Chapter 23
Rumor
My boots sloshed through wet and icy earth as I trekked towards the coven’s circle. If Empath wouldn’t come to me—I’d go to her. Trinket lagged behind, twiddling her leather-covered thumbs.
“I’ll find you a pair of gloves that actually fit, okay?” I assured her. “I know I have some somewhere.”
Trinket nodded. “Oh, yeah. Thank you, that’s nice.” There was a shy edge to her voice that hadn’t been present before as we wove down the path to the fields.
“Don’t worry about the solstice circle. The winter one is always pretty subdued. Empath is… well… she’s not the worst crone, I’m sure.”
Trinket tried and failed to smile.
Twenty trotted ahead of us.
Little freaking Blackthorne cat-jerk. “Would be a lot more helpful if you’d turn back into a human,” I called after him. He only swished his tail in that dismissive way cats do. “Asshole.”
Slowing my pace, I walked by the young, red-headed witch as she fiddled with her gloves. I resisted the urge to put my arm around her shoulders like I’d walked so many times with my little sister. “Does the leather really keep your touch from killing people?”
Trinket shook her head, avoiding eye contact. “No, they don’t do anything but remind me I’m wicked. They keep me from accidentally touching someone else and murdering them, I suppose. As if I needed a reminder.”
“You’re not wicked,” I corrected softly.
“You’re talking to wicked. So, I can assure you, there’s nothing bad within you.
Just because your magic is dark, it doesn’t mean…
” I searched for the words I hadn’t even told myself yet.
“It doesn’t mean you’re dark. Or at least, you don’t have to be the bad kind of dark.
” I fumbled over my sentiments. “Do you get what I’m trying to say? ”
“Uh…. I think so.”
“I’m not very good at pep talks. I’m more of an action-oriented person.”
“I picked up on that a little bit.”
We walked in silence until the wave of the wards past the great willow stump were ever so slightly visible.
“The solstice circle is just in there. Last time I was here, I’d turned my sister’s boyfriend into a horse, and he was hoofing down the hidden barriers.
” I let out a small laugh. “That was fun.”
“Is um… that the kind of thing you do when you’re mad at someone? You turn them into stuff?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “That was a one-time thing, but, I wouldn’t count out doing it again. Why?”
“No reason, just wondering.” Trinket twiddled her thumbs and paused outside the solstice wards. “Actually, I think I forgot something back at the cottage.”
“You didn’t bring anything with you when you found me.” I raised an eyebrow. “I’m with you, Trinket; you don’t need to be afraid of the coven. I promise that standing next to me, you could have killed a man, and you’d still look better compared to all the shit I’ve pulled.”
“I did kill a man.”
“Well, there you go. We’re all set.” I almost looped my elbow in hers to nudge her forward, but she retracted, jumping back.
“Don’t touch me! You can’t forget that,” she said, panicked. “You could—I could—”
I raised my palms. “I’m sorry, Trinket. I forgot. Everything’s okay.”
The red-headed witch’s breaths were coming in short bursts as her cheeks reddened. She bounced on her heels and tapped her fingers at her sides. “Look, I really did forget something. I’ll go grab it and come right back, alright?”
Letting out a breath of defeat, I crossed my arms. “Sure, but hurry back. Once the moon starts to wane, the wards weaken, and the coven circle’s time is over.
This is our only protected opportunity to talk about witchcraft without the threat of the rapture.
And your… condition… needs to be discussed one way or another.
Empath and our high priestess, Charm, have a lot of knowledge about all of this. Maybe there’s a way we can help you.”
Trinket backed away, nodding quickly. “Right, yes, I understand. Look, you just focus on finding a way to help your sister. Don’t worry about me.”
“Too late, kid. I’m going to worry about you.”
“You don’t have to. I don’t need anyone; I’m fine on my own.”
“Uh huh,” I answered sarcastically. “Sure, you are. Well, you go grab this mystery item and I’ll see you in there?”
Trinket assured me I would as she almost tripped on her bootlaces scurrying away.
“That little witch is seriously spooked by the coven circle,” I murmured to Twenty as we walked and approached the wards.
Twenty jumped up on the willow stump, looking like a cat omen of sorts, or a moving painting from the Blackthorne Castle.
I glanced up at the looming, pointed, onyx castle in the far distance.
Did Riot search for me after he woke up alone? Or did he go back to his moving picture room and get drunk again?
