45. Jax

45

Jax

The Crone, it turned out, was not the wealth of information we had wanted. Katherine had left, against her orders, to be with her mate, and other than a few phone calls, the old witch had not seen her young protégé until Katherine returned with Anna and Dirk in tow. When Anna had described her memories, the Crone had simply rolled her eyes and said it was hardly that dark and dramatic, but she admitted that her visions of a darkness consuming the mountain had begun not long after that.

"You could have done more to help her," I accused her. "Instead, Katherine was murdered, and Anna was raised by her insane father."

"Everything that I did put her in the path of you. Short of allowing her to die, which I could have, vow or not, this was the only course of action that would give her a fighting chance. Now, I will tell you what I know about a ternary. After that, all I can do is help Anna learn to control her magic before Maeve catches up to her. It will be up to you to learn what Maeve knows of ternaries."

"I would rather learn from them," Anna said quietly as she nodded her head to the three witches.

"Considering what I know of you, I imagine it will take all of us and then some to get you ready," the Crone retorted. "The Mother is coming the long way. She will be here soon."

All the Darkwyn witches under one roof and on my land. That wouldn't give me nightmares at all.

"Now then, a ternary is a creature made of three. Wolf, witch, and null. Eons ago, nulls were born of Fae, back when they were more prevalent on the earth. Unlike what history likes to imply, they were not hunted down to extinction. They drew up one too much magic of the earth and nearly drained it dry. The earth, in protecting itself, cut them off. A single generation was born without magic, and the Fae could not adapt. They died out within the next two-hundred years. Nulls were one of many talents born among the Fae, and all were thought to be lost until a single witch line produced one. No one knows whether a pocket of Fae survived or if the talent was gifted before it was wiped out, but the Fae magic only graced a single line of witches. Somehow along the way, the fear of a ternary cropped up."

"Why?" Anna whispered.

"Because despite what we might wish, there is human in all of us, and our curiosity likes to mix things up, shake it around, and see what happens. Since witch and wolf mates did not produce cross-species, it was nothing more than a boogieman to scare little witch children who wouldn't go to bed on time. Most of the theories were nonsense. Three-headed monsters or being able to walk between the living and the dead. However, one theory did make an uncomfortable amount of sense. A single being that could wield the three magics, witch, wolf, and Fae, may be able to produce a fourth kind of magic."

Anna snorted. "What kind of fourth magic? I can't even extinguish a stupid candle."

"And yet, I've been told you nearly drained the largest pack on this mountain to save three wolves."

Immediately, Anna stiffened. "That's witch magic. Maybe some wolf magic. It has nothing to do with me being a null."

"You have no idea what it means, and neither do I. But we will find out. If we're lucky, we'll find out before Maeve Frost can get to you. Normally, I would say you should go in hiding, but for now, I suspect that this is the safest place for you. More bodies to sacrifice themselves for you."

Anna visibly paled, and I growled. "That's enough. Nobody is going to die."

"Wolves will die, pup. Even you are not na?ve enough to believe differently. I'm told you were able to pull some records from Maeve's pack. I'll need to see them. We need to find out when Maeve learned of ternaries and from whom. Wolves I know nothing about, but I have knowledge of most of the witches that walk this continent. That is why we need to move quickly."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Because from my count, in the last ten years, fifty of them came to this mountain and were never seen again."

"Fifty witches!" Anna squeaked. "She has fifty witches?!"

"More likely a small group of witches has the power of fifty." The Crone's gaze settled on Lunessa, Irene, and Janelle. "The number is probably higher. It's nothing compared to the magic sitting in this room, so take care. If Maeve's plan is about to come to a climax and she needs more witches, she is likely to try to take you all again."

I found Amelia in the library where she'd been hiding most days. Except for the upgrades she'd done to the network to make sure that Maeve couldn't weasel her way in, she spent the rest of her time looking through the files she'd pulled. If anything, she looked a little more upbeat about the prospect of actually hunting for something specific instead of just trying to make sense of the incomplete information she had.

"You want me to search for the names of these fifty witches who have disappeared and for a cult of granny killers?" she repeated.

"In fairness to them, Katherine's mother wasn't a grandmother when they murdered her, so mother killers would be more accurate."

Amelia wrinkled her nose. "I can't promise much. Unless Maeve welcomes any of these wolves or witches into her pack, I'm not going to have their name on the roster. Everything else I have is all over the place. Inventory for some of the businesses. Infirmary records. Meeting notes. I don't have a complete record for anything. Everything was only partially downloaded before the plug was pulled."

"Just do what you can. If you need help, I can assign people to you to help you organize."

At my pointed look of the chaos on the table, she smiled briefly. "What makes you think I don't have this well in hand? Actually, I could use a few more hands. Especially since I'll probably have to start over. Stacey can probably help me when she's done. She might be able to develop a program to help me run through these names a little faster. How is Anna?"

"Exhausted. Tomorrow, she's going to start training with the witches, and she's still not at full strength. I'm worried about her. This is important, but if you could take a break and visit with her some, I'd appreciate it."

"This dark library is not at all my idea of a good time." Stopping for a moment, she stared out the window. "Not too long ago, my only job was to walk the perimeter."

"Do you miss it?" She'd saved Anna that night, ignoring years of hatred and bigotry to alert me to the fact that Danny was trying to rape her.

"No. It might be nice to get back to something simpler soon, when it's safer, but life just isn't the same anymore. We do what we can to protect what's ours." Her eyes darkened. "Even if we're certain it's not going to make a difference."

She clearly wasn't talking about Anna or the pack anymore. I didn't know what was happening between her and Finn, but they clearly hadn't found their happily ever after yet.

Like I'd had? Accepting the mating bond, and my own love for Anna, hadn't done anything to change the fact that she could be taken away from me any second.

"Oh, one last thing. I know Anna would want to know. Can you see if any of Maeve's healers from twenty to twenty-five years ago are still alive? Maeve had five daughters that died as infants. I think Anna wants to try to humanize Maeve somehow. She wants to know what happened."

"That's horrible…wait, did you say five daughters?" Amelia's eyes widened for just a second before she started shuffling through papers. "Who told you that they died?"

"Anna's mother told the Crone. She was worried that her blessings were somehow killing them. Apparently, they were all born healthy until they died. The blessing, and then they died within a week of that."

It wasn't unheard of for pups to not make it out of infancy, although five seemed unusual for a single mother. Perhaps there was something genetic happening, but why wouldn't the healer have found it?

Amelia held up her hand. "There's a memo written in the notes of this patient's file. The healer who signed off on it was Dayna. The patient was an adult's broken leg, and it was dated twenty-three years ago. The note reads ‘fifth girl passed of SIDS but unable to review body. Strongly believe the Mother is smuggling the children out. Damien?' The note obviously has nothing to do with the real patient. I figured she'd written the note on the wrong file, but what if she was trying to hide it? There's a series of words written after that might be in code."

I wanted to shake my head and tell her that it didn't make sense. Maeve wouldn't smuggle her own daughters out. She'd have no need. Her children would have been revered.

"Have Saul take a look at the code. See if it has anything to do with the other healers. See if you can find Dayna and cross reference any other material you have to the name Damien."

"Fuck, Jax, you don't think she killed her daughters, do you?"

"Killed them or gave them away. Either way, it's another layer of Maeve that I think we need to unravel."