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My lips hardened. I had no regrets for what had happened to Miss Thompson, the director of the orphanage, but as the repercussion of my actions marched up the path between the carriage and the wrought iron gates of the orphanage, panic flitted through me. I hadn’t thought they’d follow through on their threat. I’d spent the last seven years there, since I was brought to the orphanage at four years old with my younger sister, who was separated into a room somewhere downstairs.
Avery opened the door, glancing back at me. “You’ve brought demons into our town.” Her green eyes narrowed as she referred to both the warlock sitting at the carriage, behind the two stallions, and the one heading through the grounds.
A loud knock sounded at the front door, jolting us both.
“Grab your suitcase,” Avery snapped. “Now.”
I swallowed thickly, an attempt to remove the thick lump that had formed in my throat since I’d been locked away. It had been an attempt to keep me away from the rest of the children. “I’m not going.”
“You’re going.” Avery tapped her black laced shoe against the creaky floorboard. “That man downstairs will make sure of it. They’re already waiting for you.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m not leaving without Mona.”
Avery took a step forward but recoiled when she saw my hands uncurl. She tightened her necktie, then pushed her notebook back into her pocket. “Mona is better off without you, and your kind.”
I shuddered as her last two words sharped through the air. “Please. I was only protecting her from Miss Thompson.” I was pleading my case for the hundredth time, but nothing could change the truth. I was, as unlikely as it was, a witch. It didn’t escape my mind that if I’d been born merely twenty years ago in Salvius, I’d have been burned for it, but times had changed. Avery was right. The barrier between our kingdom and their territory brought a new treaty, one where any witches found, unless they’d committed murder or a high crime, was to be sent to their territory, Istinia.
“I’ll not leave,” I threatened. “I won’t. You can’t make me.”
“If you don’t come now, your sister might just be the one who pays the price. The world isn’t kind to orphans, and Miss Thompson only has so many spaces here.”
I imagined my sister curled up against a building, begging for dramair on the sidewalk. A thunderous roar pulled my attention back to the rain-stricken window. Lightning flashed the sky purple, and the cold seeped in through the cracks around the glass pane.
Closing my eyes, I grabbed my teddy, the one I felt too old to have on my bed at eleven years old but couldn’t bring myself to get rid of. It was all I had left of the parents who’d abandoned me. In my other hand, I picked up my suitcase, then followed Avery out of the door.
A burly, barrel-chested man, wearing a long brown trench coat and a cap to match, greeted me at the open door. The overhanging porch shielded him from the rain, but drops still shimmered among the light-brown waves.
I looked over my shoulder at Avery, then up to look at my home for the past seven years. “Please,” I begged one last time. “Let me say good-bye.”
Avery’s mouth pinched into a frown. “It’s best you don’t. For everyone. You don’t want rumors to start about Mona, do you? She’s already under scrutiny, considering your lineage.”
The warlock stepped inside, and Avery flinched back into the shadow of the staircase. He fumbled, then grabbed my suitcase. “I’ll take ‘er from ‘ere then.” He patted my shoulder, making me flinch. “Come on, lass. We need to leave now if we plan to make it ter Istinia before morning.”
My stomach ached. My gaze rolled up the dirty stairwell to the chalk drawings made by the other children. “Mona!” I yelled before they could stop me. “Sister!” I screamed louder, swearing I heard someone yell back before I was pulled onto the porch. I tugged my arm from the warlock’s grip.
He looked at Avery, then cleared his throat, grabbing my arm again. “Sorry, lass.”
“Mona.” My voice dried out as I was pulled down the path and through the gates. The world glossed around me. Statues on either side of the building seemed to come to life under the shine of rain coating them. The windows on either side of the front door filled with faces. I strained my neck, trying to see if one of them was Mona’s, but I couldn’t make any of them out in the slash of rain and dim gray light.
My tears merged with the droplets running through my hair and down my cheeks. The warlock pulled me into the carriage, then slammed the door behind me as I glared up at the building. “Mona.” My whispers fell silent as we pulled away.
He sighed, shaking the rain from his jacket as he leaned back in his seat across from her. “Sorry about that, lass. They’d have arrested ya or summit if I didn’t get ya out of there with ya shouting like that. Humans don’t take kindly to witches. As you ‘eard back there.” He handed me a flask of warm tea. I took it, then wiped my nose on the back of my sleeve. “They’ll welcome yer back in Istinia. You’ll find a family there, a coven. They’ll take care of ya.”
My stomach dipped. I already had a family here, my sister. After a few sips of tea, I found my voice. “How is it my sister is human and I…” I trailed off, looking at my hands again, the very thing that had got me into this mess.
“And you a witch?” he asked, finishing my sentence for me and arching a tangled eyebrow. “Tha great mysteries of our world, but yer are rare. It’s been known to ‘appen. Human-born witches, that is. What that woman was saying back there, pay it no mind. Yer sister’s likely human. Sometimes there’s a witch in yah lineage somewhere, and generations down the line, one of ya pops up with powers, but it’s rare for more than one.”
I fell silent as the carriage growled over the bumpy road toward the mountains and the magical barrier separating Salvius from Istinia, a place filled with witches, demons, and dark gods. I’d been taught to fear them, to be afraid of things that go bump in the night, and to be grateful for the barrier keeping most witches out—except those who desperately wanted to get through. Like the one earlier, the one they’d hung. She was the reason we were in this whole mess. If I hadn’t gone out to see it, if I hadn’t taken Mona, nothing would have happened. This wouldn’t have happened.
“What’s your name?” I asked after several minutes of quiet.
“Frederick.”
I nodded, then looked at my lap. He wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. I’d been told witches were evil, demonic things, but if that were true, then I was of them. Now I had no choice but to join them. I moved back the curtain of the carriage as the mountains came into view across the deep, dark forest.
Chapter One
NINE YEARS LATER
