Chapter 14
JOSIE
Rune and I only get two songs together before people clear the dance floor. Rune follows everyone else’s lead and shimmies us over to where Finn and Sebastian wait for us near the bottom of the staircase, off to the side from where the crowd is gathering at the front of the room.
Are they expecting to need to make a speedy getaway or something?
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Sebastian lifts his chin and looks up to the balcony that overlooks the dance floor. I follow his gaze and find Francine, the witch who was at the shop earlier today, stepping up to the railing.
A hush falls over the room.
“It’s time for Adelaide’s rites,” Sebastian says.
“Yeah. The right to rot in hell,” Rune whispers.
“Rune,” Finn and I chide him in unison.
I might agree with him—but in private, not during the quietest moment of an event to honor the dead high priestess.
Thankfully, no one else is paying attention to us as Francine begins her speech. “Welcome, and thank you all for being here tonight.” Her voice carries across the room. “We gather from all corners of the city to honor and bid farewell to our beloved high priestess.”
Beloved? More like be-loathed.
Okay, maybe that’s just me and my personal prejudices. It’s hard to keep myself from rolling my eyes as Francine continues, but I manage.
Finn’s hand squeezing mine helps—it always does. I keep my focus on my Celt and lock down my emotions for a speech praising the woman who orchestrated the murder of my parents.
“She was a beacon of light who guided us through countless cycles of the sun and moon, and tonight we ask her for one last act as our leader. We ask her to guide Mother Gaia’s hand to the next witch who will take up the gauntlet in her stead—the Sun Witches’ next high priestess.”
A murmur of excitement rolls through the room as Francine raises a golden wine goblet into the air and then, all at once, the noise cuts out and the distant toll of the cathedral bell seems to fill the room, each chime getting louder until the twelfth rings out, hailing midnight.
“To Adelaide—she walks now in the realms beyond our reach, but her lessons, wisdom, and love remain here with us. May Mother Gaia guide her spirit and keep her safe. Until we meet again,” Francine toasts, raising the goblet to her lips to take a long sip and close the ceremony.
“Until we meet again,” the room echoes, raising their own glasses.
“The formal funeral rites for Adelaide will be held tomorrow at high noon for anyone who would like to attend.”
No thanks.
Grand-Mère always taught me that all life is sacred and valued, but being here already feels like a betrayal to my family. Besides, Adelaide’s life is not one I want to honor.
“And now, my dear sisters,” Francine’s voice rings out across the room once more. “The time has come to seek out the one among us who will lead our coven as the new high priestess of Sun Witches.”
She steps to the side to make way for an elderly witch whose commanding presence makes me hope I’m never on her bad side.
“That’s Elder Edith,” Finn whispers next to me as the witch begins explaining how the whole three-step trial process works: first a battle of magic against magic, then a potion-making challenge, and finally a sacred ritual. I’m barely paying attention now—all I’m thinking about is finding an opportunity to slip away without anyone noticing. We came, we saw, we partied—I’m ready to go home now.
Being here just hurts. I might be part of the coven, but it’s clear I don’t belong. I don’t know anyone, and the witches who know me hate me.
“Those who wish to put their name forward and take on the challenge and honor of high priestess, state your name and cast a simple manifestation of your magic to seal your entry.”
It doesn’t take long for witches to follow Elder Edith’s invitation and enter the running. The witch who approached me earlier, Summer Saint-Clair, is the first to raise her hand and declare her name, a bright blue light bobbing in her open palm.
“Yzma Delancey.” A warm yellow light bounces off the glass windows across the room as another witch adds her name.
“Beatrix Theriot.”
More lights flick to life around the room, one after another, each witch calling out her name and earning a short round of applause and the occasional cheer.
“Does anyone else wish to put their name forward?” The elder witch asks once the volunteers have slowed down.
Heads around the room swivel, looking for any more lights to join the sea of color, but no one else puts their name forward.
“Josephine Dumont.”
Excuse the fuck out of me?
My name rings out, echoing in my head. I didn’t say that—I know I didn’t—but it sounded exactly like me. Even the orb of pink light that bobs near my shoulder feels so much like me that I second-guess myself and think maybe I’m conjuring it subconsciously, but no.
My head whips around, looking for the source of the voice. Sudden movement from above catches my attention, and I crane my neck to follow whatever it is. It’s then that my gaze lands on Phi, my wannabe raven familiar, perched in the shadows above us.
