After I told everyone what happened with Verrick and the demonic legions, we’d hoped to find the Codex. But after hours of searching, no sign of it remains.
Tatiana believes it served its final purpose—connecting me with my magic, with my Cerridwen bloodline—and simply ceased to exist.
“You don’t need to know everything,” the elder vampire-witch says now. “It will come to you as all things do, one day at a time. One moment at a time.”
“But I don’t know how any of this actually works,” I say. “The Codex was one thing, but this?” I touch the crown that still rests on my head, too afraid to try to remove it.
Too afraid to consider what it means if I can’t.
Tatiana offers her kind, wizened smile. “Westlyn of Wintermoon, you are the rightful heir to the crown and all the magic that comes with it. Whether you keep it or release it is for you to decide, but decide you must. The crown must remain in Wintermoon, and so must its bearer. It’s too dangerous to bring back to the earthly realm.”
“Decide,” I repeat, and she nods.
Decide what kind of witch you want to be…
I close my eyes, searching myself for the answer. For a sign.
Wintermoon magic comes to me at once, so different from the Cerridwen magic that follows. While my mother’s magic is warm and comforting, Verrick’s is icy and severe, deadly.
Intoxicating.
After a lifetime of being powerless, of being looked down on and bullied, of being pushed around like a pawn on a chessboard by all the people in my life who were supposed to love and protect me, the magic of the Wintermoon crown feels like an impossible dream.
Verrick once promised me riches beyond my wildest imaginings. Power like nothing I’d ever experienced.
I know now that this is what he meant.
I can already feel it working its charms on me, seducing me, enticing me to stay. To make a life for myself here in Wintermoon, my ancestral homeland. To be its queen.
I would be alone, but I’d be unstoppable. There’s nothing I wouldn’t be able to accomplish. No desire or whim I couldn’t manifest.
I think about my gargoyles. The men who fought to protect me. Who believed in me. Who even now still sift through the ashes in search of a magical book simply because I don’t want it to be gone.
I love them. There’s no question.
And maybe the curse means they’ll leave me far too soon. Maybe it means I’ll end up alone anyway, wishing I’d taken the crown when I had the chance.
I sigh. There was a time when I would’ve traded in absolutelyeverythingfor this.
But now?
No. There’s no decision to make.
Wintermoon will always be a part of me. It’s in my blood, my magic, my memory.
But my place—myhome—is in the earthly realm. My home is with the men I love, for however much longer fate sees fit to grant me the privilege.
With a sense of utter rightness, I finally reach up and lift the crown.
I feel its dark tendrils trying to hold on, but then it releases me.
Tatiana’s wrong. The crown can’t stay in Wintermoon, either.
It must be destroyed.
The demon legions are still in Wintermoon, formless as they were before I called upon them. Now, I call upon them for one final mission.
The shadows return at once, swirling before me in a dark vortex, faster and faster until the formless smoke takes the shape of a single demon merged from all the rest, with glowing red eyes and horns that curl around its ruined face.
