“We already knew you were good at protecting and saving. All that Light witch bullshit. Can you use it to destroy, though?”
“If you keep teaching me, I should be able to. I hate that I’ll be able to do that, but you’re not wrong. I need to learn. But in the meantime, I know I can help in other ways, too. That matters, even if you don’t get it.”
Esme shrugged. “Hey, you want to play at being a magical plant fairy, go ahead. Just make sure you don’t use all of your energy doing that, because you’re going to need it when you finally come up against Marshall.”
Sophie had been about to answer, about to tell Esme that, actually, she felt stronger after she used the magic this way, when Jayda ran toward her out of the woods.
Esme stood straighter. “One of yours?”
“Yeah.” Sophie frowned as Jayda drew nearer. She was supposed to be keeping an eye on the Falls pack. “My Lady,” she huffed, bowing a little to Sophie as she approached. “I’m sorry.”
“What’s going on?”
“One of the coven members you had watching the wolves was found dead a little while ago. Murdered.”
Sophie’s gut twisted, even more so when she saw the sheen of tears in Jayda’s eyes. “It was Rob.”
Rob. Sophie thought a moment, and thought she vaguely remembered a dark-haired guy who had always stuck close to Jayda.
Sophie reached out and took her hand, and Jayda looked up at her in shock. “I’m sorry for your loss. What happened?” Sophie asked gently.
Jayda shook her head and blinked back her tears. “I’m not entirely sure. I was circling around again. We did that, kept moving. That way we could stay separate, cover more ground, but also make sure that we didn’t stay in any one spot for too long.”
Sophie nodded. Not a bad idea.
“Usually, when we’d circle around, we’d end up crossing one another’s paths, so that way, we were checking up on each other, too. I found him.”
Sophie watched the younger witch, waiting. “It looked like he’d been sliced across the throat.”
Sophie closed her eyes. “Like with a knife?”
“Maybe. It looked really jagged, though. I’m not sure.”
“Okay. I’m coming.”
Jayda nodded and disappeared.
“I’m coming with you,” Calder said.
“I have to get there now, before any of them do anything stupid. Like retaliate against the pack before we know what actually happened.
“Then take me with you now.”
“I…” Sophie glanced at Esme. “Can I bring someone to witchwalk with me?”
“Of course. He might puke when he gets where you’re going, but as long as you keep a hand on him, he’ll make the trip fine.”
Sophie glanced at Calder.
“I’ll risk it,” he told her. “You’re not going there alone.”
Sophie quickly thanked Esme, then took Calder’s hand and focused on the woods where her coven had been watching the Falls pack. She took a step forward, pulling Calder along with her, and when her foot landed, she was standing in the woods. She glanced over at Calder.
“Okay?” she whispered. He nodded, taking a shaky breath. They walked through the woods a little until they saw Jayda and another coven witch, whose name Sophie couldn’t remember, standing nearby. The other witch bowed to Sophie, and Sophie greeted her with a nod.
“He’s over here,” Jayda said quietly.
“Where are the rest of our people?” Sophie asked.
“Not far.”
“Can you two gather them and bring them here? I want to talk to everyone.”
Jayda nodded and moved away, passing the message along to the other witch, and then they almost melted into the trees, going to collect the rest of the coven members. She had two near Esme’s house, but the other dozen or so were here, keeping an eye on the pack to make sure they weren’t going to make a move against Calder in retaliation for what had happened the night they’d decided that Calder had to face pack justice. With Bryce as their alpha, it wasn’t likely, but he was new and his authority over the pack wasn’t fully established yet. Sophie didn’t want to take any chances.
She and Calder walked over to where she saw a body sprawled on the ground. She recognized Rob immediately and felt a wave of sorrow wash over her. He was dead because she’d asked him to do this, to stand here and watch. It was no knife that had ended his life. His throat was shredded, torn. Her stomach turned and she had to look away.