I can’t speak to her like Rune can, but I swear the raven’s intelligent eyes gleam with a knowing mischief. I don’t know how she managed, but I know this is her doing.
Before I can figure out how to even begin explaining the mistake to the elders and the rest of the coven, the room dissolves into unintelligible shouting and general confusion and chaos that kick starts my anxiety and tightens my chest.
“Is that allowed?” One voice rises above the rest.
Does the stupid bird understand what she’s just done?
“She isn’t part of the coven,” another cries.
If they didn’t hate me before, they do now.
Why did Phi do this to me?
My heart quickens, my lips tightening into a thin line beneath my mask as I consider possible motives. Is this her strange ploy to make me accept her as my familiar? Could Adelaide still be controlling her familiar through the veil?
I don’t let myself go down that thought path. I could spend all night putting intention behind the action, but with a demon the ‘why’ could be as simple as she wanted to.
Finn grabs my hand, but not even his touch can cut through the choking nausea as that nightmare moment comes true and hundreds of eyes turn in my direction in a single synchronized motion.
“Get me out of here,” I plead quietly.
His grip tightens, but he doesn’t whisk me away with stomach-turning vamp speed like I want. “It’s too late for that, luv,” he whispers, emerald eyes shining in apology.
“Silence!”
It’s more than a command—it’s a single word spell that makes me flinch and plummets the entire building into a silence so absolute, my ears start ringing. Everyone’s attention is drawn to Francine as she rushes forward to quell the chaos that I am once again at the center of.
Why couldn’t I just have a single peaceful night of drinking and dancing?
“The elders will discuss and come to a consensus on whether Miss Dumont should be allowed to put her name forward.” Her gaze zeroes in on me for a heart-stopping moment before she turns her back to the room, off to decide my fate.
And there goes my plan of blending in tonight.
RUNE
“Rune,” Sebastian calls my name as the four of us make our escape from the crowd of witches in an uproar over Josie’s surprise bid at high priestess. “Find that demon.”
Honestly, I’d like to know what the fuck is going on, too. Phi will be lucky to walk away with her life after the four of us get through with her.
“On it,” I say, but there’s no need for an exhaustive search.
The heavy flapping of wings draws my attention to the far end of the long hallway behind us. The raven in question swoops from up near the domed ceiling down through the open doorway of a dark room.
“Got her.” I take point, leading our group to the end of the hall with a loud clacking of shoes against polished tile.
Josephine pushes ahead of me when we slow at the threshold of the dark room, anger boiling just under the surface. “Where are you, you officious, meddling, stupid bird?”
My mistake. Her anger is very much above the surface.
Ignoring the pitch-black void ahead of us, she storms forward. “There’s no use hiding. Get your feathery ass—” Josie breaks off in a grunt, cursing in French.
I flick the light switch and wince against the sudden brightness that leaves me blind for a second. When I blink away the spots, Josie is half bent over, hobbled as she hops while rubbing at her shin, where she banged it against the wooden frame of a chair.
The room is dedicated to a grand piano that sits in the center of the space, with two plush loveseats and a matching chaise lounge pointed towards it.
Ah, and there’s the guilty party.
Phi jumps from the piano bench, flapping her wings once to boost herself up onto the shiny lid, her talons scraping the polished lacquer.
“Are you insane?” Josie demands, recovering and getting in the raven’s face.
“Nope, just dying—painfully slowly,” Phi responds, though no one but me can understand the squawk and half-hearted clack of her beak.
She seems tired. Exhausted, really. Whatever Elara and Tavor did to stabilize her earlier won’t be enough to sustain her for long. Her magic is fading fast, and performing that last spell to enter Josie in the running for high priestess likely didn’t help.
“You know this bird?” Finn asks, arms crossed as he looks over the raven. “Who’s familiar is it? It must be a Moon Witch’s; there are only four Sun Witches in all of Nola with raven familiars. And none of them would mistreat their companion so severely.”
Fintan tsks as he leans in for a closer look at Phi. He reaches out to run his hand down her dull feathers, and jumps when Phi snaps her beak at his reaching fingers.
“Poor thing.” Finn clasps his hands safely behind his back where temperamental demons are less likely to bite them. “Its magic is so faint it’s bordering on abuse.”
“She’s dying,” Josie tells him, a hint of sympathy creeping in despite her anger at Phi.
