14

I finished brushing my teeth, spat irritably, and watched the residue vanish down the drain, wishing the countless emotions

keeping me awake would vanish with it. Este had gone off in search of a room to call her own an hour ago, when I, feigning

exhaustion, insisted I needed sleep.

After all she'd told me, sleep proved impossible. No amount of tequila was going to change that, and I'd tried. I was intensely,

painfully awake, my mind brutally clear, my heart alive and raging. I hungered for the oblivion of sleep, to forget, to briefly

die and hope tomorrow I felt more mistress of my feelings and fate, for clearly at the moment, and apparently for all my life,

I'd been mistress of neither.

I padded back into the bedroom, where I stood a long moment, eyeing the green suede books on the top shelf. Este must have

spelled those to permanence, too.

"Spelled them to permanence," I muttered, trying to fathom it. Could I spell things to permanence? What were my gifts? I hadn't asked. In fact, I'd made her stop talking about witches and Mom

entirely. My trusty technique of boxing things up and parceling them out in small amounts so I might absorb them in palatable

increments had reasserted itself to preserve my sanity. Just like old times.

My insistence on abject disbelief, I conceded grudgingly, was a defense mechanism. The things she'd told me bore an irrefutable

knell of truth, chiming deep in my marrow. This , they proclaimed, was what you always felt but never knew. This explains everything.

Devlin had prodded at it the other night, when he'd asked if somewhere deep in my bones, I hadn't always thought there was something more. That I lacked vital information, perhaps had even been intentionally misled. For years, I'd told myself my impression of somehow being in the dark when others weren't sprang simply from being uprooted so many times without explanation.

But it ran much, much deeper.

I'd existed at odds with myself my whole life. There was daytime Zo, who did all the things; she worked tirelessly and took

care of Mom, and never complained, and never let herself want anything. Busy bee, flitting from task to task, too preoccupied

to think about how she felt—or how she seemed curiously lacking in that department.

Then there was midnight Zo, who lay awake pondering the endless, empty ache inside her, a great void of a canyon that shouldn't

hurt but did, as if something necessary for life had been carved out of her. Midnight Zo felt as if she were standing face-to-face

with an impenetrable fog that only on exceedingly rare occasions parted ever so briefly, affording a tantalizing glimpse of

something bright, wonderous, and magnificent that filled her so completely that, for a brief moment, on those exceptional

nights, midnight Zo felt... whole, alive, and real . I'd hungered for that fulsome state with every ounce of my being, without even knowing what it was.

Then the fog would thicken, again obscuring my vision, and I wouldn't be able to recapture what I'd just felt. At all. I was

left with only a memory of a distant impression of something that had briefly felt glorious, and the sure knowledge that,

for some reason, I could never have it.

Fact: my mom believed she was a witch. Fact: Este and her family believed they were, too. Fact: Este and Dalia believed my

mother was a Highblood Royal and terrifying.

Fact: they'd all talked about this, and they'd all kept it from me.

I'd wandered, stupid and blind, for twenty-four years, and not only had everyone let me, they'd willfully, intentionally blinded

me.

My entire existence was shifting on its axis, leaving me consummately explosive. I had a million questions for Este. And couldn't

face even one of them right now.

Did I believe I was a witch?

Yes.

Was I curious, even eager to explore it?

Absolutely.

Did any of that matter to me right now?

No.

I was too angry. It was one thing to grow up feeling emotions. You learned, along the way, with the help of mentors and parents,

to manage and temper them.

I'd had no teachers, because I'd had no strong emotions.

Now I did.

And I'd had no instruction.

Anger was suffocating me, drowning me, choking me. The only way I knew to vent this thing, on those rare occasions I'd felt

it—unnamed and volatile inside me—was through sex.

My best friend. My mother. Conspiring with Dalia to keep me in the dark, to keep me a placid automaton.

If I was a witch, I had power . And it had been denied me. I had magic. And was never permitted to know it. I'd been given no choice.

I loved Este. Always had.

But I sure as hell didn't know her, and apparently never had.

Nor had I known my own mother.

One of the books shot off the bookcase and fell to the floor, landing at my feet, open.

"What now?" I muttered irritably. Clearly, all the books in the house had a tendency to communicate, if and when they felt

like it. Rather like my best friend and mother.

Sinking to the floor, I pulled the book onto my lap and read.

A man marches into battle, boldly dividing to conquer. His techniques are often brutal, ergo visible, ergo possible to combat.

A woman divides so subtly, so delicately, the soldiers don't even know they've been divided, as they stand, defenseless, separated

by invisible fences.

And so the war is won.

Pissed, I turned the page. It was blank. As were the rest of them.

"I hate you," I told the book, fully aware of how childish I sounded, but decided I deserved the right to say something so

childish, because I never had. I hadn't been permitted to have normal child feelings.

It occurred to me that it might have been really stupid for Mom to suppress my power, only to leave me with said power exploding

yet grossly emotionally stunted, when she died. It occurred to me I had a lot to learn, and fast. Self-discipline would be

crucial. I'd always prided myself on discipline but was beginning to realize it was easy to discipline yourself when you were

an emotional iceberg, not a volcano.

