Ana Mourns (The Clermont Coven Trilogy Book 2)

by Alina Banks

“Exactly. If I could convince Mom not to do something stupid, then we’d stand a better chance of making this work, but she isn’t listening to any of us. She views us as the enemy because we see things differently, and I get it. She’s angry that she was the one who was chosen. She’s always known her weakness makes her a liability, and the Easons proved that to her, which I think they did in order to make her do this. They think it’s going to weaken us if something happens to her.”

  Dad sighed. “How likely is it that Lilah’s going to end up dead if she goes up against the vampires?”

  “Is that really something you want to talk about?”

  “No, Ana, but I think it’s something we need to talk about.” His eyes met mine, and I could see the pain in them. “I know this isn’t going to work out. Honestly, I think Lilah will go up against them alone if she has to, and if she does…”

  “There is still a chance we might be able to talk her out of it, but if Mom does make that decision, I don’t think she’ll be coming back to us.”

  “Sorry doesn’t ever fix things, but that’s really all I can say.” Damien looked at me. “How bad is it?”

  “At first, I thought I might be able to make Mom see things differently, but after tonight…” I shook my head. “From what she said, she wants me to leave the house, which is something I’d do if it wasn’t for the sanctuary, but Dad overruled her. He said they had a legal responsibility to look after me, so if she had a problem with who I chose to be with, she could find somewhere else to be, instead of trying to kick out a minor. That was when she accused us all of working against her.”

  “There is a chance Madeline didn’t fix all the damage she caused. She might have added in some memories that would make it harder for your mom to accept that you were her family.”

  “Either way, Mom’s not making good choices right now. The likelihood is, she is going to make her move in the next couple of days, without us. When she left the house, I could see the way she thought this was all my fault. That’s not like her, so maybe you’re right. Maybe Madeline didn’t remove all her false memories. It’s possible that she still wanted my mom to cause trouble behind the scenes. It doesn’t matter why this is happening. It matters that it is happening, and it means I need to work out what my next steps are going to be. If Mom makes the choices I think she’s going to make, then it won’t be long until I’m the leader of the coven.”

  “Can I do anything to help?”

  “You even trying to help would probably make this all a hundred times worse. You, to her, are our enemy, and there’s no chance of her as seeing you in any other way. She’s made her decision. Nothing any of us has tried has gotten through to her. She’s completely blinded by her anger.”

  “If Madeline did do something more to Delilah’s memories, I might be able to fix it. I did with Vi, but that was different. Before I tried, I took the time to get to know her, in the hope that she’d trust me, and it worked out far better than I thought it would.” He shook his head. “I might make things worse, and that’s not what I want to do, but I also hate the thought of something happening to your mom because I didn’t try.”

  “Whatever happens is her fault.” I shrugged. “Maybe I shouldn’t see things that way, as I know what happened before, but I don’t think Madeline needed to do anything more than she did. After she regained her memories, Mom was always going to be furious, and that was all they needed. She’s going to do what she believes is right without listening to us because Madeline poked at Mom’s one major weakness: the fact she isn’t anywhere near as strong as Miss Cane and I are. Out of the three of us, Mom is worryingly weak. They knew that. You knew that. They did what they had to do in order to make Mom walk the path they wanted her to walk.”

  Damien nodded. “We did know it. Before we moved into town, we took some time to learn a little more about the current coven, and Delilah was always going to be the target. Madeline worries about you more than Rebecca Cane because you are the strongest of the three of you, and there have been whispers about your link to the afterlife. That worries the demon. He believes you might actually be capable of forcing him away from this world.”

  “With the help of a couple of other witches, that is something I’ve been working on actually being a possibility, but it’s not going to be easy.” I looked at him. “You are very different when you’re away from the others. I was just thinking about how things were at the party and how you acted. It was like you were someone else.”

  “Keeping up the act then was the most important part. Vi and I were friends, which is something they didn’t know about, but they knew she was the one who remembered us. The one who, in the end, managed to rally the other witches, and there was a time when they all blamed me for that. I convinced them it had nothing to do with me in the end, lying as well as I could. And now, they do still trust me enough that I can be out alone with you.”

  Jessie stopped me as I made my way toward home. “Ana, we need to talk.”

  “Do we?” I shrugged, looking at her. “All I really want is to get home and pretend that everything is going to be fine.”

  “Yeah, I can imagine you do, but I wanted to warn you about Damien. I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to make you believe he’s different than the rest of us, that he wants to be human again, so you will open up to him. This is exactly what he did with Violet. She never saw exactly who he was, but I know him better than anyone else. Everything he’s been telling you is a lie. He doesn’t want to be human. He was related to one of the first witches. We all were. That magic affected the entire family, and Damien was close to Annabelle. He was furious when he found out she’d been lying to him. Only, he made the decision it was better for her to live so he could make others pay for her choice, and he’s doing just that with you.”

