"They know about the parlor too? Unbelievable." Once again, everyone has been keeping me in the dark. I feel a surge of anger as I storm away, my mind spinning through the herbs and flowers I've studied over the years.

What comes to mind as I reach the closed parlor doors is a shrub I once planted in our community garden. Its technical name is Euonymus americanus, but it's more commonly known as bursting-heart or burning-bush. Superstitious people put it over their doorways to repel unwanted magic.

It may not be the perfect plant for what I'm trying to do, but it should work. I stand in front of the doors and ask Eloi Oke to open the gates. Then I take a deep breath, think of my mother, hold my left ring finger against my Stone of Carrefour, and say, "Bursting-heart, Euonymus americanus, I draw your power. Please, spirits, open this door to me and reveal the secrets that lie inside."

For a moment, nothing happens. Then I hear a click, and one of the doors opens a crack. Musty air escapes in a whoosh, and I drop my stone and reach for the handle, my heart racing in anticipation as I push it open.

As my eyes adjust to the dim light, I realize the room is exactly as it appears in my dreams-except now enormous spans of cobwebs hang from the chandeliers, and the mirrored walls are covered with a film of dust and smoke so thick that the images blinking back at me are dark and hazy. Candles still stand, half melted and covered in dust, on big candelabras.

I walk across the room to the spot where I've seen my toddler self standing in my dreams. I bend to touch the floor, and as I do, I can see a huge, dark stain on the hardwood. It vanishes as soon as I pull my hand away. A chill sweeps through me, and I turn around slowly to find Boniface looking at me. "This is blood, isn't it?" I ask.

"Yes," he says sadly.

"Whose?" I ask. But the look on his face tells me all I need to know. "My mom's?" I ask in disbelief. "But she died miles from here. Didn't she?"

Boniface frowns. "Eveny, I really think you should wait until your aunt comes home. She'll explain everything."

"If she'd wanted to explain," I say, "she would have already." I clench and unclench my fists. "Are there herbs that will let me see what happened in this room?"

"Eveny, your aunt will be furious with me," he says.

"Please!" I exclaim. "I promise, I'll tell Aunt Bea you tried to stop me. I deserve to know what happened."

"Yes, I suppose you do." He crosses the room and stands in front of the bookcase for a moment before pulling a narrow, leather-bound volume from the shelf. He flips through it, seems to find what he's looking for, and returns to me. "I believe peppermint leaves and flax seed will call the past into focus."

"What's that book?"

"Your mother's herb journal. It's only half complete, but she took notes on herbs and charms that worked particularly well for her. It's yours now." He hands it to me. "I hope this is the right thing. Good luck. But I can't be here for this," he says as he walks out of the room.

I put the journal down on the coffee table and take a deep breath. I again call on Eloi Oke to open the gate, then, with my left ring finger on my Stone of Carrefour, I invoke peppermint and flax and ask the spirits to show me what happened here. As the wind picks up, the candles around me flicker suddenly on, their flames growing and shrinking like the room itself is breathing. Suddenly, all of the flames go out, and we're plunged into blackness. I hear the faintest of whispers, a woman's voice saying, "It shall be."

When the candles flicker on again, the cobwebs are gone and the parlor looks entirely different. It's just like it was fourteen years ago, just like it has looked in my nightmares the last few weeks. Suddenly, three figures appear in the middle of the floor. They're hazy at first, but they quickly materialize, and I gasp as I recognize my mother and younger versions of Peregrine's and Chloe's mothers. All three are dressed in long, gauzy gowns that catch the candlelight and make them look like ethereal fairies.

"Mom!" I cry and take a step forward. The women don't hear me, though, and when I reach out to touch my mother, my hand goes right through her. It's like I'm watching a projected image on a movie screen.

The three mothers begin to chant and dance, and then the candles flicker out again. I hear a panicky voice ask, "What just happened?" I'm pretty sure it's Chloe's mother.

Another voice-Peregrine's mom-replies shakily, "I don't know. It must have been the wind."

Then there are heavy footsteps and the sound of something sliding. "Who's there?" says a voice I recognize as my mother's. Hearing her after all this time pierces my heart.

There's silence for a few seconds, then a pealing scream and a soft thudding sound before footsteps retreat and a door slams. A moment later, the overhead light flickers on, and I see Peregrine's mother near the light switch, blinking into the sudden illumination. "Sandrine!" she cries.

I follow her eyes to see my mother lying with her neck sliced open in a rapidly spreading pool of her own blood.

I sob uncontrollably as the rest of the scene unfolds. Peregrine's and Chloe's moms are screaming. Chloe's mom tries to revive my mother, but she's drifting in and out of consciousness. "We have to go get Bea," Peregrine's mother says.

