Henry’s head snapped toward the source, his chest tightening painfully as his mind fought to make sense of what he was hearing. A voice. A voice he knew. A voice that had once soothed him when he was sick, that had whispered lullabies when he couldn’t sleep, that had called his name in warmth and in anger. His mother’s voice.

  And it was coming from the woman standing near the edge of the ritual circle. Sarah.

  His breath hitched. No—not Sarah. Not really. The woman in the dark red robe was trembling, her breath uneven, her bare feet slick with blood. She clutched the fabric with white-knuckled fingers, desperate, unsteady. But she wasn’t small anymore. She wasn’t his little sister. The robe no longer swallowed her—it fit. Because it wasn’t Sarah’s body.

  The realization slammed into Henry like a blade to the chest. That was the Red-Robed Woman’s cloak. That was the Red-Robed Woman’s body. And Sarah was inside it. Which meant the thing on the altar, the one wearing Sarah’s face, wasn’t just some random monster hijacking her body. It was her. His mother.

  The breath in Henry’s lungs turned to ice. His limbs went numb, his heart hammering so hard he could feel it in his skull. The weight of the truth was so heavy it crushed him into silence. The Red-Robed Woman—the one who had orchestrated this nightmare, the one who had terrorized people, experimented with the mist, the one who had tried to break him—she had been his mother all along. And she was standing before him, wearing Sarah like a trophy.

  Sarah—his Sarah—staggered, her breathing ragged, eyes flicking between Henry and the thing on the altar. Panic stretched across her face as realization dawned. Her hands clutched at her own throat, as if the sound of her mother’s voice coming from her own mouth had finally hit her. “Henry, what—what happened? What’s—” Her voice cracked, breaking into a choked sob as she stumbled forward. Her movements were slow, disoriented, as if her own body was foreign to her.

  Henry’s muscles locked, instincts screaming at him to do something, anything, to fix this. But before he could move, the thing in Sarah’s body let out a soft, delighted hum, rolling her shoulders before exhaling in contentment. “It’s a perfect fit, don’t you think?” She flexed Sarah’s hands, turning them over, watching as the golden mist curled and responded to her will. “It’s remarkable how well she holds magic. A better vessel than I could have imagined.”

  Her golden eyes flicked back to Henry, gleaming with something cruel. “You always were so naive.”

  Henry couldn’t breathe. His mother had been the Red-Robed Woman this entire time—the woman who had tried to burn entire villages, who had been experimenting on people, who had been sacrificing innocents to the mist. All of it had been her. All while Henry had been trying to save Sarah. And now she had taken her.

  Wearing Sarah’s face, his mother sat on the altar with serene satisfaction, her fingers flexing as if testing their new shape, her expression warm and motherly but utterly empty. She regarded Henry with amusement, her golden eyes gleaming as if she found this all terribly funny. Then she smiled. “A mother always knows.”

  Henry’s voice came out raw, hoarse, nearly shaking. “Why are you doing this? How?”

  The thing in Sarah’s body let out a soft, mocking sigh, stretching like someone relaxing after a long day. “Oh, my precious little Henry.” Her voice dripped with contempt disguised as affection, the way she used to speak when he was a child and she was pretending to be kind. “You were always so slow to see the truth. I’m not from Earth.”

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  Henry's stomach twisted, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak.

  Her fingers trailed through the golden mist still curling from her palms, her expression almost nostalgic as she continued. “When I was young, my coven found a MistFount and sent me in to find the Fairy. We believed that if we could kill her, the mists would finally consume the planet, make our magic whole. Would you believe that was fifty years ago?”

  She smiled, tilting her head as if relishing the moment. “Fifty years. Trapped in that despicable, magicless world, forced to pretend I cared about you, about your sister, or—god forbid—my pathetic excuse for a former husband.”

  Henry’s vision blurred, his hands shaking as he tried to process what he was hearing. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real.

  She had never loved them.

  Sarah, standing near the edge of the ritual circle in their mother’s stolen body, let out a strangled breath, clutching her arms tightly around herself as if the weight of their mother’s words was physically crushing her.

  Henry swallowed hard, his voice barely more than a whisper. “What?”

  His mother—the Red-Robed Woman—rolled her stolen shoulders, exhaling in mock exasperation. “He was cheating on me, so I shot him.”

  The words landed like a blade to the chest.

  “What?” Henry repeated, but this time it wasn’t whispered—it was horrified.

  She flicked a hand dismissively. “Made it look like a break-in. Those stupid cops ate up the 'poor, distressed single mother' act like hungry dogs.” Her lips curled in satisfaction, a hint of genuine pride in her voice.

  Henry stumbled back, the world spinning violently. His father hadn’t died in some tragic accident. His mother had murdered him. His body locked up, mind reeling, trying to separate the mother he had known from the monster speaking to him now—but the more she spoke, the more he realized they had always been the same person. The cold, calculating glint in her eyes. The way she could lie with a smile and never blink. The way she had never truly cared about them, only played the role of a mother to blend in.

  Henry had spent his whole life thinking she had simply been distant—but she had been biding her time.

  Sarah let out a shaky sob, pressing her hands against her mouth, her entire body trembling in their mother’s stolen form. Henry couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t look at either of them. His hands curled into fists, nails biting into his palms, his breath coming in shallow, sharp bursts. His mother had always been strange, secretive, cruel in ways he couldn't explain—but this? This was worse than anything he could have imagined.

  The thing on the altar—his mother wearing Sarah’s face—sighed as if she were already growing bored of his shock. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. You were never meant to be part of this.” Her golden eyes gleamed. “But now that you are—let’s see if you can be useful.”

  Rage began to boil beneath Henry’s skin. It burned through the horror, through the grief, through the stunned paralysis. His body moved before his mind could catch up.

  With all the fury and confusion that had been building—from Elara, from the mist, from this revelation—he thrust his wand forward, pouring every ounce of magic he had into a bolt of mist that slammed into his mother’s stolen face. She reeled back, knocked off balance, and Henry didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the hat off the altar and shoved it onto his head. His hands found the piece of armor that had been used in the ritual, snapping it around his legs as magic pulsed through him in a violent rush.

  The wand vibrated with pleasure, a sensation that might have disgusted him if it weren’t for the sheer force of knowledge flooding his mind. He knew. He knew exactly what the ritual had done, how to fix Elara, how to stop the mist, how to save the world. The only problem was that there was only enough power to do one of those things.