That’s what this painting is?
“Yes, exactly,” mum answered the question I hadn’t meant to ask out loud. “Together, they had a daughter. She went on to have many sons to pass Heaven’s light down to.”
“What about the other twenty originals? Did they have children with angels too?”
She shook her head. “No. See, an angel may only have one single child with a human. Sure, that child can have many children of their own and that bloodline may carry for thousands of years just as the Lancasters have…but it must only stem from one. So, the angels are picky. Careful. They only father children when it is absolutely necessary.”
“None of the others have then?”
“Only a few. Uriel, Gabriel, Michael, and Raziel – I believe they’re the only ones. And they all chose descendants from an original twenty.” She cleared her throat and stared up at the painting. “Now, the original twenty have some tremendously powerful families, like the Proctors and the Bishops—”
“Like from the Salem Witch Trials?”
“Not a coincidence, either. But that’s a story for another day. The Proctors have always been leaders. Steady righteous witches with a passion to protect…the Bishops, well, they’ve always had the most raw power. Some are calm. Others are fierce warriors.” She chuckled. “The Proctors were your friends, your confidants. The ones you could lean on. Whereas the Bishops were the bodyguards.”
I frowned. “And the Lancasters?”
“The Lancasters are the keepers of the light,” she said softly.
I gasped. That was what the angel had said to me inside the painting. A chill slid down my spine.
“The Lancasters were the compass guiding our species to stay on the path of Heaven.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it. I wasn’t even sure what to say to that… or to anything else.
“Tell her about The Coven, Millie Anne,” granny said with a smile.
“The Coven…weren’t they, I mean aren’t they, the leaders of the witches? Isn’t that what you told me?” I scratched the back of my head, trying to force the stories back into my mind.
Mum walked over to the middle painting that showed a man sitting on a large golden throne with a strange sort of horned crown on his head. This painting barely moved. The man sat tall and rigid, yet the air seemed to pulse around him. Lightning flashed between his fingers and his body seemed to glow.
“Tarot cards you find nowadays are based off of The Coven. Humans simply never realized where they got the idea. Well, there are twenty-two major arcana cards. Each Coven member is Marked with the Roman numeral that coincides with a Card. Like Emperor. Like him.” She pointed to the man in the painting – to his left forearm where the Roman numeral IV was tattooed into his skin. “This was the first Lancaster who was Marked Emperor. And this painting is from his Coven Leader ceremony.”
“The Coven,” granny said with a bit of awe in her voice. “There are twenty-two members, two of whom are elected as Coven Leaders. One woman, one male. Those two rule over the species, technically, though really the entire Coven is in charge.”
My head hurt. This was too much. Too much to process.
“You look like you have a question.”
I looked up to my grandmother and frowned. “Well, I mean, I understand the witch thing. I get where we originated from – I’m in a history fellowship at All Souls, for God’s sake. That part I understand. I just…you’re telling me that I’m a witch. We’re all witches. That we have magic, that we’re these keepers of light. Yet I’m twenty-two years old, how do I just have magic now? Why did it suddenly burst out this morning and scare the shit out of me?”
Granny’s eyes saddened. She looked up to my mother. “Mille Anne?”
But mum just shook her head. She spun away and strolled over to the third painting on the wall, the one depicting a horrific brutal war. I’d purposely not looked at it earlier. The people were thick in battle and I hadn’t wanted to see it. Dust and dirt kicked up in the air. Blood splashed in arches. Swords and silver body armor glistened in a hazy sunlight. Mum hated that painting. She always had. She never wanted to look at it or talk about it – and I’d asked about it many times as a child.
Yet now she stood in front of it like it meant something to her.
“Mum?”
She sighed and hung her head. “You tell her, Mille?”
Mille. Millie Anne. My mother was named after her. The two had always been close. Pippa and Gregory were the heads of the Lancaster family, my cousins, but my mother had been closest with my grandmother.
I glanced over to granny and found her sipping some tea. “Tell me what?”
