Ava and Lilia’s life in hiding

Ava and Lilia’s life in hiding defines Ava’s childhood as both an act of protection and a prolonged condition of danger. Lilia fled the Coterie rather than let it claim her daughter, and the two spent years living under the radar, moving between temporary refuges. The cost was a life without secure roots: even the comfort of home depended on whether they could risk returning to the people they loved.

Flight from the Coterie

Lilia had already spent much of her young life working for the Coterie, including under Venus. When she learned she was pregnant, the threat was not only that the organization might take her child. Because Lilia was a firebug, the Coterie could see a child with the same ability as a potential living weapon, bound to serve its purposes. If the child were human, Lilia feared the Coterie could instead use her as leverage against her mother. Either way, the organization’s interest turned pregnancy into a danger from which Lilia believed she had to escape.

That danger extended to Ava’s father. Lilia feared that if Ava inherited her firebug ability, Venus could force him into the Coterie’s breeding program, treating the family as a means of producing more firebugs. The ability’s inheritance made the risk uncertain but serious: Ava’s father carried the gene without being able to produce fire, while Lilia was a firebug. Lilia could not safely wait to learn what Ava would be. She was prepared, if Ava had been born human, to leave her with her father and disappear from her life rather than expose her to the Coterie or reveal that she was Lilia’s daughter. Lilia’s flight thus protected Ava by accepting the possibility of separation as well as the hardship of constant escape.

A childhood without roots

Ava grew up understanding that the family could not stay anywhere for long. When she was twelve, she and Lilia were in Florida at a safe house found by Benny, but the refuge was temporary; they expected to leave after a few days. Ava describes the pattern as familiar: they never remained in one place for more than a few months, and being hunted by the Coterie meant they could not put down roots. The repeated departures were not an interruption to childhood so much as its ordinary structure.

The flight also shaped what Ava knew about family. Her father had not abandoned her; she and Lilia had left him for his safety. Lilia explained this early, and Ava understood that he would have loved her but had not been given the chance to raise her. The explanation made their absence from him part of the same protective logic as the moves themselves. Safety meant keeping loved ones beyond the Coterie’s reach, even when that meant living apart from them.

There were exceptions to the rule of departure. Although returning to Currant put Cade in danger, Lilia sometimes went back because she could not bear to stay away indefinitely. One visit became a week-long stay after snow trapped them there for the holidays. Ava remembered the homemade cider, candy, books, and new pajamas Cade gave her, as well as the tree they decorated with popcorn chains and paper snowflakes because he had no ornaments. The visit offered a rare experience of settled family life, but its very exceptionality underscores what hiding withheld: a home where Ava could be spoiled, celebrate, and stay without counting the days until they had to leave.

Refuge, instruction, and danger

Benny was more than the person who found their Florida safe house. He was a firebug who had gone underground after friction with an organization in Texas and belonged to a network that moved supernatural beings away from groups such as the Coterie. He had scars down his back and a slight limp, signs of the danger involved in that work, but did not tell Ava exactly how he had been injured. His warning was clear even without an explanation: helping people escape was hazardous, and refuge did not mean the threat had passed.

While they were together, Benny offered Ava companionship and instruction. Lilia met with him periodically to hear news about the Coterie, and Ava knew they would soon split up again. She also played cards with him and learned about her developing ability. At twelve, she was only beginning to spark; her occasional flare-ups were unreliable, and her power had not yet fully manifested. Benny used a charred stick to mark distances in the sand, explaining that firebugs could work only within limits: beyond a certain range, fire went out, or they risked losing control. He had considerable control and range, though Lilia was more capable. In hiding, practical knowledge was part of staying alive, and Ava’s training took place against the same background of temporary shelter and imminent departure.

Loss and the search for home

The flight reached a devastating turning point when Lilia was mortally injured. At the hospital, doctors told Ava that the damage was too extensive; Lilia passed from a coma into death. Ava knew she could not safely wait there for help. She feared both the Coterie and Social Services, so she pretended a fictional aunt was coming to collect her and secured a private goodbye with her mother. The habit of concealment persisted even in a hospital: remaining visible and waiting for adults to decide what happened next felt dangerous.

Before leaving, Ava took Lilia’s necklace, a small silver heart interlocked with a star that Cade had given Lilia when they were young. It was precious to Lilia, and its meaning was made visible in Cade’s reaction when Ava finally reached him. Ava changed out of the bloodstained shirt she had worn while driving, wary that even a small trace of blood could help a blood witch track her. She kept the shirt from being left behind, then set the car burning so it would not remain as evidence. Hiding had taught her to treat traces, witnesses, and delay as potential threats.

Ava did not have enough money for a bus ticket all the way to Cade’s. She travelled as far as she could by bus, then walked and occasionally accepted rides, knowing the journey was dangerous but judging it safer than waiting for the Coterie to find her. When she arrived, soaked, exhausted, hungry, and grieving, she collapsed into Cade’s arms before she could explain what had happened. He gave her blankets, dry clothes, and warm food. It was the sight of Lilia’s necklace that finally broke through his effort to contain his own grief, but he continued caring for Ava. The scene brings the history of hiding to a point of both loss and refuge: Lilia is gone, yet Ava reaches the person she had trusted as home, and he takes her in.