“We can only hope.” Rose smiled. “You know, I’m going to show Stan I can handle this. I just have to be mature about it, which has nothing to do with having experience. I’m an adult, and I’m one of the five most powerful people in London. I’ll show him.”
“You will,” I said with a cheeky smile.
“Enough about me. What’s going on with your training?”
“Something important, I think. Today I asked Onyx about these books I saw in the living room. There are like four of them and they’re blank.”
“I haven’t noticed. What did he say?”
“They’re higher level books, much too good for initiates. If we get a mentor to make contact with one, then the words will appear.”
“We can so do that.” Mischief flickered in her purple eyes.
“But… if we touch it, the words disappear again.”
“We need one of those books,” she whispered deviously. “To pass the time I mean.”
“Oh yes, ‘to pass the time,’” I said, a laugh gripping the edge of my words.
We heard the door to the greenhouse open on a squeaky hinge, and Gregory came outside to find us in the courtyard.
“Can we see you in the living room?”
“What’s wrong?” Rose and I asked in unison.
“There’s been a death scene, come on.”
A death scene was exactly what it sounded like. We didn’t hesitate to follow him back inside. The Coven was in charge of catching criminals and passing judgment when someone had been killed. The dispatched witches had to determine if it was accidental or on purpose. The look on Gregory’s face was the “on purpose” one I imagined seeing since the moment I had been initiated. It was terribly exciting to me.
Gregory joined Maddi and Stan in the living room, with me and Rose close behind. I cleared my thoughts of the biting words Stan had with Maddi about my best friend. Ultimately, I had no right to have listened to that conversation, and in a house where I lived with my coworkers, I positively knew I would do it again.
We took up seats as if this were a meeting. In such a dark, cozy living room, I momentarily forgot that this was my office. Stan sat on his merlot-coloured couch alone, and Rose and I sat across from Maddi and Gregory, in the inky purple couch that mirrored theirs.
Gregory filled us in, “There’s been a homicide. Three are dead. It’s supernatural. Stan, you’ll go with me.”
“Can we go?” I asked, beyond excited. Solving murders and catching killers was the reason I joined the Coven. I had an unquenchable interest in serial killers, and being in the Coven meant I wouldn’t have to write parking tickets for four years before someone would let me find and apprehend them. It was a supernatural shortcut to being a detective.
“In this instance, you could get a pass to get off of house arrest, but you still need permission, and you already know what your mentor would say,” Gregory warned.
Never in a million years would Onyx let me go.
Rose looked to Stan hopefully.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“To go.”
He shook his head no.
“Do you need me to astral project there first in case there’s eminent danger?” Maddi asked.
My mouth hung open. That was the air gift power that allowed you to transport your astral self (invisible or otherwise) to a different place.
“It’s clear and O’Callaghan is there now,” Gregory said to her, before turning to me and Rose. “Usually we dispatch two witches to a death scene. Right now, Stan and I have the best powers to investigate, but all of us will go over the facts together when we get back. Seeing someone dead… it isn’t easy at first.”
“I was okay with it.” Stan shrugged.
“I never would have figured,” I shot at Stan. He smirked and scratched an itch on his forehead.
“I’m not sure if I would be,” Rose admitted. “But if it means bringing someone’s family justice, I’ll do anything I have to.”
“Good answer,” Gregory told Rose.
“I’ll never be comfortable with it,” Maddi said. “If I have to I’ll go but…”
“We’ve got it Maddi,” Stan said. “With my permission, you can explain death scenes to the initiates more.”
“I’ll do the best I can,” she replied.
“It’s best we go straight there,” Gregory told Stan.
Standing as far away from each other as possible, they connected their palms and were gone in a flash of light.
“Bloody hell!” I yelled instinctively.
“That’s how you teleport?”
“Yes. It’s advanced and you do need another Coven member to do it. I know you both have to be dying to use your powers, but you’ll have plenty of time to do cool things like that.”
“I can wait a little longer,” Rose said.
“Is everything okay?” Maddi asked.
She’s a bloody good actor, I thought of Maddi.
“Fire’s just a little much, and I have more power than I can control. I’m not sure if Stan thinks I can do it, or that I’m worthy of the element. Sorry, when I’m tired things just come out.”
“I know you can do it,” Maddi said. “You know Stan can’t always convey things in a constructive and optimistic way. Sure, part of it is autism, so don’t take it to heart. There is something to be said about having honest friends who tell you the truth.”
“I guess that is pretty valuable,” Rose admitted. “Thanks, Maddi.”
“What happens now?” I asked.
“We wait and then begin an investigation when they get back.”
We stayed up to wait for the Coven’s other two fifths, and Gregory and Stan returned near six, the same time as the rising sun started to cast strips of light onto the dark paneling, turning the deep sea-coloured walls into aquamarine. Maddi had fallen asleep clutching a pillow and sat up quickly when the front door shut.
“You guys look like hell,” Maddi said, and she wasn’t being mean. I imagined it would be hard for either of my obnoxiously great-looking housemates to look as bad as they did now, and it was all in the solemn facial expressions they wore, and the worry around their eyes. I had to know what they had seen.