“A story I never told you as a child. I feared it would upset you.” Granny sighed and it sounded painful. “In the year 1307 a war broke out between witches and Lilith, the mother of monsters and evil—”
“Excuse me, the Hundred Years’ War? That wasn’t—” my jaw dropped. “Bloody hell. Are you about to tell me the entire thing, the history written in books, is all rubbish?”
“Yes and no.” She poured herself another cup of tea. “Our war with Lilith started first, but it was so treacherous that it eventually triggered a war among humans thirty years later. All of the things your history books tell you are true, they’re just not telling all the truth. They don’t know it. Now, back in those days, Coven Leaders were also prominent figures in the human monarchies. Right around the same time King Henry VI was born, Uriel — the angel — had a son named Edward Proctor. Together, those two, with the help of many others, were able to defeat Lilith. But it required sacrifices.”
I shook my head and held my hand up. “Rewind a tad. Did you just say King Henry VI was a witch?”
“Yes.” Mum glanced over her shoulder at me and smiled. Her blue eyes sparkled in the golden lighting. “He was a witch. But he was also the Hierophant and Coven Leader.”
“WHAT?”
Her smile turned crooked. “I know what you’re thinking, he isn’t known as the best king by human standards. But he was. He was remarkable. Brilliant. He’s the reason we defeated Lilith and then the reason the human war ended.”
“Then why does history say—”
“Because he wanted it that way. It had to be that way.” Mum sighed and turned back to the painting. “He was right, too. Even if he never knew it.”
I frowned and turned to my grandmother. “What happened?”
“Heaven does not interfere lightly, and when they do they have strict rules they do not break. Archangel Michael came down and gave his sword to Edward Proctor, Uriel’s son – for only a child of Heaven could wield Heavenly power. Once the war was over and Lilith was gone, Michael told them that she wasn’t gone for good, that she’d return with a vengeance. They would never be able to defeat her without his sword, but he was only allowed to give it to Earth once.”
I shuddered. I did not like where this was going.
“So Henry, Edward, and Archangel Michael hid the sword here on Earth so that when the time came for Lilith to return, The Coven could go and retrieve it.” She wrung her hands together and glanced down at a cellphone I’d just noticed sitting on the sofa beside her. “Except, well…in order to hide it so no one else could find it, Henry had to give up his magic. All of his magic.”
My eyes widened and my pulse fluttered.
“The Lancasters are the keepers of the light, the first children of angels. Henry knew it was only our magic that could protect the sword. To hide it. So…he gave it up. But it required more than just his magic. It required every ounce of magic from the entire Lancaster bloodline. In the blink of an eye, the Lancaster magic was gone.”
“WHAT?” I looked to my mother, but she still hadn’t turned to face me.
Granny nodded. “Michael promised that when the time came, when the next war with Lilith was upon us, he would give one Lancaster their magic back and that one witch would have to go and retrieve the sword…until then no child born from a Lancaster would have
magic. Those who married into the family lost theirs the second the vows were made. For six hundred years we’ve been essentially human, secretly and patiently awaiting the day our magic was returned to us.”
“Are you saying…are you telling me…” My heart pounded in my chest. “I’m the one—”
“Oh. No, no, dear.” She flushed and waved her hands. “Sorry, no. Your cousin Jackson was born with magic. He is the chosen one.”
Relief washed through me so hard I actually leaned back. I didn’t want that pressure. I didn’t want that mission. I shivered and exhaled. “So Jackson – wait, Jackson was shipped off to America for some fancy boarding school, wasn’t he?” I’d always adored my cousin, but he was rarely ever in England.
“Jackson was sent to Edenburg to study at the academy for witches. It’s located in our home country, Eden – which just so happens to be in America right now. He was sent there to study and to train so that he’d be ready when Michael returned for him.”
I whistled and shook my head. “Bugger. When will that be? When will Jackson go find the sword?”
