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My beloved daughter,

Where there is love, there is no law.

No need for laws, and no law you wouldn't break.

From the moment I held you in my arms, I knew there was nothing I wouldn't do for you. No price I wouldn't pay to see you

grow into the strong, loving, resilient woman you've become. I knew that I would give my dying breath to ensure that you would

live, have children, and know happiness. And never, ever drink the poison I tasted far too young.

I've made countless mistakes. We all do, no matter how hard we try. Each time I ripped up your roots and dragged you to the

next town, another piece of my heart broke. I hungered to give you the life you longed for, yet to give you any life at all,

I had no choice but to do what I did.

I pray that, in spite of my mistakes, my inability to clearly foresee future paths, I succeed, and you do not fall prey to

the horror and curse that is your "birthright."

If you are reading this letter, I died before you turned twenty-five.

I closed my eyes, able to interpret that only one way: had I turned twenty-five and been rendered Paleblood forever, she'd

have destroyed the letter, having accomplished her aim. Sighing, I opened them and resumed reading.

Because there is still hope, I can tell you little. The less you know, the safer you are. But there are some things you must know, which Este will tell you and help you with. I confided in her, so she and Dalia could step in if tragedy befell me young. Dalia has a copy of this letter (sealed, and it had damn well better still be sealed—that nosy, judgmental witch!) in case the contents of the safe fail to reach you. Dalia and I may not care for each other, but she will do right by you. I ruthlessly used deep sight on her to be certain I could trust her (it's not only unbearably painful but can cause lasting damage if done improperly or viciously), one of many things for which she never forgave me.

I sought to spare you a war you could never win. Now I hope to keep you concealed from that war until the day you are finally

completely safe. There will come a day that certain things I've long awaited transpire. Someone will find you, bearing a letter

from me that tells you all, withholding nothing.

You have reason and right to be angry with the decisions I made. But please understand, my darling Zo, I had few options,

and sometimes—I pray this is a lesson you never learn—there are no good choices. You can choose only from the lesser of evils.

You pay the price willingly, for love.

One of my gifts is far-vision. Unfortunately, those visions shift and change with the passage of time. I see too many possible paths to predict the outcome with certainty. There are precious few elements of which I am certain, the most important of which is—in the few futures where you succeed, I've concealed virtually everything from you.

I paused a moment, replaying that line in mind. The few futures? Meaning I failed in most of them? That was worrying as hell. "Thanks for the words of comfort, Mom," I muttered.

I despise keeping you in the dark.

"I despise you doing it," I told the page irritably.

But I despise a great deal about the choices I've been forced to make. Still, I would make them over and over, to ensure your

safety.

Zo, my beloved daughter, you have made me inexpressibly proud. You are all that has ever mattered to me. I never understood

love until the moment I held you in my arms. I thought I did. I loved your father. Adored that man, would have kept him forever.

He is not from whence we fled. He died long ago. I allowed you to believe he was our villain because you needed a villain,

and he was the safest choice. Still, the enormous love I felt for your father was a spark compared to the bonfire that rages

in my heart for you, my darling, magnificent daughter.

You are, and have always been, my everything.

With love eternal,

Mom

PS: I know you. Not merely the paler, suppressed version but the true you. I carried you within my body. I knew you before you were even born. Had you known about the safe, you'd have broken into it years ago. With a single ounce of information, one hint of a clue, you would hunt, you would go to war. And although you hold within you power deliberately, genetically amplified, it is a war you cannot win.

After speaking with Este, I bid you, do not complete the final stage of awakening. Get pregnant. Stay hidden until the child is born. End this, now and forevermore.

"I don't fucking believe it!" The words exploded from me. Emotions were erupting inside me, running the gamut from agony to

disbelief to fury.

First: grief—enormous, for I was holding a letter penned in my mother's hand. She'd touched this paper. She'd held it and

folded it and carefully tucked it away for me. She'd always had beautiful penmanship, cursive, each character lovingly shaped,

her capital letters large and gracefully swooping into smaller, more delicate arches and curves. I couldn't stop running my

fingers over the pages, as if through them I might reach across the veil between life and death, grasp her hand, and feel

her fingers twine with mine once more.

