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Stunned, she jumped to her feet. “What are you doing here?”
Lanias didn’t answer her, instead she asked. “Where is he?”
“You have to leave,” Oye insisted, putting her phone back in her pocket. “I’m fine. So, leave.”
“You can’t expect me to just let what you said go. I promised you then, that if I ever found him I’d kill him,” Lanias argued.
Oye remembered it like it was yesterday, right after hearing the horrible news about her mother. Lanias had come to tell her that she’d handled the burial. At that time, Oye had wanted to say thank you, but she couldn’t verbalize it. It would have made everything too real.
Her mind had been swimming in grief at the time. The scent of tea tree oil was gone, she was no one’s daughter. How could she recover from that?
Oye was so distraught during that time she couldn’t even cry.
“I buried her in the clover field,” A 20-year-old Lanias sat by her bed. Her hair pulled into a ponytail and her hands working some bit of string hex in her hands. “I wasn’t going to bury her in the human world, but I remembered that aunty liked them and that was her favorite place to picnic.”
Oye tightened her hold of the bracelet in her hand. It was the last remnant of her mother’s belongings, everything else had been burned away. She closed her eyes.
“You know, I thought once we’d all escaped that those of you who had parents would finally be able to live happy lives.” Lanias voice was thick with sadness. “But I was wrong. The world doesn’t seem interested in allowing witches a happily ever after.”
Oye smiled, she didn’t know what she found funnier, that Lanias thought their lives would be better after living in Hell or that the world seemed out to get them.
“Once I get custody of Sabina, I’m going to the city.”
She turned and looked at her cousin. Lanias sat straight, her gaze filled with determination. The little girl who’d plotted their escape from Hell was now older and stronger. “I want to change this world, and if that means I have to create a place for the safety of our own kind then I will do it.”
She stood, pushing her chair back and walked over to Oye’s bed. Placing a reassuring hand on Oye’s shoulder, she said, “I’m not telling you; so you feel like you have to come with me. Heal and gather your strength. If and when you’re ready you can come to me. I promise you I’ll accept you with open arms.”
At the time, she’d been skeptical that a girl who was only five years older than her could do anything to change her destiny. When she finally did arrive at Lanias doorstep at the age of twenty-one, she’d found her cousin not only building something amazing but an organization ready and willing to fight for witches as no one had ever done before.
“Oye, we can’t just let him get away. Let’s not forget he knows who you really are,” Lanias said worriedly.
Oye was silent for a long time, “He’s the last person who should be telling anyone about me. He’d then have to explain how we met.”
“What?” Lanias looked at her as if she was speaking Chinese. “Oye, you can’t think for a second that selfish dick wouldn’t sell you out.”
“Nathan doesn’t know anything about who I am now,” she argued. “He only remembers me as the idiot girl he manipulated back then. A lot of years have passed since then, I’m not the same person.”
“Exactly, and I don’t want you to spend your entire mission thinking about your past.” Lanias said but seeing that Oye had no intention of changing her mind she gave up. “Shit, you’re really planning on letting him live.”
“If you kill him, we’ll lose our only chance at capturing Asher. I’m sure any day now he’ll show himself. Castian told me, vassal families aren’t the type to be likely to miss this celebration.”
Lanias settled her hands on her his. “Celebration? It’s more like a dick measuring contest between them.” She looked over at the large estate in the distance. “How many guests have arrived so far?”
“At last count there are now at least fifty. But oddly enough not all of them are Beings, there are few humans dispersed amongst them.”
“Humans? The more you tell me the fishier these Warlock families sound,” Lanias said. Humans were the last people to get an invite to an event hosted by Beings. It was very suspicious.
“That’s why I can’t leave just yet, and why you can’t kill Nathan.” Oye explained. “Something is definitely going on, and once we have Asher. I’m sure he’ll answer our questions.”
“Fine, I’ll leave,” she said. “If he lays a single finger on you, you tell me right away. I’ll turn him into a horse fly with a snap of my fingers.” Lanias disappeared as abruptly as she had appeared.
Oye sighed as she stared down at the circle of burned grass where Lanias once stood.
She would find Asher and take him down. Nathan was nothing more than an inconvenience she would ignore for the rest of her stay.
* * *
“You look better.” Castian said when he saw her come into their room.
