by E. Latimer
Christ. What was she doing? Reagan knew, of course, after many late-night sleepovers and crush confessions, but after her best friend, Samuel was only the second person she’d told.
“Girls are hot.” Meiner pressed her lips together like she was trying to keep from laughing. “All the shit that happened tonight and you would tell me you think girls are hot?”
“Probably not, honestly.” Dayna wriggled in her seat as another pulse of magic rushed through her. Her fingers tingled. “People at my school found out I liked girls and guys. It was a disaster.”
Meiner’s brows shot up. “Don’t tell me. Did they try to pray at you?”
“Worse. The Bible study at my dad’s church found out. A bunch of them go to my school….”
“Oh hell.” Meiner’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. Her face had gone steely. “They told your dad.”
“Yeah, and he didn’t react well.” Dayna caught herself twisting her hair between her fingers and forced herself to put her hands in her lap. Usually she tried to avoid talking about this, about what had come after.
It felt different with Meiner, though.
“I’m sorry.” Meiner’s voice was low and gruff. “People suck.”
Dayna only nodded. She cleared her throat and forced her voice to sound light. “Okay, you got three questions. My turn. Um, what’s up with you and Cora?”
Meiner sighed and rolled her eyes, as if she’d been expecting this. “Okay, but that’s worth your entire turn, and you’re not allowed to judge. We dated for, like, two weeks.”
“Ah.” It shouldn’t have been surprising, but the thought of Meiner and Cora together was still strange. “Is that why she’s like that?”
Meiner snorted. “There are so many reasons she’s like that.” She darted a sideways look at Dayna.
“Your turn.”
There was a beat of silence, and then Meiner said, “Your coven, you’re pretty close, huh?”
“I mean, yeah. We’d do anything for each other. Anything and everything.” Her thoughts immediately went back to the cardboard sign—You shall not suffer a witch to live—and the grim certainty of more deaths. “I’d kill to protect them.”
Meiner’s eyes widened. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Well, I didn’t expect that from you, Walsh. If you need help burying the bodies, you know where to find me.”
Dayna grinned and dropped her eyes, fiddling with the seat belt at her waist. “Aw, thanks.”
Meiner reached out and grasped her hand, drawing it away. “Hey, don’t unbuckle that.”
Dayna bit her lip as Meiner dropped her hand back into her lap. Her arm tingled.
She wanted to say something else, something clever, but then they were pulling into her driveway, and it was too late.
Meiner turned to face her. “Final question: What’s your number?”
Dayna’s grip tightened on the seat belt, and for a moment she only stared at Meiner. It felt like her insides were buzzing. “Uh…”
Meiner grinned at her expression. “So I can text you and make sure you get up to your room okay.”
Meiner handed her phone over, and Dayna punched her number in, squinting at the blurry screen. “Done.” She handed the phone back, feeling a little thrill run through her when her fingertips brushed the palm of Meiner’s hand.
“Let me walk you up the steps, so you don’t fall on your face. Yemi’s orders.”
Dayna was silent on the way up the driveway. She was glad for Meiner’s help, because the driveway seemed to swell and tilt beneath her feet, but she felt suddenly self-conscious clinging to her arm. What did Meiner think of her? What if the other girl actually still hated her, and she’d just made a fool of herself with her drunken confessions and quasi-flirting? Maybe Meiner was going to go home and tell Cora and they’d both laugh at her….
She was so deep in thought when they arrived at the front porch that she nearly missed the step and lurched forward.
“Whoa, steady.” Meiner caught her other arm, facing her. Her fingers on Dayna’s bare skin were ten warm points of contact, sending a new kind of electricity buzzing through her.
For one incredible, mad second, Dayna thought about going up on her tiptoes and pressing her lips to Meiner’s. What would Meiner do? Push her off? Kiss her back?
She wanted desperately to find out.
