55. Cori
Cori
I t took a while, but Cori finally convinced Astrid that she should run to safety without her. After a tear-filled goodbye and multiple back-and-forth arguments about the plan, Cori finally slipped Astrid the key.
It was four in the morning before her mother slunk away, escaping through the cellar door and into the dark night. Cori had explained how to get to the safe house beyond the clearing in the woods, and she knew her friends would be waiting there to help.
She smiled to herself. Now that Astrid was no longer spellbound, Cori had pity for any witch who tried to capture her. The tattered old notebook with the picture of the Golden Gate Bridge was entrusted to Pru before she left. She smiled to herself, wondering what it would have felt like to scrawl the number zero onto the pages.
After all these years apart, this was not the reunion Cori had envisioned. She gazed down at the wispy bonds of silvery light that encircled her wrists and was overcome by resentment.
Her eyes were heavy, but she knew her body would not relax enough to let her sleep. Every twenty years, Saturn and Jupiter pass close enough to each other to be considered a conjunction, but the maximum conjunction had never coincided so perfectly with the solstice before .
She reached out her senses to Saturn, the authority of wisdom and karma in the sky. Nonna taught her that Saturn always delivered wisdom to all she shed light upon. Jupiter is the planet of fortune.
It made perfect sense that, in their conjunction, those who were smart enough to heed to the Covenant would fall on greater fortune than those who cheated the terms. Dark and light may be more powerful in combination than light magic alone, but using the darkness for personal gain or to harm another was about the worst karma she could imagine.
The planets would handle it. They always did.
Footsteps echoed in the hall, and her heart quickened. She sat up straight on the bed, her limbs rigid with fear, as Enzo darkened the bedroom door.
His eyes darted to her in disbelief, then to the empty bed on the other side of the room.
“What happened, Cor?” His whispered voice was stern, but she sensed a hint of desperation there.
“I used the key to free her,” Cori explained simply.
Enzo’s eyes darted back to the hall, checking to assure they were alone. “I see that,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m confused why you didn’t use the same key to free yourself.”
“What would’ve happened to you if I left, Enzo?”
He clenched his jaw and shook his head. His silence confirmed what she already knew. If she had escaped, they would have killed him.
Cori arched an eyebrow at her brother and put her hand on her hip as though they were simply arguing about what game to play on the playground.
“You’re the one who brought me here, remember? I may have been knocked out thanks to the potion you slipped me,” Enzo visibly winced at her words. “But the last thing I remember was walking away with you.”
“You had the key,” he said with an exasperated whisper. “I fully expected you to use it. You’ve always been smart, Cor. Why did you choose this moment to do something stupid for the first time in your life?”
I did it for you.
Cori narrowed her eyes at her brother. She wanted to scream at him, but she reeled her emotions back. “Why did you help Fin escape?”
His shoulders sagged. “I was trying to get Ma out of here. And—” He partially closed the door. “I was trying to give you an out before?—”
“Before what?” She stood now, and even though he was a full head taller than her, he seemed to shrink in her presence.
“Do you know what they’re going to do?” he asked in a frantic whisper.
“Probably kill me,” she said defiantly, gesturing toward her bolt. “This is clearly some dark shit.” He doesn’t know you know. It’s not time to tell him . “Why, Enzo?”
He sat on the bed, cradling his head in his hands. “They threatened her, Cori.”
Her throat constricted. “Who did they threaten? Mama?”
“No, not Mama.” His jaw clenched. “I have a daughter. Her name is Sofia. If I don’t help Calvin—” His words got stuck on his fear. “He’s going to make sure I never see her again.” His defenses were fully down now, despair and grief radiating from his aura. “If her mother found out about all the things I have done over the past few years, she would never let me see her again, anyway. But Calvin would kill both of them. His coven has been using my restaurant as a front to trade in dark objects for the past few years. He blackmailed me.”
Nausea rose in her throat. Calvin would kill a child ? A shiver ran down her back.
“I’m so sorry…” Cori reached her hand toward him, but he pulled away.
