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“Ready?” he asks.
I’m suddenly afraid of what I’ll see when I turn around. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, then slowly rotate in the water.
I think about my parents and Ivy and the Eldons asleep in their beds, think of all they’ve given up and continue to give up to secure our place in the world. I think about how carefully constructed it is, how even one misstep could obliterate the whole thing.
I think about the moonflower and the lie and how grand a deceit it is.
I find Wolfe’s hand beneath the water, lacing my fingers through his.
Then I take a deep breath and open my eyes.
twenty-two
I see nothing but forest, dense trees stretching almost all the way to the beach, same as the rest of the western coast. I look to Wolfe, confused.
“Our home is spelled,” he says. “Only those who have been invited to see it are able. To everyone else, it looks like a continuation of the woods.” He pauses, and his fingers tighten around mine, the only indication he’s nervous. “Let her see,” he whispers, such a simple sentence that couldn’t possibly lift such a powerful spell.
But it does. I blink several times and gasp.
The trees slowly fade, revealing a large brick manor sitting atop a long sloping lawn. There is just enough moonlight to see a silhouette of a steep roofline and multiple spires reaching toward the sky, looming over us. Tall trees surround the manor on both sides, shrouding it in darkness.
“Where are we?” I ask, staring in wonder at the size of the house, completely awed that it has been here, hidden, all these years.
“We’re about three miles south of where you do the rush, on the southwestern shore of the island. You were practically in our backyard the night I found you harvesting.”
“I had no idea,” I whisper, more to myself than Wolfe.
“Yeah, that’s kind of the point.”
Wolfe leads me out of the water and onto the rocky beach. Three stone steps put us on the lawn, and we follow the path that leads to the main house. “Dry,” he whispers, our clothes drying in an instant.
A low layer of clouds settles over the manor, hiding it from the moon. Soft orange light flickers from glass lanterns that hang on either side of the door, illuminating dense ivy that stretches from the earth to the pitched roof. To the side of the house is a garden, a sea of white in an otherwise dark night.
“Are those all moonflowers?” I ask, mesmerized at the sight of so many at once.
“They are.”
I’ve explored every inch of this island and never once seen the manor before me. I’m amazed that this kind of power lives inside Wolfe, magic so strong it can hide an entire manor for years on end. A power that he thinks lives in me, too.
“This is your home?” I ask, taking in the cracked stone pathways and the candlelight flickering on the brick walls.
“It is,” he says, looking up at the manor. “We all live here together.”
“How many of you are there?”
He pauses. “Seventy-three.”
“Seventy-three?” I repeat, shocked. “There are seventy-threewitches practicing dark magic on this island?” I feel an immediate urge to run home and tell my mother, tell her that the old coven is alive and well, thriving on our island.
We’ve been fooled.
All of us.
In this moment, my mother’s lie doesn’t seem so bad, not when this exists. Not when there is a manor full of dark magic and old witches and powerful spells. She’ll be devastated.
“Mortana, you’re at my home,” Wolfe says. “Do you think you can refrain from using offensive terms while you’re here?”
I barely hear him. I think there was a lightness to his voice, but I’m not sure. My mind is racing and the world seems to spin around me. My stomach clenches and my head lolls back. “I don’t feel well,” I say.
