“All the more reason not to interact with him.”

“You could order me not to do it,” she said.

“I won’t. It’s your life, Julie. You’re a person. As much as it makes me freak out, you have to be free to make your decisions, even the wrong ones. But I think it’s dangerous and stupid, and I will tell you so.”

“In great detail. With a scary look on your face.” Julie sighed.

“Yes. But in the end, they are your decisions. You’re not a baby.”

“Sometimes you treat me like one.”

“I’ll treat you like a baby when you’re fifty. Get used to it.” I looked at Baby B. “I didn’t do it to own you. I did it to save your life. I had no choice.”

“I know. You knew I would hate it, but you did it anyway, because you love me.” Julie swallowed. “So did I. I talked to Roland even though I knew you would hate it. It’s your fault. You were my role model.”

“Great.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. That was a joke.” Julie looked down at her feet. “He’s teaching me. I think he means for me to be the next Hugh.”

“Hugh is one of the most lethal fighters I know. You’re nowhere near that. Your magic isn’t combat magic.”

“It is now,” she said.

My heart turned over in my chest. “Power words?”

She nodded. “Also incantations. Makes the power words a lot easier.”

“You always wanted combat magic.” It bothered her that she didn’t have any. At first, we put her into a private middle school. The kids there had combat magic and she didn’t. It made things harder on her. She didn’t fit in and she kept running away.

“I did,” Julie said. “Now I have it.”

That was how he got her. There were four main incentives that moved people to do things: power, wealth, knowledge, and emotion. He offered her power and knowledge, two out of four. She belonged to me, so he couldn’t take her outright, but he could poison her. He could push and shape her until he made her into another Hugh.

I wanted to believe that she wasn’t his creature. I wanted so much to believe that she had kept her independence, but the fear sat inside me like a brick.

This was what Curran must’ve felt like when I assured him I would fight the magic changing me. Ugh.

“The girl is sahanu,” Julie said.

“Mmm?”

“Adora. She’s sahanu.”

Sahanu meant “to unsheathe a blade” in ancient Akkadian. Specifically, to draw a dagger.

“And the other two on the wall?”

“Sahanu also. I was going to tell you, but Roland came out and then you were angry.”

“Are they elite troops of some sort?”

“He made them to fight Erra,” Julie said. “He showed them to me before. I think that when he felt your aunt waking up, he became concerned that he wouldn’t be able to control her, so he created the Order of Sahanu. He got the idea from a documentary on assassins.”

I must’ve moved because Baby B stirred and started whimpering. I rocked her, making shooshing noises.

“He bought a bunch of children and put them into a fort,” Julie whispered. “Somewhere in the Midwest. And brought in really good teachers. He turned the whole thing into a religion.”

“Shhh . . . Shush . . . He would never allow himself to be an object of worship.” When you let people worship you, their faith had power over you. My father would never tolerate anything imposing on his will.

“He isn’t. They worship the blood.”

Baby B opened her mouth and cried with all of the despair her little heart could muster. I got up and took her to Andrea.

“I see how it is.” She squinted at me. “While she’s quiet, everyone wants to hold her, but when she cries, give her back to her parents.”

“Yeah.” I winked at her.

Andrea gave me a long look and cuddled Baby B to her. Julie and I left the room. We walked through the Keep in silence. The walls did have ears here. In the courtyard, only my car looked out of place. Peanut was nowhere to be seen.

“How did you get here?” I asked her.

“Derek dropped me off.”

I opened the car and she climbed into the passenger seat.

“For the sahanu, there is only one way to receive the ultimate reward in the afterlife. They must die in service to your blood. If one of the blood kills them or if they manage to kill one of the blood on the orders of another, they get to the extra-special level of heaven. If they fail, they are condemned to a frozen hell. It’s sick and twisted.”

And I had no idea if she was telling me the truth or only what my father wanted me to hear. I’d have to verify this. If this was true, then it explained Adora’s panic at being set free. And now she was my dirty secret. I had no idea how to break it to Curran.

“Are you mad at me?” Julie asked, her voice small.

“No.” I was plenty mad at myself. “I’m worried.”

“I can take care of myself,” she said.

“He will hurt you. That’s what he does.”

She smiled, her face in profile with the backdrop of the evening sky behind it. She looked so young right then, but her smile was bitter.

“When I talk to him, I never forget what he did to Hugh.”

Ouch.

“Promise me you will never do that to me.”

“I will never exile you. I will never prevent you from leaving.” I sank enough magic into those words to make a dozen wards.

She hugged her knees.

“You’re my daughter, Julie. But you have to promise me that if you see me treat people the way my father does, you will leave.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Promise me, Julie.”

“Okay. I will leave. But you’re not going to do that, right?”

“Right.” I would fight to my last breath to remain me. I didn’t know if I could win, but I’d be damned if I gave up.

Hold on, Father. We will have a conversation regarding my kid and everything else. I promise you that.

• • •

WHEN WE GOT home, Curran wasn’t there. Walking into my kitchen was like putting on my favorite T-shirt. By the time I made myself and Julie a sandwich with bread, cheese, and leftover roasted meat and brewed a cup of tea, I felt almost normal. There was still time to make some phone calls.