A light kicked on, washing over them, flooding the driveway with brilliant yellow-white. Dayna jumped, guilty panic shooting through her. Meiner backed up quickly, turning for the door, as if she expected Dayna’s father to come charging out.
“Well, the light is new.” Dayna tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. No doubt this was one of her father’s attempts to control his charge. They were going to have to have a serious talk, as much as she hated the idea. She wasn’t about to let him turn the house into some kind of well-furnished Alcatraz. “I better go inside.”
She looked up at Meiner, sure she saw a flicker of disappointment in her face. As Dayna dug into her shoulder bag for the keys, Meiner said, “Dayna?”
She turned, heart in her throat.
The white-haired girl was a tall, slender silhouette on the doorstep. “Just…don’t forget to drink lots of water. Avoid the hangover, right?”
“I’ll remember.” Something fizzled slightly inside her. She wasn’t sure what she’d been hoping for. “Good night to you, Meiner King.”
Meiner hesitated, then turned back toward her car. “Good night.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CORA
In all the years Cora had been part of the coven, she would never have imagined herself sitting across from Meiner’s grandmother in the middle of the night, in the center of the darkened forest.
“You’re not paying attention.” Grandma King’s voice was waspish, and she reached out and smacked Cora’s shoulder with an open palm.
Cora grimaced, pulling her sweater closer around her. Apparently it didn’t matter that she felt ill. That she was still recovering from what happened earlier that night at the ceremony. That her face still throbbed after they’d reset her nose. She’d awoken in pain, an alarmingly wide gap in her memory. From the moment they’d closed the circle and begun the chant to the moment Grandma King had woken her—sweat-soaked, her entire body jerking in violent muscle spasms—she could recall nothing.
Maybe drinking the vial Gran had given her had been a terrible mistake.
Someone, or something, had taken the controls and moved her body like a puppet. A god, most likely, but one they hadn’t invited into the circle.
What if it was still out there, waiting to jump back into her skin?
The thought made Cora feel ill, flashes of hot and cold buzzing over her skin. She glanced around the clearing. The forest was silent, stretched with long shadows.
“Pay attention, girl.” Grandma King was scowling at her. “Your mind is still on the ceremony, isn’t it? I warned you this would be dangerous. You drank the vial; you wanted this.”
“What happened back there?” Cora glared at her. “And why can’t I remember any of it?”
Grandma King ignored the question. “This is only the first part of your training, and here you are feeling sorry for yourself. Shall I pick up where I left off with Meiner?”
“No.” The rush of anger made her words sharp. “I can handle it. I’m stronger than Meiner.”
“Not yet.” Grandma King glanced down at the basin between them, which was filled with the same rust-red liquid that had been in the glass vial. Frankly Cora still didn’t want to know what it was, but she could guess.
“What happened to me?” Cora started, fists clenched. “Why won’t you—”
Grandma King clapped her hands together sharply, startling Cora into silence. “Do you want power? More than the others, more than Meiner?”
“I— Yes.” Cora squared her shoulders, her scowl furious. Of course that’s what she wanted.
“Well, then. We’ll speak no more of this.”
Grandma King smiled grimly and jabbed a crooked finger at the bowl. “Wicked deeds best done after dark. If you want this coven, you’re going to have to do better.”
Cora swallowed hard, forcing herself to change the subject. “What god will I pledge to? The…uh, the one you used to worship when Meiner and I were young?”
Grandma King cackled, slapping her knees. “Oh aye, witchling, I’d love to see you try. The god I worshipped would tear a little thing like you limb from limb.”
That hardly answered her question. Cora frowned when Grandma King reached into the bag, pulling out a flat metal tin. She dipped it into the liquid, filling the bottom.
Grandma King shut her eyes, her face expressionless. “Drink.”
Cora stared at the tin, lip curled. The vial had been disgusting, like drinking salt and copper. “What is it?”
Grandma King’s eyes snapped open. She smiled, a sharp, unpleasant expression. “Are you sure you want to know?”
