In the shade of a towering tree, surrounded by roots larger than houses, Toa dragged Zeke’s limp body onto a white sandy shore. He pressed his lips to Zeke’s and forced air down his lungs. He pressed on Zeke’s chest again and again. Mer surrounded them, watching sadly, as if attending a wake. Sea otters gathered around to watch with curious apprehension. Violet petals fell from flowering branches far in the sky, like raindrops falling from green and purple clouds.

Finally, Ezekiel choked up sea water. He opened his eyes but couldn’t see through the stars. His chest and throat burned. He struggled to remove the gunk from his nose and ears. It was several minutes of violent coughing before Zeke’s vision cleared. He looked up at a visibly relieved and smiling Toa. Then Zeke remembered what had happened.

Suddenly panicked, he reached for the satchel tied to his belt. It was still there. Mama was okay.

Zeke untied the knot, opened the satchel, and turned it upside down. A flaming ingot fell to the ground. It undulated and expanded and then burst upward, taking shape and definition.

In an instant, Mama stood in her usual kitsune form.

Mama blinked and looked around, then dropped to her knees and hugged her son tightly. Tears fell from her eyes like the flood of a broken dam.

In the caves, Mama had acted so brave and confident. Now with the fierceness of her embrace, Zeke realized how truly afraid she had been.

“You’re okay,” she said to him or herself, Zeke wasn’t sure. “We’re okay. We’re gonna be okay.”

Reunited with Mama, the weight of it all hit him at last. He broke into sobs in his mother’s arms.

They stayed there for several moments, mourning papa, mourning their home, mourning Dook. Was Dook okay? Zeke would likely never know. Papa’s greatest gift to him, and he’d left Dook behind. Like they’d left Papa behind. He had run like a coward. Shame shattered his spirit like a knife to glass. He would never forgive himself.

“What do we do now?” he pleaded.

Mama composed herself and held his face tenderly. She said, “We wait. We’ll be safe here. This place has magics shielding it from long sight. If your papa managed to get away, he’ll find us.”

“What if…” Zeke couldn’t finish the question.

“Papa’s alive,” Mama said assuredly. “I would know if he wasn’t. If he’s been captured, I’ll need to find him.”

“I can help! We can rescue him together!”

“No. We don’t know who sent those creatures. But we do know what they want: you. So you have to stay here where it’s safe.”

“But I can help! I can-”

“I said no! Your papa risked his life to keep you safe, and you will not make his sacrifice in vain. You will stay here. That is what he wanted, and you will honor that!”

Mama had never shouted at Zeke before, and the fury with which she spoke now crushed any fight left in him.

He bowed his head. He would stay.

Mama looked around. “Where is the Ivory Blade?” she asked with a hint of fear in her voice.

That hint of fear terrified Zeke more than the monsters hunting him. He had never seen Mama angry or afraid before today, and now he witnessed both. Zeke had thought himself a man before, but he realized now how naive that notion was; how utterly, laughably childish he had been before this moment.

“I… I lost it,” he said.

“You lost it?!”

“I’m sorry,” he cried. “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He hid his face in his arms and broke into sobs again.

“It wasn’t his fault!” Toa shouted with fury. Zeke looked up and Mama turned to face the mer. “We were attacked! He almost died saving my life! He was brave! The only reason you’re here now and not sinking to the bottom of the ocean is because of Zeke, so lay off him!”

Mama and Zeke were both stunned to silence.

Zeke appreciated Toa coming to his defense, but he didn’t like the way he yelled at Mama.

Mama, for her part, seemed only grateful. She nodded curtly at the mer and softened her countenance. She put her hand on Zeke’s shoulder and said, “I’m sorry for yelling at you. I know you did your best, and I’m proud of you for getting us here. What happened? Where is the sword?”

Zeke struggled to recall the details. “A sea monster attacked us. It was coming for me, but Toa protected me. I… I think I killed it, but I don’t remember what happened after.”

Toa finished the story. “It was a cthulian. An old one. Zeke killed it, but it knocked the air out of him and he drowned. It was a lucky thing we weren’t far from Haven. I carried him here and revived him, but for a moment… he was dead.”

Mama started shaking. Zeke knew she was trying to stay strong for him, but Toa’s words struck her very core. She had lost everything and didn’t know it, had been powerless to do anything about it. Her son died, while she was helpless.

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Toa continued, “The sword is probably still in the cthulian’s body, which sank to the bottom of the ocean. We can’t go that far down. I’m sorry. It’s lost.”

Mama sat with her head in her hands for a moment, shaking with fear and furious at herself, her weakness, her uselessness.

Zeke put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m okay, Mama. We’re okay.”

She put her hand on his but said nothing, she just looked out to sea with a fixed, stoic expression. Finally, she sighed and said, “What’s done is done. What matters now is keeping you safe and finding your papa. With his powers, maybe he can retrieve the sword.”

That sounded like hope to Zeke. “Yeah. Okay! So how do we find him?”

Mama answered pensively, “I might have a way, but I can’t do it here.”

“Why not?”

“Because it means reaching out to Lilith. If I do that here, she’ll find us, and she’ll send her forces. I have to go far from here so you’ll be safe.”

Panic flooded Zeke’s mind. “What? No! You can’t leave me here!”

Mama was devastated. “There is no other way. If your papa isn’t here by tonight, we have to assume he’s been captured. He’s the only one who can retrieve the sword now. And he knows what you are. The longer we wait, the greater the risk our enemies learn the truth. Right now, they’re looking for a sword. If they find out who and what you are, they’ll search for you. They have ways. And I can’t protect you from their sight forever.”

