If there was ever a time to find out if the spy tech worked while she was in shadow form, it was now.

  Shadows melded with her body, transforming her into peels of living darkness. Cloaking her mother did not work the same way as it did herself, as she felt Vora maintain her form even as her power converted her partially into shadow. She did not have the capability of seeing, feeling, or hearing as shadow, though it was enough of a transformation to push them through a wall and out into a crowded parking lot.

  Despite the strain her own transformation often put on Vivainne’s core, it was not the same with her mother. In many ways, it felt easier, which was something she had not yet been able to explain. Perhaps it was simply the presence of another shadow core near her own, stabilizing it?

  It was an idea she couldn’t linger on, with her mother whispering directions in her ear. Following her orders, Vivainne made her way through the parking lot to a nondescript black car, different from the one they’d arrived in. One Vivainne had never seen before. Once inside, Vora allowed her to drop their shadow forms.

  Vora started the car up with a quiet rumble and pulled them out of the back side of the parking lot, avoiding the crowds of cameras.

  In the passenger seat, Vivainne’s body tensed, watching out the window as they turned not toward their home, but onto a road that would take them out of the city proper.

  “Where are we going?”

  A smile flashed across Vora’s face, wicked in the dark and the flashing headlights on the street. “You didn’t think we were only going to the award ceremony, did you?”

  She had, but Vivainne fell silent, watching the road with a sweeping gaze, taking in as many details as possible. In the dark, and without her power, it was difficult, but she kept her eyes wide for road signs, mile markers, everything she could to get the information across to the heroes on the other end. They would be able to follow this path and find wherever Vora was bringing them toward, and maybe that would be enough to get her mother locked up.

  She let the hope carry her and battle the dread inside as Vora drove on and on through the night.

  An hour after they left the theater, Vora pulled off the main road, cutting down a short, one way street before moving into a neighborhood.

  Quiet and nondescript, rows and rows of near identical houses extended in all directions, perfectly square lawns all planted with a singular tree they could call their own. Street lamps sat perfectly spaced, illuminating each block as they drove through it.

  It was eerie as much as it was mundane, and the last place Vivainne expected her mother to go.

  She kept still, biting her tongue to hold questions back as her mother pulled into an open driveway, parking in front of a single car garage. She opened the door and stepped out without hesitation, leaving Vivainne sitting inside the car. Vora made her way to the front door, pulling out a set of keys from her purse to unlock the front door.

  Did Vora have an entire secret home Vivainne didn’t know about?

  She slipped out of the car, heel sinking down into plush grass at the side of the driveway. Pulling it free, she hurried up the steps and into a well lit entryway, a welcome mat covering the hardwood floor in front of the door.

  Vora had disappeared into the depths of the house.

  Vivainne pulled the front door shut, removed her heels, and the walls closed in. Footsteps echoed off the ceiling, and something in the back of her mind itched as she moved further into the house. A familiarity, though she couldn’t remember ever living anywhere but her mother’s gated mansion. There was no way she’d been here before, right?

  A voice caught her ear, and she froze. It jingled around in her mind, setting off bells that both made her catch her breath and set off the desperate need to find the voice. It wasn’t her mother’s.

  Her brain refused to compute what it might be, feet leading her forward before she realized what they were doing. Up the stairs, soft carpet beneath her feet, around a corner and past a bathroom with a rabbit shaped night light shining from the counter.

  Her mother’s voice drifted up, lilting out of an open bedroom door.

  Vivainne approached it, the world closing in and stretching out at the same time. It took an eternity to reach the doorway, and only a single heartbeat passed, thundering in her ears as she peered inside.

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  A child’s bedroom lay before her, painted in pastels and full of plush toys. In the center, a bed pushed against the wall, her mother sitting on the end of it, sunken deep into a mattress covered in rainbow sheets.

  Across from Vora, a small girl, hair as black as night and long enough to reach the bed they sat upon. The same pale skin. Vivainne’s same wide, black eyes, staring up at Vora with implicit trust.

  Vivainne sucked in a breath, and the little girl’s eyes darted toward her. She shrunk back, fear clouding her face as she clutched tiny hands into the silk skirt of Vora’s dress.

  Vora smiled and laid a hand on the girl’s head, smoothing back rumpled hair. “It’s okay, darling. That’s just Viv. Viv, this is Vanya.”

  Stunned as she was, Vivainne opened her mouth to speak. She then spun, racing out of the bedroom and into the bathroom as everything she’d eaten during the night came burning back up.

  Her stomach emptied and she found herself gasping over the toilet, eyes burning as tears fled down her cheeks. She shouldn’t have eaten. She shouldn’t have come with her mother. She shouldn’t. She couldn’t.

