Chapter 1 - Dani
Ten years later
Salem’s morning air always held the faintest whisper of salt.
Even after ten years, Dani found herself pausing sometimes just to breathe it in, the difference between Alaska’s sharp, freezing bite and this gentler Atlantic breeze forever startling her.
Sometimes it felt like proof she’d escaped.
Other times, it was just a constant reminder of her past.
Right now, though, the only thing she felt was heat.
Too much of it.
“Careful,” Edith said from behind her, not unkind, but firm. “The potion needs a simmer, not a volcanic eruption.”
“I am trying,” Dani muttered, her teeth clenched as she held her hands over the copper cauldron. Heat rippled out from her palms in visible waves, warming the air, the shelves, the stone walls. Everything except the stupid potion.
It stayed stubbornly lukewarm.
Dani pushed more magic into her fingertips. The air grew hotter. Sweat prickled down her spine. The cauldron began to glow.
The potion did not.
A bead of sweat slid down her temple. “Why is this so much harder than shaping flames? Firebirds, I can do. Heating up tea? Impossible.”
“You’re not heating tea,” Edith said dryly. “You’re tempering a healing draught. If you scorch it even slightly, it’ll curdle and explode. And you’ll have to scrub it off the ceiling again, dear.”
“I only did that twice.”
“Five times.”
“…Three,” Dani insisted.
Edith raised one eyebrow over her spectacles. Dani knew for a fact she only wore them to help sell the image of a little old lady to the human population.
Never mind the fact that she had been playing the little old lady for nearly fifty years now. Dani’s own aging had slowed, though it would likely be years before she’d actually be able to tell. Witches could live up to three hundred years if they so chose.
She’d never been brave enough to ask Edith her real age.
Dani sucked in a breath, wilting slightly under Edith’s stern gaze. “Fine. Five times.”
Edith chuckled, coming to stand beside her.
“You’re pushing too much energy outward.
You came into magic late, Dani, and somewhat…
uncommonly. These things are all tied together.
Childbirth is one big explosion of force, and since that was the thing to finally trigger your powers, it makes sense that they’ve kept that same…
explosiveness. You’ve got the power, and you will master control in time. ”
“I don’t feel powerful,” Dani muttered.
“You are. Just not as experienced. And there’s no shame in that.”
Dani held her breath, willing her frustration to settle. Only her emotions got in her way, flaring hot, twisting fire around her like a second skin. She could shape flames into animals, hunt down embers, even light a hearth with a flick of her fingers.
But maintain control?
She still hadn’t grasped it. And what use were any of those powers if she could only keep a handle on them for a few seconds?
Edith gently touched her elbow. “Try again. Slowly this time. Breathe.”
Dani closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, only to exhale when she heard footsteps approaching at a jog.
“Mom?”
Aurelia burst into the chamber, curls flying, cheeks flushed from running. At ten, she had long limbs, quick eyes, and an expression that always seemed halfway between excitement and suspicion. Dani’s heart softened at the sight.
“Aurelia,” she sighed, dropping her hands from the cauldron. The temperature of the room cooled instantly. “You’re supposed to be studying runes with Sister Brynn.”
“I was,” Aurelia said, coming to lean over the cauldron. The potion’s surface shimmered silver-blue. “She said we could take a break. Also,” Aurelia paused, her nose wrinkling, “why does it smell like an old bonfire in here? ”
Dani grimaced. “I’m practicing heat control.”
“Is it going well?”
“No.”
Aurelia tilted her head, eyes bright. “I could try?”
“Absolutely not,” Dani and Edith said at the same time.
Aurelia sighed dramatically. “I didn’t mean casting. I meant the potion. You know how fire sorta speaks to you? Well, I think the same thing happens with me and healing stuff. I just know what temperature it needs to be. Oooh, I smell ginger. Is this potion for Sister Connie’s bad tummy?”
Dani and Edith exchanged a look.
Aurelia’s magic had begun stirring very young, and she was only getting more curious. But it wasn’t alarming—if anything, it was a good thing. She’d have more years to master the basics before moving on to more exciting witchcraft.
Years that Dani decidedly hadn’t had.
Still, it was proving to be more and more of a challenge to rein her daughter in.
The younger girls in the coven, the ones still learning and still curbed by the High Sister’s rules, were constantly chaffing at the limitations.
But Aurelia took it to a whole new level.
She had been the ringleader of a misguided attempt to establish a ritual circle out in the woods for her and her friends.