“He shouldn’t have been here,” she murmured.
“You told them to go home, right? They chose to be here.”
“I should have let them stay in my goddamn meadow,” she said, wiping her hands over her face. Her hands were shaking. In fact, everything was shaking. She couldn’t seem to stop trembling. Calder gently turned her around and pulled her close to him, wrapping his arms tightly around her body. Sophie pressed her face against his chest.
“This was my fault,” she whispered.
“No. We’ll find who killed him. And whoever did it will pay. I’ll make sure of that.”
Sophie heard footsteps behind her, and turned to see the rest of the Shadow coven emerging from the woods, all of them looking stricken and more than a little lost.
“We should call Bryce,” Sophie said, and Calder reached into his pocket for his phone and stepped away. She heard his voice, low, talking to his friend, but her focus was mainly on the witches and warlocks around her.
“This was exactly why I wanted you all to go home,” she said quietly. “You’ve lost a friend and coven member, and I know you’re mourning. If you decide to leave, if you decide that you want me to free you from this bond you feel with me, I’ll find a way to make that happen. I can’t ask you to stay here, knowing that this could happen to any one of you.”
“Go home, to what?” one of the young women asked. “A family that’s scared of me, that told me, flat out, that they didn’t want me around? Or go back to the way it was when Marshall was in charge, where we were required to stay here, but nobody gave a shit about us? You feed us. You make sure we’re comfortable and that we have what we need. Marshall never did that. Every one of us was left to fend for ourselves, totally ignored by him unless he wanted something.”
“Some of you undoubtedly want to go home, though,” Sophie said. One by one, they shook their heads.
“Nothing to go home to, for most of us,” one of the men said. He had wavy red hair and a full beard. “Either our families tossed us out, or there was never a family for us in the first place. Most of us have been under Marshall’s thrall since we were teenagers. We don’t know any other way to live, besides being in service of the Shadow Lord. Or Lady. And I agree with what she said,” he said, nodding toward the first woman who’d spoken. “This is the best I’ve felt in as long as I can remember. I’m not starving. I’m not invisible. I feel like I’m doing something that actually matters. So I’ll stay right here, because I’d rather serve someone who doesn’t seem like absolute shit, than go back to being invisible and alone.”
The rest of the coven nodded in agreement, and Sophie took a deep breath. She wanted to argue, to insist that they go anywhere but here, but she got the sense that they’d all been rejected and neglected enough, and it would only feel like one more rejection.
“Okay. But if any of you ever change your mind, come to me. I swear we’ll find a way to get you home. Okay?” After they agreed, she took a deep breath. “Did any of you see anything?” she asked, nodding toward where Rob’s body was.
“All I saw was Jayda crashing through the woods, crying after she found him a little while ago,” the redheaded guy said. Andrew. Sophie remembered. He was Andrew, and the first young woman who had spoken was Ana.
“When was the last time anyone saw him alive?” Sophie asked as Calder rejoined them.
“He’s on his way,” he murmured as he stood behind her.
“Maybe three hours ago? I passed him on patrol. We stopped for a
second to talk about how quiet the shifters were last night. Most of them just stayed inside, which was different. They usually spend a lot of time outside.”
Sophie heard a rustle nearby, and when she looked, she saw several big gray wolves emerging from the forest.
A glance around told her one thing: they were being surrounded, and the wolves had not come in their human forms, which was not a good sign.
Calder immediately shifted, and Sophie got ready to throw a shield up between the wolves and her Shadow coven.
Chapter Thirteen
September 14, 1877
“Nimaamaa?” A gentle shake to her shoulder. “Nimaamaa!”
Migisi rolled over and looked up at her daughter. Claire’s dark eyes looked down at her in concern. Migisi winced and looked around. She was outside.
“What happened?” she asked.
“You fell,” her daughter said.
“Was I standing still again?” she asked as she sat up and pulled her daughter into her arms. “Was I like a tree?” she asked, trying to make light of the situation.
