Rose was the last one, and I was surprised she hadn’t fainted from the suspense.
“Rose Avereis,” Maddi called.
She walked across the stage smiling, having fixed cascading tendrils of blue hair down the front of her body. I knew her well enough to know she was telling herself not to nervously touch her hair. If she didn’t nail this, I wouldn’t see her weird habits for ten more years. You better fucking win this, Rose.
“What are three reasons in which a witch can be exiled from the Coven?” Maddi asked.
“Making the choice to protect a fellow Coven member instead of guarding the city is a big reason,” she said. “Though, treason is arguably the biggest one. Loyalty to an organization or person that is not the Coven to achieve devious ends is a concise way to be exiled. The third reason is the failure to disclose a romantic relationship with another Coven member. The city deserves to have full disclosure.”
Maddi’s eyes looked down to the next note card, and she shuffled it to the back of her stack, skipping it. Gregory tried to catch her attention, but she was already reading the next question.
“We are required to ask a specific question when someone changes an element from what they had decided in pre-screening,” Maddi told Rose. “I never thought I’d see it. Simply put, why fire?”
“At four years old, I knew when it would rain, even when skies looked as clear as they can in London.” The audience chuckled. “I’ve studied harmony as a martial artist and was born under a water sign.” She moved her hand and conjured snow, delicate flakes falling from above. “I thought that maybe I didn’t choose fire for myself, but standing up here today, right now, I know why I did. Rose Avereis will never back down from a challenge, and my biggest one yet will be protecting this city. I’m not taking the easy way.” I saw her take a deep breath in, the kind we’d do in Qui Gong forms, and I knew she was pulling in energy, charging her element with an emotion that no one else could physically see. The snowfall started steaming left to right. I watched ice ignite into a brilliantly blue flame. It crackled louder as if there was invisible kindling that smoldered beneath it. “And that’s why I favor fire.”
Rose made the fire into the shape of clouds overhead, as long and big as the stage of the auditorium, lighting up the room in its blue brilliance. It matched her hair, making it glow even bluer and brighter, and I was sure in that moment that Rose chose fire the night before. It grew warmer, and we all felt the power she possessed. When it dissipated, there wasn’t a person in the room who wasn’t cheering.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Frustration
Rose
I waited in my boxy partition behind the stage, half numb to what I just accomplished, but also feeling the buzz of the emotional energy I had taken into my body. It still burned deeply in my chest and behind my navel. Even though my neighbors in their partitions grew increasingly nervous, my emotions stayed the same: a coupling of pent-up frustration and desire that I planned on my fire expending. It hadn’t.
Raw passion coursed through my body, flushing my face and teasing any semblance of calm I could have had, a warm glisten stuck to my skin. Conjuring the flame had felt better than I could have ever imagined, and though I had been picking up on lusty emotions for years, it was different having them run rampant through my body. I didn’t count on feeling this agitated with no outlet to my stolen energy, but the result had been worth it.
Blue fire.
When I had said “fire” it was like my scorpion neck tattoo—the one Frank Iero got inked so that he’d have to succeed at being a guitarist because no one would hire him otherwise. I had to commit to being the girl who picked another element over her ancestral one, and if I had failed to conjure my pledged element, no one would ever forget me screwing up, and I’d be in the history books forever ruining my family name.
I forced myself into conjuring the flame any way I could, and I knew its roots well enough to pick and choose the emotions that would feed it. I was far enough away from the audience to control it, but at the same time, I knew I risked catching them all alight. Maybe that wasn’t the way I needed to start taking risks, but it sure was the right time.
As I took the stage, I had concentrated first on the boys my age, channeling their existing energy, using Teddy Faziet and his friends, and taking them for all of their human emotion. I risked displacing their affection for me forever, but I had little interest in them and they’d hate me for winning until my initiate status was over. I didn’t like using people as tools, but they were in my way as fellow candidates. They were simply competitors.
I hadn’t expected to find as much lust as I did, and maybe I took on too much energy, nearly choking on the overflow now, sitting in my metal chair, then standing up to walk a few paces every now and then. There was only so far I could go in my tiny box, and I wasn’t comfortable sitting or standing. Hell, I wasn’t comfortable on any level, especially with the witches debating for thirty minutes about my future in the next room over. The anticipation was as horrible as waiting for your favorite band to go on while suffering through all the openers. And in those instances, the headliners were always ten minutes late to the stage.
My whole life, I couldn’t produce so much as steam when I concentrated on fire. Some Changelings, like my dad, could control the element, but I’d always had more of an aptitude for ice because of my witch roots. My water witch blood was probably the thing that snuffed out any fire before it could have been started. Fire was all wrong for my personality, and I knew that using it could risk changing the person I was. It was a challenge, and as I told the Coven, there was nothing I liked more.
