"She'll be in Roman's library. Whatever she has planned, she'd do it there, because that was his favorite room. It's where he ran his entire empire. It's where she would want to bring him down."

The front door was open when we reached it, and we slipped into the cool darkness of the house. "This way," I whispered, nodding in the direction of the library. From high on the walls, portraits of Roman and Josephine watched us pass, their eyes cold and disapproving of our presence in their domain.

As we made our way down the hall, I heard a voice at the same time that I detected an odor in the air that didn't belong there.

"Smells like gasoline," Odane whispered as I wrinkled my nose. "I think she's already doused the place in it."

My eyes widened. I'd known it would be badthat she'd want to destroy anything left of what Roman had builtbut I hadn't expected to walk into a powder keg.

"We can go back if you want," Odane whispered. "Get some backup before we get in there."

I shook my head. I was more sure now than ever that my motherthat Thisbewas in here, and that Piers would be, too. And I was pretty sure we were out of time.

I nodded toward the library and started again, moving down the hall toward the voice. Outside the library's doors I hesitated. The voice was chanting, a resonant song of sorrow and pain in words I'd never heard, but in a voice that sounded like my momma humming to me as she stroked her fingers down my neck. I couldn't seem to stop myself from closing my eyes, just for a moment, and remembering the mother I'd once known.

"Chloe?"

I blinked my eyes open and found Odane watching me warily.

"Are you sure you're ready to do this?" he whispered. He was looking at me as though he was trying to decide something. "If you can't, go now, and I'll manage. But if you go in there, you have to be ready. Focused. You can't go soft on me. You can't think of her as your mothernot in there."

I took a deep breath to steady myself but gagged on the sharpness of the fuel that soaked the wood paneling and carpets all around us. It was enough to remind me of what I was doingof who the woman in that next room was to me now. "I'll be fine," I told him, and I hoped I was telling the truth.

Odane nodded, and we both eased ourselves into the library.

Even though it was August and not even a little bit cold, a fire was burning in the library's hearth. Its unnaturally red flames threw shadows across the floor, and its heat made the whole room feel like an oven. In the strange glow of the flickering fire, Thisbe had her back to us and was bent over a low, wide couch where Piers lay, unconscious. I almost gasped at the sight of him, but Odane's hand covered my mouth in time, and his arm kept me still.

Thisbe didn't notice our entrance at first. She was busy with her deep, discordant chanting, and her focus was on the white symbols she was drawing on Piers's half-naked body.

A moment later, though, she went stiff and raised her head to sniff the air like a wolf scenting her prey. A smile crept across her face as she turned to face us.

She looked older than she'd ever looked beforethe smooth-as-satin skin I'd hoped to inherit was now creased with lines that should have taken more than a handful of weeks to form. Her hair, which she'd always worn tucked back, was wild about her head and shot through with gray like some kind of Frankenstein's bride.

Her eyes narrowed when she saw me, like she didn't recognize me right away, and then all at once her face lit with recognition and the chanting stopped.

"Chloe?" Her voice sounded like it always did when she was crooning a song or telling a secret just for me, and I had a sudden, overwhelming urge to go to her. To bury myself in her arms like I'd done a thousand times before as a girl. Do you really believe I would ever hurt you? a voice whispered.

Before I could take a step toward her, Odane's hand on my arm steadied me and brought me back to myself. The look on his face when I met his eyesa warning, a questionreminded me what we were there to do. I gave him a small nod, to let him know that I understood and that it wouldn't happen again.

"Thisbe," I said, because I couldn't call her Momma and do what needed to be done, but the sound of that

name released something in her. Her face transformed itself into something horrible then, and all trace of my momma was gone.

She smiled at me, a creeping-up-your-spine kind of smile that made me regret ever entering that room, and I had the sudden realization that I'd been wrong. I wasn't strong enough to face her like this. I wasn't strong enough to face what it meant to be her daughter.

I heard a low chuckle rumble through my mind, amused. Like it knew what I'd been thinking and wasn't surprised in the least.

You're mine, the voice whispered. You've always been mine. Made for me and me alone, baby girl. Come to me now. Come to your momma.

Odane was there beside me, though, and when he took my hand in his, it gave me strength and anchored me to what was real. When he gave my hand a reassuring squeeze, it helped to mute the droning voice in my head.

