And there it was, the sentence, flat and absolute and aimed with the specific precision of a woman who needed to establish something and had found the sharpest available instrument she is my daughter and it landed in Amara's chest in the place where things land when they are accurate in ways that have nothing to do with kindness.
Amara closed her mouth.
She smiled.
It was a small smile. Controlled. The smile of someone forcing the muscles of their face to do a thing that the rest of them were not doing.
She held the baby out.
Yvette took her.
"I will need my other baby, Julian," Yvette said. She had Divina against her chest now and she was looking at Julian, because she was a woman who had come here to speak to Julian, who had spoken to Amara only at Amara's insistence, and who had now decided that the relevant business was between herself and him
"My third child. I'll need her returned." But Julian was not looking at her. He had been watching Amara.