That was the first time I could actually produce a blue-hot flame, and the Coven undoubtedly knew the places fire was sourced from. Justice. Drive. Passion. But it was unlikely they knew which source I used, or how weak my fire was prior to this day. You’d think that there would be a lot of drive in the room, but honestly, the candidates were feeling pressure from their families. When I was up there in front of the lights, I could tell that Gregory and Maddi were rooting for me, but the third member’s expression and emotion had been flat. I had finally seen him with my own eyes—the boy shrouded in a midnight cloak with jet black hair—after wondering who he was for weeks, and I wasn’t any closer to knowing his name. Would two out of three do? I wasn’t so sure.
I wanted to flee from my partition to find Helaine, but instead, I calmed myself by creating fire between my hands and dissipating it. The energy still hummed through my body. I needed to release the energy, but I didn’t exactly know how. I risked being burnt by the beautifully dangerous blue flames if they touched my skin. Some Changelings were fireproof, but I wasn’t old enough to have that power yet, and nowhere near being a skilled witch.
But you are a skilled witch, I thought. It didn’t matter where I had pulled the energy from, or if I had help from my other lineage. The only thing that mattered was that I did it and there were witnesses.
At Helaine’s birthday party, I had decided that I was going to initiate under fire, and no one had any idea, not even my father, sitting between my mom and brother in the audience today. I replayed his look of surprise in my head, and then the feeling of pride that replaced it as I looked out toward my family, while standing under my blue flame.
I hoped that Grandpa Dave didn’t see it as a betrayal of his line. No one had successfully initiated under a different element before, and I hoped my great aunts and uncles wouldn’t harbor resentment for my change from water. That was a risk I hadn’t considered until I was left alone in the back room. I wouldn’t find out what the Weltiers felt until I was an official initiate at Winter Solstice party.
At any moment, the Mages could come to me, tell me it was over, and have me leave with my two bags. I didn’t even want to think about how I’d already be packed to move to college. I wanted to think about how I was getting in the Coven, and my intuition didn’t calm me with the harmony of water anymore; it now burned with the intense
, consuming, and unmistakable energy of fire, and there was no feeling like it in the world.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Next Task
Helaine
Gregory told us we would wait thirty minutes for results, but it seemed like two hours. Maybe it had been two hours. My brain kept replaying Moon’s flawless performance of weaving her intricate web. It was the task of the three remaining Coven members to pick the witch that would do the best with their existing team. Their motives were their own, and inarguable. It wasn’t dumb to think that Moon would get in when that was everyone’s opinion, and if I did instead, I had better watch my back.
Without any warning, the curtain in front of me opened.
“Come with me,” Agatha commanded, and I was so lost in my thoughts that it took me a moment to register what she had said as I peeked out of the tiny partitioned area.
I was either going on stage or home, and I wasn’t sure with the winding route through the dark corridors of backstage.
The exit sign burned red in front of me.
Please no, please, I thought. I knew in that instant that my water and form hadn’t been enough.
We were just about to the exit, but abruptly, Agatha pushed me through the stage curtain, and I was suddenly transparent enough to pass through to the stage, falling through the impossibly thick curtain. I didn’t know what element she had practiced while she was in the Coven, but her power was amazing; and bloody awful! I tried not to look surprised as I nearly stumbled to regain my balance, a hot white spotlight blinding my vision.
“Helaine Laurence, Water,” three voices said, as I stared at the crowd before us. “Merry Meet.”
The audience clapped politely, not absolutely loving me, but supporting the Coven’s decision. When Brittany yelled loudly, I wished that I could see her over the lights.
“You may take your place with us,” Gregory said.
I walked down the stage and around the velvet table facing it. After I took my place as a Coven witch—a fucking Coven witch, holy shit!— I realized there was an empty seat next to me. The fire position wasn’t called yet. I exhaled loudly to let some of my excitement out and devoted my attention to the stage.
Bien Vu. Je t’aime, a voice whispered in my mind.
Je t’aime. How long did you know that they were going to pick me?
Since you answered the questions.
I knew I had to stay facing forward, but my father reaching out had left an even bigger smile on my face. I was all cheese.
“As for Fire…” Earth stated. “We welcome Rose Avereis.”
As my flabbergasted mouth fell open, Rose appeared the same way, with Agatha’s tricky power that allowed her to pass transparently through the curtain just as she thought she was being led to the exit.
Rose looked towards me first, even before she tried to pick her family out in the crowd. Her face was stuck in between astonishment and giddiness. Everyone behind me yelled, whistled, and clapped, and she finally adopted a concise smile.
At that point, I stood up to clap, not caring what my new comrades would think of me for being excitable. Rose did what no one had ever done. She successfully initiated under an element that wasn’t her own, one that was the complete opposite of her ancestral element. She stood next to me, joining us behind the Table of Judgment.
Gregory, Maddi, and what’s his name, motioned for us to join them on the stage. Rose’s chair was barely warm. I instinctively knew that they had to get me out of there before a riot started. It had happened before when the crowd’s first choice wasn’t picked.
Gregory spoke to the crowd.
“These are our new initiates to the London Coven. Everyone performed brilliantly today, but these two are our firm choices. We welcome Helaine Laurence and Rose Avereis as Water and Fire respectively, and wish them all the fortune the earth and sky can offer, and ten long years serving the London Coven.”
