And the branch fell, or started to.
There was a crack like lightning as the tree let loose of its damaged limb. Zery stood frozen, staring at me, processing what I had done, what she should do next, and completely missing what was about to happen.
I opened my mouth, a lifelong friendship bringing a warning to my lips, but there was no air left in me, no voice-only a squeak came out.
I tried to stand-couldn’t. Reality, dark and ugly, settled around me.
Zery looked up, saw the branch, and started to move, but I knew she wouldn’t make it, that it would crush her, maim her at least.
There was a whoosh-the branch falling, I thought at first. Then I saw my mother. She leapt from the bathroom window, and kicked the branch as it fell. The limb hit the ground with a crash. I felt the impact through the soles of my boots. Zery stood beside it, untouched.
Then Mother hit, rolling from her shoulder to her opposite hip to her feet. Her gaze zipped to me, pinned me against the wall.
My fingers tightened around her staff, reminding me I still held it. I loosened my grip, let it fall to the ground.
Zery took a step forward, her own staff held low, ready to ram against my throat.
Mother whirled. “You’re not queen here.”
Zery shifted her attention to Mother, shifted her staff too, a casual change in grip, but one that fooled no one. She was ready to fight. “I’m queen everywhere.”
I scrambled to a stand. I’d have liked to have leapt up with the same grace as Zery and Mother, but my back and head ached and I was still struggling not to gasp for breath. As it was, I only managed a half stand, my hands pressed into my thighs and my head hanging between my shoulders. “Don’t let her leave,” I rasped out.
“I’m here on Amazon business. You know that.” Zery glanced at me, then back at Mother.
“Today you were. Not tonight. You didn’t tell me you were coming tonight.” Mother’s stance was casual, her arms loose at her sides, but she moved slightly as she spoke, positioning herself between my old friend and me.
“The council decided the evidence was enough. If not Mel, who?”
At my name I stood. My back and head screamed, but air seemed to be flowing through my lungs again.
Zery took a step around Mother, toward me. Mother sidestepped, blocking her. At the same time I moved too-until Mother was sandwiched between Zery and me.
“Grab her,” I said.
Zery laughed. “Are you planning to kill me too? Next time the entire tribe will show up.” Her weight shifted to the side.
Mother held out a hand.
“You can’t protect her any longer, Cleo. Not this time. Leaving the tribe, taking up residence with humans, that’s one thing, but killing her own? You know what has to be done. You agreed to it.”
A chill passed over me.
“I agreed to bringing her to council and I would have. You agreed to that.”
Zery looked to the side. “The council didn’t.”
Mother’s shoulders tensed. “They don’t trust me? When have I not done what they asked? I’ve kept them informed of every move we’ve made. Mel pees-I see it, and they know about it.”
My head lifted. Shock caused me to step backward. Mother had been spying on me for the council? How long? The entire ten years? Zery and Mother’s exchange when I’d still been catching my breath…the visitor this morning-it all clicked now. It had been Zery telling Mother the council wanted me brought back. Had I missed other visits? Or had Mother sneaked off to them…how often?
As if sensing my distress, Mother added, “It beat the alternative, Mel. You locked up, Harmony taken from you. Don’t judge me for saving you both from that.”
I tightened my jaw, fisted my hands. Betrayed again. Would I never learn?
“I have to take her.” Zery had her gaze back on Mother.
Tired of them both talking about me like I had no vote and posed no threat, I stepped around Mother, got into Zery’s face. “Try it.”
She looked at me, surprise lifting one brow, then reached out. Her hand moved toward me. I waited. I was angry. As angry as I’d allowed myself to be since I’d learned to control the dark emotion a decade ago. And a decade ago I didn’t have priestess powers, couldn’t convert that rage into fire or a blue-hot charge.
But now, I could. Fire/electricity wasn’t my preferred element, but I could use it and I did, let it vibrate inside me. Waited for her skin to touch mine, to release the charge, send us both flying.
Mother got in the way-shoved Zery against the shoulder, knocking her to the ground. I started to move, barely a flinch forward, and Mother held out one hand, her back still to me. “Don’t.”
That was it. One word and I froze, the power I’d coiled inside me, unwinding, dissipating like steam in a dry room. Zery’s staff swung toward Mother. Mother grabbed it with both hands, ripped it from Zery’s grip, then slammed the wooden pole into the dirt inches from Zery’s head.
“No one is taking my daughter-not until I believe she’s a killer.”
Zery’s eyes were dark, angry, but her voice was calm. “And if we convince you?”
Mother tensed, paused. I thought for an instant she wouldn’t answer, then, “I’ll bring her in myself.”
On a normal night the words might have hit me, hurt, but in the middle of the insanity unfolding around me, they barely grazed the hard shell quickly forming around my heart.
I cursed, walked over to the staff I’d dropped, smashed it into a trash can, and then let it drop on the ground. They looked at me then.
“You both can go to hell.” I rotated on my heel with every intention of waking my sleeping daughter and leaving. Leaving the shop, Mother, Bubbe, everything. I owed the Amazons nothing, wanted nothing from them or to do with them. How dare Mother pretend to leave them, pretend to support me-and actually be spying on me.
My life here was a lie.
I took four steps down the sidewalk. Overhead the tree rustled; a battery of acorns fell to the ground, peppering the area around me. I glared upward, ready to take my ire out on anyone and anything that dared disagree with my plan.
My gaze landed on my daughter’s window. Fingernail-polish bottles lined the sill. Above them, attached with a suction cup to the glass, hung a unicorn-shaped sun catcher.
She’d gotten the thing at a birthday party four years earlier-had been so proud when she’d finished painting it.
And I’d been proud too, of how secure she was…happy.
How would jerking her out of her bed in the middle of the night affect her? And what would I tell her? The Amazons have found us? Your grandmother is a spy?
How could I explain any of this, and even if I could, how could I yank her from the only world she’d ever known, really remembered? Ask her to leave it all behind again?
My jaw clenched. I turned, crushing an acorn under my heel. I’d run away once. I wouldn’t do it again.
I retrieved the staff. With it held in front of me, I approached the two Amazons-not Mother, not Zery, two Amazons I couldn’t trust.
I expected Mother to tell me to put it down but, her mouth a grim line, she just nodded, muttered, “Should have let me teach you how to use it.”
Zery folded her arms over her chest and angled her body so her back was to me-letting me know she didn’t see me as a threat, the bitch. Addressing Mother, she said, “Bring her to council. We’ll convince you.”
“Of what?” I used the staff to poke Zery in the back-a nice sharp poke. Not hard enough to do her any damage, just tick her off.
Her body stiffened.
I grinned, dropped the end of the pole onto the ground next to my foot, then held onto it with one hand. The other hand I kept at my side, my thumb strumming my fingers.