My mind was racing. Mrs. Redmond had the knife so tight against my mom’s neck that droplets of blood were running down her throat. I didn’t have any other options. I took the keys from around my neck and unlocked the gate.

“Mrs. Redmond, please don’t do this.” I didn’t know what her plan was, but she seemed absolutely desperate. She had no idea how dangerous this was.

“In,” she said firmly.

I led the way into the garden.

Mrs. Redmond surveyed the front part of the garden. “Keep moving.”

“We can’t go back there.”

“Why not?” Mrs. Redmond asked.

“You know why,” I snapped.

She smirked. “So you’ve started to put it all together?”

She prodded my mom forward. At the threshold to the Poison Garden, and as the full moon began to shine down on us, I turned to face her.

“Please,” I said. “Mom can’t go in, and neither can you. It’s not safe.”

Mrs. Redmond glared at me. “You think I don’t know that? You think you’re special? Descended from Medea herself, immunity running in your veins! What good does it do when you don’t even know what to do with it?”

“How do you know so much about me?”

“You think you’re the only one descended from greatness? Think harder, sweetie.” Mrs. Redmond scowled as I struggled to understand what that meant. “You’re a descendant of Medea, but I am descended from the man who made her what she was—Jason himself, great-grandson of Hermes.” She tilted her face to the sky in silent reverence.

The story said Jason had taken another wife after Medea, and now I understood why Mrs. Redmond was on the verge of killing my mother so she could get her hands on the Heart. She and I were on opposite sides in a millennia-long family feud.

“Jason didn’t make Medea who she was,” I said angrily, remembering the story Alec had helped me decipher. “Her abilities came from something else, not from some murderous, power-hungry asshole.”

“Nobody even remembers her name. Everyone knows of Jason and the Golden Fleece. Medea is an afterthought. She was pathetic.”

“You think you know everything about her? About me? You’re wrong.”

“I know you’re uniquely situated to cultivate the Absyrtus Heart,” said Mrs. Redmond. “You are the only one left who can. But can you wield its power? Are you fit to handle that kind of responsibility? You didn’t even feel a pull to this place. I had to lead you here.”

She was wrong. I had felt a connection with the house, the people who’d lived here before, and the garden itself. It was why I didn’t want to leave, but her taunts revealed what I’d suspected. “You forged all the letters.”

“All of them except the map. Circe left that behind. Did you enjoy your little scavenger hunt? This place is impossible to get into even with the key to the outer garden, but I did try, Briseis.” She held up her mangled arm. “And then to realize it was locked away even farther than I’d imagined and I didn’t have the god-damned key?” She laughed maniacally. “Maybe it was luck or fate or magic that led you to the final key, but now that you have it, you can get me the one thing I’ve been searching for my entire life.”

A sickening thought bloomed in my mind. “Did you kill the woman from the bank?”

Mom inhaled sharply.

Mrs. Redmond narrowed her eyes. “I did what I had to.”

“You said she was your friend.”

She flashed a crooked, wicked grin. That had been a lie, too.

“I won’t get it for you,” I said. “You can’t have the Heart.”

Mrs. Redmond raised her hand and brought the butt of the knife down onto my mom’s head. She crumpled to the ground. Mrs. Redmond bent over her, pressing the tip of the knife over her heart.

“Don’t!” I screamed.

“I want the Absyrtus Heart, and I want it now.” Her voice cracked. For the first time, I saw something in her eyes that wasn’t pure malice or fake kindness. It was raw desperation.

“I need to know why,” I said. “Why do you want it so bad? You really wanna live forever? What about Karter?” I was so angry at him. He’d lied to me, broken my trust in the most awful way by pretending to be my friend when I needed one so badly. But he’d also warned me that I wasn’t safe. I wanted to believe that there was some part of him that was on my side.

“I don’t give a damn about him,” Mrs. Redmond growled. She shook her head and clenched her teeth like she’d said something that was supposed to be a secret. “My family has always sought the Heart, and their reasons were petty and selfish. I want it for something bigger and more profound than they could have imagined.” She drew a slow breath. “My forefathers still walk the earth. Imagine it. Gods among us. And if I have to leave Karter behind to take my rightful place among them . . . so be it.”

Her contempt for her own son was clear, but I struggled to comprehend the rest of what she was saying. “What do you mean, they still walk the earth?”

“Hermes lives,” she whispered. “As do so many of the others. I come from them. I belong with them. I’ve been searching and I’ve found hints of them—clues.” She was trembling as she spoke. She looked like she would come undone at any minute. “I know they’re out there, but I can’t keep searching in this mortal body. I need more time. The Heart will give that to me—all the time I could possibly need and when I find them, they will welcome me home.” She pressed the knife down and a circle of blood seeped through my mom’s shirt.

“Stop!” I yelled. “I’ll get it for you! Please don’t hurt her!”

Mrs. Redmond stood and marched toward me. She stuck the knife under my chin, her eyes wild, her hand trembling slightly. “Take me to it.”

Her motivation for this elaborate inheritance scheme made more sense when I understood she expected to take her place among some kind of ancient, godlike beings. I didn’t think it was possible that she could be telling the whole truth, but it didn’t matter. She believed it, and she was willing to hurt me and the people I cared about to get what she wanted. I tried to think of a way out of this while protecting Mom and the Heart, but I couldn’t see how.

I glanced at my mom’s crumpled frame. Her chest rose and fell, and the whites of her eyes were visible under their half-open lids.