Her mother was squinting at Nita, trying to read her face. Nita tried to force her legs to move, to get up from the table and run, run as far and as fast as she could. But she couldn’t seem to make her body move.

“There was a zannie in the video of you healing, wasn’t there?”

Nita’s poker face broke.

Her mother shook her head. “Oh, Nita. A zannie?”

Nita squeezed her eyes shut. “Leave him alone.”

“It’s a zannie, Nita. It tortures people. It’s evil.”

You’re evil too, and you don’t even have being a zannie to use as an excuse, Nita wanted to say.

Instead she said, “I don’t care.”

Her mother rolled her eyes dramatically. “Is this one of those dreadful misguided Romeo and Juliet teen romances I hear about? Have you been watching too many mafia-sponsored vampire dramas? Do you think your purity and goodness will cure him of his evil appetites?”

“No.” Nita snorted at the absurdity of it. Nita was many things, but good and pure weren’t any of them. And no one could change Kovit except Kovit. “Nothing like that.”

Nita didn’t say anything more, because her relationship with Kovit was complicated, and anything she said would only feed into her mother’s theory.

“Nita, darling.” Her mother sighed, long and slow. “My poor child. You’re so naive about the world sometimes.”

Nita bristled. “Stop patronizing me.”

“Fine.” Her mother’s mouth tightened. “But let me tell you a story. And then you tell me who’s the fool.”

Nita’s gaze was flat. “Fine. Tell your story.”

Her mother cleared her throat. “A long time ago, well before I had you, before I’d even met your father, I had a good friend who was a monster hunter.”

Nita snorted.

Her mother glared. “What was that for?”

“You. Having a friend. I don’t believe it.”

Her mother laughed then, throwing back her head, and then she leaned forward and smiled gently at Nita. “Yes, I know, it’s hard to believe I was that young and foolish. Never fear, I grew out of it, and you will too.”

That wasn’t a comforting thought, but Nita kept silent.

“Now,” her mother continued, “this friend of mine was very good at killing monsters. Even better than me, if you can believe it. Her great love was the challenge of the hunt, and so she’d take dangerous, wild jobs no one else would touch. She was fearless, and people paid her well to kill their monsters.

“But one day this friend fell in love. With a monster. One she was supposed to be hunting.”

“And what?” Nita asked. “It killed her?”

“No.” Her mother’s eyes went sad, and her voice soft. “It did something much, much worse.”