"You came," the witch said, her eyes lighting on me. "Just as I knew you would. Just as I intended for you to."

I couldn't speak, but Odane's hand tightened around mine again. "The only thing we came for is Piers," I said. "We're not leaving without him."

Thisbe laughed, a dry-throated cackle that reminded me of nails on a chalkboard. "Then you came for nothing, because this one"she ran her finger across Piers's throat"he's mine now."

Odane and I exchanged an uneasy look. We had to get Thisbe away from Piers.

Distract her, Odane's eyes told me.

"I thought I was yours," I said, my voice breaking. "Isn't that what you always told me? I thought I was your girl, blood and bone, heart and soul?" I shivered as I said the words she'd crooned to me throughout my childhood, hearing for the first time something more sinister in the words I'd always thought meant love.

"Yes, you are that, baby girl," Thisbe said, her mouth turned down. "But you didn't come to me like you were supposed to. You chose them instead." Her face went thunderous. "You weren't supposed to have a choice."

"Why wasn't I?" I asked, taking another step to the side, but she didn't move from her place near Piers. "Because of those charms you wove into my hair? Is that why you could control me?"

She sneered. "Those? You think those bits of hoodoo were powerful enough to let me control you? No. Those weren't anything more than shielding charms, so you never learned what you really are. I could still control you if I wanted to," she said with a wicked smile. "Right now. Tomorrow. Anytime I wanted. Forever if I want."

I flinched, my eyes darting to Odane, but he shook his head, letting me know he had my back. Letting me know he trusted me.

I only hoped his trust in me wasn't misplaced, because now that I was away from the protection of his hand, that voice was back, calling me. Come to me, baby girl, it crooned. Leave all this and come be with me.

"What am I, Thisbe?" I asked, forcing myself to take another step away from Odane, forcing myself to ignore that seductive voice.

"You're nothing at all," she said. A smile as pleasant as it was terrible turned up her lips.

"I'm flesh and bone," I said. "I'm real. Human, unlike you."

She laughed again then. "You think so?" she asked, shaking her head. "You're flesh and bone, all right, but human? How can you be human without a soul?"

I froze. "I have a soul."

"You say," she scoffed.

"Everyone has a soul," I said. Because didn't a body need a soul? I shook my head. I wouldn't let her mind games get me all tangled up.

You're already tangled up, baby girl. You're already part of this.

"Stop stalling and let him go," I said, ignoring that voice even as I wanted to sink into it. "You can't win. The police are already on their way."

"That's a lie," Thisbe said. "Always did know when you were lying, didn't I?"

She stepped away from Piers then, not far, but just enough that her motion unnerved me. "You ever wonder why I was so good at picking out your falsehoods?"

I didn't answer. She was right, though. I'd learned a long time ago that there wasn't any way to lie to my mother. Not tell her things, maybe, but any lie I spoke and she knew the truth of the matter before the words had finished coming out of my mouth.

"You never could lie because I know you better than you know yourself. I made you." She sneered. "I've been deep down inside you since the day I brought you into this world. You can't escape me."

Something deep within me shifted, like it was answering the challenge in her voice. Like it knew she was right.

"That doesn't matter anymore. You won't walk away this time," I told her, feeling the truth of it. With the hanged man card warming my back pocket and the smell of gasoline heavy in the air, I knew I would do what I had to. I'd make any sacrifice I needed to make so that she didn't leave this room a free woman. To make sure she couldn't hurt anyone else. This would end with me, even if it ended me.

"I don't plan to walk away from this, baby girl. Not in this old body, at least." She huffed her delight when I didn't respond right away. "Confused? I thought by now you'd have worked it all out."

"Worked what out?" I asked, stepping aside and hoping to lure her again.

"What you are. What you've always been."

I wouldn't let myself play into her games. I stood silent, waiting for her to show her hand.

"What I made you to be, baby girl. And I did a good job of it, too, didn't I?" She took another step. "Beauty and brains and as empty inside as a vessel. My vessel."

I stiffened.

