Chapter Thirteen
Samara
Thea stared at me. “Fuck.”
“I didn’t know,” I said in a rush. Now that the confession was out, there was an invisible clock ticking down.
If I miscalculated and failed to convince Thea to help me and she turned around and told Demos or Raphael, this would be the end.
“I had no idea I had any magic—I always thought I was a void. So once I translated the passage, I resolved I’d get the Black Grimoire to the necromancer and let them do whatever they felt necessary to right the balance.
But then so much happened at once—Titus wanted me to poison Raphael, I reneged, he killed me, and then suddenly I was a vampire, what I least wanted to be, and immediately discovered I have this power. But I swear, Thea, I didn’t know.”
“I believe you.” Thea pulled me into a fierce hug. I drank in her warmth, her friendship. Tears blistered at the corner of my eyes, burning hot with relief. “I believe you, Sam. We’ll figure this out together.”
Together. A word I’d longed for. For a moment, I let myself relax into her embrace. But what if she meant . . . ?
“You can’t tell Raphael. Or Demos. Or anyone,” I pleaded.
She hesitated. In that second, my worst fears played in my mind: Raphael finding out; his hands on my neck, snapping it as easily as he had any other. I knew exactly how cold he could be.
“Please,” I begged. “Thea, you can’t.”
She pulled back, not letting go of my biceps as she held me steady. “I won’t betray your trust. Now, tell me more about how you found this out.”
“I woke up in the dungeon after . . . after. Demos was there. I was so angry, so scared. I yelled at him to go away, and he just did it, and I realized he was obeying in a weird way. Then I ordered him to forget it.” I hadn’t even thought about it in the moment, operating on pure instinct.
But it had been such a violation. “It hit me at once that he was acting like a human thralled. Which meant I had to be the necromancer I was reading about, when I’d never thought I had a lick of magic.
I realized suddenly I wasn’t a worthless void, but somehow a witch born every two hundred years and supposed to right the balance, whatever that means. ”
“You were never worthless,” Thea cut in fiercely.
Something in my stomach unknotted at the fact she didn’t immediately reject me.
“Vampire, void, witch—you’re not defined by those labels.
” She raised a brow. “You may have fucked up, but as a void, you nearly brought down a vampire king. Magic or not, you’re a force to be reckoned with. ”
I looked away, blinking back sudden tears.
“Or not, indeed. I can’t seem to deliberately summon any magic.
I don’t know how I’ve managed to activate it in the past. I’m clueless about how to harness it.
And . . . I was hoping you could help me.
” My lips trembled over those perilous words.
Asking for help—I’d been taught over and over again that it was dangerous, that it gave others an arsenal with which to harm you. But I couldn’t do this by myself.
“I’m here for you, Sam. But I don’t know the first thing about harnessing this magic.”
I pulled her hands into mine, the same way she had done so many times before. “I don’t either, but at least you’ve learned how to use magic—magic that was wrongfully forbidden,” I reminded her. Oracles weren’t welcome in the Witch Kingdom, which was why she’d escaped to here as a child.
She sighed, but threaded her fingers with mine. “I may be an oracle, but I didn’t see this.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Raphael, King of the Vampire Kingdom of the West, and probably the most powerful vampire in existence, turned a witch created to destroy his kind into a vampire?”
I remembered her once telling me that turning a witch was a taboo even among vampires. Maybe that had something to do with why it was so hard to harness my magic. “What happens when a witch is turned into a vampire?”
“It’s hard to say. It hasn’t happened in centuries, as far as I know.” She frowned. “But when it happens . . . Samara, if the other vampire kingdoms find out Raphael turned a witch, let alone the one witch that can control them? You’ll be executed. And they may well try to do the same to him.”
I should have been scared. But I’d spent almost my entire time in the kingdom bracing for an execution that hadn’t come yet. “Then it’s even more important I learn to master this magic. Because if I use it by mistake again, I’ll be found out.”
Even she wouldn’t be able to save me then.
She nodded slowly. “Were there times before that day in the cell with Demos when you know you used your magic?”
I told her more about the instance with Demos that made me realize I’d thralled him.
But also the other things, like the time the librarian attacked me.
And Raphael couldn’t thrall me. I hadn’t heard of any other way that could be done, save a select few expensive magical cards.
Did Raphael suspect? It wasn’t the first time I wondered.
But I dismissed the thought. If he knew, I’d be dead.
“I’ve been trying to tap into it somehow.
” I gestured to the washroom. “Before you got here, I was trying to thrall myself, but that was a complete waste of time. It’s hard to know how to use the magic when I don’t have anyone to practice on.
I thought being around other vampires would bring it out of me somehow, but instead .
. . I just get so angry.” Like the way I’d asked that vampiress how many people she’d killed.
Or when Raphael implied the vampires made better parents than the humans.
“That’s why you wanted to come out and meet other vampires. I had wondered what really spurred that on.”
I quirked a lip up. “I’m sorry for tricking you.”
She waved it away. “I get it, Sam. I’m glad you’re trusting me with this. It sounds like the times you’ve knowingly felt the magic, you were angry or feared for your life. It’s not uncommon, especially when young, for emotions to bring a witch’s magic to the surface. But you have to be careful.”
