Chapter 7
Seren
All night long, I dream of the demon.
Well, all night might be a stretch considering I barely get two hours of sleep before I’m wide awake again, staring at the canopied top of my childhood bed.
Jerking awake, I’m still half-lost in those dreams.
Crimson eyes and arching black wings. The gleam of a fang and the impatient whip of a tail. A harsh, graveled plea, asking me to stay.
I blink against the weak light of dawn, check my phone, and roll out from under the covers.
Goddess, I hate staying here.
Or, maybe more accurately, I hate having to stay here.
I hate knowing I’m twenty-seven years old and still don’t have a place to call my own.
Couch surfing and subletting and house-sitting absolutely don’t count, and for the millionth time since I left the Crescent Coven Hall, I vow this year will be the year I get my act together.
This year will be the year I come up with a more reliable way of making money than taking any odd job that comes my way.
Maybe Joan needs an extra set of hands in her tea shop.
Or maybe Seraphina—another ex-Crescent witch who owns a metaphysical shop whose trinkets are especially popular with the mundanes who frequent it—could use a full-time procurist and another witch around to charm the products she sells, the ones her clientele claim work just like magick.
Or maybe I could find a nice, boring, mundane job like a barista or a receptionist or something.
Or maybe….
Maybe.
Maybe.
None of those maybes sound appealing at all when I actually stop to consider them.
Not when it means having to slow down, having to stay somewhere, having to learn how to tamp down this unbearable instinct to move, to run, to go.
Go where?
Anywhere.
It doesn’t really matter.
It’s never really mattered.
I pull out some clean clothes from the dresser and shove my stuff back into my satchel, which I charmed to expand and keep expanding so I never have to travel light.
All the while, I try not to dwell on my dreams or the demon who inspired them. I try not to think about anything at all other than getting back on the road and going…
Somewhere.
But, as long as I’m here and as long as it doesn’t seem like anyone else is awake…
Breakfast.
Yeah, breakfast sounds like a good idea.
Down the spiral stairs, past the second floor where my parents sleep, and then back to the first floor landing, I wipe the remaining exhaustion from my eyes and try to be quiet enough not to wake anyone up.
As soon as I make it to the kitchen, I know I’ve miscalculated.
Breakfast was not, in fact, a good idea.
Sitting at the little nook table in the corner, looking bright and chipper and like it makes absolute sense to be up and out of bed at seven AM on a—Saturday? At least I think it’s Saturday—my mom gives me a wide smile as I freeze in the doorway.
“You’re up early,” she says cheerfully, then tilts her head as she gets a better look at me. “Or… late?”
“Early,” I mutter as I head for the cupboard.
As long as I’m here, and as long as I’m caught, I might as well get some cereal out of it.
Bowl brimming nearly over the edge with sugary marshmallow goodness and almond milk, I take a seat beside her, fully intending to chow down and get out of here. No need for any interrogations or heart-to-hearts. A little breakfast, a little small talk, and I’ll be on my way.
Like I should have expected, though, mom’s otherworldly gaze zeroes in on my face as soon as I sit down.
She rests the back of her hand against my forehead. “Are you feeling alright? There’s something… feverish about you. Unsettled. Did something happen?”
Of course she could see with a single look that something is wrong.
She’s probably reading my goddessdamned aura, too, trying to figure out what’s got it in such chaos.
“I’m fine,” I say, gently batting her hand away. “Just had a late night.”
She hums, clearly not buying it.
“Ahh, a guest for breakfast,” a new voice chimes in from the doorway.
“Hi dad,” I mutter, scooting over to make some room for him.
He drops into the seat beside me—gray-dusted blond hair ruffled, and wire-rimmed glasses sitting slightly askew on his face in his trademark ‘harried scholar’ style—and shuffles through the pile of newspapers until he finds one not already creased from being read front-to-back.
“To what do we owe the pleasure of your company, peanut?”
“Oh, you know. The usual. Making enemies across realms. Lying low so I can’t be found.”
He just chuckles, and I silently thank the Goddess both mom and dad are used to me being tight-lipped about where I go and what I get up to. At least enough for them to think it’s a joke.
And it is.
Mostly.
Another flash of memory. Crimson eyes wide with shock and powerful black wings made immobile by my curse. Thick, sculpted muscles bunching and releasing as the demon tried to shake off his invisible bindings.
