“Why would you do that? You watched me kill a Warrior last night, and wound another. I could have killed Zoey as well.”

She cocked her head to the side and studied him. “Could you have? I think not. Or at least I think the boy I see at this moment could not kill her.”

Aurox felt his shoulders slump. “But only you believe that. No one else will.”

“Well, tsu-ka-nv-s-di-na, I am the only person here with you at this moment. Is my belief not enough?”

Aurox wiped his face again and stood, a little unsteadily. Then he took her delicate hand very carefully in his. “Sylvia Redbird, your belief is enough at this moment.”

She squeezed his hand, smiled, and said, “Call me Grandma.”

“What is it you call me, Grandma?”

She smiled. “Tsu-ka-nv-s-di-na is my people’s word for bull.”

He felt hot and then cold. “The beast I become is more terrible than a bull.”

“Then perhaps naming you tsu-ka-nv-s-di-na will take some of the horror from what sleeps within you. There is power in the naming of something, child.”

“Tsu-ka-nv-s-di-na. I will remember that,” Aurox said.

Still feeling shaky, he walked with the magickal old woman to the little farmhouse that rested between sleeping lavender fields. It was made of stone and had an invitingly wide porch. Grandma led him to a deep leather couch and gave him a hand-woven blanket to wrap around his shoulders. Then she said, “I would ask you to rest your spirit.” Aurox did as she asked while Grandma sang a song softly to herself, built a hearth fire, boiled water for tea, then retrieved and gifted him with a sweatshirt and soft leather shoes from another room. After the room was warm and her song was finished, Grandma motioned for him to join her at a small wooden table, offering him food from a purple plate.

Aurox sipped the honey-sweetened tea and ate from the plate. “Th-thank you, Grandma,” he said haltingly. “The food is good. The drink is good. Everything here is so good.”

“The tea is chamomile and hyssop. I use it to help me be calm and focused. The cookies are my own recipe—chocolate chip with a hint of lavender. I’ve always believed chocolate and lavender are good for the soul.” Grandma smiled and bit into a cookie. They ate in silence.

Aurox had never felt so content. He knew it couldn’t be, but somehow he had a sense of belonging here with this woman. It was that odd but wonderful sense of belonging that allowed him to begin speaking to her from his heart.

“Neferet commanded me here last night. I was to disrupt the ritual.”

Grandma nodded. Her expression was not surprised but contemplative. “She wouldn’t have wanted to be revealed as my daughter’s murderer.”

Aurox studied her. “Your daughter was murdered. You witnessed the record of it last night, yet you are serene and joyful today. Where do you find such peace?”

“From within,” she said. “It also comes from the belief that there is more at work here than what we can see—what we can prove. For instance, at the very least I should fear you. Some would say I should hate you.”

“Many would say that.”

“Yet I neither fear nor hate you.”

“You—you are comforting me. Giving me sanctuary. Why, Grandma?” Aurox asked.

“Because I believe in the power of love. I believe in choosing Light over Darkness—happiness over hatred—trust over skepticism,” Grandma said.

“Then it is not me at all. It is simply that you are a good person,” he said.

“I don’t think being a good person is ever very simple, do you?” she said.

“I do not know. I have never tried to be a good person.” He ran a hand through his thick blond hair in frustration.

Grandma’s eyes wrinkled with her smile. “Have you not? Last night you were commanded by a powerful immortal to stop a ritual, and yet, miraculously, the ritual was completed. How did that happen, Aurox?”

“No one will believe the truth about that,” he said.

“I will,” Grandma said. “Tell me, child.”

“I came here to follow Neferet’s command—to kill Rephaim and distract Stevie Rae so that the circle would break and the ritual would not succeed, but I could not do it. I could not break something that was so filled with Light, so good,” he spoke in a rush, wanting to get the truth out before Grandma stopped him, shunned him. “Then Darkness took possession of me. I did not want to change! I did not want the bull creature to emerge! But I could not control it, and once it was present, it only remembered its last command: kill Rephaim. It was only the washing of the elements and the touch of Light that halted the beast long enough for me to regain some control to make it flee.”

“That’s why you killed Dragon. Because he tried to protect Rephaim,” she said.

Aurox nodded, bowing his head in shame. “I did not want to kill him. I did not intend to kill him. Darkness controlled the beast, and the beast controlled me.”

“Not now, though. The beast is not here now,” Grandma said softly.

Aurox met her gaze. “He is. The beast is always here.” He pointed to the middle of his chest. “It is eternally within me.”

Grandma covered his hand with hers. “That may be, but you are here as well. Tsu-ka-nv-s-di-na, remember that you did control the beast enough to flee. Perhaps that is a beginning. Learn how to trust yourself, and then others may learn to trust you.”

He shook his head. “No, you are different than everyone else. No one will believe me. They will only see the beast. No one will care enough to trust me.”

“Zoey shielded you from the Warriors. It was because of her protection that you were able to flee.”

Aurox blinked in surprise. He hadn’t even thought of that. His emotions had been in such turmoil that he hadn’t realized the extent of Zoey’s actions. “She did protect me,” he said slowly.

Grandma patted his hand. “Do not let her belief in you be wasted. Choose Light, child.”

“But I already tried to and failed!”

“Try harder,” she spoke sternly.

Aurox opened his mouth to protest, but Grandma’s eyes stopped his words. Her gaze said that her words were more than a command—they were a belief.

He bowed his head again. This time not in shame, but in response to a tentative glimmer of hope. Aurox took one small moment to savor the new, wonderful feeling. Then, gently, he took his hand from under Grandma’s and stood. In answer to her questioning look he said, “I must learn how to prove you right.”

“And how will you do that, child?”

“I must find myself,” he spoke with no hesitation.

Her smile was warm and bright. Unexpectedly, it reminded him of Zoey, which made the tentative glimmer of hope expand until it warmed the center of him. “Where will you go?”

“Where I can do the most good,” he said.

“Aurox, child, know that as long as you control the beast, and do not kill again, you may always find sanctuary with me.”

“I will never forget it, Grandma.”

When she hugged him at the door, Aurox closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of lavender and the touch of a mother’s love. That scent and that touch stayed with him as he drove slowly back to Tulsa.

The February day was bright and, as the man on the radio said, warm enough to start wakin’ up the ticks. Aurox parked Neferet’s car in one of the empty spaces at the rear of Utica Square, and then he let instinct guide his steps as he walked from the busy shopping center along the backstreet called South Yorktown Avenue. Aurox smelled smoke before he reached the great stone wall that encircled the House of Night.

This fire was Neferet’s work. It reeks of her Darkness, Aurox thought. He didn’t allow himself to consider what that fire might have destroyed. He focused only on following his instinct, which was telling him he had to return to the House of Night to find himself and his redemption. Aurox’s heart was beating hard as he slipped within the shadow of the wall and made his way silently and swiftly around the east boundary of the school until he came to an old oak that had been split so violently that part of it rested against the school’s wall.