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Kade followed Aster’s notes, reading over the abilities of the White Lady.
“From what Aster hypothesized, it seems the White Lady could feed off darkness. Aster didn’t note what the White Lady’s intent was, but it makes more sense a witch using dark magic collected the body parts for a spell.”
Kade shook his head. “True, but what about the blue-hued skin and the intimate bites?”
Evelyn nodded, riffling through the notes to show him a certain page. “A vampyr bite turns their victim blue as a result of the darkness in their venom. Though we don’t know how vampyrs were created, Aster wondered if it was simply dark magic. Only the first two murders, McKenna and Fiona, had blue-hued skin with bitemarks.
“It could’ve been easy to manipulate how they appeared after their deaths—even the bite marks, if she’d wanted. Aster also believed the White Lady drained her victims of blood for sustenance, though she isn’t a vampyr. We both saw her teeth. The bite marks could match.”
The clues and findings fit, except for one. “But McKenna had a lover, a male lover.”
Evelyn nodded, her brows furrowing. “I know, it was the only clue that didn’t match Aster’s theory. I went to Commissioner Doyle and, well, it turns out a sailor’s body had been pulled from the bay the same week of McKenna’s death. He hadn’t been bitten, hadn’t been drained of blood. They assumed he’d fallen into the water drunk. It happens often during storm season when sailors have little to do.”
“You think he was McKenna’s lover?”
Evelyn shrugged. “What if he was? A young man winds up dead the same week as McKenna—I’m not sure we can chalk it up to coincidence. What if the White Lady had been pretending it was vampyr attacks all along so witches in Callum didn’t realize it was her? Think about it. Maybe the White Lady lured McKenna with the promise of magic. She learned McKenna went to Connacht Castle with her lover and killed them both when she had the chance.”
Kade considered Fiona Kerry’s murder. The images he’d seen hadn’t been clear enough to decipher whether the killer was a vampyr or a human; he’d simply assumed. The dark and wrong energy from the figure could fit the dark magic of the White Lady as well as that of a vampyr. It also made sense that the creature born of this land would gain the backing of the other dark creatures. The kelpie from Lake Glenn, the demons at Castle Connacht, the Far Darrig in the Gray Wood.
“What about the scáth like vampyr that attacked Riven? Did it look like the White Lady?”
Evelyn shook her head. “No, I wondered about that, too, but that vampyr behaved oddly. It didn’t go for any of us, for our blood. What if it was another ploy to make us believe a vampyr was behind the murders? A spell, an enchantment? Dark magic of sorts?”
“The missing body parts would eventually have led to someone believing it was for a spell,” Kade agreed. “Then a witch.”
“Exactly.”
Kade sighed, digesting everything. After all this time, it was hard to adjust to the idea that the killer wasn’t a vampyr. He supposed the White Lady had been clever, keeping witches off her trail and creating quite a frenzy amongst those in Callum, but he still felt like he’d missed the signs. The last two murders hadn’t pointed to a vampyr, and all along the missing body parts hadn’t aligned with a vampyr either. Frustration flushed through him. They’d been fooled. According to Aster’s theory, there hadn’t been a vampyr at all.
But there was something else, something more important.
“What about the White Lady knowing who you are?” he said. “I still find that unnerving.” He rubbed his thumb across the back of her hand. He didn’t like the White Lady knowing who Evelyn was. It didn’t sit well with him and had been his driving reason to travel back to Sorin.
Evelyn bit her lip, looking down at the grass. “That is the part I’m afraid to tell you.”
Kade waited, his stomach twisting into knots. The White Lady had almost killed Evelyn, and he feared that if they had to face her again, they couldn’t win without help.
“Go on,” he whispered.
“We all assumed the victims had one thing in common, being young women. Yet, Aster traced their bloodlines, their ancestors. It appears they all trace back to the original Carson coven, even Aster.”
Kade’s breath left him, and his heart stopped. “They . . . they all share your bloodline.”
Evelyn fiddled with her fingers, appearing unnerved like he was. “Yes. All of them are distant relatives, barely even cousins, and only Aster was a witch.”
“I’m suddenly realizing why you’re telling me this last and after declaring you’re seeing this through.”
“I don’t want to argue,” Evelyn said with a shake of her head.
Kade sighed, gripping her hand tightly in his. “No, there’s no sense in it. We have to see this through, even if there are a lot of unknowns.”
Evelyn squeezed his hand back. “I know I am Daughter of the Goddess, and the Carson coven bloodline must mean something to her spell, but we don’t have time to figure that out. If we defeat her, those unknowns won’t matter.”
“Let us hope so.” Kade sighed. “If one were to craft a spell like this in nature, from the little I know of witchcraft, they’d need a powerful place to do it.”
“Aster thought of that, too.” Evelyn found the last page of notes. “It is an ancient faerie tomb built into the mound of a hill named Newgrange. At five thousand years old, it was the oldest faerie ruin in all of Torren. It sits north of Callum.”
“Other than its age, what significance does it have?” Kade asked.