"You've felt it sometimes, haven't you?" she said, her voice so low it was practically a purr. "True, you're flesh and blood, but only because I deemed that you should be. I picked your father so your body would be strong, powerfultraveled the world wide to find someone worthy for the job. On the day you were born, I pulled you from my own body and stopped your first breath before your soul could breathe deep and fill you up. I gave you my breath instead. I put part of who I was inside of you."

"No" I said, not wanting to believe it.

"Yes," she said. "That's how it's always been. True enough, you had some free will. I had to give you the charms in your hair so you wouldn't suspect the hold I had on you, the connection we shared. After all, you needed to have a life if I was going to take it."

I stepped back, horrified by what she was telling me. "That's impossible," I said, swallowing hard. But I wasn't so sure she was lying. I'd tapped into her past so easily. And without the charms in my hair anymore, the connection between us was undeniable.

"Is it now?" She smiled.

"But why? You had Alex already. Why did you need me?"

"Every soul needs a body, baby girl, but about thirty years back that Frenchman's energy started to wane. He was a powerful one, an old soul, but nothing lasts forever." She laughed. "Nothing but me, I suppose. When I started going back to him more often to refresh my youth, I decided my soul needed two bodies. So I created you. Just in case."

"In case of what?" I was shaking, but had to focus. I had to ignore the devastating truth in her words, ignore the voice I could still hear calling me in my mind, and draw her away from Piers. I had to keep her focused on me, but the more focused on me she became, the more her voice called to me, and the more I wanted to answer it.

"For when he came back to me," she said, her voice soft and fluttery like a girl's.

"But Augustine never came back to you, did he?" I asked, ignoring the pull toward my mother as well as I could.

Thisbe grimaced but didn't respond.

"You waited and waited. You were faithful, weren't you?" I asked, sliding a little farther away from her, praying she followed.

"I was faithful," she hissed, stepping toward me like I hoped she would. "I've always been faithful," she said, like she had something to prove.

"Not always," I told her, poking at her weaknesses, trying to figure out how much she knew. Trying to distract her. "You had me, didn't you? Unless you conjured me out of the air, you were with a man."

Her face twisted into a snarl. "I was faithful," she growled. "I did everything for him, to be with him. Only him."

I shook my head. "You did all of thatyou gave up your very soul and all your possible futuresfor a man who didn't come back."

"He couldn't!" she shrieked, and then slumped over with a sob like she'd been punched in the stomach.

I glanced at Odane. She knows.

Not good, his eyes seemed to say.

I didn't disagree. She'd be more unstable because she knew. More desperate. Less predictable.

Be ready, I tried to tell him.

He nodded, just slightly, to let me know he understood.

"He couldn't come back because of what you did to him," I said, stepping toward her. "You didn't want him to go."

Her head snapped up.

"Yes, Thisbe, I know all about that."

Thisbe's eyes shifted, like she was nervous suddenly. "You don't know anything at all."

"I know you drugged Augustine"

Her eyes narrowed, but she didn't deny it.

"You tried to keep him," I said, more confident now in my words, "and that's how Roman killed him. But you didn't know that, did you? Not until recently, at least."

She glared at me, her eyes aglow with something not quite human. "I didn't, no. Not until that boy of yours brought me that evil book."

I froze. "What do you mean?"

Thisbe smiled. "I needed the charm that Aimes took from my cabin. I went to Le Ciel that day to kill him for it, but when I saw Aimes give Piers the package, I decided to change my plans. It was easy enough to get the boy's attention. He was so eager to put an end to me, so eager to be your shining knight. As though a bit of brute strength could overpower me. He did everything I neededretrieved the aloe from the old hag's shop, helped me kill Byron"

I couldn't stop my mouth from dropping open. "Piers wouldn't," I denied, thinking of his gentle, scholar's hands.

"Amazing what a little magic will do, isn't it? Easy as playing with a marionette on a string," Thisbe said, her mouth pulling up into a wicked curve. "True, he fought me the whole time, but you didn't seem to notice how much he was fighting when you talked to him on the phone."

My stomach turned. She'd had Piers then, and I hadn't even known he was gone. I hadn't trusted himor usenough to know he wouldn't have treated me so short, no matter how mad at me he was.

"But why?" I cried as my guilt clawed at me.

"Because I could. It was easier to use the boy than to take the chance of anyone seeing me."

"What did Byron ever do to you?"