Chloe's mother stands up, and when she does, I see that she's covered in my mother's blood. Her mascara is running down her face in teary rivers. "And Boniface," she adds weakly. She turns back to my mom. "Sandrine, we'll be right back. We're going for help. Hang on, sugar."

They run out of the room and, in the sudden quiet, I can hear my mother gasping for air. It breaks my heart. I move toward her, and that's when I see my younger self amble into the room, blinking in confusion. She's wearing the same nightgown from my dreams, and I know this is the moment I've been seeing. I watch as she rushes over and wraps herself around my mother, trying to fix her, trying to stop the blood.

My mother whispers something, and I can just barely make out her words: "You're the only one who can save us all," she says, and then her whole body goes limp.

"Mommy?" I hear three-year-old me ask in a small voice. "Mommy, wake up!"

I'm full-out sobbing as the images slowly fade away and the room returns to the present. Dazed, I stumble out of the parlor and into Boniface's waiting arms.

"You saw everything, didn't you?" he asks gently as he rubs my back.

"I saw my mother die," I sob. "She didn't kill herself. She was murdered. Why has everyone been lying about it all these years? Lying to me? Why has everyone let me believe my mother took her own life?"

"Honey, no one knows exactly what happened that day. But we couldn't have the police asking questions, not if her death was linked to zandara. So a decision was made to stage a car crash. It was for the good of the sosyete, and it made sense at the time. Your aunt asked that everyone play along for your sake too. She didn't want you to remember your mom dying this way."

"It was better that I think she'd killed herself?" I whisper incredulously. "That I'd think she deliberately abandoned me?"

"Bea was just trying to protect you. While Peregrine's and Chloe's mothers took care of staging the accident, your aunt and I calmed you down, got you back into bed, and convinced you it was just a bad dream. Chloe's and Peregrine's mothers gave you a charmed potion to make you forget what you'd seen."

"They should never have done that."

"But no child should ever, ever grow up with that kind of sad memory, and we were all afraid that if the police were called, you'd let the cat out of the bag about the ceremonies that were going on here. The police chief was a member of the sosyete, but none of the officers were. We couldn't take the chance of anyone finding out."

"So who killed her?" When he doesn't answer, I add, "Was it Main de Lumiere?"

"You didn't see her killer in your vision?" he asks. When I shake my head, he sighs. "At first we assumed it was Main de Lumiere, but tradition and ritual are very important to them, and none of us really believed they'd kill your mother by slitting her throat instead of stabbing her through the heart."

"So if it wasn't them . . . ," I say.

"No one knows what could have happened," he says simply, looking away.

"Okay, I get why no one wanted a little kid to have a horrible memory like that," I concede. "But I'm seventeen now. Why hasn't anyone said anything?"

Boniface looks sad. "It wasn't my place to tell you, honey. I can't speak for the others."

I clench my fists, a wave of frustration rising within me. All the lies, all the half truths-I'm suddenly furious. "Peregrine and Chloe knew, didn't they? They've known all along." I don't wait for an answer; my blood is boiling. "I'm going over there."

"Eveny-" Boniface begins, but I'm already on a mission, already moving toward the front door. I have to confront them, to find out what else they've been hiding from me. "Wait, Eveny!" Boniface calls after me. "Come back!"

"I can't," I say as I shut the door behind me. I take off running toward Peregrine's opulent mansion on the next hill over.

20.

Ipound on Peregrine's front door with both fists and am surprised when she and Chloe answer together.

"You lied to me!" I cry, still breathless from my run.

They look at each other and then back at me. "Lied about what?" Chloe asks.

"About the night my mother died!" I say. "Your mothers were there. I just charmed the parlor and watched the whole thing play out. Your mothers saw everything. You knew all along, and you let me keep believing my mother had left me on purpose!"

"Calm down, Eveny," Peregrine says crisply. "Anger isn't getting you anywhere."

But her words only make me madder. "Could you cut the whole icy superiority thing for a minute and be honest with me? Or is that too much for you?"

Chloe takes a step forward and reaches for me without saying a word. At first I pull away, but she just steps closer and stays there until I crumple. She folds me into a hug as I start to cry. "We're sorry, Eveny," she says. "We're sorry we didn't tell you. And we're sorry about what happened to your mom." She pulls away after a moment and tilts my chin up so that I'm staring right at her. "If you come inside, we'll tell you what we know."

I reluctantly follow her in, glancing at Peregrine as I go. She's being strangely silent, and her lips are set in a thin line.

