Moonset

One didn’t spend time in her presence without ending up drenched in sweat, brain sufficiently poked and prodded, and completely vulnerable and off balance. The woman was terrifying. And she had no problem telling me, in detail, about many of the warlocks she’d put to death.

She didn’t do small talk. She never stopped by for a quick chat over tea. Illana Bryer only interrogated. Only threatened and promised and brought all the horrifying parts of her legend to life.

I’d never told any of the others about her visit. I wasn’t sure why—fear? Shame? Maybe something else entirely. All I knew was that I showered as soon as she was gone and left the house rather than face any of the others. I’d ended up at the school, where I preceded to run the track around the football field until I literally dropped. Being so tired I could barely walk home had made it easier to push down, to repress.

But never fully forgotten. Illana’s return was proof of that.

“What’s going on, Justin?” Jenna demanded.

I could see her wheels spinning. I knew the places Jenna’s thoughts would take her, all the stories and lies that would spring up like seedlings in the garden of insecurities. I shook my head, finally mustering up a response. “No,” I said. No, I hadn’t betrayed the rest of them. No, I wasn’t secretly working for the leader of Fallingbrook. No, I hadn’t turned on her.

“Then what?” she snapped.

Illana smiled at me indulgently. For a woman of rages, she could do graceful as well as any politician. “Go on. Tell her.”

Was this fun for her? Coming in and tormenting people just to watch their reactions? I wouldn’t be surprised. “Remember how Mal was talking about the detention center thing?”

Jenna nodded, and I continued. “It’s real. Illana said that if I can’t set some boundaries, and you keep … well, doing what you do, then they’re going to send us there.”

“So she’s had you spying on me?” Jenna spat.

“I’m not spying on you, you idiot!” How was it that Jenna could take a perfectly simple math problem like 2+2 and wind up with an answer equalling the square root of paranoid?

“Why you?” she continued, expression darkening in a way it only ever did when she fought with Mal. “I can’t believe you’d do this to me.”

“It’s not about you!”I’d almost forgotten my voice could get that loud. Red hazed in at the edges of my vision, and all the anger I’d bottled up over the year—whole shelves full of bottles —started to spill out. Too much had already happened today. “It’s about all of us, and what’s going to happen to us if you keep doing what you’re doing. So maybe stop being so damned self-absorbed for five minutes and think for once!”

Jenna took a step back like she’d been slapped. “Who do you think you are?” she asked. I wasn’t sure if the hurt look and tone were real, or a show for Illana. “No one elected you the boss of us all.”

“Someone has to be, Jenna. Didn’t you hear what I said? They want to ship us off to the middle of nowhere!”

“You should have told me. You should have told all of us. ”

“All right, enough,” Illana said, hand pressed against her temple. “No one’s going to the Priory today. We realize that what happened in Kentucky wasn’t your fault.”

“Do you? Maybe you should have gotten here five minutes earlier, because Meghan never got that memo,” Jenna said. She stalked to the far side of the kitchen, putting as much room between the two of us as she could.

“There are different factions in the Congress,” Illana said carefully as Quinn walked back into the room, “and they rarely agree on what to order for lunch, let alone something as critical as a wraith attack.”

“So you believe in us and want to help protect us and everything is wonderful?” Jenna rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard all this before. Just because you’re famous for Diana and the others doesn’t impress me.”

“My world shall never recover,” Illana replied blithely, as if Jenna’s moods were something she dealt with every day.

I cleared my throat. “So if you’re not here to ship us off to juvenile detention, then why are you here?”

“I thought it was time we all met.” Illana took a seat at the table, carefully arranging the skirt of her dress.

The tightness in my chest was still unraveling, but Jenna looked unaffected. Stay, go, it made no difference to her. “What’s really going on here? And why are you here?” The leader of one of the Great Covens didn’t just pop in for a social call.

“Curiosity. Concern. Take your pick.”

I turned to Quinn. “She was the one on the phone, wasn’t she?”

Illana laughed, responding before Quinn could. “Of course. I expect my grandchildren to check in with me regularly.”

That bomb took awhile to clear. I kept looking between the two of them, Quinn and Illana, trying to find some similarity. Jenna just shook her head and smirked. Whatever she was thinking, it wasn’t good. She was probably already plotting her next expulsion-worthy event. It made me wonder, could you get expelled even before you were enrolled?

“Really?” Quinn asked. “Did you come here just to keep poking them with sticks? Because irritating or not, Meghan had that covered before you arrived.”

“She’s your grandmother. Illana Bryer. You’re related to her.” I was trying to put it into reference. If Quinn was her grandson, then that meant he was almost as infamous as the rest of us. Illana Bryer, the head of Fallingbrook, had married Robert Cooper, the head of Eventide, joining their two families twenty years ago. It was like the Kennedys marrying into the

Vanderbilts.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I wanted to see them for myself. Remind the younger Daggett that I meant what I said, all those months ago.”

“And to terrorize them,” Quinn supplied.

Illana didn’t dignify that with a response. But the corner of her mouth definitely moved.

She was the only one who was amused though. Jenna crossed her arms in front of her. “I asked you a question. Either of you ready to stop lying and tell us what we’re doing here?”

The adults shared a look. The family. It was weird to think of Quinn being related to her. Was that why he was here? Not just to keep an eye on us, but to watch us for her?

“One of the more recent developments,” Illana began, “has suggested that we need to pay more attention to the lives you children are living.”

“ ‘We’ meaning the Congress, right?” Jenna questioned. “Have they decided to stop being cowards and start teaching us something useful?”

“Jenna!” There was a time and a place for airing your grievances, but in front of the world’s deadliest grandma wasn’t it.

Illana, however, didn’t look particularly offended, except by the decor in the kitchen. She turned up her nose at some of the “family”-themed wall hangings that had been put up before we arrived. “Quinn told me you’ve been … unhappy.”

“I was unhappy getting stuck in the middle of nowhere.” Jenna’s words were sharp, and her expression as dark as I’d ever seen it. “I’m pissed that we almost died, no thanks to any of you.”

Quinn cleared his throat.

“Not you, Quinn,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’re perfection.”

His chest puffed out and he smirked a little. Clearly he was ignoring the sarcastic drip of

Jenna’s words.

“When you can prove that you deserve to learn more, I’ll happily teach you myself,” Illana said. It was clear she thought that day would never come. None of us were under any illusions about that.

“So you’ll risk our lives in the meantime? Just to prove some stupid point about responsibility?” Jenna demanded. “You’re insane.”

“So you’ll risk their lives just to prove you don’t care to be responsible?” Illana