22 #2
“Then another concern emerged. Your interest in the krum world. Your… rebellion against the rules of our world and our expectations of you.
“That concern led to your restriction. I worried that if you had access to the krum-flooded internet, you would resonate more with them than you did your peers.
I worried that if you read into what you were—what we told you you were—then you would start to investigate yourself. Rebel. And learn the truth.
“It was difficult to carve out a place in our world for you to feel truly at home. But it was what we tried to do. And attending Bluestone was a large part of that.”
I cut him off, “I told you what that place was like for me.”
“Yes. And I heard you.” He sighs something deflated and rubs his fingers over his forehead. “But I had hopes for—”
“Proposals. Offers on my contract.”
He drops his hand and shakes his head. “I had hopes that Dray would come around, that he would face his feelings for you—and that your constant presence at Bluestone would bring about his offer on your contract.” He meets my gaze. “I never meant for any other suitor to get near you.”
“What about Eric?” I sit forward. “And Landon. Landon said he—”
“My consideration of their offers was not kept a secret.” His smile is tight. “It was merely bait.”
“For Dray.”
“I am not obtuse, Olivia. Dray has always orbited you. He only needed encouragement.”
So all the efforts I ever put into Eric’s offer and convincing my father to consider him, all those phone calls I suffered where Father talked my ear off about offers and gentries and opening my contracts—it was all a show.
I was an ignorant puppet.
Landon, too. And Eric.
All puppets in a show that my father put on for Dray Sinclair.
After a thick pause, I scoff. “Well, that’s not going to happen now.”
Dray won’t be coming near me. Not anymore. Not ever again.
He left here tonight thinking I’m a krum. But when Oliver goes to him, and explains everything that happens, Dray’s prejudices will remain.
A witch drained of magic, born and emptied, is just a krum. If he had such issue with me being a deadblood, it’ll be tenfold with no magic in my blood.
So I guess I get one thing I wanted.
But not Father—he turns his face away from me, but I caught it before it turned out of the light. The grimace.
“It is disappointing,” he concedes. “I hoped… Olivia, you must understand what your disappearance has done.” He looks at me. “You cannot tell your mother that you know about the rituals and your blood. It stays between us.”
The swerve in topic startles me.
I frown at him. “Why?”
“Your mother and I have not… We have not been as close as we should be. Your disappearance has strained our relationship in a way that I have never known with her. Your mother has suffered greatly in the time that you have been gone This is not to blame you, because you did not know what you were doing, what you were putting at risk.”
I sit up, but the brew still has me too relaxed, and so I’m slow, lethargic, until I sink into my stacked pillows. “What’s wrong with Mother?”
Father does not look at me. He runs his hands through his dark hair, and stares at the floor. “Nothing is particularly wrong with your mother—but her… presence has been altered. Most days she struggles to leave her bed.”
Her bed.
Not ours.
I notice the wording.
Father continues, “If she does get out of bed, it is to receive a solemn visit from Amelia. She receives no other guests, including her own mother, who, your mother believes might have been assisting you.”
“She wasn’t.” The answer comes out of me, sharp and offended. “I never spoke to Nonna about running away. I never talked to her when I was out there.”
Father’s stare is intense—it considers me, every muscle on my face, every flicker of my eyes. He reads me, closely, and searches for any hint of a lie.
He seems satisfied as he nods, very slightly, then says, “Your mother does not appreciate Mila’s attachment to you, therefore she is particularly offended by your nonna’s protection of Mila. Perhaps that is where the blame came from.”
“So Mother’s… depressed?”
Not leaving her bed, not sleeping in the same bed as Father, and not talking to her own mother?
It sounds like she isn’t totally well.
And Father nods.
“But she’ll get better now that I’m home, right?”
Again, he nods—but it’s slight, and his smile is forced. It’s hopeful, but pained.
So much pain in this family.
So many secrets and resentments.
“Truthfully, I had my own suspicions,” Father says. “I doubted my own mother, too.”
“You thought Grandmother Ethel helped me?”
He shrugs, and parts his hands. “We could not get close to you out there. Trackers would lead us to towns that you had never been in. The shield around you was too strong, it disorientated the trackers for years.” Father clasps his hands together.
“That was the sort of shield that required a strong shield witch—or a very experienced ritualist.”