I take another bite of my cereal, swallowing hard.
The coffee maker on the counter beeps to signal the pot is ready, and mom immediately gets up from her seat and takes three mugs from the cupboard.
And… oh, well. What’s a few more minutes?
In for the cereal, in for the coffee, I guess.
“You know,” mom says in a tone that puts my defenses up. That oh-so-understanding mom voice, which always signals she’s about to get on my case about something. “I talked to Soleil just a few days ago, and she wanted to—”
“Mom,” I say, trying to temper the warning in my tone as best I can.
I really, really don’t want to fight with my parents this morning.
I don’t even particularly want to talk to my parents this morning, but as long as we’re here I’d rather keep things civil.
Damn me and my need for sugary carbs and caffeine.
“I know, I know,” she says breezily, returning to the table and handing out the mugs. “But I really wish the two of you would—”
“She made her choice,” I say softly. “And I made mine. There’s no reason we need to waste time rehashing it all.”
“Not even if it means patching things up between the two of you?”
“Not even then.” I swirl some sugar from the dish on the table into my cup. “Besides, I’m sure she’s busy with whatever she’s got going on with the coven, and I’m… well. It wouldn’t do either of us any good.”
Mom and dad share a look, then mom sighs.
“I could have sworn I heard Soleil say almost the exact same thing not too long ago.”
“Well, how about that?” I mutter. “Finally, something we can agree on.”
“My practical, pragmatic daughters,” she laments in another sigh.
Dad clucks his tongue. “There’s nothing wrong with pragmatism.”
She arches a brow at him. “There certainly is when it means holding onto grudges and giving each other the silent treatment over a silly teenage misunderstanding.”
“That’s not why Soleil and I haven’t—”
“They’ll figure it out in their own time, I’m sure.”
Dad lays a sympathetic hand over mine where it rests on the table, giving it a brief squeeze before turning back to his newspaper.
I bite back a groan of frustration.
The two of them are next to no help. Despite the fact that they love both their daughters dearly, John and Celeste Pendergast have never offered much helpful advice when it comes to playing referee between us.
Mom’s an astrologer… and tarot reader, palm reader, rune reader, all-around psychic extraordinaire, who believes the answer to every question I could ever ask is written in the stars.
Dad’s an astronomer who believes that if something can’t be counted, measured, quantified, or solved with good old-fashioned logic, then you’re not trying hard enough.
They met during an eclipse, and by whatever magick the sun and moon held over them that day, ended up falling in love and producing two gifted witch daughters.
I’ve often wondered how the hell it is they’ve managed to stay together so long, let alone how they ever got together in the first place, but they’re weirdly perfect for each other.
Mom helps dad believe the world is more magickal and less logical than it seems, and dad helps bring mom’s feet back down to earth when she floats a little too far into the cosmos.
Not that being perfect for each other makes them perfect parents.
Far from it, in fact.
“I’ve gotta go,” I mumble, standing from the table and drawing two concerned looks my way.
I know those looks well. I’ve been subjected to them since the day I left the coven hall for the last time.
They make me itchy.
Itchy to be anywhere but here, in sight of two of the people who love me most in the world, acutely aware that despite their love, they still think I’m a bit of a fuck-up.
Itchy to get the hell away from this place.
Itchy to run.
Again, the question of where is irrelevant.
“Alright,” mom says with one final sigh. “We should be off to bed, anyway.”
“You haven’t slept?”
“Meteor shower,” dad says, then launches into a very detailed explanation of last night’s astrological phenomena and what made it so fascinating.
While he does, I help mom tidy up the kitchen.
I might be itching to get out of here, but that doesn’t mean I need to be a brat or a freeloader. When we’re finished, dad gives me a hug before heading to their bedroom, and so does mom, lingering for far longer than necessary.
In that hug, all her unspoken worry.
She doesn’t ask where I’m going, or when I’ll be back. She doesn’t press for details she knows I don’t want to give her, and I’m equal parts grateful and ashamed.
“Be careful out there, my love,” mom says in parting as she heads up the back stairs. “Saturn is just about to square your—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I call back, already striding for the door. “I’ll let Saturn know I’m too busy for whatever kind of smack-down he wants to put on my life.”