“We didn’t know exactly, we only knew it’d be before he was eighteen. However…at six this morning, we all woke up with magic.” She stood and walked over to me, then sat down on the step beside me. Then she took my hands in hers. “We don’t have the confirmation yet, no one has been able to get ahold of Jackson this morning, but we have to assume that since all of our magic has been awakened, he has found the sword.”
I stared down at my hands with wide eyes. That red smoke billowed out and coiled around my fingers. “This red smoke…is my magic?”
“Yes, love.” She chuckled and wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “This is your magic. Your mother and I had just last night decided we needed to tell you, to prepare you for when it happened, and then Jackson went and beat us to it. But that’s how I knew to call you. We knew you had to be scared.”
“And the books? And paintings?”
“Your magic,” Mum said softly. She turned finally, then walked over to sit on the other side of me. “Some witches are born with extra gifts, or abilities, and these just so happen to be yours. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
My breath left me in a rush. I groaned and scrubbed my face. “So what do I do now?”
“Have some tea and rest.”
“Granny—”
“I’m serious. We have made calls to The Coven to notify them of our magic returning. They’ll send someone over to help teach us all how to use our new gifts. You’ll want to be in on that, I imagine. In the meantime…” she held up a small red vial that I somehow had missed her holding beforehand. “This is a potion one of the healers in London had made for all of us. She said when our magic returned we needed to drink these to help calm our magic down until it has settled enough that we won’t hurt ourselves or anyone else. And then we need to sleep it off.”
I narrowed my eyes on the vial. “You want me to go to sleep? Now? After all this?”
Mom bumped her shoulder into mine. “It’s seven in the morning, Chloe. You’ve had a taxing morning. But more importantly, your magic needs to rest.”
“And so you’ll be fresh for the ball tonight.”
“What ball?”
“The ball to celebrate the return of our magic, of course!” Granny grinned and held the vial up higher. “Drink the potion, Chloe, and get some sleep. Tonight, we dance.”
I stared at the vial for a long, long time. It felt weird to just trust it, to just drink it without any other information…but I had no reason not to. This was my mother and grandmother. They wouldn’t hurt me. And I was exhausted. My whole body hurt. If I rested maybe I’d feel better. And I hadn’t even told them the worst part of my morning. The demon-dog. The man with smoke wings.
“Granny, why did you say nothing could hurt me here?”
“Oh, this estate sits on Holy Land.”
“Right.” I took the vial and unscrewed it, then poured it into my mouth. “Naturally.”
Chapter Four
Chloe
Growing up on the Lancaster Estate meant being accustomed to balls, galas, and anything of the sort. Normally they were a tad dull and stiff, but tonight this party was downright wild. There was even a buffet. Granny had said it was for my cousin Jackson, to make him more comfortable since he was the one who gave us all our magic back. Had he not found the sword by dawn this very morning we never would have got our magic back. Ever.
So naturally, everyone was arse over tits about it. Soon there’d be dancing on the tables. I didn’t even recognize these people – and they were extended family. All of them. Not a single person here wasn’t a Lancaster or married to one, which was no doubt intentional since magic was flying across the room like a pinball. Everyone may have been in gowns and tuxedos but they were acting like children on a playground.
Apparently I was the only person in the entire family who hadn’t believed the stories of magic. Apparently everyone else knew magic was real and witches existed. Apparently The Coven had a headquarters of sorts for their ambassadors, or whatever they bloody called them, and most of the Lancaster family had been to a function or two there. Apparently it wasn’t a secret to anyone else…except me.
Which warranted questions in itself, but I was too tired and too overwhelmed to even ask them. Tomorrow, after a considerable amount of tea and proper breakfast, I’d demand to know why it was hidden from me so much. Until then, I was going to sit back and watch my family celebrate.
Because I didn’t begrudge them their happiness.
I just didn’t feel any for myself.