  How could she have a sister?

  How was it possible that she hadn’t known?

  It wasn’t possible. It was impossible for her mother to have another child; she’d never been pregnant, not that Vivainne had noticed, and she’d been around her mother every day for the past eighteen years of her life. Vora couldn’t hide that.

  “Vivainne?” Her mother stepped into the doorway, blotting out the light from the hallway outside, leaving Vivainne gasping in the luminous blue light of a glowing rabbit.

  Vivainne pushed herself off the toilet, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, the taste of bile burning in the back of her throat. She turned to her mother, and for the first time that she could remember, she could not hide her horror as she stared at her.

  “How?” she managed, the only question she could speak.

  “There is a power for everything, dear,” Vora said, the answer as simple as it was terrible. Had Vora used another super to make the girl? Was that super even still alive? “Why don’t you come out here and meet your sister?”

  Vivainne shook her head, not certain she wouldn’t throw up again. “Is she actually my sister?”

  “Of course,” Vora said. “She’s my blood, as much as you are.”

  The answer sent discomfort worming through her, the iteration of the words sitting poorly. They didn’t give her any more confidence in where the little girl had come from; instead, it made Vivainne question her own origin. If Vora hadn’t given birth to Vanya, had she given birth to Vivainne? And if she hadn’t, where had they both come from?

  “Why?” Vivainne asked, growing steadier even as the horror set in. “Why have another child? Why is she here? Is she alone?” Horror transformed into anger at the idea that her mother would leave her daughter, a child that couldn’t have been more than five years old, alone in a house all day, every day.

  “Of course she’s not alone,” Vora said, brushing the question aside in its absurdity. “She has caretakers. And she’s here because I need to keep her safe.”

  “And why have her?” Vivainne demanded, wondering why her mother didn’t feel the need to keep her safe.

  Vora stared at her, for all her genius not understanding. “Because you might not have worked,” she said. “I needed another option.”

  “For what?” Vivainne demanded, the anger practically spitting from her lips.

  Rather than answer, Vora turned out of the doorway and motioned for Vivainne to follow. “Come meet your sister.”

  Vivainne followed her mother out of the bathroom and back to the bedroom of the little girl, imagining herself snatching the girl and running from the building. How far could she get if she tried? Not far enough. She would need to wait.

  Fear shone in the little girl’s eyes even as she climbed onto their mother’s lap, wrapping her arms around the woman and clinging to her as Vora brought her over to Vivainne to say hi.

  Vivainne took her sister’s hand, forcing herself to smile even as her plans changed.

  She couldn’t just stop her mother, she had to rescue her sister too.

  ******

  A cup of cocoa steamed on the table, covered in whipped cream and cinnamon dust, the same way Vora always made it. A second cup sat in front of the older woman, drunk halfway down even as Vivainne’s sat untouched, her fingertips warming against smooth ceramic. Staring at the mug, fat stars painted across it in dark blue, Vivainne knew she must have been to this house before. It was all too familiar.

  Vanya slept in the bedroom above, soothed into slumber by the melodic voice of their mother. Memories conflicted with the horror Vivainne held onto, images of her mother doing the same things to her, and then what came later. When her mother broke her core, doing something to it in all of her experimentation. Had Vora done the same to that little girl, or would that come later? Would she strap her to a chair, first quiet and then crying as the fear set in, and invade her?

  Vivainne shuddered, doing her best to hide the motion as she wrapped a hand around the mug, lifting it to her lips. She couldn’t think about that right now. Couldn’t break, when there was still so much to do. And she couldn’t take as long now. She had to rescue her sister and get her somewhere safe.

  “Why hide her?” Vivainne asked, mug thumping back onto the table.

  “To keep her safe,” Vora said. “There are people who would destroy us, if they had a chance.”

  “Are there more?” If she had more siblings out there, she would scream. Were they even her siblings, or were they replications of her mother, in some way?

  “Not any more successful ones, no,” Vora said. Her nails began to drum a beat against the tabletop, watching Vivainne with a scrutinizing gaze. “Do you have any more questions for me?”

  So many questions, but none good. “Why bring me here?”

  “You asked to be more involved,” Vora said. “And this way, you can also help keep your sister safe.”

  Vivainne nodded. That was one thing she could honestly say she would do. She would keep her sister safe.

  “Are you ready to see more?” Vora asked, pushing her mug away, empty.

  She rose to her feet slowly, terrified of what else she’d be shown. “See more of what?”

  Vora’s simple answer stripped all the warmth from Vivainne’s bones. “You were the one who suggested I find a tech super.”