Chapter 13. Ambrose
I’d spent the entire night cleaning the house after Isadora’s tantrum, doing the best I could with what remained. By morning, it looked practically bare, anything broken beyond repair finally gone.
The trash cans outside were overflowing with things past salvaging, at least a dozen trash bags piled around them, stuffed full of debris.
The small garage to the side of the house held another collection of broken items—things I was fairly confident I could fix myself if I managed to find the right tools and maybe an online video.
Yawning, I cooked her a breakfast of stale waffles and bacon. The smell alone was enough to make my stomach rumble, and not for the first time, I wondered if Isadora really would let me starve to death.
The floorboards creaked above me.
I hurried, stacking the bacon onto the waffles and grabbing a glass just in time. I’d barely finished pouring Isadora’s morning orange juice when the kitchen door swung open with enough force to make the glass in my hand quiver.
This morning, Isadora wore a sheer night gown, the dropped sleeves ringed with feathers, paired with matching slippers and a silk headband.
She reminded me of the feisty heroine from one of those old ’50s films—though feisty was probably an understatement.
I didn’t need to loosen my senses to feel the rage still rolling off her.
She barely spared me a glance as she slung herself dramatically into a chair, glaring at the stack of waffles in front of her.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Isadora?” I asked, hoping for a task that might alleviate whatever was bothering her.
She ignored me, poking through the food with her fork instead, her lips curling in quiet disgust.
The silence stretched on, heavy and uncomfortable, broken only by the occasional scrape of cutlery, until her head snapped up suddenly, tilting toward the window at the sound of an approaching vehicle.
My shadows coiled instinctively around me, Isadora’s voice humming in my mind—You’ll protect me from harm, Ambrose—like a command pressed against my ear.
Then I remembered the phone call.
Realization hit, and my shadows fell away at once. This had to be the person she’d summoned.
Gods help them, I thought.
Isadora moved with deliberate slowness, pausing by the small mirror on the wall to adjust her headband and her scowl. By the time she finally drifted toward the living room, the front door was creaking open.
A woman stood in the doorway, silky black hair cascading down her shoulders. Her arms were crossed, her posture rigid, as if being summoned here was the greatest inconvenience of her day. The look of cool indifference on her face was a near-perfect echo of Isadora’s.
I couldn’t help but wonder—had Isadora ever mentioned having a daughter?
The woman’s gaze swept the room, taking in the bare walls and the absence of expensive trinkets, before sliding to Isadora and finally settling on me. Her lips curled in open disgust.
“Mother,” she said coolly. “Compelling an incubus? How very crude of you.”
My mind snagged on the word. A sharp echo of wrongness flooded my veins—
—and then vanished, the discomfort slipping away as quickly as it had come, taking the troubling thought with it.
Isadora didn’t respond. Instead, she glided toward her daughter, arms opening as if inviting a warm, motherly embrace.
The woman didn’t move. Her eyes tracked her mother’s approach, her jaw tightening, something ticking there as if she were bracing herself.
The reason became clear the moment Isadora stopped in front of her.
Isadora placed a delicate hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
A heartbeat later, the crack of flesh on flesh rang through the room as Isadora’s open palm connected sharply with her daughter’s cheek.
The force was enough to send her daughter sprawling to the floor, black hair spilling across her face as her hands shot out to break the fall.
A small voice in my mind screamed, This isn’t right!
But again, the feeling flickered and vanished almost instantly.
The woman’s hands, splayed against the hardwood floor, whitened at the pads of her fingers, as if she were trying to gouge herself into the ground.
Then they relaxed. With eerie grace, she pushed herself up onto her knees, calmly gathering her hair and tucking it back behind her ears before rising to her feet.
She faced her mother once more, arms crossing loosely over her chest.
Her expression was perfectly unreadable. If not for the vivid red handprint blooming across her cheek, she might have been standing there as if nothing had happened.
I felt the corner of my mouth twitch into the faintest curl of admiration.
It deepened as she glanced down at her pointed blood-red nails, brushing away a speck of imaginary debris with deliberate care.
“I take it there’s a reason you dragged me all the way out here to your—” She glanced around the room, one perfectly sculpted brow arching. Her gaze flicked briefly to me, then settled on the nearly bare shelf beyond my shoulder. “—very empty hovel,” she finished, her voice dripping with disdain.
There was something almost provocative in it, as though she were daring her mother to strike her again—just to prove how little it mattered.
Indeed, Isadora’s fingers flexed at her side. But her daughter’s display of resilience seemed to have the desired effect, because Isadora did not strike again.
Instead, she lifted her hand and brushed her fingers across her daughter’s face, caressing the swelling handprint with a tenderness that made my skin prickle.
In an eerily maternal voice, she said, “Priscilla, darling, I don’t ask very much of you, do I?”
Priscilla’s eyes narrowed, suspicion sharpening her gaze, but she said nothing.
“I don’t ask much of anyone, really,” Isadora continued. “But what I do ask, I expect to be completed to the utmost of your ability.”
Her hand dropped to Priscilla’s chin, pinching hard. Priscilla didn’t so much as flinch.
“And I’ve recently discovered just how pathetically—” Isadora paused, lips curling. “—and perhaps purposefully, you’ve failed me.”
Priscilla’s expression didn’t change. Her fingers flexed once more at her side, bracing for another blow. Almost bored, she said, “Mother, I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
Her gaze flicked to me, as if I might somehow be the source of her supposed betrayal.
Isadora’s gaze followed Priscilla’s to me, her lips curling with malevolence as she turned back to her daughter.
“How rude of me,” Isadora spat. “I haven’t introduced you to my new...” She paused, considering. “Well. I haven’t quite decided what he is to me yet.”
