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My heart beats wildly, and my palms are sweaty. I’m not sure why I’m nervous, but my hands tremble as I enter the room.
A man stands behind a large wooden desk. A fire crackles in the stone fireplace, and lanterns flicker along the walls. There are hundreds of leather-bound books sitting on black iron shelves with a ladder that stretches all the way to the top. I can’t help it when my fingers drift to the wall and gently touch the old books.
“Are these grimoires?” I ask, amazed. We have new texts that document the new order of magic, but the old books where our ancestors kept all their spells were removed from our coven. When we stopped using dark magic, there was no longer a needfor them, but I’m completely in awe, standing in a room with so much magic. So much history.
“They are,” Wolfe says.
There’s a large old book open on a stand in the middle of the room. The corners are curled and yellowed, but the pages are still legible. It’s a spell for transferring life, and my fingers trace the words that explain how to take one life to save another.
I remember Wolfe telling me that magic is all about balance. It makes sense that we can’t simply save a life—there are consequences.
Magic stirs inside my belly as I read the words, and it scares me, the undeniable connection I have to this magic.
You’re practicing the wrong magic.
“You must be Mortana,” the man says, breaking my concentration. I pull my hand from the grimoire, and heat settles in my cheeks.
“I am.”
The man looks so much like Wolfe with his sharp jaw and wild dark hair, his eyes that look like the sea during a storm. But he’s softer in a way. His pale skin sags just slightly, and he wears wire-rimmed glasses that have slid down his nose. His eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles at me.
“I’m Galen, Wolfe’s father. Welcome to our coven.” He extends his hand to me, and I take it, noticing he wears a ring almost identical to Wolfe’s.
“Thank you.” My words come out quiet and shaky. An entire world has been opened up to me that I know nothing about, andit calls everything into question. My coven is so close to getting what we’ve always wanted, and the manor I’m standing in threatens to undo it all. How could we not know they exist?
“I’m aware this is a lot to take in,” Galen says. “We like to keep ourselves hidden. I’m sure you understand why.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Since the new order of magic became the standard. When your coven formed, almost all the witches joined, leaving very few who kept to the old order. We shared the island for a while, but as the years went on, the new witches realized that if the mainland found out high magic was still being practiced, it would compromise everything. So we met with the council and formed a somewhat tenuous alliance. We agreed to remove ourselves from the community of the island and stay hidden, and they agreed to keep our secret. That was generations ago. Over time, the new witches began to think of us more as myth than anything else. But we’re still here, practicing high magic.”
“Why, though? Why choose to live like this?”
“Where else are we to go? The mainland?”
I’m quiet because he’s right. Magic is forbidden on the mainland, and the consequences if anyone found out they were there would be severe. It’s safer for them to practice magic on the Witchery, even if it means hiding themselves away.
“How are there so many of you?”
“There used to be a lot more of us,” Galen says. He doesn’t sound nervous or unsure as he answers my questions, not the way Wolfe does. He is casual and warm with no hint of severity. Theirsecrets don’t seem as hard for him to carry as they are for Wolfe. “We gain new members occasionally; there are still descendants of the original witch on the mainland, and when they realize they have magic, they tend to find their way to us. And when someone from the new coven denounces low magic at their Covenant Ball, we take them in. And of course there are many families within our coven, and they have children. The truth is that we can’t survive forever, not without more members joining us, but that is a problem for another day.”
How will we be remembered?Wolfe’s words enter my mind, and I’m completely overcome by his devotion to his coven, by his dedication to ensuring that each and every one of the witches in this manor will live on in oil and canvas, long after their bodies have perished.
“I thought anyone who didn’t accept the new order was banished to the mainland,” I say, my voice quiet.
“What else could you assume if you think the old coven no longer exists?”
I nod, feeling foolish that I’m learning more in this dim office than I ever learned in my lessons. “And how do you stave off the illnesses brought on by dark—excuse me—highmagic?”
“There are no such illnesses,” Galen says. “That’s a myth to perpetuate the idea that high magic is somehow evil or poisonous. It simply is not true.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, embarrassed to have asked. Embarrassed that I believed it. “I don’t mean to sound insensitive.”
Galen watches me and pulls off his glasses, folding them andplacing them on an open book on his desk. “You look a lot like your mother.”
My mouth gets very dry. I swallow. “You know my mother?” The words stick to my throat as I force them out.
“Of course,” Galen says. “This entire island answers to her. It’s my job to know who she is.”