That potion they’d given me knocked me out for the entire day. By the time I woke the ball was starting. I hadn’t had a chance to speak to my mother or grandmother again and I desperately wanted to. I’d been too shocked earlier by learning the truth to ask about the man with the smoky black wings and demon-dog made of shadows.
The ballroom was grand, with massive chandeliers and a back wall made entirely of glass. As a child it always reminded me of the ballroom in Beauty and the Beast. It was bright light everywhere yet every time something dark moved in my peripheral vision I about had a heart attack, yet every time it was merely a man in a tuxedo. The only saving grace for the evening was that there were no paintings on the walls in here and no books to be opened.
As long as I kept my blood pressure down, that red smoke stayed inside of me. I didn’t know how everyone was so calm. So relaxed. Every fiber of my body was tense and buzzing with electricity. I felt my family’s magic in the air around me, like fingers brushing over my bare skin.
I shivered and downed the rest of my wine like I was a freshman at uni. When I lowered my glass, I gasped and jumped back. A silver serving tray floated in the air right in front of me. I blinked and stared at it, then glanced around. There were more of them floating through the party, all carrying empty glasses and plates. I frowned, then held my glass out. The tray flew over and lifted until the top hit the base of my glass. I released my grip and the tray shot off in the other direction.
Bloody hell, that’s convenient.
Is THAT what magic is supposed to be like? Is this why everyone is so damn happy? I couldn’t help but feel I was missing something. Perhaps everyone was happy they could use magic to do chores? I didn’t know and I needed to find out. I was a researcher. A historian. A bloody fellow at Oxford. Once this gala was over, I’d read every book I could find about magic…and demons. Books had always been my happy place. They’d always brought me peace. There was no reason they wouldn’t do the same now.
“Chloe,” my mother’s soft voice whispered in my ear.
I flinched, then stood up straight. “Yes, mother?”
“I know that face.” She smiled down at me with her bright red painted lips and sparkling blue eyes that matched my own. Her pale blonde hair was styled up and pinned in an elegant fashion. “You’re on a mission for answers, but tonight is not the night for that.”
I nodded and pointed to the flying trays. “Right now I want to know how the hell someone in our family learned magic this fast. Or am I that daft?”
She chuckled and shook her head. “Chloe, I was born with magic and had it my whole life until I married your father. Pippa was a talented healer, worked in an infirmary, and then gave up her magic when she married Gregory. Only those born a Lancaster were without.”
Oh. Duh. I didn’t even think of that. “Wait, did you do all of this?”
“Pippa and I did it together. Magic comes easier than you realize, once you let it in.” She pushed my long fringe to the side. “You look beautiful. Take a deep breath and try to relax. Tomorrow is for questions. Tonight is for dancing.”
I smirked. “And who might I dance with as a single woman at a family reunion?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She pursed her lips and glanced around, then turned back to me and shrugged. “I am positive there is someone here who is barely tolerable.”
I snorted and shook my head, grinning ear to ear. That hadn’t made much sense, but I knew what she was doing. “Using lines from my favorite book is rather dirty of a game for you mother.”
“Perhaps. But it got you to smile, and as your mother that is a priority of mine.” She took my hand and pulled me off the wall, towards the dance floor. “At least stand out here, that gown is far too pretty to be wasted in the shadows.”
I looked down and admired my dress again. It was technically my mother’s but she had insisted I wear it tonight. And since we were the same size and it was stunning, I did not put up too much of a fight. The gown was form-fitting, hugging my body tight from the halter collar at the base of my throat down to where the skirt flared out above my knees. The entire bodice was made of metallic gold feathers, I looked like I was being hugged by an angel or like I was in fact a bird. But in a good way. From a distance, the feathers looked like sharp metal yet they were soft like silk – which was a tad magical on its own. The skirt was silk, a glorious golden color the exact shade of the feather that fanned out around me like a mermaid’s tail. My favorite part was the tear-drop shaped cut out that started between my collar bones and stopped right about my navel.
The Rose Witch (The Coven: Old Magic Stand-Alone Novel Book 1) Page 4