Aaron
We follow Ellie and Hella through the empty streets, Mara’s hand tight in mine. I’ve hated this place since we crossed in, and it only gets worse the deeper they take us.
Mara’s tail lashes against the backs of my legs, and she leans into my side. “I don’t like this,” she says low, for all the good it does with two vampires in earshot. “Something is wrong.”
I look down at her and force a smile. I’m worried too, but she doesn’t need to see that. “I’m not going to keep us here much longer,” I tell her. “After this, we’re going back home. Even if I don’t find the answers I’m looking for.”
She studies my face a moment, her amber eyes searching mine, and then she nods and lets me keep her hand. Her tail doesn’t stop moving.
Behind us, Kade keeps tugging at the tear in her sleeve like it’ll close on its own. Josiah snaps his fingers, and the fabric knits back together.
Kade scowls and brushes herself off. “Thank you,” she mutters.
“You’re welcome.” Josiah clasps his hands behind his back and falls into step with her, and I already know from the angle of his grin that he’s about to be insufferable.
“Tell me, Mother Kade. Why is it you and the lovely Ellie don’t get along?
The tension is simply delicious. I want to know everything. ”
Kade looks up at him with a bright smile. “Oh, I’m so glad you asked.” She doesn’t bother keeping her voice down. “She’s a traitorous witch bitch who tried to sell my Leah into a sex trafficking ring while they were both powerless. I didn’t find out she was a witch until later.”
Up ahead, Ellie doesn’t turn around. “I atoned for that,” she says to the empty air.
“Oh.” Kade’s smile sharpens to a point. “No the fuck you did not.”
The road ends at the tower, and I stop short. It’s so tall the top disappears into the clouds, and even tipping my head all the way back, I can’t see where it ends.
“Did you need a palace this big?” I ask.
Ellie glances back and shrugs. “Witches and warlocks are over the top,” she says. “We like things big.” Then she gives Kade one hard glare and follows Hella through the gates.
It’s a decent walk from the gates to the doors, across a cracked courtyard where nothing grows. Mara’s tail stays up the whole way, her ears swiveling toward sounds I can’t hear. When we reach the doors, she stops.
She lifts her nose to the air and breathes in. The fur along her tail stands as she turns her head slow, ears working, scanning the dark windows above us like she’s counting something behind them.
“No.” She steps back, pulling against my hand. “Something is wrong, Aaron.”
I move with her, catching her hand in both of mine. “Okay. What is it?”
“I feel eyes.” Her voice drops low, a growl under it. “Too many. Worse than before.”
“And don’t you remember how they ran from Hella and Ellie?” I squeeze her hand. “Whatever’s out there is more scared of them than we are.”
She shakes her head, her whiskers trembling. “It feels like they’re trying to warn us.” Her eyes come up to mine, wide and steady at once. “Don’t go in there.”
I sigh and pull her into me, wrap her up, press my lips to the top of her head. “I didn’t want to bring you in here to begin with,” I tell her. “But I was too selfish to leave you in Wintermoon. I want you with me. Always.”
Her arms come around my waist. “I think it’s time for us to go back to Wintermoon.”
“And we will,” I murmur into her hair. “Right after this.”
She sighs against me, the breath of it warm through my shirt, but her tail stays up, a flag that won’t come down. I pull her up the stairs anyway, through the open doors where Kade, Josiah, Hella, and Ellie have already gone in.
The inside swallows the sound of our footsteps and hands it back wrong.
Inside, it’s huge and empty. Our footsteps come back at us too loud, bouncing around in the dark overhead.
The walls are pale marble, shot through with darker veins, and tall panels of black glass run floor to ceiling between the columns.
Mara stays close, jumpy, her head turning at every sound. I keep her hand in mine.
Ellie and Hella lead us through an archway into a wide round room, and I know what it is—a casting chamber.
Bookshelves curve up the walls, packed with thousands of books, the spines dull with age.
Podiums stand in a loose ring across the floor, each one carved with the same circle of symbols, and in the center a shallow basin sits worn and stained dark from centuries of use.
The air in here is heavy. I can feel how old the magic is, how much of it’s been worked in this room, and under that, something dead.
Hella wiggles her fingers and a book slides itself off a high shelf.
