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“I don’t understand. I thought magic passes through bloodlines and each of you is an heir because your parents are the elders. Is that not right?”
“If that was the case, Sam would be the heir and not me,” Hardin says, running a hand down the back of my head, tangling his fingers with my hair.
“The heir is the strongest witch of the sect in the Coven.”
That makes sense, I guess. “How do they know who the strongest is?”
“We’re tested when we’re young. They can get a feel for how strong we’re going to be during it,” Fielder explains.
“But they don’t know for sure?”
Gideon slides his hand onto my thigh, grounding me. “Things can change, but it’s typically a forgone conclusion. The strongest lines produce the strongest witches. Our families are powerful, so we’re powerful, too.”
I hum and settle against Ezra more fully. “How often is the heir position contested?”
“Almost never. Sometimes a witch will pop up, the bastard child of one of our members, and they’ll have a claim, but most of them don’t risk going for the heir position.”
“And why is that?”
They all hesitate. Every single one of them. “Guys.”
Hardin sighs. “Challenging for the position results in a target being on your back until the claim can be confirmed.”
“Oh.” Hmm, well, I already have a target on my back, anyway. Wait. What? I’m not seriously considering this, am I? Fuck, I think I am. “How long does that take? For the claim to be verified?”
Fielder relaxes marginally. “It depends on the elder in charge and how attached to their current heir they are.”
Ezra’s lips press into my temple. “Which in your case won’t be an issue because Theresa hates Julie.”
“How long?” I ask again, because I don’t miss that they haven’t answered. They’re too good at that, at answering without giving me an answer.
Gideon sighs. “A month, maybe more.”
“And I’ll have to do a bunch of tests before to prove how much power I have?”
“Yes,” Fielder nods.
“And you think that’s a good idea? I’ve only been aware of my power for a few months. I can hardly make a simple illusion.” After hearing Julie can do it, I’ve been trying to form a flower in the palm of my hand, but haven’t been successful so far. It’s apparently a lot harder for me to do that than to change my appearance into Gany.
“We have time, Sweeney. You’ll do great.”
Frustration bubbles inside me at his confidence in me. It’s a stupid reason to get frustrated, but I do. I scramble up and away from all of them and begin pacing, my bare feet slapping against the wood floor with each stride.
“This is a bad idea, and you guys know this. I can’t do simple spells. I can’t even do a protection spell by myself.”Stomp, stomp, stomp, turn. “I haven’t been able to call shadows and I can’t do illusions on command. I have about a million other things going on and I don’t know that I have the time or the focus to put into learning how to do all these things.”Stomp, stomp, stomp, turn.“I can’t let my inability to do this shit impact you. I can’t let you put yourselves at risk for me. Binding your magic? That’s not- I couldn’t live myself if I stayed and that happened.”Stomp, stomp, stomp, turn.“I think it’s a better idea for me to… go somewhere else. There has to be a coven that wouldn’t hate me just for… existing, right? And we can still be together.”Stomp, stomp, stomp, turn.“It wouldn’t mean we couldn’t still see each other, we’d just have a little more space between us.”Stomp, sto-
Fielder’s in front of me, his hands cupping my face to get me to focus on him. “Ro, baby, you gotta stop. You’re working yourself up and you’re going to give yourself a panic attack.”
His statement draws me up and I take stock of my body, only to discover that he is, in fact, right. My heart is pounding and I feel slightly nauseous and my chest is tight. “Take a deep breath, baby. Calm down.”
Baby.He’s called me that twice now. My brain grasps onto that, focuses on that. It helps, the same way his warm hands on my face help, and the cool, calm green of his eyes. “I’m okay,” I assure him. “I’m okay.”
He nods, thumbs stroking my cheeks. “Good. Now listen to what I’m going to tell you.” He eyes me, making sure I’m listening. “Any amount of space between us is too much, Sweeney. Staying in a dorm room just down the hall from you is torture. Not holding you every single night is torture. Not being near you is torture. If you went to a different coven, to one across the country or, fuck, in another country?” He shakes his head. “We wouldn’t survive that. Not one single one of us. We’d follow you. We wouldhaveto follow you. And that means we’d be challenging another coven for five heir spots. That is not something they will appreciate. Even if they welcome you with open arms, they will not welcome us.”
I swallow hard, my mouth suddenly dry with the truth of his words. He means every single one of them. I can feel that.
“Besides, that Rosalind,” Gideon joins us, pushing my hair over my shoulder, fingers trailing over my neck. “Covens rarely let their members date in other covens. If you left and we didn’t follow you, we would lose each other.”
My brows lower. All these stupid rules. Not dating between covens. People who don’t manifest magic in how they want aren’t a part of a sect, they’re just… floaters. Ephemera. The elders can demand that their members torture and abuse unsuspecting teenage girls. “Let’s start our own coven.”
