“Au contraire,” Adrienne countered. “Roughly thirty years ago, I was a proud member of the Summers coven. Your mother, Cassandra, was coven leader then, and she often counted on my ability to settle disputes. I’m completely objective, you see. Silly emotions don’t cloud my judgement.” Kennedy scoffed, but Adrienne pretended not to hear her. “In time, a man arrived in Yew Hollow. He was charming and handsome, everything a woman could want. His name was Owen McGrath, and he fell in love with my dear sister, Alana.”
There was a bitter edge to her voice now, which Kennedy sensed. She was tense and taut at my side. I rested my hand over hers, pleading silently with her not to do anything rash. I understood now. Adrienne was not only the root of the Summerses’ problems. She was also Kennedy’s emotionally abusive stepmother and Nora’s biological mom.
“Due to irresponsibility, Alana soon conceived a child,” Adrienne went on. She pointed at Kennedy. “This one.”
Morgan’s eyes widened as she made the connection. Then she hid her face in her hands, as if she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t seen it before.
“I knew that the child would bring doom to the coven,” Adrienne said. “But Cassandra did not heed my warnings. I decided to take things into my own hands. The child needed to die, so I formulated a plan when my beloved sister went into labor. Little did I know that the child would use her own unhoned witchcraft to thwart me.
“I was discovered shortly after the child’s birth,” she continued, strolling through the frozen witches as she told her tale. They followed her movements warily, hands clenched at their sides. “At the point, the coven had already fallen prey to the child’s effects. They believed me to be a monster, and so Cassandra banished me from the very family I had fought so hard to protect.” Adrienne’s expression darkened. “But I do not take disappointment well. What, I wondered, would devastate the coven in every way? What would cause them to feel the pain that I had felt at their betrayal? What would prove to my sister that she was undeserving of Owen McGrath’s love and affection?”
She made her way back to Kennedy, whom she smiled coldly at. “I knew at once. I took the child to raise as my own, rescued Owen from certain disappointment, and cast a curse over the Summers coven. The catch? Only the child could activate the curse, by intentionally performing her first act of witchcraft.”
Kennedy made a noise between a sob and a laugh as Adrienne knelt down to take her chin between her fingers.
“Don’t you see, Kennedy?” she whispered. “The entire Summers coven will die because of you.”
Kennedy let out a garbled chuckle. “I was never a danger to this coven. He loved Alana, and you were jealous. Objectivity and emotions can’t live in the same body, Adrienne, so tell us the truth. He didn’t want you. He never wanted you, and you tried to kill your own sister—and her newborn baby—to win him over.”
The slap across Kennedy’s face echoed through the trees. Kennedy yelped, more in surprise than pain, and a red handprint blossomed on her cheek. Adrienne shook with fury as she rose to her feet again.
“You filthy—good for nothing—”
She paced from one end of the clearing to the other, panting through her nose as she tried to regain her elegant composure. Kennedy’s fists glowed orange. She had a protective ward at the ready. Adrienne swept her hair over her shoulder and took a deep breath to steady herself. When she spoke again, she addressed the entire coven.
“You’ll be delighted to know that I did not return to this godforsaken town to finish what I started,” Adrienne declared. “In fact, I’m quite content to watch you all suffer and die. I came to retrieve what belongs to me.”
Black magic blossomed around her like a cloud of pure night. Deadly quick, she reached down, wrapped her fingers around Kennedy’s throat, and pinned her against a tree. Kennedy scrabbled against her grasp, unable to conjure a ward while Adrienne’s craft stifled her own.
“Where’s my daughter?” Adrienne snarled. “Where’s Nora?”
Kennedy choked, tears streaming down her cheeks as she fought for air. The coven watched in horrified silence, unable to intervene. I was Kennedy’s only chance, and though the feeling was only just beginning to return to my legs, I had to do something. In a move of desperation, I prepared to lunge—
“I’m right here, Mom.”
11
Kennedy
“Nora,” I gasped, fighting against Adrienne’s hold.
