I waited until the server returned with her drink, then dove right in. “Back in that room, when I heard you talking in my head…”
“Projection,” she said. “That’s part of my particular brand of magic. I can transfer words and thoughts, images, emotions. But only to other witches—it doesn’t cross any other barriers.”
“So that’s why Sebastian couldn’t hear it? Or sense it?”
“Right. He knows I have that power, but he can’t access it. It drives him crazy that he can’t control it or even know for sure when I’m using it.” A sly smile stretched across her face. “One of the few pleasures I take with him.”
Again, I wondered if they were somehow… involved. But I wasn’t ready to go down that path just yet. I needed to understand more about her powers, and my connection to this whole Silversbane legacy, whatever that meant.
“So can you read minds, too?” I asked. I reached for a French fry, then slipped it under the table. Sunshine happily lapped it up, but Sparkle didn’t seem to like fried food. She’d had no problem dogging down half my burger patty, though.
“It doesn’t work both ways,” Deirdre said. “Not unless the other witch has the same power and can transfer thoughts to me.”
“But you knew about the sword-seeking thing,” I said. “From my vision.”
She nodded somberly, then took a healthy swig of her drink. When she set her glass back on the table, her smile had turned grim. “I, too, am Shadowborn. But my shadow powers manifested in different ways. I can read a person’s nightmares.”
I stared, open mouthed. That sounded absolutely horrifying.
“It’s not like watching a movie,” she continued, “so the details are often hazy. It’s more like… I can pick up on the images and imprints left behind. The stronger, more visceral effect a nightmare has on a person, the more clearly I can connect with it. Sometimes it’s a visual thing—I can see an object or a person that appeared in the dream. Other times, I can hear words. Sometimes I can only sense the lingering fear—and that feels very, very real to me.” She took another sip of her bourbon. “Unfortunately, unlike with my projection power, I can’t turn this one off or choose when to use it. Touching someone makes it stronger, sharper, but even without a touch, it’s always there, tugging me into other peoples’ darkness.”
I blew out a breath, then reached for another fry for Sunshine. Reading nightmares? I’d never heard of anything like that. Psychic powers, mind reading, empathy, yes. But to connect with something so specific, so painful… That sounded a lot more like a curse than a power to me.
God. There was still so much about witchcraft I’d yet to learn, to explore. For so long, I’d denied that part of myself. Now, all I wanted to do was dive into it and research everything I possibly could.
I just didn’t have the luxury of studying anymore. It was trial by fire, or not at all.
“Do you know what the swords mean?” I asked. “I’ve had similar nightmares a few times now, and the Four of Swords turned up a few times in Tarot readings with my best friend, Sophie.” I told her about Sophie’s book of shadows, and the readings I’d done since. “Sophie insisted the cards were about me. She’d said the four swords represented four witches—that the one in the ground was supposed to rise up, find the others, and give them purpose. She thought it had something to do with uniting the covens, but I wasn’t so sure.” I lowered my head. “She died before I could ask her anything more. She… she was murdered.”
I wasn’t sure how much if anything Deirdre knew about the story—about Sophie’s death, the hunters, all of the things we’d faced in the Bay and in Raven’s Cape—but I didn’t want to rehash all of those details right now.
Then again, if she could read my nightmares, she’d probably seen every last bit of darkness in my soul.
I reached for my half-finished milkshake, taking a big, slurpy gulp. For an instant, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to pretend that I was a kid again, a normal one, out on the town for a day of fun with my grandmother.
But like all fantasies, this one came to an end much too quickly.
“Gray,” she said gently. Tentatively. And when I looked into her eyes again, I saw the change come over her. Eyes that only moments ago shone with clarity and confidence now held a nervous, contagious urgency that made me squirm in my seat.
Beyond that, I saw only one thing.
Fear. Not the kind that came from bearing witness to someone else’s nightmares, but the kind that came from knowing your entire world was about to go up in flames.
Deirdre reached across the table and grabbed my hand in a bone-crushing squeeze. “We need to talk about the Silversbane prophecy.”
Sixteen
Gray
“The Silversbane witches can trace their lineage all the way back to the first witches,” Deirdre said. “It was the Silversbane bloodline that carried forth the honors bestowed upon all witches and mages by the Elemental Source.”
“To become the guardians of Earth’s magic,” I said, recalling the history. The strongest human bloodlines were selected to receive and care for the magic, but the mages went mad for it, screwing everything up until the Source finally revoked their privileges, making witches the sole guardians. The mages didn’t like that one bit. They blamed the witches for “stealing” the magic from them, and over time, their anger and desire for vengeance warped them into a vicious, bloodthirsty breed of humans we now call hunters.
“Precisely,” Deirdre said.
“So how does the prophecy come into play?” I asked, picking up my pace to match hers. We were back on the strip now, losing ourselves in the anonymity of the crowd. As always, Sparkle and Sunshine kept watch—one up front, one behind, clearing the path from anyone who got too close.
“The original prophecy was said to be delivered directly from the Source, in a series of visions that appeared to a Silversbane oracle in a cave in the lands that later became Ireland. It was passed down orally for millennia, but never came to fruition.