“You won’t die, though,” I say before I get caught up caring about a freakin’ demon in a raven’s body. “I mean, not really. You don’t stop existing—you just go back to hell.”
The bird fixes me with a beady-eyed stare, but when she speaks, there’s no heat behind her words anymore—no emotion at all. “That doesn’t mean I don’t feel the way this body is falling apart on me. I’d still take this over being trapped in hell.”
“No kidding.”
“What’s she saying, Rune?” Josie asks. “Will you play translator for us?” She tilts her face up at me, long lashes fluttering through her sparkling mask.
How can I say no to such a glorious sight?
“Since when can you talk to ravens?” Sebastian asks, brow creased behind his own dark mask as he looks me over. “That seems like a change I should have been informed about.”
Fuck, he’s pissed. I am so in trouble.
“It’s new,” I shrug, trying to play it cool and turning my attention from my sire’s angry gaze back to the huge raven. “It’s a unity bond thing.”
Sebastian grunts.
“Why did you follow us here?” I ask Phi. “Josie already gave you her answer back at Adelaide’s. Is this your way of making her regret not taking you on as a familiar? Are you really so bitter that you’re hoping to take her out on your way down to hell?”
Josie’s eyes go wide. “Woah, wait a sec—take me out? Hell? No one actually dies during these things, right?” She looks with wide, pleading eyes from me, to Finn, to Sebastian, then back to me, but none of us has an answer for her. Not one she would like anyway.
“You can talk to animals,” Finn says slowly, looking between me and the raven like the whole thing is beyond him.
What’s so hard to understand? Vampires, and witches, and magic crystals, sure—those are within the realm of possibility—but communing with a raven is impossible?
“C’mon, Fintan,” I goad. “Since when are you slow on the uptake?”
“I’m playing catch-up, as it seems you’ve left Sebastian and me out of the loop.”
Finn is hardly ever a fan of my joking around, but I’d swear he seems pissed off at me, too. The look is gone too quickly to tell, and we don’t have time to sort out the Celt’s emotions, so I give him a quick recap.
“So far, I’ve spoken to two familiars, but I assume it works the same with regular critters. I haven’t exactly had time to test the limits of my new ability, let alone fill you two in on it.”
Finn’s brows furrow beneath the deep green of his mask. “So, then—why is the raven here?”
“That’s what I was trying to figure out when you asked me to explain how I can understand him.” Something about Finn’s tone sends a tendril of anger worming through me, and I have to shift my focus to keep my cool.
Josie takes over the explanation for me, her voice cutting through Fintan’s sudden bad mood. “Phi wants me to accept her as my familiar because with Adelaide dead, she’s about to be forced back into the confines of hell.”
Finn blinks. “She’s Adelaide’s familiar? There’s a lot to unpack there.”
“Tell me about it.” Josie groans, rubbing at her temples. “So much for leaving all the difficult stuff at home tonight.”
“Trust me,” Sebastian says from where he’s reclined himself on the chaise behind us, “there are no days off when you are someone as important as me or you.”
The sentiment seems to catch Josie off guard, almost like she forgot Sebastian was here to begin with. “I’m not important.”
“Yes, you are,” Sebastian insists, sitting up straighter, steepled hands resting between his spread knees. “I have lived in this city since its inception. The Dumont witches have been here longer than that. And that entire time, the Dumont witches have led the coven. God, Gaia, fate—whatever you want to call it, someone out there is putting you back on the path Claudette took you off twenty-five years ago.”
Josie opens her mouth, no doubt to start chewing Sebastian a new one, but Phi’s caw interrupts. “The pretentious pretty boy is right,” she says.
I clear my throat to take up my role as translator—and to hide my laugh. “Phi agrees with Bas,” I paraphrase for the sake of everyone here. “She says you’re to be the next high priestess.”
“No. I’m not.” Josie’s frustration leeches into me through our bond as she clenches her fists, fighting to keep her composure.
“You are,” Phi insists. “I refuse to be the familiar of some nobody witch.”
I fight the urge to defend Josephine’s honor. She doesn’t need me to, and Phi is only looking to provoke—and provoke the demon has.
“Are your ear holes full of feathers?” Josie cries, giving me emotional whiplash.
If this is any indication of what being an empath is like, I don’t envy Finn. My fangs extend against my will as an all-consuming anger threatens to overtake me through the bond.