Grandmother Ethel’s print.
Though she’s old as hell now, so I doubt she’s keeping up with the rituals—except the one she needs to stay alive for as long as she has. There’s no other explanation for her ridiculously long life.
“Grandmother is at the end of her life,” Father says, as though reading my mind.
“And any rituals she might perform will come at a great cost for her. My suspicions raised when, a year into your disappearance, I returned from a search, and found my mother unconscious at Craven Cottage. She took a fall down the stairs in the night, and the staff were in bed, so I happened to be the first to find her. The fall was… severe.” Doubt shimmers in his eyes, and he pauses, as if to find the right words.
“Severe enough that we had to move her into the pink cottage on the grounds here, and that it took months before she could walk again. Witchdoctor Dolios believes a ritual ate through the cartilage in her hips, and that is where her recovery was halted.”
“So you think she performed rituals to keep me hidden out there, and she paid the price for them?”
“My mother is not as strong as she once was.” Father is unapologetic in his accusation of her. “Now, of course, you can set the record straight.”
“Grandmother didn’t help me.” I shake my head. “No one in the family did.”
His shoulders relax. “Then who did?”
Silence strikes me.
Her name thrums in my mind, Sofía, Sofía, Sofía—but the word doesn’t touch my tongue.
To give her up would be to give up all the other rogues in her care and under the protection of her shields.
That’s no easy thing to do.
Father sighs and, pushing up from the chair, comes to sit on the edge of my bed. He faces me, the shadows of the thicker curtains blocking the light from illuminating his face.
But his face is soft. His eyes are kind.
And his tone is understanding, “Now that you are back, I hope your mother will recover. I placed further hope on your union with Dray Sinclair—that the wedding ritual between you both would appease the gods and repent for your sin against them, and your mother would be well again.”
“My sin?”
“You understand.” Father smiles, and it’s sincere. “You understand me just fine, Olivia.”
To repent, to apologise to the gods, to be welcomed back into their embrace, their shadows, is to give up the shield witch.
Sofía is damn good at what she does.
I don’t know how many rogues she protects out there, or how many are flooding the halls of Hell House now.
I just know that I hesitate.
“Serena will be left alone,” Father promises me.
“She was given wealth enough to sustain her and her child for the rest of their lives—and she can live in anonymity. It is a trade we have made willingly, mostly due to Marco’s disgust with his daughter.
He could not bring himself to wish her home.
But your family never stopped searching for you. ”
My mouth tucks inwards, and the familiar slick tremble of tears is climbing up my throat.
“We will never let you go, Olivia. We love you, and you are a part of our family. But the gods own us all.”
The waves of tears roll over me.
“In your repentance, if you offer this to us, the gods will be more forgiving—and perhaps both your mother and mine will return to their proper conditions. You have the power,” he touches my chin and lures my wet gaze to his, “to make them better again.”
Then his hand leaves my cheek.
I hide my face in my own palms.
“Sometimes the gods test us,” Father’s voice follows me into my hiding spot, and I hear his words over my own shuddering tears. “In that situation, our loyalties were tested. Would we choose our children or the coven—the coven that serves the gods?
“The gods expect our absolute obedience and commitment. We all bow to them. I cannot afford to shield you anymore from this. The sacrifices will no longer be bagged and wrapped for your sensibilities, Olivia. You will see them.”
My throat thickens.
My face twists against my palms.
“But don’t you see, daughter?” Father’s voice is soft, it is warm and inviting.
“We would not have been punished if you did not matter. Grandmother would not be ill, your mother would not be ill, if the gods did not love you. And you matter to us, Olivia. You are loved, even when you feel that you are not. But it is time that we let you grow up.”
My fingers slide down my face, along my tear-streaked cheeks, and I choke on a hitched breath.
Father is comforting.
He tucks his finger under my chin, lifting my wet gaze, and his smile is loving. “You are no krum, Olivia. You are as spectacular as the day you were born.”
I part my lips and taste the salt of tears. “Would I have been?”
Father’s thumb brushes along my chin. “Yes. You would have been powerful. And you still are—in your way. Now let’s make this right, Olivia. Let us begin your reassimilation into the coven. Tell me, who helped you?”
I whisper the answer, “Sofía Paredes.”