“You can’t protect me at all if you’re not here!”

“Zeke! Listen to me. You’ve been preparing for this moment your entire life. We knew this day was coming. It came sooner than we would have liked, but it’s here now.” She put her hand tenderly on his cheek. “You have to be brave and remember everything we taught you. You still have your Aunt Gwen’s longknife. You are capable. You are immensely powerful. And you will be safe here.”

Zeke fought back tears. He had cried enough. He wouldn’t allow himself to cry again. Mama needed him to be brave so she could save Papa. Zeke nodded curtly.

Mama sighed in relief. Then she turned to address Toa. “Thank you, for saving my son’s life, for saving both of us. I’ll be in your debt forever.”

Toa answered simply, “I’ll look after him as best I can until you return.”

That response seemed to surprise Mama. She tilted her head, inspecting him quizzically but said nothing. Did she not trust him?

But Zeke wouldn’t get the chance to ask, because the sea otters suddenly swarmed the shore in massive numbers, encircling Zeke, Mama, and the mers, and shrieking loud, high-pitched threatening sounds.

Mama summoned fireballs in each hand, but that only further enraged the sea otters. They shrieked furiously, trying to drive them back to sea. But Mama wouldn’t budge. She had yielded too much ground already today, and she would burn every last one of these hysterical beasts if needs be.

But a strange new voice bellowed, “Enough!”

The breeze carried a swarm of violet flower petals and green leaves, swirling like a little hurricane with bizarre anthropomorphic details. The echoing wind was its voice. The leaves and petals, its form and function.

“You are not welcome here, Rowan,” said the wind.

Mama looked aghast. “What? Haven is sacred ground for all fae kind. I am the last kitsune. On what grounds do you deny me sanctuary?”

The wind bellowed in response, “You burned Crescent’s Sanctuary to ashes! You brought death and obliteration to Crescent and all who lived there! Did you think your crimes went unnoticed?!”

For the third time today, Zeke witnessed a new emotion on his mama’s face: shame.

She struggled to respond but finally said, “Adam destroyed Crescent, not me.”

The wind hollered back, “You led Adam’s spy to Sanctuary! You set fire to the cthulian elders! You failed to kill Adam, dooming everyone on the island! Your actions brought death to countless innocents! And now you bring fresh death to our shores! Leave, kitsune, and take your doomed spawn with you!”

Mama looked utterly defeated. She fell to her knees, head touching the sand. “I will leave, as you command. But please, I beg you, do not turn my son away. He is innocent! He had no part in my offenses.”

“He is not fae. Our ways do not apply to him. Leave Nohu Mangrove now, or face judgment for the lives you ended.”

Zeke was ready to despair, but Mama had one more revelation to show him: her capacity for violence.

She raised her head with hardened death in her eyes like glowing embers. Her tail flicked and ignited. Her skin peeled off like burning paper, revealing white-hot flames beneath the surface. Her voice was a crackling growl.

“You will offer my son protection, or I will incinerate this grove, every living creature in it, and leave my son to safely tend the ashes.”

The sea otters screeched in panic. Some scattered. Others held one another in a doomed embrace. The mers fled to the water.

Zeke had never imagined Mama capable of such violence, such cruelty. She had raised him to love and respect nature and his surroundings. But he was only twenty years old. Mama had been alive for hundreds of years or more. There was so much he didn’t know about her. Through tear-soaked eyes, he saw her for the first time and wondered if he had ever known her at all.

In response to Mama’s threat, the breeze swiftly grew into a typhoon. Green and purple leaves twisted and spun like razors on the wind, and launched at Mama and Zeke.

But Mama simply spun her tail, now a blazing inferno, reducing the leaves to ash in an instant. Zeke fell and crawled away from the dust and furious heat, crying, “Mama, stop, please!”

Mama ignored him and launched herself into the air in an explosion that liquified the sand at her feet. True to her word, she would burn everything to cinders and ash.

Suddenly, something wrapped around Zeke’s throat and pulled him back. He could barely breathe but he couldn’t escape.

Toa shouted, “Rowan, stop this madness or I will break your son’s neck! Haven, stand down!”

Mama glanced back and instantly the fight left her. She dropped to the ground, still enflamed but nearly motionless. Her kitsune features returned and she collapsed, utterly defeated.

But the storm hadn’t passed. A mighty gust knocked Mama high into the air. She fell with a great splash beyond the shoreline. She was alive but unable to reignite while surrounded by water.

Toa said something in mer Zeke couldn’t understand, but he heard two whispered words meant for him: “I’m sorry.”

Toa released his grip on Zeke’s throat. Gasping for air, face soaked with tears, Zeke ran from Toa and toward the ocean, toward Mama, away from this horrible place and these horrible, treacherous creatures, but a strong gust knocked him backward.

“No,” bellowed the wind. “We’ve changed our mind. The boy stays, but you, Rowan, are banished from this land forever. If you come near here again, we will slice your son to pieces. Go now, and never come back!”

There was nothing Mama could do but obey. She got what she wanted. Zeke would stay, but she might never see him again. Mama looked at him from an endless distance, devastated, and mournfully, silently apologizing, and saying goodbye. Then she shapeshifted into a giant bird and took to the air, leaving her son behind, maybe forever.

Powerless, Zeke could only watch as Mama flew away, growing smaller and smaller in the distance, finally disappearing into clouds and the terrible blue sky.