She shrugs me off and goes back to checking me. “I don’t care about me.”
It lands wrong, and it stings. The heat climbs the back of my neck. “You should care.” I take her face in my hands and make her look at me. “About yourself. More than anything, Mara. That’s the whole point. It’s the only thing I’m asking you for.” Her ears flick. She doesn’t argue, but she doesn’t agree either.
“Okay.” Kade’s hauling herself out of the book-wreckage again, picking glass and splinters out of her hair, her shirt ripped off her shoulder. “I think we need to get the fuck out of here.” She faces the windows, and for once, since we walked into this realm, there’s something careful in how she holds herself. “Because whatever those things just ran from? That’s worse. And it’s coming.”
Josiah hasn’t moved from the middle of the room. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, plants his feet, and watches the broken windows, almost eager. “I’m rather curious to find out what decides to show up,” he says.
Kade rolls her eyes. “I am so fucking irritated with you right now.”
“Are they all like this?” Josiah asks, still facing the windows. “Was Eric the only warlock who never manifested?”
“I haven’t been in here in years.” Kade shoves wet hair off her face. “I don’t fucking know.”
That’s when two cloaked figures step in over the broken sills. Josiah grins, and I see why—hands. Human hands, ringed and folded at the waist, coming out of the sleeves. Whatever they are, they didn’t turn.
They push their hoods back, and Kade groans. “Fucking Ellie.” Her arms cross. “Of course you wouldn’t give me the pleasure of manifesting so I could finally take your ass out.”
“Nice to see you again too.” Ellie grins. “Sister-in-law.”
Mara watches her, wary. I’m doing more than watching. I remember Ellie from back when I was small. She wanted to keep me here in the Glen, and my mother wasn’t having it. Neither am I.
The other one I know too. “Hella.” She turns to me with a smile, and it’s the one thing about her I still recognize. The Hella I remember was tall and severe, a long blonde braid down her back, her eyes a cold pale blue. She carried herself like the rest of us were lucky to breathe her air.
The woman in front of me is none of that. Her hair is a full gray-white now. Her blue eyes have washed out to gray. Her face is wrinkled, the skin papery over the bones. She’s aging fast, faster than a witch is ever supposed to. Beside her, Ellie’s a little older too, lines at her eyes, but next to Hella she could be a girl.
Hella looks worn through, but she draws herself up to greet us anyway, lifting her chin with the last of that old regal poise. “So.” Her voice still carries, even worn down. “You decided to bring not one but two vampires into our realm, and you expected the ones who’ve manifested to simply not react?”
“We had no idea how many of them had turned.” Kade’s arms stay crossed. “This shit is all new to us, Hella.”
“New to you.” Ellie’s smirk doesn’t move. “Because you discarded us.”
“I didn’t discard anything.” Kade doesn’t give an inch. “We tried with all of you. We offered you a home, a life that didn’t run on dark magic, and we held it out long after we should’ve stopped. You wouldn’t take it. You’d rather rot than let go of the thing that’s rotting you.”
That shuts Ellie up, and Josiah can’t help himself. “It’s the strangest thing, with witches and warlocks.” He steps in closer, head cocked, studying them. “You loathe vampires. And yet every single thing you crave, everything you’d sell your soul tohold on to—it belongs to us. Beauty, youth, forever.” He smiles at Hella, soft and terrible. “You hate us because we already have what you sold yourselves for.”
“You are a lifeless wasteland,” Hella snarls.
Josiah laughs, delighted, and lifts one finger toward her. “And you,” he says warmly, “are aging beautifully.” Hella’s faded eyes flare.
“We need to get out of here.” Mara’s hand closes around my arm, her tail swaying, agitated, her voice gone low. “Aaron. This place. These people. We need to go.”
“I know.” I cover her hand with mine. “We will. I just need to handle something here.” I look back at Ellie. “Eric got out of the Glen. He’s loose in our realm with Henry right now. Did you help him?”
Ellie looks at Hella before she answers me. That tells me plenty. “No,” she says, dropping her eyes. “We didn’t get him out.” She’s slow getting to the rest. “But we didn’t stop him, either.”
“Your mother and King Amir imprisoned us,” Hella says, like that explains it. “Penned us in our own realm like animals.”
“Because you wouldn’t stop hunting dark magic.” Kade bites the words off. “It’s banned in Wintermoon, Hella. You knew that going in.”
Hella gestures at the rot around us, her hand trembling. “This is not Wintermoon.”
“You two have got me all the way fucked up.” Kade snaps back.
I turn to Hella. “You know exactly what dark magic does. The hold it’s had on all of us, old and new. And you’d go right back to it. Just to keep your youth and your immortality.”
She doesn’t answer. “Something tells me that’s exactly it.” I point at her. “You’re the only one in here who didn’t manifest.” Hella says nothing.
“You have to know Hella to understand Hella.” Kade’s watching her. “She throws rocks and hides her hands. She’s always been this way. And she had something to do with Eric getting out. I’d put money on it.”
