The Warlock makes a sound of objection. “I’m simply selective about when I choose to reveal information.”
I ignore his affronted expression. “He’s honest when it matters.”
She waves a bony hand at the Warlock. “Did you bring this poor girl here so she could make an equally as foolish bargain? Shame on you, boy.”
“No deals. No tricks. Only answers,” I say. “That was your question. Here’s my next one: What exactly happened between you and the Knight family twenty-five years ago?”
Surprise crosses the Warlock’s face. Like he’s been avoiding this story, running from it for years. But he’s going to have to go with me on this.
The Witch eyes him. “How much does she know?”
His surprise shifts to confusion. “As much as I do.”
She snorts. “This story begins long before the last solstice.” She sticks a wrinkled finger right into the bubbling sonker, then licks off the gooey fruit filling like third-degree burns are a myth. “Once upon a time…”
The Brief and Fraught Melancholic Adolescence of a Warlock
Fifty-some years ago, a young woman arrived in Foxe Holler.
The townsfolk distrusted her, simply because she came from afar and looked different from their kin. They treated her like they did a local poor farmer, whose father had been a Warlock. Against their better judgment, as mortals do, the woman and farmer fell in love. A decade passed in peace. Then they had a child.
It’s not easy to make a living in a small holler, especially when neighbors distrust you. The parents knew bigotry would fall upon their boy if he ever displayed his own magic. So they asked a powerful Witch for help. For a wish. A profitable farm, a comfortable life for their boy. Desperate parents will do anything, damn the consequences.
The Witch granted them everything. Security, wealth, friends. And they prospered.
But magic has a cost. Unpaid debts upset balance. The Witch asked for a humble payment: If the boy ever manifested magic, he was hers to mentor. The naïve fools agreed, thinking their child would turn out just like them, as all parents hope. No magic. Just another ordinary boy. Years went by. The boy grew up in the easy comfort his parents didn’t pay for, and became a spoiled young man. But on the cusp of sixteen, his magic came forward.
When the Witch came to settle the debt, his parents refused to honor their deal. They were afraid embracing their son’s oddity, what made him too unique, was a death wish in a small town. So to cheat their way out of the bargain, they toyed with spellwork they didn’t understand.
But with no magic themselves, their desperation was their own curse, and it killed them.
For the first time, the young man was on his own.
The Witch offered her guidance, one more time. But he refused any gesture of help. All he wanted was to brood and lock himself away where his magic could grow wild and arrogant, unrefined and irresponsible. Just like him, and the Warlocks before him.
Which is exactly what he did.
As the Witch spoke, WarlockKnight moved to stare out a set of bay windows that overlook the back of the cottage. Where no one could see his face. How much of this did he already know?
“Debts or not, your intention was never selfless,” the Warlock says. “You only wanted a mentee to mold, young power to manipulate.”
The Witch looks over at me from the hearth, where she’s now tending her sonker. “Don’t let him fool you, girl. This one has loved growing enemies before he ever loved growing plants.”
“I wassixteen, Okolona,” the Warlock snaps, turning to face her. “I wasn’t thinking about enemies, I was grieving.” Anger burns in his words, as deep and simmering as the sonker. “My parents made poor choices, yes, but you dropped them into a damn maze with no way out. They didn’t even have any magic to defend themselves.”
The fire in the hearth flares up, roaring with the Witch’s rising voice. “But you did, boy. You could have been the best Warlock of your generation, but that opportunity passed.”
His head hangs as her words settle on him. He seems to have come to the same conclusion. “I followed them that night,” he says, his words carrying half the fight they had before. “But the magic they were exploiting… I only remember there was so much light. Heat. My power was brand new, volatile, and if I’d had more control, I could’ve saved—”
“You didn’t kill them,” I interrupt. Raw power in his veins, but missing the experience to do anything with it? That thought will takehim nowhere good, fast. Not many Witches can thwart a Hedgewitch, and someone without any magic at all, misusing powerful spells?
A shudder racks his taut shoulders. “I might as well have.”
The Widow Witch snorts. “Good Lord, you only children. You always think everything is about you.”
I round on her. “You had to know the Knights would never actually be able to pay such a steep price. He was their son.”
The fire twitches behind her so she’s more silhouette than woman. “The price was steep because their request was steep. I cannot expend magic without paying a price, and if a price is not paid, the imbalance grows. The weakerIbecome. If I spend magic for souls who do not restore the balance with their own payment, I lose the privilege of my own power.”