“You are not my familiar. Not now. Not ever. My whole life has been other people making decisions for me. Now you’re doing the same thing. I’m sick of other people dictating how I live—where I live, what I can and can’t do, who I love—” her gaze flicks to Finn behind her, and briefly to me before she continues yelling at Phi. “—all of it has been chosen for me, like I’m some kind of avatar in another person’s video game. You won’t choose this for me. I’m retaking control over my life.”
I heave with Josie as the deluge of her rage washes over the room, falling into a silence so all-encompassing it leaves a ringing in my ears.
“Then what are you going to do about it?” Sebastian’s question cuts through and douses the flame of Josie’s anger.
“I haven’t figured that out yet,” she admits quietly, deflating.
Finn straightens. “We’ll go out and explain Phi’s interference to the elders.”
I roll my eyes. Did Finn not just hear Josie say she’s done with people making decisions for her? I get that he’s worried for our witch’s safety, but he’s going to have to curb that instinct and let her take the reins.
“Good luck with that,” Phi comments wryly, the sharp clicking of her beak drawing attention her way.
Finn may not understand the raven’s words, but that doesn’t save her from a classic Fintan scolding. “Do ye realize how dangerous this process is? What ye’ve done?”
Phi barely reacts to Finn’s anger. Either she doesn’t have the energy to, or she isn’t fazed by the Celt. “You will be nobody’s familiar if Josephine dies out there!”
Josie’s gaze bounces around the room to each of us. “Okay, seriously, am I going to die if I go out there and compete?”
No one is keen on answering Josie’s question.
Fintan holds up a hand. “Wait. Yer considering going through with the trial?”
Josie shifts under his stare. “Not to become high priestess, no. I have no interest in following Grand-Mère’s footsteps—I don’t even think I’m good enough to pass the first trial.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, babe,” I say.
She flashes me a quick smile and exhales. “I figured facing the fury of the others would be a way to test my abilities as a witch and as a fighter, but after all the talk of death, I’m reconsidering.”
In reality, it may already be a done deal. When a witch enters her name in the running for High Priestess, it’s like a spell of its own. The whole ceremony of a witch declaring her intention and projecting the essence of her magic locks them into the trial.
Fintan looks like he’s about to tell Josie the same thing, but promptly shuts his mouth when I shoot him a warning look.
There’s no point in causing more problems than we already have. Plus, since Phi was the one who technically put Josie’s name forward, we don’t know for sure it is a problem yet.
I hold up my hands to calm the drama. “Maybe you should consider the bird’s offer.”
Josephine and Finn look at me like I’m crazy.
“Why not? Personally, I think a familiar would be cool as all hell.” Especially if having Phi in her corner gives our Unity Witch a leg up in the upcoming free-for-all gladiator match.
A small, sad smile graces Josie’s lips as she turns to look over the raven still perched on the piano. “I used to think so too. But Grand-Mère was so against familiars she wouldn’t even let my mom have one growing up. It was the same with me. She always said a witch should be able to stand on her own merit without stooping low enough to make a deal with the devil.”
Sebastian snorts. “Claudette was always a do as I say and not as I do kind of woman. And by that, I mean a hypocritical bitch.”
Josie whirls to pin him with an icy glare. “Why don’t you go back to your lair and continue to rule your kingdom from the shadows?”
Sebastian stands from the chaise, his movements so quick that Josie flinches when he’s suddenly inches from her face. He smirks down at her, but Josie doesn’t let Sebastian back her down.
She can’t hide the way her heart skitters in her chest, but she doesn’t back down. “I’m guessing Claudette forgot to mention she had a familiar. Does the name Mot ring any bells?”
Josie doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t have to—the slight hitch in her breath gives her away.
By her reaction, I’d bet good money Claudette reminisced about her dear old friend Mot from New Orleans. She just left out the part about that friend being her familiar.
“Can confirm,” Phi says. “I knew Mot from before she and Claudette sealed their familiar bond. She was annoying, and wildly self-centered, but got away with it on this plane because she was a cute little bunny rabbit.”
I meet Josie’s gaze when she turns to hear what was said. “I don’t know how much Phi’s word means to you, but she backs up Sebastian’s claim.”
Josie throws her hands in the air before sinking onto the chaise where Sebastian sat a moment ago. “Just another thing to add to the ever-growing list of things Grand-Mère lied to me about.”