Several humans out on a hike had needed their memories wiped when the trees came to life and started stealing their equipment.
Aurelia had a fire in her soul that came straight from Dani.
As for her adventurous spirit and tendency towards mischief, well, that…
That came from her father.
“Can I stay and watch?” Aurelia begged, eyes widening and lower lip quivering for dramatic effect. “Please?”
Dani sighed. The last thing she wanted was her daughter getting hurt because she couldn’t contain her own magic. But Edith was here, and it was better that her daughter indulged her curiosity under careful supervision. “A little. But no touching anything.”
“Obviously,” Aurelia said, rolling her eyes.
Dani tried again. Her hands hovered above the cauldron, magic flowing carefully, not a wave this time, but a thread. The air warmed…gently. Evenly. The potion shimmered…
Aurelia leaned closer. “Oh wow, it actually—”
The room flared with heat again.
Dani recoiled. “Auri!”
Aurelia threw her hands up. “I didn’t do anything! You got excited, and everything spiked.”
Edith laughed into her sleeve, poorly disguising it as a cough. “Dani, your emotions are still tied to your magic. You must learn to separate the two.”
“I’m trying!”
“Try harder.”
Dani groaned.
Aurelia touched her sleeve. “It wasn’t that bad. Only a little hot.”
“You’ll get there,” Edith said, giving her a sympathetic pat on the arm. “Your great-aunt certainly took some time, Gaia rest her soul.”
Dani huffed at the reminder of her prodigious great-aunt, Helena.
She had been a water-weaver, and very skilled at her craft, too.
Apparently, she could summon an oasis in a desert.
Dani shared her proclivity for elemental magic, except fire had always spoken to her the loudest. Of course, she would have an affinity for the most explosive element.
She had never met Helena. The witch had been killed nearly a hundred years ago during the uprising, alongside too many of her sisters.
All that power, just…gone. She was the last in the family to have the gift, the rest living their lives as ordinary humans.
Until Dani’s mother had met a shifter and joined the Nordan.
It was no surprise, really, that she had carried the secret of the witchcraft in her blood to her grave. If Dani’s father had found out…if the alpha had…
It hardly mattered now. They were gone, and had been for over a decade. The Nordan had no claim to her or her daughter. The Salem Coven had no idea that she came from a shifter pack; they believed she had grown up with full knowledge of her heritage, hence her knowledge of the paranormal world.
The only thing she needed to worry about was getting control over the damn potion.
She raised her hands, focusing on the bronze pot. But before she could attempt a third round, a soft knock sounded at the doorframe. A young witch stood there, no older than Dani had been when she arrived in Salem, her hands folded neatly.
“Dani Taylor?” she asked. “The High Sister requests your presence. When you’re able.”
Dani blinked. “The High Sister?”
The young witch nodded. “If you please.”
“Of course,” Dani said, her voice slightly too high as she turned from the cauldron and brushed off her hands. “Thank you.”
The girl bowed her head and left.
Aurelia looked up at her immediately. “Are you in trouble?”
“No,” Dani said, with far more confidence than she felt. “It’s just a meeting.”
“With the High Sister?” Aurelia said, a nervous grimace on her face.
That was only to be expected. Most of Aurelia’s—and Dani’s, for that matter—experience with the High Sister was getting told off for something Aurelia had done.
Edith placed a hand on Dani’s shoulder. “Go on. I’ll finish tempering the potion.”
Dani winced. “Do you know...”
“Run along now,” Edith interrupted, arching a brow. “High Sister Lavinia doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
With a nervous laugh, Dani ran her hand through her daughter’s curls, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Stay with Edith until I’m back.”
“Yes, Mom.”
Dani stepped out before her nerves could talk her into worrying further, but the moment the door closed behind her, her heart began its familiar heavy drum.
A meeting with the High Sister wasn’t everyday business.
And if it involved her…
The walls of the Salem compound passed in a blur of brick and ivy. She nodded to passing witches, pasted on a polite smile, but her mind churned.
Was it about her magic? About Aurelia? Had she messed something up?
Had her past finally caught up with her?
Arthur’s face flashed in her mind.
Icy blue eyes.
Dark hair.
Broad shoulders bent with early responsibility.
Dani swallowed hard.
Sometimes she hated how easily her mind made him from shadows.
Aurelia had his eyes. She always had. Those piercing blue irises that saw more than they should. And though Aurelia’s hair was a tangle of red curls inherited from Dani’s grandmother, the tone, dark, earthy auburn, belonged to him.