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“Can you hear thoughts? Can you hear my thoughts as I have them?” I was suddenly terrified and consciously did my best to control my thoughts, refusing to even think about the Princess.
She laughed, reaching across the small table to place her hand over my arm. “You’re so pale, Percy. What is it you don’t want me to know?” she asked teasingly. I pulled my arm away from her.
“Nothing,” I answered. She laughed.
“I can’t hear thoughts, usually. I have to concentrate on it, and even then, it is only surface thoughts. I’m not successful with everyone I try to hear. You, for example. How can a half-witch keep me out with nothing more than innate ability?” she asked curiously.
“I don’t know,” I told her.
“It’s rare but not unheard of for a half-witch to be particularly powerful. Imagine what you would have been capable of if your blood wasn’t sullied with, well, whatever else you are, some form of shifter, I’d guess, with that yellow eye,” she speculated.
“Being pureblood doesn’t make you better than me,” I told her.
“I would argue that it does,” she replied. “I am more powerful than you could ever hope to become. My body is in tune with my magic, like a second self. Your body is cut off from your magic. You must work harder to produce and control it. Overuse of magic depletes you physically, whereas using my magic will never tire me. You are inherently less than I am,” she told me matter-of-factly.
“Your magic is stronger than mine; that doesn’t make your life worth more than mine,” I countered.
“I would argue that that depends on circumstances. It’s noble to claim that all life is of equal value, but when it comes down to it, no one truly believes that. For example, if you had to choose between your Mistress and me, if you had no choice but to choose one of us to live and the other to die, would it be an impossible choice? Would you be unable to decide or entirely uncaring of the outcome?” she asked me.
I looked away from her smug smile.
“That’s not the same thing,” I told her.
“It is. When it comes down to it, every life has a price. We are not all equal, and it is simply a fact that far more often than not, pureblood life is of more value,” she said.
A server approached the table for our order.
“Don’t get anything heavy. You won’t want to be bloated while trying on dresses,” Heidi told me before I could place my order. I ignored her and ordered what I liked.
“What’s it like, not having a coven?” Heidi asked me as we ate.
“I’ve never thought about it, not really. I guess when I was younger, and my magic was developing, I wanted to know what was happening. Our enchanter helped me as best he could, but he wasn’t of Flores,” I told her.
“How sad, a little half-witch all alone. How did you learn to control your magic?” she asked.
“Trial and error. Why are you so curious?”
“It’s not often that I get to converse with a witch outside of Coactus that will speak openly with me,” she answered.
“Are Coactus really as evil as people say?” I asked her. I didn’t believe it myself. Even Heidi didn’t seem that bad. Annoying and intrusive, but perhaps that was a side effect of her magic. Maybe if you could get inside someone's head, privacy wasn’t all that important.
“We’re an ambivalent sort. Neither malevolent nor benevolent, we take the stance that benefits us most, as individuals and for the coven. If we must be bad, we’ll become your worst nightmare. But if we must be good, we’ll become your greatest desire,” she told me.
“What if what’s best for the individual isn’t best for the coven?” I asked.
“The coven must come first. It is how we have survived. Many covens have been lost to time, to war. There are few of us surviving Percy. Coactus are strong, but we are small in number. Coven over the individual. There is one exception,” she told me.
“What’s the exception?” I asked curiously, forgetting my meal.
“Soul matches. A soul match may be placed over the coven by an individual. We hold a soul match bond in high regard. They are so very rare, and only once in our history has a witch been forgiven for making a decision that they knew was detrimental to the coven yet necessary to keep their soul match safe,” she explained. I did my best to school my features, but I was surprised. I knew soul matches were rare - I was still shocked when I stopped to think about it that I had a soul match - but I didn’t realise that Coactus considered them sacred.
“Why do you hold a soul match bond in high regard?”
“It is hard not to when one has felt the emotions of a soul match bond. I’ve never felt the bond directly, but my grandmother shared her memory of when she felt the soul match bond shared between her mother and father. It is pure energy. Pure. Something that does not exist elsewhere. The power of it is like nothing else,” she told me.
“What do you mean by feel it?” I asked.
“Coactus, our magic, is psychic; we get inside the minds of others. It is a form of communication. Communication is a back-and-forth. As you experienced yesterday, you could speak with me.” I nodded my understanding. “In my coven, we share our thoughts, past and emotions with each other. When the first soul match was formed within the coven, we all felt it, and we pass the memory onto each successive generation, the same way we do with all lessons,” she explained.
