Be careful what you wish for.
It was the first time I’d used my new deck, and I’d drawn—of course—the Death card. Unlike the ominous Death card in Sophie’s deck, this one was more peaceful, featuring a pale, nude woman lying on a moss-covered rock in a serene forest. The angel of Death stood behind her in his black cloak, come to claim her soul. Butterflies danced in the rays of light that illuminated her body, and lilies grew in the moss at the base of the rock.
Carved in stone were those words, Death’s ultimate message:
Vita mutatur, non tollitur.
Life is changed, not taken away.
It appeared to me now, the card and the message, reminding me that I was in the midst of my own inevitable change. That even as one life died, another was just beginning.
I’d asked Sebastian for an extension on my contract—enough time to save my friends and deal with the threats facing us.
Fighting, learning to grow and strengthen my magic, training, backing up my rebels—all of those things were important. But if I was truly the Silversbane heir—truly the witch of prophecy—then I needed to learn how to lead. How to inspire. How to save and protect the witches I loved as well as the witches I’d never even met.
I needed to find a way to bring us all together—witches and supernaturals alike—uniting us against the mounting threats facing our communities.
Was I ready for all that?
For so long, I’d lived in the shadows, hiding my witchcraft, denying my magical heritage, pretending to be anything but who I really was. Eventually destiny caught up with me. And now I was doing my best to keep up withit.
Was I even worthy of the Silversbane legacy?
I closed my eyes, pressing the Death card to my chest. I wanted so, so badly to talk to Liam. This was exactly the kind of philosophical dilemma he loved to talk about, and his words of wisdom had never failed to open my eyes to new perspectives, new possibilities.
I was still so angry with him. But I also needed him. Wanted him. Wanted his companionship, his hopelessly confusing explanations about the natural order, his jokes, his sweet kisses.
Yet he’d betrayed me. How could I reconcile the two? How could I hate a man I still cared so deeply for?
I couldn’t. That was the answer. I couldn’t hate Liam any more than I could deny I was Silversbane.
Maybe that was part of what I needed to accept, too. That people made mistakes. That even Death made mistakes.
Oh, Liam. Where are you?
Ever since he’d confessed to me about his deal with Sebastian, I’d assumed that was the betrayal I’d dreamed about, the one the Three of Swords card had warned about in Sophie’s book of shadows. But sitting here now, holding the Death card and reflecting on all the things Deirdre had shared today, I wasn’t so sure anymore.
My heart felt like it’d been run through with so many swords. Liam’s confessions, Ronan’s deal that would forever keep us apart, my own mother trying to drown me. In light of the last one, how could I hold any anger toward Liam? He’d never meant for me to die. He’d never even meant to hurt me. And though it was the ultimate outcome, sending my soul to Sebastian had never been his intention—he’d honestly thought I’d be honored to become Death, just as he was. And at that time, he wasn’t even human—not in the way I thought of him now.
My own mother had tried to drown me and my sisters. Her babies. And she likely killed my father, too.
“Things are not always what they seem,” came a voice in my mind, warm and bubbly and belonging only to one person: my Sophie. She’d said those very words to me in my magic realm, right after I’d read about the Three of Swords in her book of shadows.
I didn’t dare open my eyes, didn’t dare break the vision.
“Do you think I should forgive him?” I asked.
“Liam? I think you already have.”
I shook my head, still resisting the idea. Could forgiveness really come that easily?Shouldit?
“Open your eyes, girl,” she said, and I even though I didn’t want to lose her, I did as she asked. Sophie never led me astray.
The Death card came back into view, but when I looked up, I was no longer on the couch in Elena’s living room, wrapped up in a blanket dotted with lighthouses. Instead, I found myself sitting on a carpet of velvety green grass in a meadow I’d missed for far too long.
My realm. The source of my magic. A place I hadn’t seen since Jonathan had taken me hostage.
“You shouldn’t be here,” a deep voice bellowed. “It isn’t safe.”
