“I don’t need your soul today, witch,” he said, his menacing tone sending shivers down my spine. “I need your blood.”
“My… blood?” The same fear from before pulsed in my chest, but I let it pass, taking comfort in the familiar hum of my magic. I couldn’t manifest it here, but I could still feel it simmering in my blood, tingling. Liam had been right about that, at least. My magic was still with me, even here.
“Why?” I asked.
“For a summoning.” He said it as though it all made perfect sense, but I was lost. A summoning? Of what?
I glanced back up at the woman, who nodded slowly. Soothingly. I didn’t know how, but we’d… connected somehow. Not just the telepathy, but some kind of link. I felt it tethering us, an invisible thread that allowed me to feel her emotions.
She was sending them to me. Infusing me with them.
Calmness. Reassurance. Support. And most oddly of all—love.
I lifted an eyebrow in question, but she remained stoic, her gaze fixated on the candle in front of her.
I was so thrown off by the whole thing that it took me a minute to realize Sebastian was talking again.
“…powerful line of witches that dates back millennia,” he was saying. “Your bloodline was thought to have vanished centuries ago, relegated to the status of an urban legend. But some of us knew better, of course. When the opportunity arose to put you under my protection, well. Only a fool would have turned that down. And thanks to a series of unfortunate events perpetuated by some of your associates, here you are.”
He spread his hands and beamed at me, waiting for me to speak. What did he expect? A thank you? A pat on the back for all his cleverness?
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, which was the truth. My bloodline? My biological mother had died when I was too young to even remember her. I knew nothing about my father. As far as I was concerned, Calla was my true mother. And if she’d been part of any ancient, urban-legend-inspiring legacy, she would’ve told me.
“You are Silversbane,” the woman said reverently, her crystal-clear voice cutting through my thoughts. It was the first sentence she’d spoken out loud so far, and the sound of it reverberated through my very bones, igniting the magic within me and filling me with an odd sense of… belonging.
“But I’ve never even heard of Silversbane,” I said. Ronan shifted behind me, his energy suddenly antsy. Did he recognize the name? “I’m not—”
My thoughts cut off abruptly as a memory arced through my mind, flashing behind my eyes like a bolt of lightning.
A woman enraged, her dark hair swirling around her head, whipped into a frenzy by the wind. A storm raging, inside and out. A creek, icy cold and rushing by my face so fast…
“I am Silversbane! This magic ismylegacy. Mine! Why should you have it when it was promised to me? My birthright! You have stolen it, Shadowborn filth!”
Cold hands pressing on my shoulders, sharp nails digging into my flesh, and then… ice. Freezing. Gasping. A bolt of pain in my skull, pressure, my lungs on fire…
“Stay down! Stop squirming, little bitch!”
“Unfortunately, Silversbane was your mother’s legacy, not your father’s,” the woman said, yanking me out of the memory. Or vision. Whatwasthat?
“Unfortunately?” I asked, blinking away the last of the images. I couldn’t shake the cold, though. I rubbed my arms, pulling the sleeves of Ronan’s sweatshirt down over my hands.
“Power is as much a gift as a curse,” she said. “Though I suspect you already know as much.”
At this, I arched an eyebrow. “Says the witch sharing the head of the table with the Prince of Hell? Not to be rude, but you seem a little old to be a princess.”
“I’m not a princess, child. I’m Deirdre Olivante,” she said matter-of-factly. “Your paternal grandmother.”
“My… grandmother?” My mouth dropped open in disbelief. I had a grandmother? Alive? In league with the Prince of Hell?
We will speak of this in private later,she whispered in my mind.I will tell you everything. Please just remain calm, no matter what he says.
Before I could even process what she was saying, not to mention the fact that I suddenly had a grandmother I’d never heard of, Sebastian was rambling on about the bloodline again.
“Your ancestors are extremely powerful, even in death,” he said. “I require access to that power. Unfortunately, as they have already passed on, I can not retrieve them through normal means. But you, Miss Desario, can.”
Show interest,Deirdre said, her tone growing more insistent.The sooner you let him get to the point, the sooner we can leave.
I hoped she was right. I also hoped her apparent help wasn’t a trap.