My little sister had pushed her way through the immobile witches. She stood at the front of them with her feet planted shoulder-width apart and her hands clenched in determined fists at her sides. Her pale hair was decorated with snowflakes, and she wore a pure white cashmere sweater that seemed to refract what little moonlight infiltrated the dark clearing. She was a warrior of winter, an angelic illumination, and the Summerses’ saving grace.
Adrienne released me as she found her daughter’s gaze. Immediately, her stance shifted into one that was not so predatory. She opened her arms out to Nora, but she still crackled with the leftover power of her warped craft.
“My beautiful girl,” she said, her voice soft and reverent. “My pride and joy. When you disappeared, I thought I would die.”
Nora warily stood her ground, refusing her mother’s invitation to come closer. “Is it true? Did you do this to these women?”
A touch of a sneer distorted the facade that Adrienne had employed for Nora’s benefit. “These women, Nora, deserve every moment of suffering. How long have you been listening?”
“Long enough,” Nora replied. Her voice cracked as she went on. “You tried to kill Kennedy. How could you do that?”
“Nora, sweetheart—”
“Don’t say my name,” Nora snapped. She furiously wiped a wayward tear from the corner of her eye. “You don’t get to say my name right now. Kennedy was always right about you. From the beginning, I stuck up for you because you were my mother. I didn’t understand why you could take such good care of me and give me everything I wanted then turn around and treat my older sister with such contempt. Your own niece?”
The label sounded stale in reference to my relationship with Adrienne. It was true. Adrienne wasn’t just my stepmother. She was my aunt, my own flesh and blood. It was a bitter realization. It was bad enough to be related to Adrienne by marriage. It was even worse to know that we shared genetics.
Adrienne adjusted her black satin scarf so that it drew even more attention to her pale, delicate cheekbones. I looked across to the witches, where some similarly-shaped faces, blonde hair, and green eyes peered back. It dawned on me that the Summerses’ most prominent features did not go lost on Adrienne. Instead, they had come together in a lethal combination of beauty and scorn.
“You don’t understand,” she said. Her attention was focused solely on Nora, as if the rest of the coven was so insignificant that she considered them no more than ants beneath her high-heeled designer boots. “You were perfect, Nora, untouched by the coven’s influence. Pure and beautiful. I did my best to maintain that perfection. I wanted the best for you.”
“My very existence is a betrayal,” Nora whispered, her eyes shimmering with waiting tears. “You forced my father to love you.”
Adrienne dismissed this with a wave of her hand. “Nonsense. Owen was more than happy to be free of the Summerses.”
“After you wiped his memory,” I spat. Adrienne glared sharply at me. “Yeah, I know about that too. As if Dad would let you get away with kidnapping his daughter for your own and leaving the woman he actually loved to rot. How much happiness did you steal to convince him that he loved you instead? He doesn’t remember anything. Not Alana, not Yew Hollow, not even the truth about his own mother.”
“And you think you’ll be the one to remind him?” Adrienne laughed coldly. “I don’t think so.”
“I already have,” I growled. “I returned home while you were out and found the photo album in the hidden part of the master bedroom. That was your creation, wasn’t it? I can
’t imagine you kept the pictures for posterity’s sake. Why hold onto them then? Did you need them to control the memory enchantment?” When Adrienne’s brows shot upward and her lips parted, I knew I was on the right track. “Thought so. How did it feel when you discovered the key to the second half of your treacherous curse was missing?”
“Inconvenient,” Adrienne admitted. “But it led me straight to you and Nora. I plan to retrieve it before leaving you and the rest of the Summers to rot here in Yew Hollow, so in the end, it all works out, doesn’t it?”
“If you think I’m letting you leave here with Nora, you have another thing coming,” I replied, stepping toward my stepmother. The three of us—Adrienne, Nora, and I—made a straight line with three points, like Orion’s belt, and I was ready to blast this constellation apart.
Adrienne laughed out loud. “As if you have a choice. Look behind me, Kennedy.” She bowed mockingly to Morgan, who stood behind Nora’s right shoulder, attempting to maintain an illusion of strength. “Morgan Summers, arguably the most powerful witch in the nation, if I’ve kept up with the correct line of gossip, is at my mercy. So what makes you—an illegitimate child with no training at all—think you could stop me from taking what I want and leaving?”
