Chapter 42
C HAPTER 42
AUDEN
When midnight comes, the three remaining Hegemonys station ourselves once again in the solarium of the manor that bears our name. It no longer smells of Luna’s blood. Magic and darkness obscure what happened here hours ago.
Our houseguests are gone for now, the quarantined workers attended to, the magical and mental cleanup underway. There are still miles to go, but tonight, after everything, we fall into the comfort of our usual motions on the nights we must be Hegemonys—now this night and every single one forward, perhaps.
Evander, drinking—the amber slosh of scotch against crystal as he settles next to the fire, High Sorcerer’s ring glinting from its chain atop his shirt. The ring is unattached to the relics and its original use—for now. Our relic is stowed away in the safe in Ursula’s study.
Winter, preening—the day washed away in rosewater suds, her hair wet, clean, and halfway through a braid, her deft fingers making quick work. She almost didn’t come back to us, ready to take off the moment Infinity asked. They will. Soon.
Me, reading—not one of my father’s coveted editions, but my own memories like things to be noted, examined, analyzed, as I recognize the moment I should’ve known we would be here.
The memory is as strong as any soul’s truth in my mind’s eye.
I can picture Ursula in her study chair, prim-backed, fingers threaded together and set atop the leather blotter of her desk, the High Sorcerer’s ring catching the light from the diamond-paned windows over her shoulders. Her mouth set in a firm line, cerulean eyes as fierce as a fire’s heart and demanding that I look into them.
“We will crack and bleed, and fester until we’re healed,” Ursula continues, her gaze unwavering. There is magic in that, a thread of power that means what she says in this here and now will never fade from my memory. “Some will see this as a game to be won. What you must see it as is a set of instructions. Auden, it is crucial that you do exactly as I say. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Ursula.”
A stiff nod—curt, hard, decisive. “Now, here is what you must do.”
Next comes a deep, steadying breath. So unusual—so commonly human —I nearly fall out of my chair.
She dips her chin, gaze still fierce as her carefully chosen words.
“We are an unbreakable family.” Ursula nods, almost to herself as much as to me. “But to live on, we must shatter and bind ourselves back together. This is why when I die, I want you to destroy the master relics.”
My lungs shudder to a breathless halt.
The master relics whose wards killed my father. My aunt and uncle. That made us orphans ten years ago.
“To survive, the witches of the Four Lines need to remember why we came together in the first place. I want you to ensure the magic is no longer tethered to the master relics nor my High Sorcerer’s ring. Our special family will know what it is to be apart, so we can remember why we’re together.”
The memory recedes, what actually happened layered beneath. Ursula was right—of course she was—on all of it, all but the final piece.
And I don’t know that we will survive this. Not yet.
Evander says my name. He’s moved from the fire, seating himself in a wingback chair pulled beside the settee where I’m situated, blinking away the deep violet pockets crowding my vision from staring into the crackling flames too long.
“What?”
Evander answers with a long pull from his glass. Unhurried, calm, all his coiled strength at ease and peace in the aftermath of cleanup, goodbyes, promises, plans.
“Auden,” he finally says in the same tone he must have used to get my attention. “How did you know the ring wouldn’t burn when you set fire to it? In all my training with Ursula, she didn’t tell me that.”
“I really thought you were destroying it,” Winter adds from her spot, curled like a cat in the settee across from me.
We all had our conversations with Ursula, learning our roles—our places. I may not have been the oathed heir, despite her preferences, but I was the one that she apparently entrusted with what I’m about to say.
My secret. My lie. Every other one spilled out between the cracks and into the light during Ursula’s final task.
Every single one except mine.
I sit up, lean forward, my heir’s key catching against the collar of yet another Walton-Bridge lacrosse shirt.
“Because,” I begin, “when Ursula gave me my title, she also gave me a set of instructions for what to do when she died.”
“Instructions?” Evander asks, lowering his glass. “As her executor?”
“Not exactly,” I amend. “I was to destroy the master relics, then the ring.”