“Yeah,” Gregory agreed, with a biting demeanor to his words; a tone I had never heard him use before. “The victims were Ling, Judy, and Moon Halloran.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Blood and Fire
Rose
“Moon?” Helaine and I asked at once. That was a sensible reason as to why Stan and Gregory’s expressions were solemn. This was an attack on the witch community as a whole, so much that Stan might even take this personally too. The frazzled look on Stan’s face and the roughness in his voice were actually kind of cute. Kind of.
“What?” I asked him as his mossy eyes shifted towards me, but he brushed my fragmented thought off. I had to be more careful, innocent or not.
Helaine’s surprise was only making mine more numbing. This was the first one of our peers to die. I felt like my blood would boil over from anger at any second, but intense disappointment and sorrow did all it could to radiate from my heart. As Fire, I had no stages of grief. They happened all at once. After we accepted it, I wasn’t sure what feelings would rise from the ashes. Holding onto Helaine’s emotions was the only way to keep me steady. I was glad to have her here with me here—not that I wanted her to suffer, but just because we could support each other.
“Tell me you know who did this.” Maddi looked hopeful but Gregory shook his head no.
“We’ll know more when the autopsy is performed. The family has asked you to officiate the funeral, Maddi.”
“I will do my best.”
“In the meantime, a reverse autopsy is in order,” Stan said, holding up a vial of blood in between his long fingers.
“Is that…” I gaped. He was going to use his powers on dead witches’ blood.
“Yes, Avereis. When there is a violent crime, I tap into my Bathory side.
I usually walk around the scene after taking the victim’s blood, but I wanted to bring it here for learning purposes.”
Stan walked into the kitchen and we followed.
“There were three victims and there’s only one vial of blood,” Helaine pointed out.
“Stan can’t use his powers on them, Judy and Ling were… burned alive,” Gregory said.
Ashes, ashes…
I shook off the memory of my strange fan mail. I didn’t like that the modern world was imitating the witch hunts of the past. At least Helaine had a sick obsession with them… if it did turn out to be what I suspected. Was someone hunting us?
“I suppose that I’m about to be a nineteen-year-old girl,” Stan said with mock enthusiasm. “Why are you smiling Avereis, do you find dead witches entertaining?”
“No,” I said accusatorily. “This is just what you deserve for treating me like a child.”
Gregory was confused by my comment, but he did live in his own little attic world anyway and might not have noticed that much about our first two weeks here.
Yes, I suppose it is what I deserve. You have a nice smile though, even that one.
I held eye contact with Stan for a second, wondering what he actually meant, and my jumbled emotions made a space for excitement, a shooting pain that shivered up my body, even if it was just for a split second. I was just tired, and to him, it was merely a statement. I let it go, thanking my fire element for making a plain statement into more than it was.
Without warning, Stan downed the vial of Moon’s blood like it was water. I could faintly tell that Stan loved the taste of it, but the rest of us felt a tinge of disgust, even if it was just for a moment.
“Stabbed in the back,” he said, standing as still as possible as he dove into Moon’s memories. “With her own knife.”
Stan’s control impressed me, and he didn’t get lost in Moon at all. I realized that when Onyx had said “have faith in Stan and his teachers,” that my mom was probably his other one. She didn’t take on a lot of protégés because there weren’t a lot of Bathorys in London, but if she had the chance to help someone, she was there before they knew they needed it.
“Can you see who did it?” Maddi asked.
“No, it was a surprise attack, right when she found her parents burnt. It smells worse in her memories than it did when we were at the actual crime scene,” Stan said. “And then she passed out.”
“She can’t have walked away then,” Maddi said, on the verge of tears. I didn’t yet feel comfortable rearranging her emotions like I did Helaine’s. Maddi was controlled enough to snuff out her tears on her own.
“But there isn’t a body…” Gregory said.
“And if there’s no body,” Helaine said with a wicked grin. “She can’t be dead.”
I looked back to Stan. He and Helaine were more alike than I thought. She was able to separate herself from the horror easier than me.
“Moon has a plan—or had a plan in case she ever needed to run. Her father had been talking to someone… quiet conversations, things that didn’t make sense.”
“A conversation doesn’t prove anything,” Maddi said, as Gregory nodded in agreement.
“To a water witch it does,” Stan argued. “Their intuition is unparalleled, and right now, it looks like Ling got into a mess and took Judy and Moon with him.”
“If I may?” Helaine asked.
The other three nodded.
“Knives often have a sexual component, so I’m willing to guess the murderer took a liking to Moon or has some sort of sexual hang up.”
“Or there is more than one murderer,” Gregory said.
“I’m not ruling that out. I’m asking what makes Moon different than her parents,” she replied.
Stan shrugged. “Straight A student, martial artist, athletic, great assets… water hopeful…”
“Stan and I think it has to do with the Coven, and Moon not getting in,” Gregory explained before the rest of us could get sidetracked thinking about what “assets” actually meant. If Stan had Moon’s memories, he probably saw every asset she had.
