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“There’s always brute force.” Emrys grins with too many teeth and yanks at the drawer so hard the whole cabinet cracks. The drawer slides out. “There. You’re fucking welcome.”
I walk over just as Ashton puts his hand inside the drawer and fishes out an envelope. He opens it.
“It’s a letter,” he whispers.
“Is it about us?” Jason asks. We crowd around him, trying to read over his shoulder.
“Well, no.”
“Then?” I prod.
“It’s about Ophelia.”
Emrys harrumphs. “Ellshat. Do tell.”
He reads. “Please accept the task of honoring the enrollment of the potential White Queen of the witches under the false name of Aurora. The wards of the Academy should contain her magic until we decide how to deal with her…”
“Ash.” I lean in closer, trying to see. “Who wrote this?”
“Katrina Apollinari. Probably her mother.”
“To contain her? So her mother didn’t want her daughter to come to power?”
“Wait, there’s more,” Ashton says. “The girl has the crown birthmark and has exhibited strong magic from a young age. Look, there is a page clipped to it. Looks like notes.”
“On what?”
“Queen Witches, what else?” he mutters.
“A guide for dummies?”
“Not quite.”
“A crown signifies a potential white witch, and a moth… Fuck, Mia has the mark of a moth,” I whisper.
Emrys sniffs. “Nonsense. Mia has a bird.”
“No,” Ashton says slowly. “She doesn’t. It looks similar at first glance, it looks like the mark of the Apollinari clan, but it’s actually a moth. I was going to research that and then with everything happening I forgot. Queen Witches exhibit the symbol of their power, not their clan.”
“So what does the moth signify?”
“The Dark Queen,” Ashton says quietly.
“I knew it,” I mutter. “Dammit, I knew she was a Queen. The Dark Star…”
“But a dark one? Does that mean she wants evil?” Emrys asks. “Take over the world?”
“Arawn, will you stop with the dark and light stereotyping?” I growl. “White is a mourning color in many cultures. And black is an abesh-awesome shade.”
“But if she’s a Queen,” Ashton says, “why can’t she break Ophelia’s spell? Why is she under Ophelia’s thumb? This doesn’t make sense.”
“A potential Queen,” I whisper. “That’s what the letter said about Ophelia. Maybe Mia is a potential Queen, too. Maybe they both need to come into their own before they become Queens.”
“And only one can win,” Ashton says, just as quietly. “Ophelia has been siphoning our magic to make herself stronger. Mia hasn’t.”
“So she’s weaker than Ophelia. Great. What’s the use, anyway?” Jason has long given up checking the folders, complaining that he has trouble focusing, and I don’t know if it’s the hit to the head or just his general problem with focusing on words. “She’s set against us now.”
“Yeah, Mia threw us to the wolves,” Ashton says. “No offense, Jax.”
