Avery breathed out. “That’s how you knew…Julian’s body.”
“I knew far before that; I just didn’t know the extent to which he was awake. He has become more trouble than he’s worth, I’m afraid.”
Avery furrowed her brows, confused by the statement. But then, realization slammed through her with the fury of a ram.Oh, fuck no.
“You see, that book you picked up was meant for Gwyn. You were meant to be a dud and fade out of existence as quietly asyour aunt did, like your father did. An unfortunate stain on an otherwise great lineage.” She leaned against the wall, not an inch of remorse on her still face. “The best thing I ever did was get my sister committed for blood magic. Your father thought he could be withherwhile he was married to me…And when she got pregnant, well…That’s when I knew, I had to get her out of the way.”
“You put your own sister into Anoddun whilepregnant?” Avery said. How did she end up with someone like her as a mother? She was more deranged than Mother Gothel.
“Happily.” Her mother smiled coldly. “We are better off without them.”
“Don’t speak about them that way,” Avery quivered. That poor child.
“Color me surprised when you managed to summon a shifter and bind one without my help and without a statue.”
Felix growled with deadly force, vicious enough to make the room rumble violently. Her mother didn’t even flinch. But it was the confirmation she needed. The statues. The missing shifters. It all made sense. They were fuckingbindingthem to witches. Her mother smirked, as if she saw the realization dawning over them. Was the goddess in on this? The goddess knew. Avery was absolutely fucking sure of it from what she said, or didn’t say, in the cave.
“Why would you want Gwyn to be bound to a shifter?” Avery asked. Despite her newfound power, her voice was meek. It always was around her mother.
“Because, as you may have noticed, even someone as untalented as you could be granted power beyond your means. Just look at what your older sister has done with it.”
Shock flashed through her. “Wren?”
It wasn’t possible. Wren could be a bitch, but she wasn’t that heartless. Could she? And if she knew…
No. Wren wouldn’t, if only out of pride in her own abilities. If that made her naive, she didn’t fucking care. She knew her sister. No matter how far they have drifted apart. Or at least, she thought she did. “Does she know?” Avery sputtered.
“She knows enough.” Her mother shrugged. That was not an answer.
Avery’s rage got the better of her before she could stamp it out. It ripped through her like a wildfire. Why would her mother do this? To her. To Wren. To Gywn. “Wren would never agree to this.”
“You underestimate your sister’s hatred,” she said simply, dusting off her hands as if shaking off the guilt with it. How could someone be so indifferent? Was she a psychopath? A praying mantis in a skin suit? By the way she held her arms when she walked, she wouldn’t be surprised.
Her mother walked back to the edge, away from Felix’s palpable rage. “Now, how did you manage to summon a shifter without trapping them in a statue, andhowis he allowed to shift?”
“Don’t answer her, Avery,” Felix said, his voice laced with warning.
Her mother rolled her eyes. Purple lightning shot out from her palm, lighting up all over his body like a spider web and paralyzing him almost immediately. A scream tore from his throat before his knees made a sickening crack against the cold floor. Avery could only watch in horror as he convulsed to the point where he couldn’t hold himself up.
She whipped her head back to her mother, who seemed far too pleased with herself, the lightning reflecting in her eyes. “Answer, or I won’t stop until it kills him.”
His eyes found hers, and to her surprise, they were swarming with fear. It was the first time she had seen him truly scared.A sharp crack went through her chest at the sight.“Don’t…answer,”he said through the bond.
There was no information worth his life. No world worth living in without him in it. No world worth being left alone in a world that had finally, briefly, made sense for one fucking second.
“I did the ritual like the book said!” she said quickly, the words tumbling out in a desperate rush.
“The one you stole from my office?”
“It was in the library.”
Her mother narrowed her eyes as if she didn’t believe her. Purple lightning arched from her mother’s fingers, slamming into Felix with a sound that Avery never wanted to hear again. She saw how he closed his mouth, trying desperately not to scream, but he couldn’t hold off. When he finally let it out, it was like an animalistic roar rather than anything that should come from a man.
“Make it stop.” She wanted to cover her ears, to block out the sound of the man she loved being electrocuted. “Please fucking make it stop!” The words came out broken, nearly a sob. She couldn’t breathe past the crushing tightness in her chest.
Her mother tilted her head at Felix convulsing on the floor, as if he were an experiment rather than a living being. By the grace of the goddess, she let the lightning die out.
“How did you do it? What ingredients did you use?”