“For a long time,” Claire confirmed, settling onto her mother’s lap and resting her head on Migisi’s shoulder. Migisi held her close and buried her nose in Claire’s dark hair. She smelled of child, and the outdoors, and the herbs Migisi had stuffed her pillow with, hints of lavender and rue.
“I am sorry, my little Light,” she murmured.
“It is fine, nimaamaa. It would be bad to be a tree when the bear man comes, though.”
Migisi nodded. Light, what a nightmare that would be. Her, standing there frozen, comatose, Luc raging as his bear, and her daughter…
Her daughter, totally unprotected. It was no longer a question of whether that would happen, but when. And the way things were, it would likely happen soon. Every second Claire spent with her was another second in which she was in mortal danger.
And that was just from her and Luc. She did not believe for a second that that conniving Shadow warlock wasn’t going to make a play for her daughter, her child of the Light. Would he destroy Claire’s life the same way he’d destroyed Migisi and Luc, if Luc’s theory was to be believed? What lengths would he go to to destroy the last bits of Light in her daughter?
Migisi shivered and held Claire closer.
“Do you like the three sisters?” Migisi asked quietly. Her daughter sometimes spent time with three witch sisters who lived deeper in the woods. One of them was of the Light, and she taught Claire the things that Migisi was no longer able to. It was only through her training that Claire had been able to heal Migisi the few times Luc had taken a swipe at her. Migisi had already spoken with them, readying herself for what she knew must be done. They agreed to take Claire in, to raise her as their own, to keep her safe.
To take her away from here, before the Shadow warlock found her.
Luc had sent his family away weeks ago. Migisi had watched him drive the wagon out of town, his wife on the seat beside him, their son between them. Esme had not been with them, and Migisi knew now that the Shadow witch had stayed. Not in Luc’s house, but she had moved to a small house in the forest. Migisi didn't have enough focus or time to worry about what the witch was doing or what her intentions were; it was barely all she could do to make sure Claire was kept fed, clean, and safe.
She held Claire close. “Do you remember what we talked about, when I first started freezing like that?”
Claire didn’t answer, and Migisi began rocking her back and forth.
“I want to stay with you,” Claire finally said.
“I know. And I want you to stay with me. But it is not safe, and if you got hurt… if you got hurt, I would not be able to live with myself.”
“I can heal if I get hurt,” Claire said stubbornly, trying to pull away from Migisi. Migisi held her, and eventually, her daughter stilled.
“You can. But you have seen the bear man. Luc. He is so much bigger than you. So much bigger than me. And he’s so strong, and he has no control over himself when he is like that. If I froze, my shields would fail, and he would get through.”
Claire trembled a little in her arms, and Migisi ran her fingers through her daughter’s curly hair. This had been a gift from Claire’s father. Migisi’s own hair, while thick and dark like Claire’s, was merely wavy. If she knew where Claire’s father was now, she would send the girl to him. He’d been a good man, the type who would protect his child with his life.
But he was also a priest, and she knew enough from the Catholic missionaries she’d known that what she and the good Father had done together to create Claire was frowned upon for those of the cloth.
And, he could be anywhere in the world. She hadn’t thought to keep in touch, once their time to part ways had come.
“The sisters love you. And Patricia can teach you things I cannot. Not anymore, anyway.”
“I don’t care,” the girl said, sniffling.
“I do, though. You will be hurt, or worse, if you stay.”
“Then come with me,” Claire begged, tears streaming from her eyes.
Migisi said nothing, pulling her daughter close again and holding her, determined to remember the smell of her, the sound of her voice, the way she felt sitting on Migisi’s lap. She would not speak of it any more that day. She had thought not to say anything at all, but that seemed unfair to her daughter, to leave her with the sisters without any warning. She’d known, for years, that this day was coming. Her madness had already robbed her of so much time with her daughter, memories she should have of Claire that, no matter how hard she tried, she could not recall. Times in which she’d been blacked out, or lost in the endless swirl of rage and confusion that was becoming more and more of her reality. Marshall would bide his time until Migisi was useless, and then he would come for Claire.
