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“I hoped to ask you about your magic.”
I did not think Ana could grow paler, but what little redness had colored her cheeks vanished. She could not be that surprised by my question—she had to know that I would ask her eventually.
“I would not call that magic,” said Ana.
“What would you call it?” I countered.
Ana was silent, so I tried another line of questioning.
“Does Adrian know you practice?”
“He knows I study spells,” she said, as if to correct me.
“You do more than study,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “You speak them aloud.”
It was one thing to read spells, another to provoke magic, and it came with its own set of consequences, even from those who were gifted. My eyes drifted to Ana’s long hair, which was nearly white, leeched of color. Before I would not have thought twice about it, but Adrian’s bite had opened a well within my mind from which I drew on Yesenia’s knowledge.
“You lost the color in your hair after you cast a spell, didn’t you?”
I thought of the Ana I had seen in Yesenia’s memories, whose hair had been blond like Adrian’s.
“That was not magic,” she said. “It was men.”
I stared, uncertain of what she meant, uncertain of what to say.
“Why are you bringing this up now?” Ana asked.
“We have to stop Ravena, Ana,” I said. We had to stop her before the mist got worse, before the blood plague took the lives of more men and boys, before a witch-hunter created a killing frenzy…before Ravena managed to use my bones and those of my coven for her spells. “We need your magic.”
“Isolde,” she said. “I am not near powerful enough.”
“Then we will make you. Adrian cannot battle magic,” I said, nodding to Isla’s corpse. It was a hateful reminder, and it made Ana even paler. “So we must.”
She was silent.
“Do you intend to tell Adrian?” she asked, her voice quiet.
I narrowed my eyes, confused by her anxiety. Adrian was her blood, but even more than that, he’d always defended witchcraft. “Are you afraid of him?” I asked.
“I am not afraid,” she said, and a strange hardness darkened her eyes as she spoke. “But I do not wish to be a weapon.”
Internally, I flinched at her words, though I knew what she meant and why she said them. As Yesenia, I had been used in that way—as a weapon to criminalize witchcraft, to strike fear in the hearts of the whole of Cordova. I had been used to lift Dragos to the status of hero, and for that, not only had I died, but so had the whole of my coven—and thousands more.
And despite all the signs, I had still wished for peace. I had begged for understanding. I had believed that if only I could teach, they would see, but in the face of a vicious man, it had killed me.
I knew the truth of this world, and the only way to survive as a woman with power was to use it.
“Then become your own weapon,” I said.
“If it were that easy, then I would,” she said and paused. “Come with me. I have something to show you.”
I expected Ana to lead me out of the sanctuary, but instead, she returned to the alter and slipped behind it. I followed, though the space was narrow, and watched as she pushed open a door.
I was not very surprised that something like this existed within the Red Palace. It was Ana who had shown me several secret passages throughout the castle.
“Come, I want you to go first.”
“Where is it I am going?” I asked as I approached.