  For a moment, I just stared at Jessie. I knew the time was coming when one of the other Easons would try to convince me Damien was just using me, as though I hadn’t thought of that myself. “What was he like when he first became a vampire?”

  “Confused, like the rest of us.” She smiled. “It wasn’t an easy transition. The demon didn’t want it to be. He wanted it to be hard, and he wanted us to blame it on the witches. For a long time, I did, but that’s faded through the years because they made the best decision they could for them. They didn’t want to live a life tied to the demon. Neither did we, only we didn’t have as much of a choice.” Her eyes met mine. “Madeline has made the decision that Delilah will die if she makes a move against us. I know you’ve been trying to talk her out of it, as you understand the situation, but she isn’t listening. It’s because she’s angry with us for tampering with her memories. It’s not something that matters to us, because she’s not someone we need to worry about, and I know part of the reason that decision has been made is you. Doing that is meant to weaken you, but I have a feeling they don’t truly understand who you are.”

  “Mom is making choices I know will cause her problems in the future.” I shrugged. “It’s something I’ve come to terms with now, and I think Dad has too. She’s letting her emotions lead her into something I probably can’t get her out of, so I’m not going to try anymore, especially as she sees me as a traitor. Then again, I think I knew she would the moment I made that choice.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Miss Cane was waiting for me in the sanctuary when I got there. “How are things working out?”

  “As expected. The younger vampires are working against one another. I’m almost certain neither of them is telling me the truth, but then again, I didn’t expect the truth from them in the first place. When I spoke to Violet before, she said she hadn’t truly trusted Damien, but she wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, so I was going to be far better off taking everything he said with a grain of salt.” I smiled. “That’s what I’m doing with all of them. Damien wants me to believe he’s different than the others, Jessie doesn’t care one way or the other, and the adults…well, I know they’re leaving it all
up to the younger vampires, because it’s easier for them. I know for a fact they went for Mom because they knew how she was going to react. Her lack of strength has been an issue ever since she realized how strong I was, but I didn’t see it before.”

  “Neither did I. It wasn’t until she had her memories changed that I realized how useless Lilah feels, and that’s why she’s pushing the attack on the vampires. She wants to do something useful.” Miss Cane sighed. “But it’s not useful. Instead, she’s going to end up losing us one member of the coven, so it’ll just be the two of us against the four vampires.”

  “We can deal with them if it happens.” I shrugged. “I’ve got a couple of ideas.” I stepped forward, looking down at the notes I’d been working on. “One of those is giving herbs that weaken vampires to the people they feed on, and the other…” I nibbled my bottom lip. “Honestly, I don’t know if it’s going to work, but I think we might be able to break the curse on all of them. Doing it would take a lot of power, but…” I looked at her. “With Mom making decisions out of rage, I’ve been second-guessing myself a lot. The spell Violet created should work. All the elements are there, but there’s no way to test this on anyone in advance, if we are going to use it as a weapon.”

  “How about I take a look and see if I agree? At least, then, you won’t be second-guessing yourself.” She smiled. “I made the decision to walk away from the hospital for a time, once this weekend is over. I think I need to focus on what’s coming. We both know why the vampires are here. The demon is trying to get through in a more aggressive way than he ever has before, which I’m almost certain has something to do with you. That means I’m going to need to teach you a lot more, as well as start work on readying the coven for what’s coming after the vampires.”

  Raising an eyebrow, I studied her. “The coven?”

  “There are more of us around, Ana, and I’m going to do something I wasn’t willing to do before. A calling spell is something that was created back when the coven shattered after the vampires were last here. I could have used it before. I could have made it so everyone had to come back, but I wasn’t willing to do that. Not when I understood why they’d made the choice to leave everything behind. I just don’t know if I have any other option now. We need them here. The two of us going up against the demon isn’t going to work. Even if Lilah is here, three witches aren’t going to be enough. It’s stronger than we are and always has been. With the vampires here, I know it thinks this is the best chance it has.”

  Slowly, I nodded. “Are you sure a calling spell is the best option?”

  “Yes, and no. I think it’s the only thing I can do to bring the coven here, but using something like that…it’s more than just asking them to come back to Clermont. I’m basically forcing them to, and that was why I didn’t use it before. Leaving was what they felt they had to do. Forcing them to come back to a place where there are so many memories…I hate the thought of it. I remember what it was like going through that time, and making them come back…the demon can’t take control. Not after everything we’ve already done. Everything we’ve lost.”

  “Give it some time, then. We do have the vampires to deal with, but that…I understand your fears, but we don’t know for certain what’s coming next. We believe the vampires came here to open a door. Damien has confirmed that by talking about who they planned on using, which also tells me they need one of us to actually be able to do that. They don’t have the power themselves to be able to open a door. As that’s the case, it gives us the time we need to work out how to deal with them.” I ran my tongue over my lip. “As much as I hate to say it, whatever Mom is going to do will be a good distraction. They’re going to be focused on her, at least for now, until she’s no longer a worry.”