"Are your mothers here?" I ask once we're seated in the living room.

Peregrine shakes her head and looks almost apologetic. "They're at Chloe's house. We can wait until they're back if you want. . . ."

"No," I say immediately. "I want to know the truth. Now."

"What did you see?" Chloe asks gently.

"Wait, go back," Peregrine interrupts. "You said you charmed the room? How?"

"I used my Stone of Carrefour."

The eyes of both girls widen. "You have your stone?" Chloe asks in a whisper. "We thought it was lost with your mother."

"This is a huge deal," Peregrine says flatly. "I can't believe you didn't tell us."

"Kind of like you didn't tell me that my mother was murdered?" I say through gritted teeth.

Chloe puts a hand on Peregrine's arm and says to her, "We can talk about the stone later. Right now, Eveny's trying to tell us about her vision."

I recap what played out in the parlor. The ceremony. The plunge into darkness. The screams. My mother gasping for breath as Peregrine's and Chloe's mothers ran for help. My mother dying.

"Our mothers aren't sure whether your mom was a target because of something personal, or whether it was someone trying to weaken the power of Carrefour by eliminating the triumvirate," Chloe explains when I'm done.

"Without your mother," Peregrine adds, "our mothers were greatly weakened, and it's been harder for them to . . ." Her voice trails off and she adds, "Harder for them to cast their magic."

"So I've heard," I say stiffly. "Somehow you've all managed to convince yourselves that it's fine to use the Peripherie to keep your own lives floating along perfectly."

"You don't understand; they owed it to us," Peregrine says right away. "Our ancestors have been providing for the people in the Peripherie for over a century."

"That doesn't justify taking from them now!" I exclaim. "All the crumbling houses, the people who have lost their money, the dead lawns, the decaying trees . . . That seems right to you?"

"We had to keep central Carrefour up somehow," Chloe says in a small voice.

"Even the weather?" I ask.

"The sunshine on this side of town doesn't create itself," Peregrine says. "We don't use it every day, though. You can see there's a storm coming now." Peregrine's eyebrows knit together in annoyance. "You can't expect us just to stop living."

"I don't," I say. "But you have no right to live in luxury that's built on other people's lives falling apart. That's disgusting!"

Chloe quickly picks up the thread of Peregrine's argument. "It doesn't have to be that way anymore, Eveny. That's the great thing about you being back. We have a triumvirate again. We can start drawing our power purely from plants. We can even restore the Peripherie."

"If you join us," Peregrine says, "our lives can be just as we want them to be. You seem to keep forgetting what a gift this is." She reaches out to take my hand, but I pull away.

"But you and your moms have already destroyed so much. You can't possibly justify that."

Peregrine rolls her eyes. "Whatever," she says. "Don't goody-goody us. You've adjusted quite well to the perks of zandara since you've been back, haven't you? Your beautiful house, your huge property, your instant popularity, the money to attend Pointe Laveau. It's all zandara, Eveny. All of it."

"We don't deserve those things," I reply. "None of us do."

I stand up and look at the two of them. They're perfect on the outside, exactly what any girl would want to look like. Perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect bodies, perfect everything. But none of it's real. It never was. "I can't do this," I say. "Not until I've figured out what's right and wrong here."

"Do you have any idea how much you'll be walking away from?" Peregrine demands.

"None of those things matter to me," I say. "Besides, if we stopped-no magic, no charms-Main de Lumiere wouldn't have a reason to punish us anymore."

"Sure, it's possible they'd stop coming after us," Peregrine says, "but in the meantime, we'd have nothing! We'd be like everyone else."

"That's better than being dead," I tell her. I take a deep breath. "You've gone too far, Peregrine. You know that. I'll do the ceremony with you whenever we figure out the identity of the Main de Lumiere soldier who snuck in in during the party, but after that, I quit."

"You can't do that!" she cries.

"Watch me," I say.

With that, I stride out of Peregrine's perfect mansion, slamming her perfect front door behind me as I go. I don't look back.

Boniface is sitting in the parlor with his head in his hands when I storm through the front doorway of my house a few minutes later.

"Eveny?" he asks, standing up right away. "Are you okay?"

"Just peachy." I move past him without making eye contact.

"I never should have let you into the parlor," he says, wringing his hands together and following me into the room.

I stop and look at him. "I wish someone had told me before."

"Eveny-" he begins.

"Any other secrets you're keeping from me?" I interrupt. "How about my dad? Is everyone lying to me about him too? I know he's been back since I was born."

"Yes, he's been here, Eveny," Boniface says slowly. "But he's gone now."

"Where?" I demand. "Where did he go?"