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“Okay.” I dragged in a breath. “Let’s go.”
This was only the third time I’d come to do our healing ritual with the recovering witches, but I could already sense a difference as I walked into the room. Most of the women stood straighter, their posture more confident than when I’d first seen them. The smiles aimed my way as we came in looked more relaxed than tight, although some of them faltered when they noticed the unfamiliar figure who’d joined us.
It’d be a while before they got their trust back completely, but they were on their way. I’d helped with that. I could take some pride in that fact even if I wasn’t sure I’d get to continue those efforts.
“Thalia said there was something you needed to talk about with us?” Eloise said, her unnaturally aged face creasing even more with worry.
“It’s nothing that will necessarily affect you at all,” I said to her quickly. “I— Well, I suppose we’d better get everyone gathered around so I can explain the whole thing at once.”
The other witches clustered around me. They stood close to each other more easily than before too, with less cringing at sharing their personal space. Another bit of progress.
I looked down at my hands, clasped tight in front of me, and then back up at the women watching me. Crystal bobbed lightly on her heels with obvious impatience. Selena, her expression placid as ever, dipped her ivory-white head to me.
“It’s meant a lot to me to be able to help you come back to your magic and your sense of security,” I said. “I’d like to keep being here for you if I can. But I’ve recently found something out that might change the wayyoufeel about me, and I didn’t think it was right to keep it from you.”
“Are you all right?” Crystal asked, frowning with concern.
“I think so,” I said with a pang that she’d thought first of how I was doing. “I’m still me. It’s just changed how I have to perceive certain aspects of myself.” There was no beating around the bush. I squared my shoulders and barreled onward. “The power those witching men gained from the demons—my father took some into himself at times. And he used it to help bring me into being when he and my mother were trying to conceive. He brought more to me as I was growing inside her to encourage the growth of my potential spark…”
All around me, faces had gone rigid with horror. My chest constricted, but I forced myself to keep going.
“My spark, my magic, has been partly shaped by that power. Now that I know to look for it, I can feel hints of it within that energy, the way I draw on it, the way it moves through me.” I swallowed thickly. “I thought I was a powerful witch because of my heritage. I had no idea that anything monstrous played a role. Now that I do know… After what you’ve all been through, I’d understand if you were uncomfortable letting your magic mingle with mine, being touched by any of that energy. I don’t want to cause anyone here any more distress.”
Thalia squeezed my arm steadyingly. I bobbed my head to her in thanks and motioned Naomi forward.
“This is my cousin Naomi. She hasn’t experienced everything I have, but she’s seen some of the chaos from the last several weeks. She’ll stand by you as much as I have, if that’s what you decide works best for you.”
“I’d be happy to take up the role Rose has been filling in your circle,” Naomi put in. “Neither of us wants you to feel you have no choice in whether to continue at all or in who you move forward with.”
A murmur passed between the witches. They drew back a step, pulling closer to each other as they exchanged anxious glances. I held my hands motionless in front of me, fighting the urge to fidget.
Then Crystal moved forward. She didn’t hesitate, but touched my wrist, looking me straight in the eyes. Her chin lifted.
“I’ve never felt anything evil in you. Nothing like those fiends. I don’t feel anything evil in you now. We’ve all been affected by our time with the demons, but that doesn’t make any of us a threat. It shouldn’t make you one either.”
I blinked hard. “Thank you,” I said.
“Thankyou,” she said. “You trusted us to make our own decision. That’s all I need to know about it.”
Eloise eased forward too, and then Selena, brushing their fingers over my hands in turn like a ritual in itself. The tension in the group started to dissipate, the murmurs giving way to insistent voices. “Nothing about her magic hurt us before.” “It isn’t her fault.”
Selena came right up beside me and patted my shoulder, her lips curved in a sad smile. “You really are one of us,” she said in her soft dry voice. “Controlled and used by people you should have been able to count on in ways you couldn’t understand. That only confirms that you belong here.”
It hadn’t entirely been a surprise that my consorts had accepted this new information about what was in me, and my family hadn’t even seen the demons to fully comprehend the implications. To be embraced by these women who had so many reasons to fear me…
My heart swelled with gratitude. For the first time since Lady Northcott had delivered her announcement, I was sure that I wasn’t any more broken than the unfaltering witches around me.
“Shall we go ahead with the healing circle as planned, then?” Thalia asked, and was answered by a barrage of voices insisting that we did.
I found myself in that ring of shared power again, Thalia at my right and Crystal at my left, the warmth of my spark tickling through my limbs. I took one last look around the circle before I closed my eyes to fully concentrate on the magicking. There was so much strength in this group of witches that no demon had been able to drain out of them.
I couldn’t help wishing that somehow they could both have been ready to help us challenge the demon tomorrow and also never have to face one of those creatures ever again.
Chapter Thirteen
Rose
Our first drive out to challenge the demon hadn’t exactly been fun and games, but the atmosphere in the jeep this afternoon felt even more somber. Naomi, Lesley, Caroline, and my aunts were all coming out to the site of the trap too, but I’d been stuck in a vehicle surrounded by enforcers. From their solemn silence and the twitchy glances they shot my way, I got the impression they thought they might have to protect themselves from me.