It’s as if all the air is sucked out of the room. Even the fire seems to smother and wane.
I nod. “That was her directive. Ursula had come to believe that by breaking the bonds that tie us, the Four Lines would know what it was to be unmoored and consequently recognize the benefits of being united, reconvening stronger than ever.”
Cupped into fists, my hands fly apart and then back together, knuckles meeting in a knocking crunch, illustrative.
“She told me the masters needed to be destroyed first because the ring is unbreakable while tied to the relics. No amount of magical or physical manipulation can destroy the ring as long as the masters are tethered to it. She wanted to make sure that I destroyed them properly and was very detailed in exactly how I must do it to succeed.”
Winter’s brows furrow delicately, while Evander’s slam together like a pair of prizefighters.
They can picture it, I know. That same pose of Ursula’s, at her desk, the instructions aimed as true and deadly as a sheath of arrows. She always hit her mark, buried her point deep, made it impossible to get away.
It’s Evander who asks, “But you didn’t?”
“I didn’t.”
The expressions that follow say it all. We deserve to know.
“I planned to do it. That was my job. That was my secret. My lie. Another of Ursula’s directives, another test. Not to mention with what Evander saw and knew—it’s what our parents seemed to have wanted. To cleave apart our unusual, unbreakable family. Shattering it in hopes that it would be better for the following generations, our lines, the witches tethered to us and our choices.” I smile at my oldest cousin. “And then, you did it anyway. The outcome was the same as Ursula wanted, but the path was unexpected.”
“But you didn’t know I would do that. You offered me the ring, the title, and the power. What was that? Some sort of reverse-psychology bullshit, then?”
I nearly laugh, though he’s dead serious, because of course he is.
“No,” I say, exhaling, “it wasn’t reverse psychology. I offered you the ring, the title, and the power in good faith, because in the end, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t destroy the relics. Not because I didn’t want to acknowledge her wisdom. She thought breaking them was the only way to rebuild the lines, to make us strong enough that what happened to her would never happen again. But when I had the chance, when I could’ve attacked Marsyas myself and retrieved them just as Evander did, I knew it would be unnecessary. The way we fought together, for our lives, for our legacy, for our family… I couldn’t.”
My cousins’ attention rises from their thoughts to my face.
“But you could.” Evander rubs his still unshaven jaw. “We broke apart anyway and untethered ourselves from the ring. We did the deed—I think that says something, even if I don’t know if the Four Lines will reform. We’re not the same as those who came before us. We won’t make the same choices. We won’t navigate our challenges in the same way. We’ll find our own way to thrive.”
In that pause, it’s a smile that touches my lips.
“Ursula was right, I suppose, when she said I was most loyal to who we are. Maybe she knew that in the end I would defy her if it was the best for us. Maybe she knew Evander would question his right to the title if he had to work for it. Maybe she knew Winter would make sure we considered if it was actually worth it. I don’t know. All I know is we ended up here, just as she’d planned.”
Winter ties off her braid. Her fingers sweep to the key on her choker, no longer obscured, and she glances into the fire as if our grandmother’s face will appear, haughty, hawkish, and full of opinions. “She didn’t miss a thing.”
Evander gulps down the rest of his scotch in a single swallow. He presses the back of his hand to his mouth until the burn passes. “Well, she did miss one thing—two, actually.”
Indeed. Ursula saw and planned for many scenarios, but most definitely not for the imposters. Ruby and Wren are entirely our problem.
One we haven’t yet attended to properly.
We could’ve spelled them to forget what happened—it was what we did to the waitstaff, after all—but we didn’t. We just let them leave. In that moment, after all we’d been through together, retention of the truth seemed like a kindness rather than a burden.
Yet, we can’t ignore what Ruby and Wren saw. Shock might keep them quiet for a while, but trauma is not a spell.
Winter arches a brow at me. “I don’t suppose the instructions Ursula gave you included protocol pertaining to literally the worst con artists in the history of the world?”
I sit forward, elbows resting on my knees. “No, but I do have a couple of ideas.”