  “Using us to open a door isn’t going to be easy, either. Not while we’re working together. Had they managed to turn the two of us against each other, they might stand a better chance.”

  “After Mom, that’s likely to be their next plan. I have a feeling Damien is going to start bringing you up soon enough, but he chose not to before. If he does that, then I know the position I’m in with him. Honestly, I think he wanted me to focus on trying to help him because it meant I wasn’t working out other ways of dealing with the vampires.”

  Dad was sitting at the kitchen table alone when I walked in. “Mom’s not coming home, is she?”

  “She thinks it would be better if she stayed away for now.” He sighed. “I tried talking to her, but it didn’t work out anywhere near as well as I hoped it would. She thinks I’m working against her too, because I’ve been trying to talk her out of what she’s been planning, and she told me she’s seriously thinking about divorce.” His eyes met mine. “If that happens, this house is hers. I would need to move out, and what you did would be up to you.”

  “You aren’t going to get divorced.” Sasha, who’d followed me in, jumped onto Dad’s lap, and I watched for a moment as he stroked her. “Whatever happens next is going to change things.”

  He gestured for me to sit down with him. “It is. This isn’t something I planned on talking to you about, Ana, but I think I have to, because of what you said before. Lilah, if she doesn’t change her will, has left the house to you. To her, this is a Conway house, so I have no rights to it. I don’t blame her for making that choice. I’m just a Price. As far as I know, no one in my family has any magic, so this isn’t somewhere I should be unless you want me here.”

  “If you think I’m going to kick you out, then you’re very much mistaken.” I studied him. “You’re my dad. This is your home for as long as you want it, should the worst happen.”

  For a moment he looked uncertain. “Your mom…” He looked down. “I’m sure you’ve noticed how things have been recently, Ana. There’s no reason for me to keep this from you because it would be pointless, but Lilah’s been making me feel like I’m an interloper. That I shouldn’t be here because I don’t have witch blood, and she’s never acted like that before. She used to appreciate the fact that I was more normal. Only with everything that’s happened, I think she sees me as the main problem. You’d be more willing to follow her if you were a full witch.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how things got this bad. When Madeline changed her memories, things were bad enough. This…at times, she’s even been acting like she wished she hadn’t married me, and she’s never acted like that before.”

  “Then I need to ask you a question. Do you think this might still be a memory issue? Madeline could have planted this in her mind to make her think you’re the problem.”

  “No, I don’t. I think this is something else. When Lilah got her memories back, I know she was dealing with a lot. Guilt was the main thing she felt, as she was reminded of all the choices she made when she was younger, and that…she talked to me for the first time about something she did and regrets. I know she talked to you about how she thought everything would be easier if she gave her magic to her sister. I thought, the same as you, she didn’t actually go through with it. But it turns out, she did give her magic away. Only not to her sister. Instead, she gave it to someone else entirely. Someone she believed would be able to take her place as the leader of the coven. She gave it to the daughter she knew she would have. You.”

  Raking a hand through my hair, I thought of all the spells I’d found that talked about passing magic from one person to another. None of them mentioned passing the magic onto a person that wasn’t living, but was a potential person, which meant Mom would have needed to have created it herself. Our family, it seemed, had always been good at crafting spells, so there was no reason she wouldn’t have been able to do it. In order to make it work, she’d have needed to keep the magic within her, so it could be passed on to me at the right time. At least, that explained why I was as strong as I was. The timing, however, didn’t work out because she’d never been strong, if I was to believe both her and my grandmother. I thought for a moment, wondering if it hadn’t been a spell at all. Maybe it had bee
n something else entirely. Maybe she’d passed it on when she came into her magic, because she didn’t want it, only she wasn’t truly passing it on - she was simply holding on to it until she could.

  “Did she say how it worked?”

  “I didn’t ask for details, but I’m pretty certain it was something she did without realizing she’d done it, at least, she didn’t realize it until later on. Now, she blames herself for all of this. If she hadn’t made that choice when she was a teenager, everything would be different right now. You’d still be strong, but she wouldn’t be the weak link. It’s being the weakest one in the coven that’s gotten to her so much. She didn’t know back then that she was meant to become the leader of the coven. She just knew she didn’t want to have magic.”

  “Mom made a mistake.” I sighed. “I can understand why she feels the way she does, but she had no way of knowing what was coming next. She couldn’t have known how it was going to affect her life, or my life, when she made that choice. Not that I even think it was really a choice. It was more that she panicked when she realized she wasn’t normal.”

  “That’s what I said to her, but she wasn’t willing to listen to me. She told me a coven leader was meant to be strong, and she’d given away that power before she even knew what it meant to have it.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Alice looked at me. “I think it’s possible, Ana, because there were some stories of it happening before, but it never once crossed my mind that it might have been what happened to Lilah. We all knew she didn’t want to be a witch. She made that decision early on, and it makes sense, considering what I know of her, even if I can’t be certain she did that to herself.”

  “Was there any way you would have been able to feel that power within her?”