“It happened in times when I think being emotional made sense,” I argued. Like the librarian trying to kill me, or Demos trying to make me drink blood after I’d died. Certainly, I was entitled to being a little emotional under the circumstances.
“But there’s another instance I can think of,” Thea countered.
I frowned.
“Remember that time you saw Demos and me sparring?”
I blinked. “Wait. What?”
“It was after we all went out to Tilda’s. You were late to training, and Demos and I were going at it because of his stupid bet. He was taunting me, and you absolutely flipped out. You made him apologize.”
“I thought that was just a consequence of being in my cups for the first time the night before,” I said truthfully.
Thea blew out a breath. “Being hungover doesn’t make you angry like that, Sam.
It’ll make you squint at the light like a vampire, it’ll make your head pound, but it won’t have you snarling at the vampire general that you previously kept a more-than-respectful distance from.
You told him to apologize and he did. I was stunned because I’ve never seen Demos take orders from anyone but Raphael. ”
I looked at her in disbelief. Was she right? Could I have used the magic even then, not realizing? I’d been so angry . . . “You don’t think he just went too far and realized he should’ve apologized in his own right?”
Thea sighed. “Demos has his merits, but if I hinged the end of every spat on an apology, we wouldn’t be able to work together. Sam, when we spar, you can be scary. And I’m a witch.”
There had been times when things got a bit confused while sparring, like my body couldn’t tell the difference between practice and war. Even just the other day, with Raphael, I had wanted to make him bleed. But wasn’t that normal? He’d turned me, after all. “You think it’s my magic doing that?”
She eyed the grimoire at my side. “Have you been trying to use that?”
I wasn’t sure about the topic change, but it wasn’t all that unusual when talking to Thea. “I’ve been trying. Nothing’s worked.” I told her a little about the partial spells I’d decoded, and the burns. I’d spent nearly every waking moment I wasn’t with her or Raphael trying to harness its power.
“It doesn’t surprise me that the grimoire is hard to use.
Grimoires are filled with advanced magic.
While you can harness some serious spellwork with them, you need a foundation.
Otherwise, it’s like tossing an egg out the window and expecting it to sprout wings and fly.
And if it’s imbued with magic from other anti-vampire witches, no wonder it’s hard to handle. ”
“So you think I should try to learn how to do smaller things first to master my magic?” My magic. Even now, terrifying as this conversation was, those words gave me a thrill.
Thea frowned, edging away from the grimoire. “It’s not just that. I wonder if the grimoire may be tied to all the anger you’ve felt. Not that you don’t have reasons to distrust vampires, but . . . do you ever feel like your thoughts aren’t quite your own?”
Now it was my turn to frown. Not my own?
“Think about it. As a void, it would have been close to harmless. But if it’s really your birthright, well, that book has spent centuries with dark, dark, vampire-hating witches, like I said. Enchanted items like that can influence a user.”
“What? I’ve never heard of that.” Of course, I’d had very little magical education. As a child, my tutors had focused only on the most basic information.
Thea gave the book another look and pressed a short lock of hair behind her ear.
“It’s not well-known, given how rare grimoires are.
You know how grimoires are tied to magical bloodlines, right?
They can become imbued not just with the magic but the emotions of the users.
When they’re passed from generation to generation, it’s not just the power that’s passed on, but the grudges.
The slight an ancestor felt from a century ago feels like a fresh sting.
That book was held by people who warred with the vampires over and over.
I have no doubt that with you being the newest owner, it’s whispering in your ear. ”
I wanted to deny her theory, but there was a ring of truth to it. It was hard to know—I’d hated vampires so long in my own right. But sometimes thoughts came like sudden and sharp rebukes when I tried to consider something else.
Even now, my anger bubbled again at the thought of all my predecessors being slain. But maybe it wasn’t the book’s fault. “Raphael mentioned transitioning would heighten emotions. Maybe that’s why?”
“That’s right. It’s . . . well, a second puberty wouldn’t be quite the nicest way to put it, but I’ve heard multiple vampires say it’s similar.
But remember, Sam, these issues have been going on since before you turned.
” Thea leveled me with a look. “You need to master yourself before you can master the grimoire.”
“Okay. So no more grimoire. For now,” I added quickly, before the lie could catch me. I’d take it with me when I left, one way or another. “What do I do instead?”
She made her way across the room to the door.
“The plan is twofold: learning to consciously use your magic and avoiding letting it influence you. For the latter, I’d say continue what you’re doing—spending time with vampires—and Raphael, since he seems to bring out strong emotions in you,” she said with an arched brow.
“When you start to feel that anger, pull back. You need to master it. Otherwise, when you do use your magic, it’ll be a powerful weapon that you can’t control. ”
And if I showed it in front of the wrong person, I’d be executed. “Then how can I practice my magic? I can’t just ask Demos if I can thrall him on purpose this time.” I hadn’t so much as seen the guard since Raphael had kicked him out.
Thea fingered the door handle. “For now, you just focus on that second part. I’ll look into possibilities and find other ways to help you,” she promised.
For the first time since I’d been turned, hope stirred inside me.