Priscilla’s mouth twisted. “How did you manage to coax an incubus to your lair?” she asked coolly. “Lay a trail of sex toys?”
I had to bite back a laugh. I must have made some unconscious movement, because Isadora’s eyes snapped to me, her lips parting in a silent hiss. A heartbeat later, she wrenched her attention back to Priscilla.
In a split second, Isadora slid her hand from her daughter’s cheek into her hairline, fingers tangling deep in her dark locks. She yanked downward, dragging Priscilla with her.
Priscilla didn’t make a sound, denying her mother the reaction she wanted.
Her hands came up to clasp her mother’s wrist as Isadora dragged her in front of me.
This isn’t right, a small voice sounded in my mind before promptly flittering away.
Isadora yanked Priscilla’s hair, forcing her head up to face me. Every instinct in my body screamed at me to move—to help her—but my feet stayed rooted to the floor.
“This, Daughter, is Ambrose,” Isadora said, hissing the words into her daughter’s ear. “Ambrose is almost as big a disappointment to me as you are.”
Shame pooled in my stomach.
A disappointment?
A small voice at the back of my mind rebelled, a distant cry of Not right, not right, not right ringing in my skull—only to be smothered beneath Isadora’s whispered disdain.
“But at least he’s inadvertently shown me your latest betrayal, Priscilla,” Isadora continued. “Ambrose suggested a little vacation. Something to take my mind off the fact that that creature refused to bind itself to me and the house again.” Her grip tightened.
“I really don’t need to know about your planned romantic getaways with a sex demon, Mother,” Priscilla said, boredom lacing every word.
“A trip to Headless Hollow,” Isadora spat.
Priscilla’s gaze flickered, just enough to suggest she knew exactly what her mother was talking about.
“And can you guess what I found?”
Isadora yanked my phone from her pocket and shoved it in front of Priscilla’s face. From my angle, I could just make out a photo of a cabin, complete with a poorly photoshopped bedsheet ghost and the garish words: World’s Most Haunted House.
Priscilla’s eyes widened a fraction—then slid back into practiced disinterest.
Isadora seized her daughter’s head again and screamed, “I asked one thing of you. One. To secure me a sentient house so I could finally live the life I deserve—waited on hand and foot.” She shook Priscilla violently.
“And all these years, it never once occurred to you to mention that the Myers house was sitting”—another sharp shake—“abandoned”—another—“only a few hours from here?”
Priscilla barked out an indignant laugh.
“Of course I knew about the vacation house,” Priscilla said coolly, as if that should have been obvious.
“Everyone does. It’s the infamous World’s Most Haunted House, Mother.
Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of it?” She scoffed lightly.
“I assumed you already knew about it and had deemed it not worth your time. It’s planted itself in one of the most heavily populated magical towns in the western hemisphere.
The risk of a nomadic witch like you getting caught breaking Council law—and let's face it, Mother, you would break a law sooner rather than later—and being hauled in front of them would be far too high.”
That, at least, gave Isadora pause. She pursed her lips, then finally released her grip on Priscilla’s hair.
Priscilla found her balance, but instead of rising, she settled back onto her knees, calmly running her fingers through her hair as though she’d intended to be sitting on the floor all along.
The slow, deliberate motion called to mind a painted mermaid perched on a rock—though I doubted she’d be snaring any sailors with the look of disinterest on her face.
Isadora’s expression softened, her features rearranging themselves into something almost maternal again. “Of course,” she said lightly, “that house would have been completely unsuitable for my needs anyway.” Her smile sharpened. “But it appears another has become available.”
Priscilla’s hand faltered, the hesitation almost imperceptible.
Isadora returned to scrolling through my phone, opening my emails and clicking on an email thread.
Without looking up, she said, “This one is part of a security firm. He has a partner—another incubus.” At that, she finally lifted her gaze, pinning Priscilla with a pointed look.
“And can you guess where that incubus happens to be at this very moment?”
Priscilla didn’t look up. “Enlighten me.”
Isadora thrust the phone in her face. Priscilla’s eyes skimmed the screen, rolling lazily as she read, and a chill crawled up my spine.
Something wasn’t right. Something primal scratched at the back of my mind, urging me to keep Isadora as far away from Blaise as possible—but the thought scattered as Priscilla finally glanced at her mother.
“According to this email,” Isadora said smoothly, “that girl Caitlyn Myers—the one you went to school with—has hired Ambrose’s partner as her security guard.
” She tapped the screen. “And look at this. She mentions her house coming with her.” Her gaze sharpened.
“Care to explain why you didn’t tell me about that, dear? ”
Priscilla shrugged. “Really, Mother. You’ve seen how those other witches treat me.
Nothing has changed since you left. They hold me in the same contempt they held you.
” Her lip curled. “Do you honestly think one of those witches”—she spat the word—“would have told me they were planning to leave the coven with their house? Because they didn’t.
” She let out a cold, barking laugh. “They hate me. And yet you insist I stay there, fruitlessly spying on them year after year.”
The room filled with Isadora’s melodic voice. “Are you telling me the truth?”
Priscilla froze mid-motion, her expression glazing over. “Yes, Mother.”
That seemed to satisfy Isadora.
As Priscilla shook her head, a scowl marring her face, Isadora bent and patted her gently on the crown. “Good, dear.”
“Really, Mother,” Priscilla said coolly. “You hardly needed to compel me to get your answer.”
“Just a precaution,” Isadora replied lightly.
“What do you plan to do?” Priscilla asked, her tone settling back into bored indifference, as though she were making idle conversation.
Isadora smiled.
“You’re going to help me acquire my new house, Daughter.”