“You can’t outrun the stars, and you can’t outrun your fate,” she says, delivering that ominous warning in an easy, breezy tone that sends a chill down my spine.
You can’t outrun your fate.
The image of a huge, handsome, surly demon flashes through my mind.
The desperation on his face when I stepped into the emerald light of the Veil.
The panic in his eyes when he realized he wouldn’t be able to follow.
I’m so busy thinking about it that I don’t hear the back door open just as I’m about to let myself out the front. I don’t realize who’s just come into the house until I hear the call of a familiar voice.
“Mom? You here? I have those charts you asked Esme to pull for—”
Soleil steps into the front room, and we both freeze.
It’s been months since I last saw my sister. My other half. My twin.
Poised just at the edge of the Veil, long after twilight had fallen on Joan’s wedding ceremony, I’d looked back—just once—and seen her watching me go.
I’ve tried to forget that moment for months.
The sadness in her eyes. The way her lips parted slightly, like she meant to call after me. The way I turned and stepped into the ether before she had the chance.
And now, just like on that night, we’re both spellbound.
A fracture in time. A cavern cleaved right down the middle of all the years we’ve spent apart and all the years we held on tighter to each other than anyone else in the world.
In the middle of that fracture, the Crescent Coven Hall.
When I left, Soleil stayed.
She was Emse’s darling, just like I was.
A pretty gem to be polished, a talent to train up and exploit.
She went through just as many years of always looking over her shoulder for the witch in the wings waiting to take her spot, just as many years of whispers and resentment, just as much inter-coven politics and bullshit, the same harsh realization that we were only there to continue that cycle.
And when I begged her—begged her, even though I’d never done something so damn undignified in my life—to leave the coven with me and make our own way, the two of us together against the world, she stayed.
My sister, the healer. The one who fixes and soothes. A generational talent, pulling the energies of the earth and the stars and everything in between to make others whole.
Only, there was no fixing what happened to us, no soothing my righteous rage over the fact she chose them over me, no force in heaven or on Earth that could make us whole again.
“Seren,” she breathes, and the spell between us breaks.
I don’t answer her, don’t give her a second more of my attention as I turn back toward the front door.
The itch is so much more than an irritant now. It’s a command. A sharp stab somewhere dangerously close to the center of my chest.
I have to get the fuck out of here.
“Wait. Please. Just… can we talk for a minute?”
Goddess, this is familiar.
Another desperate voice, asking me to stay. Another doorway ahead. Nothing to be done but step through it.
I don’t stay.
No part of me can bear to stay.
Not with this horrible, roiling feeling springing up from the very heart of me. Not with the temptation of being somewhere else, anywhere else, anywhere in the world where I don’t have to stop running and face this, calling me forward.
The door swings shut behind me, and I don’t look back once.
I’m down the garden path, feet skittering over pea-gravel as I reach my car in the drive. Satchel tossed into the passenger seat, key in the ignition, I peel out of the driveway and head down the two-lane road that eventually reaches a highway.
From there, who knows where I’ll go.
Does it matter?
I’ve got nowhere to go. No place to call my own and no money to even start looking for one. Nothing but a big heap of recklessness and no ability to control my wandering spirit for long enough to make something of myself.
Minutes of silent stewing in the driver’s seat eventually turn into the whisper of a plan.
It’s a terrible idea.
The worst idea.
Certifiably bat-shit.
And I already know I’m going to do it.
I’m going to Faerie to hear about a fae queen’s bounty.
A bounty that could pay for a whole new life.
But first, I’ve got a few witches to see.
We’ve made our own little network of apostates—all the witches who washed up or walked out or simply let their coven membership lapse because it didn’t serve them anymore. A coven outside the coven, Joan likes to call it, and I couldn’t agree with her more.
My plan branches out, gains clarity. I make mental maps and calculate the time it will take to get everything I need.
A good disguise to ward off any wayward demons, a few curses to deploy if I get into trouble, supplies to see me through a journey to a new realm.
Excitement blooms in my veins, and I latch onto it. I feed it, nourish it, barrel forward until it’s all I see, all I feel, until it chases away everything I can’t face right now.
Until it’s mine, and mine alone.
This entire scheme is more likely to go ass-up than not, but when has that ever stopped me?
Never. Absolutely never.