She would beat him on that point, at least. Claire would be gone long before Marshall thought to come for her.
The next morning, Migisi and Claire set off. The sky was painted in pinks and oranges in the east, the promise of a beautiful morning ahead.
There would be no beauty in her life now. She knew that Claire was the one remaining bit of brightness in the swirl of chaos that was Migisi’s existence. She had been selfish to keep her for so long. For a while, she’d believed she could break the curse. For a period of many years, she’d been obsessed with the stories of those who died and were reborn, old spells that, though she’d tried them, smelled of nothing more than fairy tales and frustrated ambition. She’d fooled herself for too long, thinking that after all the things she’d done, she somehow still deserved the love and family she’d once wished for.
“I don’t want to go,” Claire said for about the tenth time since Migisi had roused her and helped her dress. She’d known, with one look at Migisi’s face, what the day held.
“I know you do not,” Migisi said. “And I am not happy about having you away from me. But the sisters can keep you safe and happy and I cannot.”
“But I don’t love them.”
Migisi’s chest squeezed painfully, and she closed her eyes. “You will. The sisters adore you, and they will love having you with them. They will teach you all the things I cannot. You will have adventures with them, and there will be no more scary bear men in your life.” Or Shadow warlocks, she thought to herself. Or mothers who are losing their hold on sanity.
“Why can’t you stay with the sisters, too, then?” Claire asked. “They can protect you, too.”
Why did this child ask so many questions? Especially questions Migisi had asked herself thousands of times.
“Because it is unfair to bring the insanity of my sickness and Luc’s beast to their doorstep. That would be a terrible way to repay them for their kindness, don’t you think?”
Claire didn’t answer, turning her head away from Migisi as they walked through the forest. They could have borrowed a horse from Luc, but she wanted these last hours with her daughter, tense and angry though they might be.
As they walked,
the forest grew brighter, and the canopy above filled with the varied songs of the birds that inhabited it. None ventured nearby, sensing, the way animals seemed able to, that there was a wrongness nearby that was best avoided.
Another reason to send Claire away now, no matter how much she hated it. Who knew what would happen to her daughter if she stayed with Migisi. Even if she survived into adulthood, even if Migisi were able to keep Claire safe from both herself and Luc… what would happen to her soul, her magic, living in Migisi’s house?
It was not a risk she was willing to take.
She started humming a song she’d often sung to Claire to help her fall asleep.
“Don’t,” Claire said. “I don’t want to hear that song.”
Migisi fell silent, and they walked the rest of the way without a word spoken between them. Too soon, they were entering the small clearing in which the three witches had made their home. All three were sitting on the wide front porch as if they’d known Migisi was coming. Of course they didn’t, but Migisi did not doubt that there was some sense witches had about one another, one that suggested whether they should trust someone or not, or, perhaps, when their life was about to change.
She had known, the fist time she’d seen Luc, that her life would never be the same. And she had also known it the first time she’d seen the Shadow warlock. If she’d known in what ways the Shadow warlock would change her life, she would have made every effort to kill him where he stood.
She sighed, and walked the rest of the way to the porch, forcing herself forward when all she really wanted was to turn and take her daughter home. That was selfishness, though, and she had to be better than that. Soon, she would not be able to reason or think at all.
Claire stood, glaring at the three sisters, little arms crossed over her chest, mutiny in a tiny eight-year-old body. The Light witch of the sisters, Patricia, stepped down off of the porch and looked kindly at Claire, then knelt so she was at the same level as her daughter. In that one movement, that one act of care and understanding, Migisi knew she was leaving her daughter in good hands. The witches would love her. They would protect her.
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