Page 8 of Wicked Endeavors

Caya blinked. She wasn’t naive enough to believe that being printed in every history text made something true; after all, those same texts claimed that Domingo had discovered Esquivel, their island colony to the east, when the truth was that they’d slaughtered everyone who lived there, burned down all the churches, and moved in. But… nonsense?

“Witches didn’t appear as an ‘only the strongest survive’ side effect of the Scourge, Miss Donant. They were created accidentally.” Ruiz glanced toward the windows, which overlooked the grounds, framed by sheer curtains that kissed the floor. Cypress and laurel trees stood beyond like verdant guardians. “Before the witches, there were folk healers. They could commune with spirits and direct their quintessence into the plants they grew, imbuing them with curative properties. Their potions and salves interacted with the Scourge, turning those survivors into the first witches.”

Potions and salves—that was no magic Caya had ever heard of. Magic manipulated, tricked, harmed. It enabled the privileged few born with power at their fingertips. It didn’t help. It didn’t heal. It wasn’t something nurtured or learned; it was concentrated inequality.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” she said. “Why am I here? You were looking for me, specifically, and you haven’t told me why.”

“The healers are gone, and the witches first born of the Scourge are dying out. Their magic weakens with every new generation.”

Slow dread filled her as he spoke. He sounded like a welk, bitter toward the witch regime and hopeful to see it toppled. But he couldn’t be a rebel. It was ridiculous. He wasn’t even Coventrian.

“Don’t you see?” His voice grew in vehemence with every word. “We have an opportunity to take Coventry back if we—”

“There is no ‘we.’ Not yet,” Caya pointed out. “Besides, witches have taken too much from me. I have nothing else to give.”

“Which means you have nothing left to lose. Therein lies your potential, Miss Donant. You are free in ways that I can never be.”

Caya laughed, an ugly sound to match her ugly thoughts. Having nothing didn’t feel like freedom. Being the only one who cared if she was alive had made her resilient, but it was also unspeakably lonely. She wished she were driven by the sentiment that she owed it to the people who had once loved her to keep living, but that was not what got her out of bed each morning.

It was an infinite river of anger and spite.

She could not die while her enemies lived. They did not deserve the peace they had taken from her. Her blackened heart beat for justice.

But she also knew when she was being manipulated.

“Why does a wealthy Domingan lord care about Coventry? These witches came from your side of the peninsula.” Before them, long before the rise of the Houses, magic had been a gift shared among the Coventrian populace. Their witches—for all she hated the word now—had been good, even if only by comparison, and their royal family had used whichever power they developed, generation after generation, to help the kingdom. In contrast, the witches from Domingo used their power to amass more of it. “It’s been years since you exiled them, and even now all they do is whittle us into your shape. Your country might hate magic, might hate the witches, but Domingo has never hated anything enough to help us. Why now? Why you?”

“Because they killed my family,” Ruiz whispered. He pushed back his chair and crossed to the window, standing in the dying sunlight with his hands clasped behind him. “When witches first appeared, it seemed like a gift. The Domingan king gave them positions in the military, building an army the likes of which the world had never seen. But what the crown saw as benevolence, the witches saw as subjugation. They were exiled because they attempted to overthrow the Castellan royal family. Though they were defeated, my family was among the many casualties of that revolt.”

Caya’s stomach dropped as she finally understood. She had heard stories of a failed rebellion in Domingo, long before the witches slaughtered the Seawards. She had known that Domingo hated witches, had exiled them after their defiance, but she hadn’t considered much beyond that. She’d only thought of how their actions had affected Coventry, had affected her.

No wonder Gaspar Ruiz had searched for her. Losing your entire family to witches was not something one moved on from. She would know that better than anyone.

“Exile is too kind a fate for these witches,” Ruiz finished, turning to face her again. Shadows hardened his expression into something monstrous. “I want them to know how it feels to be powerless.”

His eyes were lit with a fire that illuminated the vilest parts of her. The parts of her that were tired of choking back her hatred, of keeping her head down and biting her tongue until it bled. The parts of her that wanted to look the Magisters who had slaughtered her family in the eye and make sure they knew that she was the cause of their suffering.

Hope bloomed like a weed in the cracks of her heart, but she kept her expression blank. “How would you manage that?”

“As I said, their magic is weakening. The Magisters were forced to develop coven marks—and eventually the Coronet—to bolster their Houses’ strength by numbers. Every witch who bears the same coven mark adds their magic to a collective that the coven can draw from, which makes the Trident more powerful than any unmarked witch would be alone. Those marks are permanently tattooed with ink made from spirits-blessed plants, each unique to its House. It’s taken many years and significant crown funding, but I’ve managed to replicate one potion with the same effect.” Ruiz pointed at the curtains, and they shifted from sheer to ink black between one breath and the next. “Now the power of House Cambio is mine to wield.”

Caya stared at the curtains. She blinked once, twice, but they remained as black as a moonless night. She crossed the room to touch them, marveling at how thick they felt under her fingers. Sheer curtains were light, airy. He had not only changed their color but also their composition. The power of transformation was in the hands of a Domingan nobleman who hated witches as much as she did.

A Domingan nobleman with significant crown funding.

This was no disorganized group of frustrated welks.

This was a movement. A war.

She let the curtains slip back through her fingers as understanding settled over her. “You need the other two spirits-blessed plants so you can make more potions.”

“Making the potions is only the first step. The Domingan king, Alvaro, wants results, not experiments. Once I engineer a potion that can copy the magic, I can create a counterpotion to neutralize it. With those, we could destroy all magic. We could re-create the world that was taken from us—or build an entirely new one.”

Caya said nothing, her mind whirling.

“The Coronet is the only time that Domingans are allowed to visit the Houses. Since I’m a descendant of the nobility, I’d be a recognizable figure in their downfall. Even if I wore a new face, I don’t have the time to maintain a cover here and develop the potions we need in my workroom in the Palacio Real. But you…” Ruiz stepped toward her as slowly as one would approach a panicked animal. “You are young and court trained, battle hardened and resourceful. You can take on a new identity. You can find the remaining plants. When I learned of your history with the Seawards, I knew that you were the final piece that we needed. Will you help me?”

Caya dragged her eyes away before his fervor overwhelmed her. Her fingers traced the dolphin pendant she’d slipped up her sleeve after she’d washed up. It was supposed to ground her, and it did—reminding her that she had her own reasons for coming here. Her own wants. Her own losses.