“I won’t go,” Nora announced.
Adrienne’s hackles rose as she considered her daughter. “Nora, these women are not your friends—”
“I won’t go,” Nora repeated louder. Her aura began to glow, expanding outward until the entire clearing was bathed in her rosy golden light. It fell upon every Summers witch, Gwenlyn, and me, but it carved a path around Adrienne, leaving her in the unforgiving gray of Yew Hollow. “You hurt your family and turned your back on them. I won’t do the same thing.”
“These people are not your family,” Adrienne hissed. “I am.”
Nora shook her head. “Kennedy is my family. Morgan and Gwenlyn and the rest of the Summers have become my family. You just gave birth to me.”
Adrienne rose, rolling her shoulders back and lifting her chin. Her black aura pressed against Nora’s pink one. “Do you think so little of me? You said yourself that I gave you everything you ever wanted. You never went without. I fed you, clothed you, and put a roof over your head. This is how you repay me?”
“Common decency doesn’t cancel out the crimes you’ve committed against these people,” Nora replied evenly. “And you can’t buy love or loyalty with ponies and parties.”
Adrienne faltered ever so slightly. Then she said, “Fine. If the Summerses mean so much to you, I’ll give you one chance to save them. Leave with me. Return to Windsor Falls. If you do so, I will lift the curse from the Summers coven. They’ll go on living their wretched lives, and we can get back to our normal routine.”
Whispered mutters rose from the throng of witches as Nora considered Adrienne’s proposal. If she agreed, this could be the end of the Summerses’ trouble, as long as Adrienne kept her word.
“What about Kennedy?” Nora asked.
All eyes turned to me, including Adrienne’s. “Without the curse, she would no longer act as the catalyst,” she explained. “She would be free to do as she wishes.”
I didn’t believe for a second that Adrienne would allow such a thing to happen. She had plagued me my entire life, taking out her anger with Alana and Owen’s relationship on a baby that never had a choice in the matter. Her opinion on the matter hadn’t changed. She still believed the Summerses deserving of their fate, and if she wanted, she could force Nora to leave Yew Hollow with her. The choice was an illusion to lure Nora into doing what Adrienne wanted. And Nora was falling for it. My little sister gazed across the clearing at me, then looked over her shoulder at the Summerses.
“Nora, don’t,” I pleaded, seeing the uncertainty in her expression. “She won’t keep her promise.”
“This from the sister who was never there for you,” Adrienne cut in. “Face it, Nora. When it comes to promises, I always upheld mine to you. Kennedy, on the other hand, repeatedly let you down.”
Nora’s shoulders rose and fell with her breaths, her aura pulsing along to her rapid heartbeat. She was too good for this. She felt obligated to solve a problem that wasn’t hers to confront, and I couldn’t stand that she was considering handing herself over to her mother to do so.
Adrienne sighed, pushing up the sleeve of her knee-length trench coat to check her leather watch. “I’ll tell you what. I don’t have the patience to wait out your decision, so I’ll give you three days to consider my offer. Nora, the fate of the Summerses now rests in your hands. You may return to me at any time, but if the fourth day breaks, I will expedite the effects of the curse and kill off the entire coven. It’s up to you.”
Nora had no time to react before Adrienne turned on her heel and retreated, carving a black path through the rosy air. She knelt next to Gwenlyn, who turned her face away from Adrienne’s whispering lips. Standing so close, I overheard the quick exchange.
“Careful, darling,” Adrienne said, smiling. “Your color is changing.”
She rose to her feet before Gwenlyn could respond, threw one last look of contempt over her shoulder, and vanished from the spot with a puff of black smoke. At once, the Summerses were released from her hold. They regained control of their bodies and witchcraft, and their auras spread through the clearing in a whirlwind of confusion and chaos. The women surrounded Morgan, pelting her with demands. Nora backed out of the crowd to no one’s notice, took my hand, and led me in the opposite direction of the coven’s squabble.
