“We do.”

She grinned, her face glowing. “Did you hear? I’m a half-demon. An Exhaust—Exustio. That’s the highest kind of fire demon you can be. Cool, huh?”

Being a half-demon was cool. But being a half-demon lab rat, teetering on the brink of extermination? Definitely not cool. As much as I longed to tell her the truth, though, I couldn’t. Not yet.

Just last night, Rae had been lying on her bed at Lyle House, trying to light a match with her bare fingers, desperate for proof she had a supernatural ability. Now she’d discovered she was a special kind of half-demon. That was important to Rae in a way I couldn’t understand—in a way that I just had to accept until I had more proof that this wasn’t the best thing that ever happened to her.

“And you know what else?” she said. “They showed me pictures of my mom. My real mom. None of my dad, of course, being a demon. Kind of freaky when you think about it. Demons aren’t exactly…” For the first time, worry clouded her eyes. She blinked it back. “But Dr. D. says that it doesn’t make you evil or whatever. Anyway, my mom? Her name was Jacinda. Isn’t that pretty?”

I opened my mouth to agree, but she kept rambling excitedly.

“She used to work here, like Simon’s dad. They have pictures of her. She was gorgeous. Like a model. And Dr. D. said they might even know where to find her, and they’re going to try. Just for me.”

“What about your adoptive parents?”

The clouds descended again, lingering longer, and I felt bad, being the one to bring her down. First telling Liz she was dead, then making Brady relive his final evening, now reminding Rae of her parents…I was trying to get answers to help all of us. But it felt cruel.

After a moment, Rae said, “They aren’t supernaturals.”