Cora paused, pressed her lips together until they paled. She reached out to take the tin.
The liquid tasted the same, like pennies and rust, and she gagged and swallowed hard, eyes watering. The tin fell noiselessly to the grass, and Grandma King laughed.
“Now the grimoire.”
It took her a moment to obey. She leaned forward on her hands and knees, stomach heaving. Nothing came up, though, and after a second she sat back and wiped her mouth with a groan. That taste was still on her tongue, and for the first time she wondered if she should have turned down the old woman’s offer.
Then she thought about Meiner. The scornful way she looked at Cora. Brushing her off like she was unimportant.
She stiffened her back and reached for the leather bag. Pulling the heavy tome out, she slid it across the grass to Grandma King, letting go as quickly as possible. The grimoire was thick, and the binding was done in black leather. There was a sigil etched in silver on the front, one that Cora didn’t recognize, and energy was rolling off it in waves, making the hair on her arms stand up. In all the years she’d been part of this coven, she’d never seen the book.
Grandma King rocked back on her heels, strangely agile for someone who had to be helped down the stairs.
“There you are, a ghra. It’s been years.” The old woman spoke not to Cora but to the book, smoothing a wrinkled hand over the pages as though she touched a lover.
Cora frowned. Was the woman having another lapse?
She rocked forward, hands clutching the grass, trying to see what was in the book. The pages were dry and yellowed, and they crackled as Gran turned them carefully. Cora could make out the upside-down words well enough to know they weren’t English.
“Your rise to power will be different. Longer, full of trials,” Grandma King said. “But you’ll be far more powerful when it’s complete. Pay attention to the words I teach you and how we set the altar.”
“How many trials?” Cora sat up straight, a flush of excitement running through her. “How long will it take?”
Grandma King only stared at her in return, and Cora frowned, resisting the urge to reach out and shake her. She could see the glassy look had returned to the old woman’s face. “Gran?”
“Hmmm?”
Cora felt like a coiled spring, the tension about to burst out of her in a scream of rage. “How many trials?” she repeated. “My rise to power, remember?”
Thankfully Grandma King seemed to shake herself out of it. “Oh yes. Trials. You will face more than your fellow witchlings, and none of them will be easy. You will have to work. To fight for your power tooth and nail. That is why they are asleep in their beds and you are here.” She nodded gravely. “The others will ascend and go no further, but you…for you the ascension is only a gateway to more power. But”—she held up a finger—“you will have to be stronger than you’ve ever been.”
Cora straightened her back and nodded. She wanted this. She was willing to do whatever it took.
The old woman fished in the bag once more, laying out several objects on the wooden altar between them. A piece of rock on a chain—Flint, Cora thought—dried sticks of kindling, a glass bottle filled halfway with water, a smooth oval stone, as black as ink. And lastly, a small glass box with gold trim that held a single strip of dried leather. These the old woman set out side by side. The kindling she placed in an empty glass basin, stained red on the bottom.
Grandma King bent over the basin, striking the flint against the black stone. Sparks showered onto the kindling, and the wood caught, glowing embers flaring to life.
“Shut your eyes,” Grandma King said. “Repeat after me. No matter what happens, keep chanting.”
Cora was about to ask exactly what might happen, but Grandma King had shut her eyes and was swaying on the spot.
Her voice was flat and cold, though the words that spilled out were strangely melodic. “Talamh, uisce, tine, fola. Teacht domsa, Caorthannach.”
Cora’s voice was halting and hesitant, and she stumbled over the words. She was pledging herself to someone. To something, she knew. It was reckless and stupid to not know exactly what, but right now she didn’t care. She just wanted.
She almost broke off as something cold and damp touched her shoulder, crumbling down her arm. The scent of freshly turned earth broke around her, like dirt after the rain. She forced herself to keep chanting, to keep her voice strong even when cold water splashed over her face. She spat it out and continued, a mixture of excitement and dread building in her gut.
