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“Auntie?” I said quietly, closing the grimoire and setting it to the side. The older witch had stirred a few times since I’d rescued her from Egypt, but she’d either mumbled gibberish or remained silent.
This time, when she looked at me, her eyes were clear. “Celeste?” she croaked, her voice hoarse.
My heart jumped into my throat.She recognizes me this time.I reached out to take her hand in mine. “It’s me,” I said gently, giving her fingers a squeeze. “You’re safe here. Do you remember anything?”
“I—” A cough cut her off as I frowned.
“Let me get you a drink,” I said, excusing myself just long enough to hurry to the kitchen and back, offering her a glass of cool water.
As she drank, I took a few breaths to settle my thoughts. I reached out with a soft soothing spell, meant to heal the frayed edges of her mind and offer her a sense of peace. She was clearly still on edge, and I couldn’t blame her. I had no idea how long she was trapped with Sabine before I’d had my psychic dream. She’d looked like she’d aged not months, but decades.
Esme set her glass down. When she spoke, her voice sounded more familiar. “Where are we?” she asked, her dark brown pupils searching the small room before falling back to me.
I paused, suddenly unsure how to answer. I’d made sure Sabine hadn’t left any footholds in Esme’s mind while Val and I tried to heal her, but I still didn’t know if I could trust the witchI’d once thought to be my biological aunt. She’d been pledged to the Solar Sovereign at one point. How would she ever have gotten involved with me or my adopted parents otherwise? I didn’t want to reveal anything about Fenris’s haven if there was a possibility she could still report back to Zyanya.
“We’re in a safe place,” I said. “Don’t worry.”
“Ah,” Esme said, sounding a bit distant. Though far more lucid than before, she was still a bit spacey, her attention and mind wandering as she looked around. “You’re using your magic now,” she said abruptly.
My heart sank into the pit of my stomach. Esme had always known I had latent paranormal talent. She’d given me the anxiety medication intentionally then. I’d even been willing to believe she’d thought she was helping me, but I could no longer perform those mental gymnastics. My aunt had been silencing my magic since I was six years old.
Suddenly, my throat felt thick, and I tried to ignore the upswell of emotion that came with the revelation.
I sighed. “I just wish you’d told me what was going on,” I said.
Esme paused before reaching for the loose shirt Val had dressed her in. I held my breath when I realized a familiar shape was peeking over the hemline. Esme had a death mark seared over her heart. The only difference from mine was that the brand was clearly old, no longer red and shiny like a fresh wound.
“There are things I simply can’t talk about,” she finally said, her tone somber.
As quickly as my heart dropped, it jumped back up, fluttering anxiously as my mind whirled. “Do you know how to—”
“You are the spitting image of Enora,” Esme said.
I blinked, temporarily forgetting what I wanted to ask about the death mark. Curiosity about my mother surged to the forefront.
“You knew my mother?”
“I did,” Esme said simply.
“How did you know her?” I didn’t want to sound too eager, too desperate for any information, but I also couldn’t hide the edge in my voice.
Enora’s expression darkened. “I was the witch who was…sent,” she said carefully. I assumed Zyanya had given her similar instructions about what she could and couldn’t say about the death mark. “Sent to get her.” She sighed heavily, unable to look me in the eye.
I bit my lip, not entirely sure I wanted to know what came next. My desire for the truth soon won out. “Then what happened?”
Esme gave me a sad smile. “She begged me to give her daughter a better life. She’d had a psychic vision that her unborn child was the one who was…the one sought after. The one in the Handmaiden prophecy. But Enora just wanted to protect her child. She wanted her daughter to have a good life. That was all.”
Even though my aunt couldn’t say “Solar Sovereign” or “Zyanya,” I knew who she was talking about. The woman had said the same thing to me when she’d caught me in Egypt. I sniffed, realizing my eyes were prickling with tears as I digested the emotional memory the older witch had just shared. I reached up to wipe my face. As much as I loved my adopted parents—as much as I still missed them, to this day—I still wished I could have met the woman who’d given birth to me.
Esme looked at me. “Enora’s begging, her sacrifice…they got to me. I thought that by hiding anything paranormal about you at all, no one would ever discover you. You would be able to have a good life, and no one would hurt you.”
I blinked, barely able to believe what I was hearing.
Esme swallowed, looking down at her frail hands. “Your adoptive parents really did love you. I made sure to find the mostcaring couple I could, and I—I came to love you, too, Celeste. I really felt as though you were my niece, and I cared for you as if we truly shared blood.”
I paused, biting my lower lip. “Ben didn’t care for me,” I said quietly. “You shouldn’t have tried to bewitch someone into marrying me.”
It was only a hunch, but I knew I hit the mark when Esme flinched. “He was a nice person,” she said, sighing. “Perfectly, totally, completely normal. I thought if you married an average human and never met the Lunar Lord, no one would ever have a reason to suspect you as anything other than just another Floridian. And if, by random chance, you did ever meet him, you would reject him because you were with someone else, and he would move on.”