“We’re going to play ‘find the political agenda?’” I spoke up for the first time. “I’ll get to making a list.”
“Great job, Avereis,” Stan said. “I’ll piece together the conversations Moon overheard. She may be smart but she doesn’t have my memory. It could be hard.”
“You’ve got this, Stanley,” Maddi said. “I have to oversee the funeral, so my hands are tied.”
“They took the knife with them, so my gift power won’t work here,” Gregory said. I almost asked him what his gift power was until he spoke up again. “Helaine, you’re with me, and Onyx, as long as he is on board.”
“He bloody will be,” Helaine said darkly.
“And I’ll obviously oversee Avereis,” Stan said.
“Laurence, can you help me with suspects?” Gregory asked, grabbing a pen and paper. “You two went to school with Moon for a few years right?”
We nodded.
“I’m sorry that this is one of your peers. We need to know about any rivals or family conflicts they could have been involved in so Stan knows what to look for. I want you two to write them down separately so we don’t miss anyone. Maddi, can I talk to you?”
I had never noticed how Gregory could make his affect as flat as Stan until now when Maddi nodded and followed him. They were both upset by this, and we all knew that Moon would have been safe had she been living here on house arrest.
I started to make my list of anyone who didn’t like Moon. Bessie Berkshire and Contessa Fortwit were at the top of my list, but I also knew that this had to be political because of auditions. There was one group that freely protested our current presidency, but they were just as vocal about harming none and left the witches alone. They were known as The Forthcoming. I’d put them at the bottom of the list.
Gregory and Maddi came back into the room to go over our lists and told us that everyone would be investigated. Stan was barely able to piece together a clue but said that he would keep looking throughout the day, and probably needed to go back to the scene. He was only half joking about trying on Moon’s clothes when he got back to her house to see if it would jog any more memories.
“I’m afraid I have to study for tonight’s lesson,” Helaine said.
“Don’t worry,” it’s canceled for the press conference,” Maddi said.
“Then I will get ahead if I’m not needed here anymore?”
“We just need to prepare the official statement so you are good to go,” Gregory approved, “and we’d never stop you from studying.”
Helaine left the kitchen to go get her books in the other room, and I knew exactly what she was doing. I turned back to my mentor.
“So I guess you’ll be moonlighting as Moon instead of our lesson?”
“You almost sound like Onyx,” he said. “Simply ‘moonlighting’ would suffice. I know you will miss our lesson.”
“Right now I miss sleep,” I said.
Helaine bumped into Stan as he was leaving the kitchen.
“Sorry, Stan!” She said, as her five books tumbled everywhere.
“I don’t think you can read all of those in one sitting,” he observed, as Maddi followed behind and instinctually started scooping up books in an effort to help.
“House-arrest,” Helaine answered. “You’d be surprised what I can accomplish when there is nothing to do but study. I’m giving it my all. Maybe you’re right though. I should just take two for now.”
Helaine scooped up two random books without even glancing at the covers.
A blank black book passed hands from Stan to Maddi, as she helped him put everything back on the shelf.
“Good luck, Laurence.” Maddi smiled, making me absolutely smitten with our mischief. “We’ll be back later, yeah?”
“Thank you, Maddi.” Helaine beamed, waiting for the others to retire to their rooms and gather whatever a witch needed for a press confer
ence.
When everyone left besides me and Helaine, I thought that our first master-plan of being in the Coven was far too easy to pull off, and then I remembered that we couldn’t actually touch the book.
I willed it to be something that could help me source fire, and it must have been lucky that day.
The words on the ebony binding said, “Sourcing True Power.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Sourcing True Power
Helaine
Rose and I stared at the ancient text we had no right to open, wondering how we could touch it but not touch it, hoping to keep the words on the page. A family power (say telekinesis) would work well right now, but I didn’t have the same powers as my father, only the witch blood of my mum. Regardless, Rose and I would figure it out. We always did.
We sat in slaphappy quiet, sinking into the purple couch a moment, giddy smiles plastered to our faces having actually pulled this brilliant plan off, and after a sleepless night to boot. I lazily twisted a strand of my red hair around my finger, hoping that the press conference was a long one. We were starving to use our prohibited elemental powers, and this book could be the jumpstart we needed as soon as the ban was lifted. I knew I was a natural, but Rose on the other hand…
“You are trouble, Rose,” I said. “I can’t believe that you talked me into this.”
She burst out laughing and fixed her violet eyes on me.
“You talked me into it. What does ‘Sourcing True Power’ even mean?”
Rose stood up to search the kitchen.
Curiosity was the best reason I had for doing anything, but I also welcomed a distraction from thinking about Moon, my fellow martial artist who was stabbed dishonorably in the back. I knew I wouldn’t be permitted to attend the funeral on account of it being our first season. It would be easy to sneak out, and there weren’t any enchantments up to keep us from leaving in the event that some dastardly emergency should ensue, however, there would be no way to disguise my face for a funeral, lest I wanted to look suspicious. Strolling into the funeral parlour with a mask on was a great idea when a murderer was walking about London.
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