Heartbreak leaches through our bond and I rub at the ache in my chest. All the giddy excitement Josie felt earlier when anticipating a masquerade ball is long gone.
The night certainly hasn’t gone the way she hoped. And it’s far from over.
Finn sits next to her on the chaise and presses a soothing hand over her thigh. “I’m sure Claudette had her reasons for keeping you in the dark about the things she did. It could be as simple as the fact that Mot was gone long before you were born.”
Josie tilts her face up to Finn, confusion etched into her features beneath her mask. “What do you mean gone? Familiars don’t just disappear, and they’re damn near indestructible.”
Unless their witch dies, I amend silently with a glance at our deteriorating raven associate.
“Your grandmother broke the bond, and sent the horrible bitch straight back to hell,” Phi says.
I do my part as bird translator as she hops down from the piano and onto the leather ottoman in front of Josie.
Whoever owns this place is going to be pissed tomorrow when they find their furniture scratched to shit. Oh well, not my problem.
There is a healthy dose of curiosity in Josephine’s dark eyes, but she shakes her head with a sigh and sinks further into her slump. “It doesn’t matter. My answer is the same. I can’t create a familiar bond with you, Phi. I’m sorry.”
Josie looks at the floor instead of Phi as she delivers the verdict, and it’s a good thing because the way the raven deflates makes me pity the sickly demon inside in a way that would have crushed Josephine had she seen.
Sebastian tilts his head suddenly, the feather from his mask falling into his hair as he listens. I hear it too. The noise of guests floating down the hall is slowly falling to a hush. The elder witches must have made up their minds.
“Time’s up,” Sebastian tells Josie. “The crones have made their decision.” Something is said in the distance and there’s an outpouring of shock and outrage.
Josie may compete.
“You’re in, babe,” Rune says. “Now, you just have to decide how you want to handle it.”
“What do I do?” She looks to Fintan for guidance. It sickens me that a witch as capable as Josephine is so unsure of herself.
I’m going to change that.
I don’t care how many times I have to tell her. I will scream it to the gods and goddesses in Valhalla until Josephine understands how special she is.
“It’s your decision,” Finn tells her, twisting the knife of indecision and self-doubt deeper into Josie’s gut.
“Whatever you decide, we’re here for you, babe.” I reach out through our bond, giving her every bit of reassurance and strength I can to let her know she isn’t alone in this. “You are capable of so much more than you realize, but the decision is yours. Are we in or out?”
I watch the rise and fall of Josie’s chest even out as her heart rate returns to a level closer to normal, and something in her changes. “Do you really think I can, Viking?”
“Babe, you wouldn’t be bonded to Rune Leifson if you weren’t a true warrior of worth.”
I hold her gaze and let her see the level of faith I have in her. She takes it in and determination hardens her dark gaze. “All right. Let’s give it a shot.”
“That’s my girl!” Three quick strides take me to her, and I hoist her into the air, wrapping my arms around her and twirling us in a circle.
Josie squeals. “Rune! Put me down.”
Fintan’s gaze is hot on my back as I bring us to a stop and obey Josephine’s request. The Celt takes her hand and bends to meet her gaze. “Are you sure, Josie? Don’t let us influence your decision.”
And by the ‘us’ he’s implying me.
Fucker.
I don’t consider supporting her a bad thing, and if he does, we’re going to have a problem.
Josie doesn’t seem to think it’s a problem, and really, that’s all I care about. “I’m sure.”
Straightening under Fintan’s assessing gaze, she adjusts the bodice of her dress, the constricting fabric pushing her breasts together in a plump display of cleavage.
She catches me eating her up and sends me a wink. The way she blushes while she does it is too cute. Gods, what I wouldn’t give to brush off the rest of this whole night and whisk Josephine back to my suite at Elysian.
I yearn to feel her body against mine—writhing, panting, frenzied and desperate with need. I wouldn’t even take the time to take her dress off. I’d have her?—
Josie’s voice pulls me back into the moment. “Even if I don’t make it past the first round, I want to at least show the coven that the Dumonts are still a force.”
“Fuckin’ right they are.” I take her hand and pull us away from the nay-sayers and back down the hall. “You’re going to kick major witchy ass, my little warrior.”
A warmth spreads through my chest when Josie squeezes my palm tightly in response. We’re both grinning as we reenter the ballroom hand-in-hand.