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Yes, this is why I need to stay, I tell myself, even if I’m not sure about the truth of it anymore.
“I’m sorry, Miss Apollinari.” Miss Worthy grabs my hand again and hauls me after her. She’s strong—but maybe it’s not so surprising when you think that she’s actually a wolf. “You broke many rules, not least attending the school without declaring your magical lineage. And a witch lineage, of all things! Let’s hope the parents of our students won’t find out about it.”
“Why, what’s wrong with witches?”
She lets out an incredulous laugh as we go up the stairs of the girls’ dormitory. “Did you sleep through magical education?”
“No, my father didn’t want—”
“If you hadn’t, you’d know witches were burned for a reason. They are centers of elemental magic, fulcrums of power we barely understand. All the big witch families were decimated, hunted down and shot by the demon police long ago.”
I yank at my hand, trying to free her from her grip, but in vain. “Why would the demon police fear elemental magic?”
“It’s a challenge to their authority. A kind of magic headed and powered mainly by women? A kind of magic they can’t control? This is a man’s world, girl. Of course they shut the witches down. Especially after the witches tried to harness the elements about a century ago in the last Golden Moon event and take over the world. Heck, evenyourfamily was involved in that fiasco.”
“Myfamily,” I whisper. “You mean the Apollinari?”
“Yeah. Why, got another family on the side?”
Funny.Pressing my lips together, I follow her up the steps. I don’t have any family except for my adopted one. Nobody knows who my real parents were.
Right now, I feel as if I don’t have any family at all.
Golden Moon.Hadn’t Ophelia, my cousin, mentioned something about that in her diary, or is my mind making that up? And wait, hadn’t Ashton mentioned it more recently, too?
“We thought the Apollinari were decimated,” she mutters, more to herself than to me, as she opens the door to my room. “Yet here you are.”
“Yes,” I breathe, “here I am. Don’t you find it odd? After all, how do you know I’m telling the truth?”
She stops, turns around to face me. “You’d lie about that? Name yourself as a member of a disgraced witch family line for fun?”
Maybe it’s time to come clean. “Uh. Well, I—”
“There’s no reason for you to deny who you really are anymore. The mark on your neck gives you away.”
My hand flies to my neck out of habit—the make-up I put on it every day must have worn off. “What’s my birthmark got to do with it?”
She laughs. “Stop messing with me. If I’d seen it before, I’d have kicked you out sooner. The black wings of the Apollinari, my girl. Symbol of evil.”
How nice.“Listen…” I’m still too stunned to formulate coherent questions or statements. “I’m not.”
“You’re not what?” she huffs.
“A witch.”
“You carry the bloodline,” she says patiently. “Using the magic is certainly up to you, but elemental magic isn’t harnessed as easily as demonic power.”
“But—”
“You witches took to the Devil like fish to the water, though,” she goes on. “So pleased to have something easier, more malleable to work with, weren’t you? Craving power with all you had, thirsty for it.”
“In a world dominated by men,” I whisper, “why wouldn’t women at least try to grab the power? I thought that was your point earlier.”
A flicker of uncertainty goes through her eyes, gone in a flash. “Sure, if there had been any chance of it working. Surprise, surprise, it didn’t work out. When your elemental magic is strong, demonic power has trouble burrowing into your blood.”
“Is that why they failed? Was it during this Golden Moon event you mentioned b—?”
“Gather your things,” she snaps. “It’s time for you to go. Enough questions.”