There was little doubt what the book was telling me—and, yes, I'd just thought what the book was telling me —because having accepted I was a witch, and I privately had, although I wanted more proof, there seemed little point in denying anything else bizarre that was happening. "Call a spade a spade," I muttered. Things were what they were, and I would only make myself vulnerable by denying them. Light the candle, Cameron witch , the grimoire had said.

I frowned, wondering how many things I'd failed to notice and understand. Like the shimmering symbols etched at the threshold

of Cameron Manor—a spell of some sort. Este hadn't been able to cross it. That was why she'd insisted I invite her in. That

was also why Mr.Balfour believed I was safe inside the manor, despite the lack of a security system. Was it also, in some

capacity, related to my transient faint at the threshold the night I arrived? What else didn't I know? Were the triskelions

and the Serch Bythol also engraved spells, and if so, what effect did they have?

I'd invited Jesse in because of my blinders. Este and Devlin had both freaked out. Made me rescind it. I wanted to know why.

Apparently, Juniper was a witch, no less than the Grand Poobah of witches around these parts. And everyone believed I was

a chip off that block. Was I?

My mother had divided us all with invisible fences, to further whatever war she'd been fighting—a war that, to me, was equally

invisible.

I wanted to burst into tears but couldn't. My heart was frost, and my tears would be shards of ice.

It was so much easier to grieve Joanna Grey than to be angry with her. I hated feeling this. For the tiniest sliver of a moment,

I hungered for the days I'd felt little to nothing. Because what I felt most of all, right now, was so goddamned alone and

angry.

A solitary soldier, hemmed by invisible fences.

I don't know if I ever used to dream while I slept. I certainly never remembered any. Perhaps the countless demands of life with Mom left me so exhausted that I slept too deep for the Sandman to find me. Or perhaps the moment my brain kicked on, pragmatic Zo admonished, Vanish, useless dust. You serve me not. No time for dreams. Or perhaps dreams, too, had been stolen from me: Zo can't have any magic, and she's also not allowed to dream. She might

want things. Become a real live person. Better shoot that possibility down hard and fast.

Since entering the walls of Cameron Manor, I'd not only been dreaming richly, but my dreams were so lucid, presenting with

such tactile detail, they felt inseparable from reality upon awakening, and emotional nuances of dream residue clung to me

throughout the day.

I dreamed I strode a forest unlike any I'd seen, unlike any in existence. A hushed, primal place where generously spaced trees

stretched out bare late-autumn branches of such rambling girth they met the gloaming in a canopy above my head. It was so

velvet-dark, I'd have been unable to see, were it not for a forest floor carpeted with thick drifts of silvery-yellow leaves

that gleamed radiantly, as if lit from within by phosphorescent midribs and veins.

I felt so free, untethered by worry or care, that I flung myself into the thick piles of luminous leaves, plunging my arms

deep into fallen mounds. I made leaf angels, I laughed, I rolled. I knew I was somewhere sacred, and although I also knew

it was a strange, wild place, untamed and unpredictable, I felt it was safe. At least for me.

Then, as I spread my arms in yet another sweeping arc, I encountered a thing beneath the leaves that responded to my touch, shifting as if disturbed, emitting a rumble from deep in its chest.

Something alive.

Without seeing it, I knew what it was.

Not a mere dog, that boon companion to man, but a hunting hound, one capable of great cunning and great savagery.

I also knew that until the moment I touched it, the beast had slumbered. Deeply, perhaps for time unmeasured. In dreams, concepts

like eternity seem wholly plausible, and this beast, to me, felt eternal.

Abruptly a dozen hounds emerged from the lambent forest floor, shaking off illuminated leaves, dark, sinuous shadows rising

to form a crouching ring around me.

Supine was prey. Pushing up to my knees, I glanced from hound to hound, eyes narrowed, assessing. Friend or foe? Why did they

slumber in this forest? Were they hunters? Was I the hunted?

I surged to my feet, adopting an aggressive stance.

I am formidable , my eyes said. I am indomitable. Do not test me.

Closer they crept on tightly coiled haunches.

I awakened with a violent start and no answer to my question: Ally or adversary? Only a nagging feeling that by coming here,

perhaps in the simple act of taking my first step across the threshold of Cameron Manor, I'd done what Mom had devoted her

entire life to keeping me from doing.

Let sleeping dogs lie, my darling Zo , she'd say, whenever I asked about my father. They have teeth. They have claws.

"Fuck that noise," I growled as I got out of bed. "I do, too."

"What was Mom's message?" I demanded without preamble when I found Este in the kitchen the next morning, prepping coffee.

She glanced over her shoulder, brow furrowed with concern. "I felt your anger all night. Either you or the house, I couldn't decide. Maybe both."

"You think the house is angry?"

"It has... presence."

"Do you dislike it?"

"I don't know yet. The kitchen is damned hard to resist. The pool and courtyard are divine. There's a feeling of expansiveness

inside these walls, almost a... kiss of infinity, as if you could open doors to find more doors and yet more, and it might

never end. But there's... something... something..." She trailed off, frowning. "I don't know. The jury is still

out."