Had Spade even noticed I’d left? Or was he back to brooding and sulking around?
I shouldn’t even wonder.
What I needed to do was figure out where my sister was and how to get her back.
Also, I had to get out of this impending wedding rite to Adder Viper.
There was also the grimoire taunting me with its bargains…
I guessed I should add lighting a candle to my to-do list. Oh, and the red wither mind jump moment…
My head pounded as everything flurried forward at once, begging for someone to help me sort it out.
Luckily enough, the solstice was here, and my coven was meeting. They’d have answers. My crone would help me.
I hadn’t always been the best novice witch.
I’d bucked tradition and skirted the coven’s rules more than a few times.
Charm’s solstice songs brought other witches in my coven to tears—for me, they put me to sleep.
The ceremony was a boring waste of limited magical time.
They’re traditions for nothing more than a balm to make us feel connected for a few nights a year.
It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. I’d gone, by my crone’s suggestion, to enlist the help of the Blackthorne Boys.
Empath, “sent me away,” to “rid Willowspire of my darkness,” or whatever she’d said during the wither attack.
But Empath was my crone whether any of us liked it or not.
And I couldn’t help but feel a stirring inside me that she was wrong.
They were all wrong—the whole coven, the whole town.
We directed anger towards our lords for not aiding and supplying Willowspire with what we needed; we cried in hushed whispers and hid for days after withers took our maidens.
Our hunters never ventured too far. Our witches never strayed from approved, basic magical spells.
Soap bubble potions and fence-mending charms.
Bullshit is what it all was.
This wasn’t love and light witchcraft—this was fear, this was abandoning who we were.
Maybe I’d fallen into the darkness.
Hell, maybe I liked the darkness. The world of possibility, the daimons, the lords, the skeletons, lycanthropes, and haunted graveyards all spoke to me and beckoned my magic forward.
I’d learned dark magic and employed it freely—at the cost of my soul, my town, and ultimately, maybe it even lost me my sister, even if it were for her own good.
Those things might have been wrong.
But, good goddess, at least I was doing something.
Something, anything, other than chanting around a dead solstice circle, living in fear of the next rapture’s smoke or wither’s claws.
Is this the life our line of ancestral witch mothers wanted for us? No, it couldn’t be.
Adder Viper was an obtuse, violent man who sought to use me for my skill and nothing else—but he had one thing right. This isn’t the fate I wished for my town, my coven, my people.
We’d been pointing sanctimonious, follow-the-rules fingers at each other for long enough. When would we pull our critical eyes from our sisters and point them towards the true culprit.
Not the lords.
Not the Blackthornes.
Not the monsters in the woods.
Not even the darkness lurking behind my own magic.
This was Asunder.
The reason we couldn’t use magic, the one who began the raptures, the force controlling the withers, the guiding flame above the lords. This was all Asunder. It was Asunder who took my mothers, and now, possibly, had my sister.
When were we to talk about that?
Maybe my crone was too afraid.
My coven too timid.
But if I were anything—I wasn’t either of those things. To my demise and credit, fear and caution were not traits I regularly employed.
Sucking in a deep breath and stepping forward—ready to confront my crone, ready to rally my coven, prepared to save Prism and outsmart Adder Viper—my forehead whacked against something hard.
“Ouch!” I yelped, rubbing my head. “What the hell is going on?” Reaching towards the slight sheen of a ward, I pressed my palms against its rock-hard surface. “I’ve always walked right through,” I said over my shoulder to Twenty. “You try?”
My Blackthorne familiar hopped off the tree stump and pranced over. He nudged a paw against the ward and looked up at me with his two-toned eyes. “Meow,” he said plainly.
“As always, thanks for the tremendous help.”
“Meow.”
Picking up a rock, I threw it at the barrier. The rock flung backwards and I ducked, watching as it narrowly grazed my temple. “This is not happening,” I hissed. “Empath!” I threw another rock. “Empath! I know you can hear me!”
After chucking a few more stones, kicking the ward, and hurling expletives towards my cowardly coven, I rested my hands on my knees to catch my breath. Just then, the walls of the sheer enclosure rippled, and my crone walked out.
“Rumor,” she sighed as she shook her head, looking down at me with disappointment.
Standing, I steadied my breathing. “I take it you’ve all decided ‘what to do with me’?”