Why?
What does he know that he’s not saying?
“Why do you think the wards are failing?” Izzy whispers to me, keeping her voice low so she won’t be overheard. Even still, both Dyson and Celeste listen in, though they try to appear nonchalant. “They’ve apparently held for centuries, but they’re just now starting to fail?”
“Something feels off,” I agree.
But what that something is eludes me.
The Mother’s chilling gaze sweeps over the crowd, momentarily stopping on Izzy. I wish I were better at reading people because the expression on her face is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It…unnerves me.
“Starting tomorrow, the witches and warlocks who already graduated will undergo additional training in preparation,” she says. “I don’t know when they’ll attack, but I have no doubt they will.”
Izzy’s brows draw together. “They’re acting like we’re about to go to war.”
“Aren’t we?” Dyson cocks an eyebrow at her, his expression oozing arrogance. “The Hunters attacked the shifters. The shifters attacked the witches. The witches attacked the shifters right back. Who knows what the fuck the vampires have been doing during this entire thing.”
He shrugs a single shoulder, though tension radiates through him, evident in the pulsating vein near his temple.
Izzy bites down on her nail as she contemplates his words.
“Remember,” the Mother continues, “that we’re fighting for not only ourselves, but our coven. For the future of all witches. We will not fall. Not to the Hunters, not to the shifters, not to the vampires. We’ll fight back, and we. Will. Win.”
The room is heavy with the weight of her words before it erupts into hopeful murmurs, the tension lifting for a brief moment. But in my chest, it remains.
The weight of what’s to come, of the danger we all must face, presses down on me.
I glance at Izzy again, and she meets my gaze, fear flickering in her eyes.
War is brewing, and I’m beginning to think I’m going to be made a soldier in it…
Whether I want to be or not.
Twenty-One
IZZY
My mind spins, struggling to understand everything I just learned.
The witches are preparing for war.
With the Hunters.
With the shifters.
With the vampires.
Fear grips my throat in an impenetrable chokehold, and I’m suddenly desperate to speak with my mates. I know what Hale told me, but I need to know for certain that they’re okay. That they’re alive. That they haven’t been killed or hurt or kidnapped.
And what did Dyson mean, when he alluded to a battle between the witches and the shifters? When did that happen?
Questions spin around and around in my mind, never slowing long enough for me to grab a hold of one. I wouldn’t even know what to ask if I had the chance.
After reluctantly separating from Ansel after dinner, I return to my room, dig Soraya’s book out of my backpack, and flip to the page I left off on.
Golems.
My heart hammers in my chest as I stare at the crude illustration of a clay man with vacant eyes and missing teeth. That isn’t what Jake looks like at all. My foster brother is warm and vibrant and so incredibly real.