It’s thick and old, and it sails across the room on its own, pages riffling, before it drops open onto one of the podiums and settles.
She comes around to stand over it, smoothing a hand down the page. Ellie takes her place at her side.
Josiah turns a slow circle, taking in the height of it, the emptiness. “Such a big palace,” he says. “Yet no one is here.”
“That’s because most of the council manifested,” Hella says, not looking up from the book. “What’s left is in hiding.”
Josiah grins. “Yet you don’t hide.”
Hella ignores him completely, and that puts me on edge. Nobody ignores Josiah. If she’s not worried about him, it’s because she’s already a step ahead of all of us.
“Why did you bring us here, Hella?” Kade asks.
“Because this is the perfect place for what needs to be done.” Hella turns to me. “Aaron should see how much he likes his new home. Maybe his cat—“
Mara hisses, instant and vicious, the sound ripping out of her before the word is even finished.
Ellie smirks.
“Forgive me.” Hella doesn’t flinch. “I should have said lioness. How will she feel about having this palace for her home in the Glen?”
“I’m not staying here,” I snap.
“Ohhh.” Hella’s face goes soft, almost sad. “But you are. It’s what you were born for.”
She lays her hand flat on the book and casts.
The air above the basin shivers, and a hologram takes shape over it, gray and faded. Two figures stand inside it. I recognize one of them on sight. It’s Eric, younger and sharper, before the dark magic hollowed him out. He’s talking to a woman in a cloak, hood up, hands folded.
I tilt my head. “Who is—“
The woman reaches up and draws her hood down.
Her skin is deep and dark. Her hair is braided back in thick rows with gold threaded through them, and her eyes are blue, so vivid they almost glow. She holds herself like she’s used to being obeyed.
“Her name is Tabatha,” Hella says. “She was once a Blackwood witch.”
I go very still.
“She came to the elders and asked for a man from our coven.” Hella watches the hologram, not me.
She’d already seen it. “Eric would father a son who could siphon a dying realm dry and pour the life back into it, one who’d give witches and warlocks a place of our own.
Somewhere safe, with no humans and none of the others who’d spent centuries grinding us down.
” Her mouth thins. “She knew he’d turn on his own children.
We all knew what Eric was, long before he ever met your mother.
He took the deal anyway. Dark magic, in exchange.
It gave him youth and a long life, and it hollowed him out.
By the time he found her, a hundred years later, there was nothing left of him. ”
I make myself breathe. “A Blackwood worked with the council.”
“Yes.” Hella finally looks at me. “Does that surprise you? Aya Bailey hunted the Blackwoods almost to extinction. You think they wouldn’t do anything to keep their bloodline alive?”
“Where is this... Tabatha?”
“She was the warden of limbo for a time,” Kade explains quietly. “Until—“
“Carla took over,” I murmur. It makes sense now—the meetings my mother kept disappearing into with Anora, Josiah, and Carla, the ones nobody would explain to me.
“I didn’t know anything about a Blackwood deal,” Kade says. For once there’s no bite in it.
“I’ll need to speak with Carla.” I drag a hand down my face.
“Ah.” Josiah perks up. “I get to spend more time with you. How exciting.”
Kade rolls her eyes, then looks past him to Mara. She’s pressed against my side now, wound tight, her head turning every which way as she searches the dark above the shelves.
Something snags at me, and I look at Hella. “Wait. So you’ve always known I’m a siphoner?”
Hella smiles. It isn’t cruel, and somehow that’s worse.
“I’m much like your ancestors, Blackwood,” she says. “I care about self-preservation just as much.”
“What the fuck are you up to, Hella?” Kade takes a step toward her.
“You know, Mother Kade.” Hella spreads her hands over the book, and for the first time I really look at her. She’s gone thin and gray since I saw her last, her hands shaking, like there’s not much left of her. “I’m not going to let Amir destroy this realm. You think I wasn’t planning ahead?”
Mara starts hissing again, low and steady, her whole body coiling. Kade’s head snaps around, scanning the dark.
Then we all hear it. Something like wind, but wrong, and under it the sound of too many bodies moving at once.
“I think,” Hella says, lifting her chin, “it’s time to wake up your magic. Let’s show the Witching Glen exactly what you’re capable of.”
Suddenly, the windows explode.