“Don’t—” He stopped her. “This is my fault. I was failing, and I didn’t know any other way. Cal always had a little edge to him, but I didn’t know it would be this deep. He helped me get some money, manipulated a few critics with magic, and even used compulsion on a few humans to make them work harder and longer.” Cori felt her stomach churn with disgust. “I told him repeatedly that I had no idea where you were, but he knows you are my sister, Cor. I didn’t know it would get this deep. Calvin, he’s?—”
“Go on, Enz. What am I exactly?”
Cori’s blood turned to ice at the sound of his voice, cool and silky. Enzo narrowed his eyes as Calvin stalked into the room, calm and confident with a curious expression of arrogance on his face.
Her eyes darted to her brother in desperation. Even though she knew he was fully planning to kill her, her Eye was still convinced that he would let no one harm her. Enzo certainly didn’t appear afraid as the gold swirled in his eyes.
All she could see was secret loathing, black and inky, bleeding into his aura like a stain.
“Calvin is cunning. A businessman,” Enzo finished his sentence, keeping his expression blank and emotionless.
Calvin laughed and clapped his friend on the shoulder as though he had been given a compliment to his golf swing. He chuckled smoothly. “Thanks, buddy.” He shook his head. “So, Astrid finally got out of here, huh?” he asked, almost playfully, as though she had not been chained to the wall on his orders. “Wonder how that happened?”
Cori’s cheeks heated as he turned his gaze toward her. “I…um.”
“Don’t worry, kiddo,” he said, punching his best friend’s little sister playfully on the arm. Enzo’s shoulders tensed, the inky hatred swirling faster. “I figured Fin had gotten the spare key. Makes sense he would have found you.” He rubbed his stubbled chin. “Question is—why didn’t you join her?”
She was prepared for this question, but Calvin’s overt arrogance had surprised her a bit. He asked her the question with amusement, as if he was merely curious how she could have fallen into his trap so perfectly. She looked him in the eye, summoning the best impression of Astrid she could .
“My Eye told me to stay,” she replied in a dreamy voice. “I had to listen. Leaving with Mama would have been the wrong thing to do.”
Triumph flashed in Calvin’s eyes for a fleeting second before he guarded his senses once more with walls of cool confidence.
“Interesting,” he replied with a smirk. He would think that her Eye would give her that message. According to him, the right thing to do would be to kill her. The universe was giving her a signal to bend to his will.
Men like Calvin are not rare. They believe that something is owed to them, and the fates will give them what they want eventually. It’s natural to think that way when you’ve spent your entire life being handed your every desire, presented on a golden plate to accept or reject at your whim. It was no surprise to Cori that Calvin felt justified and vindicated in knowing her Eye had led her to stay with him.
To let him kill her. After all, to Calvin, his bad choices were justified by his own self-serving explanation.
He pulled out a little black notebook from his jacket pocket. “I actually came upstairs to welcome you to the Sampson house and get your meal requests for the day,” he explained smoothly, a smirk playing on his lips. “Enz, I should have asked you to do this part. You're the restaurant man, after all.”
Enzo rolled his eyes. Cori laughed despite herself. He was asking her for her meal requests, knowing they were going to be the last meals of her life. A foul taste arose from her throat, and food was the furthest thing from her mind at that moment. “Why am I here?” she asked boldly, fixing her eyes on her jailer.
Calvin lowered the notebook and considered her from under heavily lidded eyes. He scoffed, “I thought that would be clear.”
“Enlighten me,” she retorted.
“Well, it’s the solstice.” He raised an eyebrow, as though her question had an obvious answer. “We must at least try to save magic. We need to keep you safe, Cori.”
She felt a tingle work up and down her spine as her Eye hissed a warning at her. She wondered if Calvin thought the bolt on the wall prohibited her ability to read him. But his aura was not a part of her, and her Eye was chained—not blinded. “Safe from what?” she asked innocently.
Calvin’s face hardened for a fleeting second, breaking through the charming facade of his face. He pondered his answer for a moment before the handsome smirk returned.
“From the end,” he said simply. “Safe from the end.”