“Wouldn’t that have been too obvious?” Rowena asked. “I mean, he was against the marriage from the start, but he couldn’t just take her.”
“I don’t know. There’s little to no information on them. Any references to the Vail in texts must be in their libraries to stop it from falling into the wrong hands—aka us. But Calia had mentioned they wanted her alive. They’d said as much when they got her in that van. In a fucked up way, maybe the Vail was Castor’s way of keeping his hands clean.”
My fingers dug into my palms at the memory of seeing Calia’s broken and beaten body when I freed her from the confines of that vehicle. I had risked everything to get to her, ignoring the sting of sunlight and the smell of burning flesh as I pulled at jagged metal doors.
“Then I thought of the curse,” I added bitterly, changing the subject. “Mother said something that night that stood out—about a descendant of the sorceress still being alive. Calia had tried getting more out of her, but she’d cut her off and refused to say more.”
Rowena tapped her manicured fingers against her arm. “I didn’t pay that much attention during our mother’s lectures, butI wasn’t aware that there was a descendant? No one even knows the original witch’s name, do they?”
I shook my head. “There is no written record of it. Not that I could find, at least. From Calix Darrow’s testament, she never gave her name, and when she left, it was as though her form slipped away on the wind.” I was unsure how much I believed in the old legend, but according to the generations that passed down the story, it always remained the same. “Those secrets were likely held in the old palace before it was destroyed. If by chance any records do exist… Well, they are in a place no one knows about.”
“Where does that leave us?” Rowena asked.
“There is only one place we thought might hold some answers,” I said, Jasper and I sharing a worried glance.
“And?” Rowena pressed, leaning forward. “Where is it?”
“Well, it isn’t awhereexactly…” Jasper said slowly.
“It is awho,” I finished for him, my lips grimacing.
“Just tell me, dammit.”
“We need to pay a visit to the covens.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“The covens?” Rowena echoed, raising her eyebrow. “As in the witches? The people who hate us more than any other faction? The ones who condemned us to a life in the dark?”
“They also cursed the fae,” Jasper chimed in, earning a scathing look from my sister, to which he only smiled.
Rowena shook her head. “They’ll never help us. In fact, they’re more likely to kill us as soon as we step foot on their land than help us.”
“Yes, but what other choice do we have? Think about it, Rowena… Your mother had to have information from someone in the witches’ good graces, or else she wouldn’t have known a descendant still existed. And how else would she have known the ritual practices? Perhaps they’re even hiding her!” Jasper said.
“But she has never censored her distaste for the witches, even those on the council, and vice versa. Why would she partner with them now?”
“Because someone was willing to give her what she wants,” I said, the words tasting bitter on my tongue. I knew my mother better than anyone. She was cunning and conniving and wouldstop at nothing to get what she wanted. And while the witches had thus far remained immune to her charms, she had somehow been able to worm her way into one of their psyches to get her way.
Surprisingly, I was not angry with whomever she manipulated. I, more than anyone, knew how deceitful her tricks could be. I felt sorry for the poor bastard because now their fate was entangled with hers. The witches would not let them live once they found out what this person divulged, and if they did not meet their end by the coven’s hand, then I would do the job myself, happily.
While I might have pitied the poor soul, it did not mean I could let their role in Calia’s death go unpunished.
“Why did the gods gift us to her?” Rowena asked, groaning toward the ceiling. “Out of all the mothers who prayed for children—we are given to the most ungrateful bitch in all the land.”
I could not stop from smiling—allowing just a moment of humor to cast light on the darkness enveloping my soul. Rowena had always been capable of brightening a room. She would have been the better politician had she chosen that route, seeing as I exclusively dealt in sarcasm, blunt words, and a sharp tongue.
I made no friends doing my job. When I walked into a room, people stiffened, their gazes nervously drifting to the floor to avoid eye contact.
“Yes, well, that ungrateful bitch is currently out there doing who knows what to get her way. But there’s something that doesn’t make sense. Sure, breaking the curse would be great—I’d love to walk outside under the sun for once—but it’s not something I spend my life dreaming of. So, what does that have to do with her plans?” Jasper asked, focusing our attention on one of the many questions flitting through my mind.
It was something I could not wrap my mind around. Her intention had been clear that night—she would not risk letting Calia live. Her death would have been long and torturous by my mother’s hand—an agonizing cruelty designed to emphasize the power she held over me. And even when it seemed she might have let her go, my mother planned to start the process again until I was forced to watch the light fade from the green depths of her eyes.
But her other plans were deeply buried in her mind. No matter how hard I tried to break through, I could not unearth them. The more I thought about it, the more it infuriated me.
How long had it been like that? How long had she kept me in the dark regarding her true intentions? Or had she locked it up when she realized I had marked Calia the morning of the party?
I detected her fear when she saw the imprint of my bite, assuming she was angry at me for falling in love with Calia. But perhaps there was more to it.