“You need to get out of here,” she said urgently, keeping an eye on Morgan’s attempts to quell the riot over my shoulder. “Stay inside the ward, but keep hidden. Camryn won’t care about Mom’s offer. She’ll try to kill you anyway. Go now before it’s too late.”
She shoved me away from the conflict, but I held fast to the sleeves of her sweater. “Nora, wait. What about you? Are you all right? She’s your mother. You’re allowed to be confused—”
She cupped my face in her hands, imploring me to look her in the eyes, which shone with determination. “Kennedy, I’m not confused. Devastated, maybe, but not confused. It’s my turn to keep you safe. I love you, okay? Now get out of here.”
“But—”
“I’ll be fine,” she insisted. “Go.”
I would’ve protested further, but one of the witches in the fray had noticed mine and Nora’s separation from the group. She glared over the top of the coven’s heads, her eyes boring into mine. Nora pushed me deeper into the trees. With one last desperate look at her pleading expression, I turned on my heel and ran.
Without Nora’s aura to guide me, the woods turned dark. I stumbled over rocks and roots, holding my hands out in front of me to feel for approaching branches, too scared to use my craft to light the way in case Adrienne was out there waiting for me. I had no idea where to go. There was no moon or stars overhead to guide me. I was running away again, with no concept of a plan in my mind.
When the noise of the witches’ bickering match had faded, I slowed to a jog. Through the trees, I could make out the first few houses of Yew Hollow’s modest suburban neighborhood. They were all vacant, which meant I could choose any one of them, cast a ward to protect myself from unwanted visitors, and hole up for the night. I stuck to the edge of the woods as I scouted the area, using the shadows as cover just in case. The backyard of the closest residence was a mere fifty feet away from my location. I could vault the fence and get inside within a few seconds.
I glanced left and right. All clear. I shot out from the trees and made a flying leap, catching the top of the fence and hoisting myself over. Before I could drop to the other side, an attack spell hit the direct center of my back, bruising the space between my shoulder blades and causing me to topple headfirst toward the ground. I barely got my arms up in time to protect my head and neck. They took most of the impact, and I heard the crack of my collarbone fracturing. I groaned, cradling my arm to my chest as I rolled over to face the o
ncoming threat.
Camryn cleared the fence with ease and landed lightly beside me, yet another indication that she was using her witchcraft in ways that didn’t suit the Summers morality clause. She was alone. I guessed that the witch in the clearing had tipped her off to my escape. I scrambled to get to my feet without the use of my hands, wincing as my movements jostled my broken collarbone.
“Were it not for the fact that your stepmother is trying to kill us, I might actually like her,” Camryn said, grinning as I backed into the fence. “She’s got the right idea about the coven anyway. Self-righteous women who think they know better than everyone else. That’s how the Summers are bred, but it’s good to know that some of us are capable of rising above our family’s flaws.”
“You’re delusional,” I said.
“I’m practical,” she countered. “For example, while the rest of the coven begs Morgan to put an end to our suffering, I have taken action. See, I don’t care about your little sister, Kennedy. She means nothing to me, so I have no qualms if her mother reclaims her from Yew Hollow. In fact, she’ll be better off. But I doubt Adrienne’s claims to lift the curse. I trust no woman but myself to finish the job, so when I saw you running off like the coward that you are, I realized it was the perfect opportunity to end you for good.” Camryn plucked her gloves off, tossed them aside, and flexed her fingers. “I thought we might do this the old-fashioned way.”
She dropped into a boxer’s stance, bending her knees and lifting her fists, but her fur-collared coat and textured boots made the offensive posture look ridiculous. I couldn’t help it. I barked out a laugh.
“You want to fight me?” I asked incredulously. “Are you kidding?”
Camryn smirked and winked. “Last time I checked, you had a broken wing.”
She lunged, and I instinctively raised my arms to block her first punch. Red-hot pain lanced through my chest, but my collarbone was the least of my worries. Camryn’s fist landed on my forearm with a sharp smack. In a normal situation, it wouldn’t have even fazed me, but her punches were loaded with witchcraft. Her aura was a bluish gray on its way to a darker hue. Like Adrienne, she was using dark magic. This was not the average fist fight.
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