pulling my hand back, pulling me away from the rain. The coils were unwrapping around me, hissing in the rain, turning into white mist. I felt them uncoiling inside me. My mother had been right. It hurt, like someone was pulling a length of barbed wire through my flesh. Duncan tried to pull me out of the rain, but I was doubled over in pain. I pulled myself together enough to keep hold of his hand, and with my free hand I felt in my pocket for the bag of herbs I’d stashed there. I took a pinch out and held it up to the wind. Through teeth gritted with pain, I recited the last bit of the spell I’d memorized.

Carry these leaves on your wind,

Let all whom you touch put away their disguises,

You who reward the just and punish the false,

Wash away all illusions with your rain.

Duncan tried to lunge at my hand, but he was too late. I let go of the herbs and the night was suddenly full of the scent of clary sage and bluebells. The wind blew the rain straight onto the porch. Duncan tried to step back but I had slipped my hand around his wrist and held on tight, aided by the power of the goddess I had called on. She was in me now. My wards were rising off my skin and dissolving in the mist as I turned around.

Claws slashed across my face, blinding me. I screamed and raised my hands to my eyes and fell to my knees. I heard Duncan’s footsteps running down the porch steps, then his screams of pain as he fled into the rain, and then nothing but my own ragged sobs of pain mingling with the falling rain.

Chapter Twenty-Four

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR