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“You’re right,” my father says, patting my leg and getting to his feet. “We could. And we should. There’s no point in you only leaning into your vampire side. Absolon only knows parlor tricks, magic that was given to him. He can’t create it or shape it.”
“Can you teach me how to snap my fingers and create fire?” I ask hopefully. “Because it makes me really jealous that he’s able to.”
He laughs. “Yes, daughter. In time. This won’t happen overnight. You’re unskilled. You saw what happened with the earthquake.”
“I still don’t know what I did.”
“You accessed the well on instinct alone,” my mother tells me. “The moonlit one inside you. It’s the same well in all of us.”
“So then how do I do that again? I know the well, I see it. I may have even used it before, but lately when I try it…nothing happens.”
“Because it scares you,” my father says, holding out his hand and helping me to my feet. “It’s a good thing, in a way. It’ll make you respect it. And now, with what you know about Jeremias, and the black magic, it probably scares you even more. Because the black magic is in the well too. You just have to figure out how to separate the two. Remember, just because you’re predisposed to black magic, doesn’t mean that’s all you have. It’s still magic in the end. You can use it for good. You can call upon it to help you with light instead of dark.”
He glances at my mother and they exchange a wordless conversation. Then my mother gets to her feet.
“I think it’s time you go, sweetie,” she says putting her hands on my shoulders.
“Why? I just got here.” I feel a pang of rejection.
“We’ve been talking a lot,” she says. “And as much as you think Absolon hates you, you still belong to him now. That doesn’t change. He’ll get over it, you’ll see, and I don’t want that vampire showing up in this house unannounced and uninvited, okay?”
I nod, hoping my mother is right about that. I still belong to him, don’t I? Or will I return to the house to find his heart frozen over even more so, never to thaw?
For the ages, he had told me. I was his for the ages.
What if he changed his mind?
“I’m going to drive you,” my dad says, snatching up his car keys.
“Dad,” I protest. “No. It’s like ten blocks. I’ll walk. Or I’ll take the Black Sunshine.”
“No,” my mother says abruptly. “You stay out of the Veil. Bad things happen in there. Perhaps it’s not the same for you, but for a normal person, or a witch, the more you go in there, the more it changes you.”
“It’s quick and easy.” And creepy.
“I’m driving you,” my father says again. “End of story. You’re safest in my car, there are runes all around it. Don’t worry. If you walk alone, you don’t know what will happen. A vampire might bite you again, yes even in broad daylight, and you won’t have Absolon to put them in their place.”
I snort. “Putting them in their place? That’s a mild way of saying he ripped the heart out of someone and set it on fire.”
They both stare at me blankly. “He did what now?” my father asks.
I give them a quick smile. “We should go.”
I give my mother a hug goodbye and then we go down the stairs and out the front door. I slip on my sunglasses, the sun bright, and we head across the street to my father’s Volvo, getting inside.
I buckle up out of habit and relax in the seat, breathing in the familiar smell of the leather, the gauzy packet of dried lavender, rose, and sandalwood stuffed in the console, noting the crystals hanging from the rearview mirror. Now that I know what my parents truly are, it’s hard not to notice all the signs of witchcraft they’ve strewn amongst themselves.
My father pulls out and we head up Lily Street, the traffic quiet today. I don’t even know what day it is, time is losing all meaning again.
But my inner thoughts about the lack of traffic quickly come to a stop because the car comes to a stop just past Steiner, two blocks from where we’re supposed to turn right onto Scott Street, which will take us right to the house.
“What on Hecate’s aura is going on?” my father grumbles, trying to see around the traffic that has piled up in front of us.
“Why did you want revenge against Alice and Hakan?” I suddenly ask my father. “Why did you go through all the trouble to kill them?”
He eyes me, brow raised in surprise. Then he looks back to the road, inching forward a couple of feet with the traffic.
“Elaine had a sister, Tabitha,” he says uneasily. “Alice killed her.”