Something touched her right cheek. The smooth tip of the stone traced circles over her face, leaving warm liquid in a pattern on her cheek, trailing the smell of rust and pennies. Cora kept chanting, her lip curled in disgust.
Next came a sharp, hot pain on the exposed skin of her right shoulder. She gasped, trying not to flinch. And still she chanted, her voice high and strained. The heat retreated but her arm continued to burn, and tears prickled behind her eyelids.
Cora chanted the words until they felt seared in her mind. She didn’t open her eyes when there was a horrible crash, and the wind picked up, howling through the trees, whipping her hair across her face. She raised her voice and continued.
Cool spots of rain began dotting her face, her neck, her arms. It washed away the film of dirt on her shoulders, the blood on her cheek, and the pain in her arm. She felt something then, an electric tingle that started in the soles of her feet and crept up slowly. The feeling swelled and grew until it took up the entirety of her insides, and she felt it would burst from her skin in a shower of sparks. Like the flint, she had the potential to ignite. To set the whole world on fire.
A hoarse voice cut through her reverie. “Caorthannach. Firespitter. Mother of the Flame, come to your disciple.”
Cora’s eyes snapped open. Grandma King was sitting in the middle of the picnic blanket, folded forward on her knees, a smoldering stick in one hand slowly going out in the rain. Her face was twisted in a biting smile and her eyes glittered. Cora would not have blinked if the old woman had shrunk in on herself and turned into a bat or a fox in that moment. Anything seemed possible.
Firespitter. Mother of the Flame.
Cora had heard those names before. Caorthannach. Mother of demons, and of the devil himself, if you believed the Christian version of events.
It should have scared her, but the feeling brewing in her stomach wasn’t fear, not exactly. All she could think about was the kind of power this goddess must have.
The kind she might grant her followers…
“Now eat.”
Cora looked down. The box with gold trim sat open between them. It was not leather inside, she realized, but dried meat. She reached out, hand hovering over the box. Her gaze flicked from the shriveled strip of meat to the unpleasant smile on Grandma King’s face.
Cora fished in the box and took the meat, raising it to her lips. For a moment she considered casting it away. Going back to the safety of the house. Leaving all the questions unasked and unanswered.
Cora squeezed her eyes shut.
She shoved the jerky past her lips. The taste of salt crashed onto her tongue. The meat was tough and sinewy between her teeth, and Cora nearly gagged at the sensation.
The patter of rain on the leaves slipped into the silence between them, and Grandma King’s rictus smile stretched wider. “Now say it once more.”
She did, stumbling on the words. Her mouth tasted of salt and copper, and she wanted to spit into the grass between them.
Then lightning struck, nearly knocking her backward. Something electric pulsed through her limbs, stiffened her muscles. Cora gasped as power coursed through her body. She was lit from the inside out. Her eyes rolled back, and she could see only white for a moment, and then into the nothingness someone spoke:
“I see you, witchling.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
DAYNA
The house was dark, and Dayna shuffled through the entryway and into the hallway, past the dining room, where the furniture loomed like dusty ghosts. As Dayna moved into the kitchen, there was a second, startling flood of light, and she jumped.
“Dad?”
“Dayna, I didn’t hear you come in.”
A woman’s voice. Dayna paused, blinking. When she could see clearly enough, she made out the blurry form of Fiona Walsh in the doorway.
Dayna frowned, still squinting against the glare. “Were you waiting up for me?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” Fiona’s voice was soft, and she rubbed at her arms, though Dayna didn’t think it was particularly cold in the house. “The bed in the guest room is nice.” She hesitated. “It’s not what I’m used to, though.”
The potion was still burning through her, making her brave enough to ask questions she probably shouldn’t. “What was camp like? What did they do up there?”
Her breath seemed to stick in her throat as she waited for an answer, and she found herself pressing a hand to her chest.