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“What’s going on?” I asked. “Did something happen?”
“Sort of.” The young witch slumped into one of the armchairs, her elbows splaying over the sides. “My aunt and uncle have been blowing up my phone since I left. I was just ignoring them… But my aunt sent a text saying there was some kind of emergency with my sister.”
My pulse stuttered. “Is she okay?”
“Yes.” Imogen grimaced. “I ended up calling her and asking what was going on, trying to get her to let me talk to my sister—she’snot the problem there, she’s only fifteen; if I could have, I’d have brought her with me. It turned out my aunt was just making shit up to try to convince me to come back. And then once she had me on the phone she went on and on about how I’m embarrassing the family and I should be grateful for all the time and energy they’ve put into finding me a match and what am I even doing with myself and…” She pressed her hands over her ears as if to block out the voices she could no longer hear anyway.
“That’s tough,” I said quietly, wishing I could say more. “You’re sure there was something off about the potential consorts they were bringing around, though, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I was just being too picky. I mean, Aunt Florence and Uncle Sherman have never acted like they cared about me like parents, but they’renotmy parents, so… They got saddled with me and my sister when I was only nine and she was just two. They weren’t planning on having kids. What if theyarejust doing the best they can?”
“I don’t know.” I propped myself against the side of one of the other chairs. “I don’t think someone with totally good intentions would try to use your sister’s well-being as bait.”
“True. But, I mean, I am going to have to find a consort sooner and not later. If I look like an ungrateful hysteric, that’s not going to make it easier.” Imogen let out a huff of a sigh.
Spark help me, if only I could have brought her up to the room where Thalia Ainsworth was still recovering—hardly talking, mostly just sleeping restlessly and eating and expressing how thankful she was to be here—and told her that was the future her aunt and uncle had planned for her.
I gritted my teeth and then forced my jaw to relax.
“Look,” I said. “Everything you’ve told me about the two of them gives me a bad feeling. It reminds me of how my father and stepmother were acting—and they were trying to tie me to a consort who would have used me for his and their selfish ends. I don’t want that for you. What you do, whether you stay here, is up to you, always. But you have to know I don’t think you’re the slightest bit wrong to be worried. I’d say get your sister out of there as soon as you can too.”
Imogen gazed back at me thoughtfully. “And where do I go from there? I just live here with you until I hit twenty-five and lose my magic?”
“That’s up to you,” I said. “But you could still look for a consort yourself. I’d be happy to help any way I can. It doesn’t have to—”
It doesn’t have to be a witching man, you know, I’d wanted to say. But the oath clamped my throat shut around revealing that.
Of course, Imogen had been living here. She had eyes, and while I wasn’t allowed to discuss the status of my relationship with my consorts, I hadn’t tried to hide it from her or the other witches under asylum like I had the staff. Her comments after she’d gone to that bar showed she’d figured out that an unsparked guy would light at least a little magic in her.
“The five of them, they’reallyour consorts, aren’t they?” she murmured. “And they’re just regular guys from the town? Not witching families at all?”
I wet my lips and gave her a meaningful look. “I can’t talk about that.”
For a second, hope lit her face. Then she sagged back into the chair. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. If I leave my aunt and uncle for good, then I’ve got no claim on their estate either. Consort with an unsparked man? Moldy cinders, I might as well be unsparked too, for all I’d be part of witching society then.”
That was true. Maybe I’d been too harsh on her, blaming her hesitation completely on prejudice. I hadn’t thought through all the consequences she’d face. I’d had an estate waiting for me, enough properties in the family that I could simply shunt my dad off to one that was hours away—not that he’d stayed there. For someone with so much less means…
“You’d figure something out,” I said. Anything was better than ended up drained and haunted like Lady Ainsworth. “We’dfigure something out, if you stayed here. There have to be better options.”
Imogen gave me a small tight smile. “It’s easy to say that,” she said. “Not so easy to just make those options appear. Sometimes your only choices are not-so-great ones. I guess I just have to pick which not-so-great one I can stomach.”
My stomach balled.No, I wanted to say.Don’t give up. But who was I to tell her that when I had so much more than her and I still couldn’t keep my consorts and their families safe?
Chapter Fourteen
Gabriel
Iwatched the door close behind Rose and the younger witch with a twist in my gut. She’d simmered down, but for a few moments there… I’d hardly felt as if that was the woman I knew.
“I’ve never seen Rose snap at someone like that before,” I said, keeping my voice low.
Damon shrugged. “She’s got a lot of crap to deal with right now. Who can blame her?”
“I know she’s stressed, but…” I glanced at him. “Did you think you’d ever hear her encouraging you to go off on someone like that? Don’t you remember how she freaked out when you had your friends rough up Derek?”
Damon’s face darkened for a second. “That asshole deserved it. And they’re not my friends. They’re hardly even work associates at this point.”
I raised a conciliatory hand. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not getting on your case about what you did. My point is, back then she was horrified that you took things that far. Now she’s saying go ahead and do whatever you want to scare off her dad?”
