Chapter 40

Forty

My phone buzzes and I reach blindly for it.

Mom. Summoning me.

I kiss Thomas, distracting him in his sleep as I slip from his grasp. He reaches for me and I whisper to them all. "I'll be back soon. Don't worry."

Johnny might be awake, but he doesn't open his eyes when I kiss him too. And when I step back, he moves closer to Thomas, tightening the pile I've just left.

Joshua doesn't stir when my lips brush his, but Chase watches me through half open lids. "Don't be gone long. We will drag ourselves out of this house to come after you if we need to."

"I'm not going far."

There's a witch waiting for me outside, she says nothing as she drives me back to the wooded clearing where Aphrodite tried to kill eight people and only managed two.

I'm not sure if her silence is because she was ordered to keep her lips zipped, or if it's because she's one of the ones I don't know… and if she witnessed last night, she might be scared of me.

Whatever the reason, it's good the drive is short.

My four-wheeler is where I left it, and another silent witch—this one refusing to make eye contact—stands guard at it.

The others gathered around the clearing have seemingly formed search grids and are looking through the underbrush. But my mother and Renée stand on the site of Aphrodite's spell suicide.

"Glad to see the cleanup efforts are well on their way."

"We let you have as long as we could." My mother's scowl tells me she's not the one who summoned me. "Is there anything we might be missing?" She waves her hand vaguely toward the spell site.

"I burned twenty-six warnaways yesterday afternoon. If there's anything lingering from her, I haven't been able to find it."

"Neither have we." My mother's agreement gets her a sharp look.

"Good. The sooner her shadow's gone, the better."

I'm not waiting for an apology from Renée I know I won't get it.

But I know she owes me. And she knows it too.

"I have some requirements." I say, and, as expected, she doesn't immediately deny them.

"What are your requests?"

"Not requests. We're not negotiating. Firstly, Charity, Victoria, and Bethany Miller—" I'd made sure I knew their names before I fell asleep "—are not to be held accountable for anything Aphrodite did, or their involvement with her. The same goes for Anthony Wexxon. She was able to fool all of you, you do not get to punish them for their ignorance. Gullible or not, they were influenced by a bad witch's blood magic."

"Fine, but we will have to keep an eye on them."

"How do you plan to do that?"

She meets my gaze, face blank, giving nothing away. "The coven will sort that out before we leave."

The "without you" didn't need to be said.

"What are your other requirements?"

"You'll stop second guessing me at every turn. And," I know this isn't something she'll grant, but I'm irritated enough, I'm willing to demand it. "I want a seat on the council."

"Out of the question."

"Is it?" I glance toward where both of the Lourdes women died. "It seems to me that you have an open seat."

Her jaw is tight, my mother's gaze is on the pine needles at her feet, but I see the twitch of a smile she's trying to hide.

"We will discuss it."

That was a hard no, but she'd offer me something else. It was only fair I waited to hear her out.

"My final requirement? You clean up your mess and leave me out of the rest of it."

"That, we are happy to do." She turns, sweeping away from me, cloak fluttering.

"She'll never let you on the council. You know that, right?" My mother watches me as I watch Renée go.

"Of course." Only one witch from any family was allowed at a time. "But if you want the improbable, it's best to open negotiations with the impossible."

"And what does improbable look like?"

"Full separation from the coven. If you're going to leave me to deal with the likes of Aphrodite on my own, what good are you?"

Scowling, my mother takes a long breath. "I don't like it."

"Neither do I, but we have to deal with a lot of things we don't like, don't we?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I met grandma."

The look my mother gives me is so sharp, I'm surprised I'm not bleeding. "That is information that needs to stay in the Carraway plot."

"And it will." I shiver in the cold. "There's somewhere else I'd rather be."

"Then by all means, go back to your wolves."

I don't wait for anyone else to come bother me.

I drive my still silent-running ATV up into the guy's backyard and hop off as the engine dies.

"Thank the Goddess."

I look over my shoulder and one of the younger members of the coven.

"Please tell me you know what to do."

"Annalise?" I ask, hoping I've remembered right.

She nods, her dark hair pulling from her bun in wisps.

Good. "What's wrong?"

"The youngest one is still spelled."

I glance toward the house and know they'll survive a while longer without me.

Mrs. Miller is happily baking away in her kitchen, oblivious to everything. "Who spelled her?"

"Not one of us. She's been like this since we arrived. Oblivious to the chaos around her. She's next on the list of people we need to take care of. But we wanted the others settled first.

I follow Annalise down to the basement where another witch has bound one of the three sisters to a twin bed.

Her bindings have left her skin raw and red.

"Cut her loose. Right now."

"She's volatile."

"Then hold her down. If you keep her in those bindings, you'll do more damage." I look pointedly at the skin on her arms, already red, soon to be deep purple with bruising.

"Aphrodite used blood magic to bind them to her will. Whatever she was told to do, she's still trying to do it."

There's a choked sob from behind me and I pull off my sweater, moving around to the other side of the woman as the other witches untie her and take hold.

"I read the spells. I can get her back."

"Why didn't she snap out of it as soon as Aphrodite died?" Annalise asks.

"That's not how blood magic works… the magic lasts as long as the source is alive. And since this is vampire blood, she's trapped until the spell is broken. Kurt left town and it would take too long to find him and stake him."

Rosemary—I remember the other witch's name as soon as I look in her eyes—glares at me. "You know an awful lot about blood magic."

"Yeah, Why is that?" Annalise's question isn't an accusation like the other witch's.

"Because no one believed me and I knew I'd have to deal with this myself."

"Do you have everything down here we need to get her back?" One of the sisters asks.

Even after the ordeal of the night, this sister's makeup is pristine—a different kind of witchcraft.

"What's your name?"

"Victoria." She doesn't look away from her sister. Neither does the woman beside her.

"And which one are you, Charity? Or Bethany?"

She looks up, startled. "Charity."

"Alright. I need one of you to help me with this. We're going to make her better. And then the three of you are all going to take a nice long nap."

There are crystals strewn around the room, and I grab two chunks of clear quartz, handing one to each of the sisters. I find a sprig of sweetgrass, a branch of juniper and a bundle of sage.

Set alight, I place them into a bowl at the foot of the bed.

"Each of you take one of her hands. I need you to ground her." I look up at the other two witches. "Whatever happens. Don't let go."

"Is it going to be bad?" Charity asks.

"I don't know." Breaking this kind of magic without knowing the original spell is dangerous. Even with it, we could be in for a fight if Bethany wanted what Aphrodite offered.

Lending my breath to the smoke, it flows over Bethany's writhing body and I circle around her, moving to where her head is raised off the pillow.

I have to reach through the bars of the headboard to grab hold of the sides of her head, to pull her down so that I can place my thumbs at the center of her forehead, my index fingers to her temples.

When I start to whisper the incantation—I have to place it once more to steal the power away from Aphrodite's shadow—she tries to jerk her head from my hands, but with the last word…

Her body goes limp, and Victoria makes a sound.

"Do not let her go."

Her heart has stopped, but that was always a part of the plan. My next words slither from my lips, whispers coalescing and coiling around her.

When her pulse returns, it's slowly, like a dimmer being raised, rather than a switch being flipped.

I pull my hands away as she blinks awake, utterly still, as if frozen.

The whole room seems to inhale with her.

The gasped breath pulls Bethany right off the bed and she sits up, whole body heaving.

But she looks normal… I wait long enough to hear her speak to her sisters, and then I slip away. The coven can sort them out for the rest of the day.