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I give a warning tug to her hair, but don’t address her jab. “I was afraid.”
She quirks an eyebrow. “Seriously? Of what, exactly?”
“Of what you’d do with the information. Of what knowing could turn you into.”
Her tone is less biting when she says, “I don’t understand. What could I possibly do?”
I let go of my grip on her hair and instead run my fingers through it, smoothing it back. She closes her eyes and sighs. “This game we’re playing, Esme? All its wretched rules? They’re a witch’s curse.”
Her eyes fly open. “What?”
“Very long ago, a witch betrayed me. Because I wouldn’t give her the power she wanted, she cursed me. Locked me out of my own home, forced me to play this absurd game I’ve taken so many lives for.” The words taste bitter on my tongue.
“Witches can… do that?”
There’s another, more poignant question hidden there. Can she do that?
“With enough power, and enough knowledge of spells, yes.”
The fight has gone out of her. She pulls both hands in front of her face and stares at them like they’re foreign objects, like she’s disgusted by them. “Oh.”
I find her fingers and lace them with mine, bringing the back of her hand to my lips. “As I’ve come to know you, I’ve learned my apprehension was misplaced. You can be dangerous, Esmeralda, with the right knowledge. But I don’t believe you could ever be spiteful.”
She shakes her head forcefully. Her free hand comes to stroke my cheek. “I have no interest in cursing anybody. Even the people who’ve always made a fool of me… I don’t know if I could curse them, either. I certainly wouldn’t curse you. All I’ve ever wanted was to understand.”
My mind goes back to the horrible lady who walked into Esme’s bookshop yesterday, and my mouth twists into a scowl. “Maybe you should curse these useless mortals, little witch. They don’t deserve to walk the same Earth as you. But as far as your purpose…” I grip the back of her neck, moving her forehead to lean against mine. “In the stories my elders would tell, witches were shepherds, saviors of lost souls. I’m too young to have met any myself, but if I had to picture them, they’d look like you, little gem.”
“So where do we go from here? What do I do with this knowledge?”
“Witches are born, not made. If you are one, then so was your family. Maybe we can look through their belongings, find your family grimoire?” I offer.
Her eyes widen. “That’s a thing?”
I nod. “Knowledge is a witch’s greatest power. The spells they craft are passed from generation to generation, from mother to daughter.”
Esme’s scent is the Mediterranean Sea, right now. “All this time, I thought it was just my grandmother and I. You’re telling me there’s a whole lineage of witches I’m related to?”
“It’s likely, yes. All witches descend from the original women who were blessed by the Beyond.”
She shakes her head. “If I’d known…”
I grab her chin and force her head up. “You know now. We’ll find your grimoire.”
Her lips quirk, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Yes, okay.” She looks down as her fingers skate across my chest and skim my collarbones. “Tei…?”
“Yes, little witch?”
“Please stop keeping things from me.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “I trust you. But you need to trust me, too. Or this is never going to work. None of it. Not us, not the game. I don’t want to die because you couldn’t let me in.”
It catches me completely off guard. Her words are a punch to the gut so powerful I struggle to draw in a full breath. She’s absolutely right.
“I’ll do my best.” It’s all I can promise her. I want to say so much more, but the words all die in my throat. A part of me realizes that if I gave myself to Esme, she wouldn’t use that against me, but it’s hard to shake my past, the belief I carried as truth for so long.
For now, my concession seems to be sufficient. “If I ask you a question, will you answer it truthfully?”
“What do you want to know?” I ask, knowing it’s not an answer.
“Where were you last night, before coming here?”
