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In my sleeves, I have hidden my small wooden box and the switchblade Vanessa gave me.
Ophelia’s chanting is growing louder, the pull on my magic through the link stronger. I let her take some, so she won’t guess what is happening. I grit my teeth at the painful tearing as she takes chunks of my magic to herself, feeding herself like an overgrown, hideous baby.
She is now my conduit, much as I am hers, though she doesn’t know it yet.
The crowd ripples as Ophelia snaps her fingers and a whirlwind spirals around the six of us. There are flames in it, and mist, and leaves and flowers and stinging bits of earth.
She’s gathering power. Time to put a stop to this before she gets too strong, before anything happens to my boys.
I let the box and the knife slide down in my palms. I turn the blade, cut into my palm. Then I flip the box open and drip my blood inside—on the locks of hair I gathered from all four of them.
Break the ritual. Break the spell.
The locks of their hair start to smoke and writhe like snakes in the box. I close my eyes and feel them, feel their connection to the boys—a part of them, now part of me, too, calling to them louder and louder—
There’s a roar, a terrible shredding noise, a tearing that sends me staggering. The box falls from my hands but it doesn’t matter—it’s done, the ritual stopped, the enchantment split down the middle.
“What have you done?” Ophelia howls, turning toward me, her face a mask of fury. “How dare you stop me?”
“Hello, cousin,” I pant. “Well, you’re the one who invited me to participate in your ritual. I may disagree on some fine points, though. Care to discuss?”
The boys are getting up.
“Fine points?” she snarls. Her power surges, her link in me pulsing, pulling down a fog over my mind.
It’s not a match for my magic anymore, though.
“Let them go,” I say. “Stop the ritual, and I promise you’ll get fair treatment.”
“You have no power to promise anything,” she yells, “let alone blackmail me. These boys are dirt and the only good their magic will ever do is strengthen mine.”
“Their lives are their own,” I reply, “and they have so much to give to the world. Their lives and their magic aren’t yours to take.”
“They are guilty.” She points a finger at them. “Back on your knees, boys. You know your crimes.”
I turn to look at them. “They have forgiven themselves—because they haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Even if that were true, guilt is more complex than that,” she says. “It depends on the way you were raised. They were raised to feel guilty, out of place, unworthy. You can’t fix that.”
“Yes, I can!”
“We’ll see about that. It seems to me you don’t know everything about them, everything that makes up their guilt. Let me remind them.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Let’s see.” She makes a big show of counting on her fingers. “Let’s start with your favorite fae, Sindri. He was born of rape. Did he ever tell you that daddy dear raped his mom and then tried to do it again so she fled? Oh, you didn’t know that. I see. Also, did you know that Ashton watched Sindri’s mother die and did nothing to stop it? That Jason was the one who killed her when he wolfed out and they set him on her? And did you know that Emrys was in the gang that kidnapped Jason for the vampires in the first place?”
I’m gaping at her. Then I glance at the boys and find them staring back at me, her faces still and pale, eyes dark and wide.
They didn’t remember all this, I think. The gaps in their memory, they were meant to protect their minds from shattering—and now, just like Ophelia, they think that this will seal their fate.
Their darkest secret. A secret that binds them together even more, and yet the magical link between us flickers. They doubt. Guilt is back to haunt them and they think I condemn them.
Her magic tightens around us. The boys groan and stagger, gripping their heads.
“All you have told me,” I say calmly but make sure my voice carries over to them, “is that they were used cruelly by their families. None of this is their fault. How is Sindri’s father’s actions his son’s fault? And how is it the fault of the boys that their families forced them into terrible acts when they were still children? All of you!” I turn to the parents of the boys. “Shame on you. Grooming them to become horrible people like you. And when you failed to turn them into monsters like yourselves, you thought to eliminate them, didn’t you? Even before you realized that a Queen was out and about and that your offspring might be used to put a Queen on the throne of the world. Did they tell you that this ritual would fix it? Fix the balance? Kill the Queen, maybe? Well, they lied to you. It will kill your sons, but that’s not all.”
“Enough!” Ophelia throws her magic at me, jolting me enough to make me stop. “Your words mean nothing. There is no proof of anything you say.”
