Deirdre nodded slowly, her smile fading. She’d known this question was coming. “You’re asking about the northern allies. The warriors.”
“Our ancestors, Deirdre,” I clarified. “Aside from Finnabair, whose blood runs through our veins?”
“Your lineage can be traced back to Darkwinter,” she confessed. “That is why you’re so powerful. You—all of you—are descendent from the powerful union of a daughter of a first witch and the warriors who sacrificed everything they’d ever known and cared for to keep her safe.”
Addie was out of her chair, pacing the kitchen before her. Haley got up to get her some water, but I was pretty sure nothing would ever wash away the memories of what she’d suffered. The memories of the torture and torment Orendiel and his knights had doled out.
“Understand, girls,” Deirdre said, “Darkwinter were not always as they are today. Their hallmark hatred and violence—that was made, not born. Your line was not created from such darkness, but its opposite. The Knights of Darkwinter called upon by the prince were brave and true. That they loved Finnabair, that they protected her, that they sacrificed so much to keep her safe—thatis where the true source of the magic of Silversbane lies. The friendship, love, and union of the fierce witch and her brave, honorable fae… All of it came together to create the most powerful bloodline in history.”
“That may be so,” I said, “yet somehow along the way, that line became corrupted.”
“I will not excuse Darkwinter’s actions now, but as I said, that hatred was born of war, evolving over centuries of being ostracized and attacked on the orders of a cruel, vicious prince bent on power.”
“Do they know who we are?” I asked, my head spinning from the direction this crazy story had spun. “Orendiel and his army of glitter-dicks? Do they know they’re hunting their own…” I trailed off, unsure what to call it. Blood? What the hell did that even mean anymore?
The word itself felt strange to me now, its meaning so diluted it may as well have been a foreign language. Did it mean family? A bond? A promise? Or was it no more than the red stuff oozing through us all—the stuff that made my heart beat? The stuff Darius and I and others of our kind needed to swallow in order to survive?
“They know of the stories, I’m sure,” she said. “It’s part of their ancestral lore as much as it’s a part of yours. But you have to remember, Gray. It’s not as if you’refae. We’re talking about thousands of years, hundreds of generations of blending bloodlines. They don’t necessarily know that you girls are the four Silversbane descendants—the witches of prophecy.”
My sisters joined me back at the table. Seeing Addie’s red, puffy eyes made me want to stab something.
“I think it’s time for you to go,” I said to Deirdre. I’d been caught up in the story about Finnabair, but that didn’t change the fact that my grandmother was the one who’d sold my soul to Sebastian. I understood her reasoning—why she thought she had no other options—but no matter how hard I searched my heart, I just couldn’t find forgiveness there. Not for her. Not yet.
“Gray, I understand you’re upset with me,” she said, “and you have every right to—”
“I’m not upset,” I snapped, but that was just a reaction. The moment the words were out, I knew they were true. All the anger I’d felt when Deirdre had first begun this confession had somehow evaporated.
I wasn’t upset. Wasn’t mad. Wasn’t even marginally annoyed.
The only emotion swirling in my gut now was disappointment.
Again, I thought of Finnabair. Not the woman who’d fallen in love with the fae warriors sent to execute her, but the violet-eyed, silver-haired newborn the prince had first dreamed of.
Deirdre had glossed over that part of the story, but in my mind, it was the most important part. The origin, without which the tale could not have unfolded as it did.
Emissaries of the fae prince had arrived with promises of prestige and money, and without a second thought, Finnabair’s parents made a deal. She was days old, and they’d agreed to trade her away, completely trampling her sovereignty, cashing in her future for their own personal gain.
And right here in America, thousands of miles and thousands of years away from Finnabair’s Ireland, the same cycle played out again when a sixty-three-year-old witch made a bet on the devil and lost.
I looked at my sisters, wondered again at the abuses they’d suffered, both at the hands of the same men. Hunters who’d been trying to kill us for millennia. Fae who had no idea they’d been chasing down their own descendants.
I thought of Norah, a witch so many others had trusted and venerated. A witch who later turned over her own kind to the enemy, trading their lives, their blood, their souls for a shot at saving her own ass.
I thought of my rebels. I thought of all the battles we’d faced so far, all the power games we’d been forced to play and play again, all the fights still banging on our door, looking for a way in.
We had so many enemies, yet in the end, the people with the greatest power to destroy us weren’t our enemies at all.
They were our own flesh-and-blood families. The ones we hadn’t chosen ourselves. The ones who hid under the twin banners of blood and loyalty while they sharpened their swords, waiting for the day when they’d shove them straight through your heart.
“Girls, what can I do to make this right?” Deirdre asked. “What do you need from me? Please tell me.”
In her eyes, I saw the same desperation she must’ve felt when she’d realized her granddaughters would never be safe—the same desperation that had driven her to Sebastian—and I knew she’d meant what she said earlier. That she would do absolutely anything, even now, to help keep us safe.
All I had to do was ask.
I reached for my sisters’ hands, holding them tight, the three of us a unified front. The tight, unbreakable bond of our magic flowed between us, connecting us, strengthening us.
I had a single thought, and in that moment, I knew my sisters shared it.