Mommy, Mommy , my heart cried. How completely we are forever that child for whom our mothers are Mommy: she who has a Band-Aid for any and all wounds, body, heart, and soul; she who alchemizes tears to laughter with kisses, hugs, and assurances that "everything will be all right" and "this, too, shall pass"; she who sweeps nightmares to dust, out the window, and far away, with the broom of ancient, time-honored rhymes and songs of good triumphing over evil and assuring us that heaven, indeed, exists.

Second: disbelief—she'd not told me a damned thing I could use. She'd chosen deliberately to give me no answers, unless a

mysterious set of circumstances transpired and a second letter arrived.

Well, other than that my father wasn't the villain and that she'd loved him deeply. Rather big stuff there. I could stop despising

my father and start wondering who he was. That he'd died long ago—was that the darkness so quick to spring to her eyes on

the rare occasions I'd mentioned him? Had he not died naturally, but been murdered like my mother? Been taken from her?

What was this war she thought I couldn't win?

Had I, the subject of unlucky odds that defied calculation, eschewing the laws of physics, ended up in precisely the last

place she'd ever wanted me to be?

Was Divinity the "whence" from which she'd fled? Or had she been running from something much darker?

Was I, even now, standing on the battlefield she'd long ago escaped?

I went utterly motionless, chills prickling every inch of my skin.

If so, I still wasn't willing to leave.

Third: fury—oh, my God, how well my mother knew me!

I would have broken into the safe.

I would hunt.

I would go to war.

If this was the battlefield, I wasn't yielding a motherfucking inch. This would-be queen would damned well be queen.

I bid you, do not complete the final stage of awakening.

"Too late for that, Mom," I whispered. I'd somehow been forced through all the stages. I was violently and brutally awakened.

And although you hold within you power deliberately, genetically amplified...

Amplified how, why, and by whom? Had I been bred for some nefarious purpose?

Who was my enemy?

I don't know how many times I read her letter, only that, eventually, I calmed a bit as I did, holding it, pressing it to

my heart—these pages that had been touched by my mother—before finally placing it aside and, again, looking into the box.

One other time, aside from that brief sojourn during which we'd had my beloved cow, I'd felt we were rich. We'd leased a house

the prior tenant had vacated quickly, leaving much behind (the one in West Virginia, with the ghost Mom claimed didn't exist).

The landlord told us to keep whatever we wanted, and we'd been so grateful for every bit of it.

There'd been a quilt made of rich red velvet that Mom said we would use to fashion a lovely dress for me.

Instead, while she was away at work, I'd made a shirt for her. She was so beautiful in red, and the quilt was the perfect shade to complement her complexion and rich chestnut hair. (I think I convinced myself she'd be so beautiful in it, no man could resist her, and I'd get a father.) Mom taught me to sew young; we were forever making our own clothing out of odds and ends. I cut apart one of her oldest shirts to use as a guide, purloined thread and needle from the dollar store, found buttons on one of the many shirts left hanging in the closet by the prior occupant. I'd stitched a label into the nape, with her name on it: Joanna Grey, with small hearts embroidered at each side. It had taken me well over a month, but when I was done, it was finer than anything we'd ever owned. I'd made it with all the love in my heart. She looked amazing in it, had worn it often and with great pride.

I lifted it now from the box and pressed it to my nose.

Ah, there, beyond the hint of smoke, the scent of my mother! Covering my face with it, I inhaled deeply, feeling invisible

arms slip around me, as comforting as one of her hugs.

Beneath the shirt, various treasures that had disappeared over the years, much to my dismay—they'd been tucked away, saved

for me as if she'd always known such a day would come. The stuffed cat I'd named Glinda. A soft, worn blanket I'd had as a

child. Magnets from all the states we'd lived in, oodles of notes we'd left each other. Some of my baby clothes and, finally,

one of those old cigar boxes at the very bottom. I lifted it out with trembling hands and carefully raised the lid.

Photos!

I had photos!