The lot of us went backstage as processional music played in the background, and Rose and I started talking excitedly at the same time, at each other, until Maddi gave us further instructions.
“You’ll have time to say goodbye to your families,” Maddi told us. “After which, you’ll be confined for to the mews house until the next change of seasons, so that we ensure you know the protocol. We’ll introduce ourselves to you once we’re home. A Mage has approached your families and they’ll be back shortly. Your ticketed bags are also being brought back here. We will leave by car.”
Our families came backstage in an uproar of excitement. They were one big family anyway. In filed my sister and parents, as well as Rose’s parents and brother, and her Grandpa Dave and Grandmara.
“My sister is the next Water witch!” Brittany yelled to me.
“I am!” I yelled.
My mum had tears in her eyes. She could now affirm that the role she had in restructuring the Coven had a direct effect on her own daughter, and she couldn’t have been happier. I hugged both of my parents at once.
“I’m proud of you,” Rose’s dad told her. “I had no idea that you were going to do that.”
“I know,” she said with relief. She looked at Grandpa Dave, hoping he’d be okay with the switch.
“I couldn’t be more proud,” he said, beaming. I had never seen him so happy. “Our family will talk about this forever. You’ve brought us honor.”
“What did you do to your hair?” Grandmara blurted out.
“I caught it on fire.” Rose smiled with confidence.
“Corny as always,” Gray muttered and then asked, “Can I have your room?”
“No,” she retorted. “Well I mean, it’s not my room anymore...”
Not everyone knew that the Coven witches had a four a.m. curfew as long as they served and that only extenuating circumstances could change that. Extenuating circumstances did not include staying with your family, even for holidays.
“You know, I’m getting used to your hair, and I might come to like it,” Grandmara said. “Congratulations.”
Everything else was a blur as we told our families that we’d see them in three months, and left with the witches, as witches.
Fucking coven witches. Holy shit.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Mew’s House
Rose
It was rare that anyone outside of the Coven would ever see the inside of the mews house, but everyone knew the leafy building with an alley entrance and red door. The property had belonged to the Coven since it was built, and many renovations later, it was still a fortified safe house in which the protectors of London lived. It was the safest house in London actually, except at family dinners when my parents’ friends were all together in the same place.
Even though reporters we permitted at auditions, it was agreed upon that they let us settle into the mews house on this night, and the cobblestone streets near the house were clear as our car pulled up.
Helaine and I followed the three Coven members into the living room through the crimson front door. We were met with a set of stairs that twisted up to the floors above, no doubt to where our rooms would be. At first, the living room looked more like a small library, with a pair of floor to ceiling bookshelves as the focal point to the three couches. There was no projector or screen for video streaming.
The room was decked out in deep jewel and rust colours as if someone had dropped a treasure chest into the middle of the room, and it decorated itself with a mysterious and cozy vibe. The square, aqua wall panels reached upwards about two-thirds of the way, and a warm orange coated the top third of the wall. I would gladly spend the next decade here.
A coat rack behind the door held umbrellas and coats, and one was a bright blue Crystal Palace Football Club windbreaker, a football team that hadn’t seen a winning streak in many years. Whoever it belonged to was a diehard fan.
I set my bag and suitcase down in the living room, and Maddi looked confused at the clunk my duffle made.
“You sure did pack a lot of shoes…�
� she said suspiciously.
“Oh, they’re not shoes. They’re weapons. Even though I know I can’t attend class regularly, I intend to keep up practice. I only brought the small ones.”
“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you Avereis?” Gregory asked.
“Sometimes I surprise myself,” I said.
“I’m Gregory, Earth, but you know that. You can call me such, but for the first two years, your names are your last names. Initiate rules.”
“I go by Maddi, and I’m Air.” Her symbol was two faces on a silver chain. I recognized it as the zodiac sign, Gemini. Helaine and I wouldn’t get our symbols until our first two years were up.
“Stan,” said the Spirit element. I was unsure of why I had forgotten his name and why I couldn’t place him. He had carefully cropped and styled dark hair, and when he made eye contact with his seafoam green eyes, I could feel my heart pumping blood quicker. I knew it was the fire still ravaging through my body. Though Gregory was cute too, there was an uncertain something about the boy in front of me that captivated my interest. This was my life as a fire element now, and it was going to happen again. I held my eyes on his. If I looked away now, it would be obvious. I waited on the edge of his next words. “I’m Spirit, and need I remind you,” he said to Helaine, “be careful with clearly directed thoughts, as I can hear them.”
I remembered Helaine’s clear look of disdain at the opening of auditions when Stan came out from behind the stage. We had joked that he was the one who needed to have the affair to get kicked out, but he didn’t find it very funny. I wasn’t sure how we had forgotten, but both of us knew that the most powerful telepaths could pick up clearly directed thoughts and loud inner dialogue.
Death's Primordial Kiss (The Silvered Moon Diaries Book 1) Page 9