Josiah turns a slow circle, taking in the height of it, the emptiness. “Such a big palace,” he says. “Yet no one is here.”
“That’s because most of the council manifested,” Hella says, not looking up from the book. “What’s left is in hiding.”
Josiah grins. “Yet you don’t hide.”
Hella ignores him completely, and that puts me on edge. Nobody ignores Josiah. If she’s not worried about him, it’s because she’s already a step ahead of all of us.
“Why did you bring us here, Hella?” Kade asks.
“Because this is the perfect place for what needs to be done.” Hella turns to me. “Aaron should see how much he likes his new home. Maybe his cat?—“
Mara hisses, instant and vicious, the sound ripping out of her before the word is even finished.
Ellie smirks.
“Forgive me.” Hella doesn’t flinch. “I should have said lioness. How will she feel about having this palace for her home in the Glen?”
“I’m not staying here,” I snap.
“Ohhh.” Hella’s face goes soft, almost sad. “But you are. It’s what you were born for.”
She lays her hand flat on the book and casts.
The air above the basin shivers, and a hologram takes shape over it, gray and faded. Two figures stand inside it. I recognize one of them on sight. It’s Eric, younger and sharper, before thedark magic hollowed him out. He’s talking to a woman in a cloak, hood up, hands folded.
I tilt my head. “Who is?—“
The woman reaches up and draws her hood down.
Her skin is deep and dark. Her hair is braided back in thick rows with gold threaded through them, and her eyes are blue, so vivid they almost glow. She holds herself like she’s used to being obeyed.
“Her name is Tabatha,” Hella says. “She was once a Blackwood witch.”
I go very still.
“She came to the elders and asked for a man from our coven.” Hella watches the hologram, not me. She’d already seen it. “Eric would father a son who could siphon a dying realm dry and pour the life back into it, one who’d give witches and warlocks a place of our own. Somewhere safe, with no humans and none of the others who’d spent centuries grinding us down.” Her mouth thins. “She knew he’d turn on his own children. We all knew what Eric was, long before he ever met your mother. He took the deal anyway. Dark magic, in exchange. It gave him youth and a long life, and it hollowed him out. By the time he found her, a hundred years later, there was nothing left of him.”
I make myself breathe. “A Blackwood worked with the council.”
“Yes.” Hella finally looks at me. “Does that surprise you? Aya Bailey hunted the Blackwoods almost to extinction. You think they wouldn’t do anything to keep their bloodline alive?”
“Where is this... Tabatha?”
“She was the warden of limbo for a time,” Kade explains quietly. “Until?—“
“Carla took over,” I murmur. It makes sense now—the meetings my mother kept disappearing into with Anora, Josiah, and Carla, the ones nobody would explain to me.
“I didn’t know anything about a Blackwood deal,” Kade says. For once there’s no bite in it.
“I’ll need to speak with Carla.” I drag a hand down my face.
“Ah.” Josiah perks up. “I get to spend more time with you. How exciting.”
Kade rolls her eyes, then looks past him to Mara. She’s pressed against my side now, wound tight, her head turning every which way as she searches the dark above the shelves.
Something snags at me, and I look at Hella. “Wait. So you’ve always known I’m a siphoner?”
Hella smiles. It isn’t cruel, and somehow that’s worse.