Clutching her shirt, I began to sort slowly through them, crying and laughing at the same time: the two of us kneeling in the strawberry fields (with red smeared all around my mouth because I'd always eaten more than I ever tossed into the baskets) in Illinois the summer I was seven. Me, curled with Daisy the cow, sleeping in the sunshine. Mom laughing as she paddled cream in the ancient blue hand-cranked butter churn we'd bought at a flea market for a quarter. Me, sprawled on a blanket on a rare summer's afternoon she'd taken off work to spend with me, floating on tire inner tubes down a lazy, wide creek. A close-up of Mom's eyes; I wondered who'd taken it, her gaze was filled with such light and love. I felt I could stare into her eyes for hours, basking in the love that had always glowed with amber light, no matter how sick she was, no matter how hard our lives became.

The next one gave me pause. More than pause. I froze.

Mom must have taken the photo, for the man was gazing at the photographer with such deep, abiding love, such utter adoration

that I caught my breath and held it, wondering how it would feel to be looked at that way. As if the man would slay dragons

for me.

He was handsome! Dark haired, green eyed, and tall, wide through the shoulders, with a devastating smile.

I flipped it over. I was not disappointed, as I'd expected to be, by the woman who'd told me so little thus far.

Your father, my darling Zo.

No name. No date. But, at long last, I had a picture of my father. I knew what he looked like.

I could, for the first time in my life, envision parents.

I'd had parents who'd loved each other.

I.

Had.

Roots.

Independent of Watch Hill. Independent of any connection to the Camerons. I don't think I'd realized, until that moment, how

adrift I'd felt, knowing nothing of the man who'd helped make me. As if Mom and I had sprung alone from some terrible cataclysmic

event, and no men were to be trusted.

But some of them could be. The look on my father's face made that abundantly clear. As if he'd have willingly died for her.

Oh, God, had he? What had happened so long ago that made my mother run? Had she, in truth, sprung from a dark lineage, fallen for a light witch, and her family had done something to him?

My father. She'd loved him. A cold, dark part of my heart began to warm at the thought.

Aside from a thick crush of brown packing paper at the bottom, that was it. I placed it aside and sat clutching Mom's shirt,

sifting through the photos again and again, weeping.

Twenty-two hours and nine minutes to go, and at shortly before 2a.m., after having erased my tears and touched up my makeup,

I was again at the door, assuring myself I was only going to the kitchen for food.

I entered the room I couldn't wait to see restored, as the manor's kitchen delighted me to no end, only to discover the Kovan

hadn't bothered to repair the interior, and although the fridge was still neatly affixed to the wall, the floor directly in

front of it was gone, leaving not even the narrowest of perches for me to make a madcap attempt (and I was feeling perilously

madcap), and the icy draft gusting from the jagged chasm where once the island had stood gave me pause. Slowly, feeling strangely

mesmerized by the void, I inched forward to the edge and gazed down. Had there been a nearby pebble, I'd have nudged it in

to gauge the depth, as the chasm descended to utter blackness and seemed bottomless. I got the sudden, dreadful feeling I'd

inadvertently done something awful, like... say... opened a portal to hell.

Despite the late hour, I texted Mr.Balfour.

The kitchen?

You were not to leave your room.

I don't get to eat?

I hardly see how you could, given most of the floor is missing. I bade the Kovan repair only the exterior. I will help you repair the interior. I have temporarily suspended maid service in that area of the house. None will enter the northeast wing. Invite no one in.

A pause, then,

I forgot about food.

Clearly. Is the chasm dangerous?

I would counsel against leaping into it.

I could hear him saying this dryly.

I have no intention of doing so.

Return to your room. I will have carryout delivered at the back door. I'll text you when it arrives.

Careful as always, allowing no one to enter the heavily warded manor. When I didn't reply immediately, he texted, Are you all right?

Not feeling nuclear at the present moment. I was certain he heard the dry mockery of my tone as well.

My assurance was a fair bit of a lie. Despite having treasures to clutch, photos of me and Mom, and of my father, too, I was

still radioactive as a walking time bomb.

The box?

Thank you for bringing it.

But you're all right after viewing the contents?

I am.

Return to your room. Food will arrive shortly. Open the back door, retrieve it, and return to your room. You have less than twenty-four hours. I'll have coffee and breakfast sent in the morning. Text me if you need anything. Don't fret you might wake me. I won't be sleeping.

Thrusting my phone back in my pocket, my brain ordered my feet toward my room.

The squall in my heart turned them toward the back door.