I'd gotten that same taste of infinity but attributed it to never being in a house so large. I felt confident that, once I'd

explored every room, the discomfiting sensation would ease. "Mom's message," I prodded.

Fiddling with the machine, she said, "It wasn't like that. She just told me if she died unexpectedly, before—er, not from

the cancer, I needed to get to you ASAP, tell you what you were, and help you awaken your power. Teach you the craft."

I said disbelievingly, "Nothing else? Like, maybe, why we were running all my life or from whom? Nothing about my father?

Or who I am?" Maybe my real last name? Because I was pretty sure that was a lie, too. She'd named me after what she'd turned me into: something too timid

to be a color.

Este shook her head. "Joanna wasn't big on disclosure. Her sole concern was that she would die and you would have no idea

what was happening to you when your power awakened."

I sank onto a stool at the island, deflated. "That's it ? Seriously?"

"Aside from making me promise to tell you about the safe," she said, sliding a steaming hot cup of chicory coffee in front of me. "Look what I found." She pushed a small stoneware pitcher forward, smiling. "There's a fridge in the butler's pantry stocked with lovely old-fashioned glass milk bottles, filled with real milk."

Thinking that I couldn't wait to get my hands on the contents of the fireproof lockbox, and they'd damned well better explain

a lot, I peered into the pitcher. "Real," meaning straight from the cow. Usually, the sight of thick, clotted cream would

delight me. Mom and I had a milk cow once. I'd named her Daisy. I'd loved that cow, curled with her on the grass, sleepy in

the sun. It had been the best summer in the foothills of the West Virginia mountains. We'd made our own cheese and ice cream with fresh peaches, warm from

just being picked. Mom taught me to make butter by shaking cream in a jar until it began to clump and turned. She'd shown

me how to wash the curds in cold water with a soft spatula until they congealed, salt the butter lightly, and press it into

a mold, then we'd slathered it on biscuits and cornbread with jam, and I'd thought we were queens, the luckiest of people,

and so very rich. I'd thought we might get to stay. Daisy had convinced me. She was alive, and in our care. Surely, we were

staying. Then the cow was gone, and so were we.

The sight of the cream turned my stomach.

My mother, who'd suppressed and made me doubt my fundamental nature, had discussed it openly with my best friend.

Este moved to stand behind me, put her hand on my shoulder. I bristled instantly. "I'm not the enemy, Zo. Truly, I'm not,"

she murmured.

I didn't yield an inch, shrugging my shoulder to get her hand off it.

Sighing, she sank into a seat next to me at the island. "Your mother loved you more than life itself, Zo. She'd have done anything to protect you. Although she never gave Mom a reason for suppressing your magic, she did invite her in for a brief glimpse of deep sight."

Invite her in... deep sight. Oh, yes, more proof I was a witch, and everyone knew things I didn't. Just dumb, blind Zo, stumbling about.

She continued, "Mom said that whatever Joanna was afraid would happen to you had her so terrified that she truly believed

concealing your heritage from you was the only possible way to give you a chance at life. She was convinced Joanna was doing

it from the deepest, most unconditional love. That's why Mom never spoke up. If she hadn't been convinced of that, she would

have. She'd have defied the heavens themselves, had she believed your mother was doing it for any other reason."

I nearly wept then. God, these emotions ! How did people deal with feeling so intensely all the time? How distracting!

In this, Este was right. All I'd ever felt from Mom was deep, unconditional love. I might have only been capable of shallow

emotions myself, but I could feel the burn of that woman's love at all times, unwavering, warm and secure as a cloak around

me, and if at all possible, eternal.

"You were her world. The only thing that mattered to her."

She'd been the only thing that mattered to me, too. It occurred to me that probably wasn't a healthy way to live. But then,

little about how we'd lived had been.

"You believe you're a witch, don't you? Things happened, didn't they?" Este said quietly.

I nodded stiffly.

"Good. I have an art showing to prep for in Indy on Monday, and have to fly out stupid-early tomorrow morning. Before I leave,

you have a great deal to learn. Let's begin."

Many hours later, I sat on my bed staring at a fat brown leather journal embossed with an owl and Celtic knotwork, tied with a leather thong. Dressed and ready, I was killing time, waiting for Este to finish showering, stoically refusing to open the book. At least, I consoled myself, this one had actually been written and wouldn't mysteriously write itself. I hoped.

My brain was on overload.

Mom and I began putting this together for you many years ago , Este told me when she'd given me the journal this afternoon. I think Mom always planned to tell you before it was too late, if Joanna didn't.

There was that phrase again— too late . Again, I'd not asked. Overload.

We'd spent most of the day by the pool, ducking back into the kitchen for food and drink before returning to the sunny courtyard

where my bodyguards kept a watchful eye from a distance. During those hours, Este told me so much my head was spinning with

it all. She knew it was overload, ergo the journal.

It's easier to absorb by reading than hearing it. You'll want to go back and reread, gleaning more each time. I'm only giving

you the basics right now, details are in the journal , she'd said. Unfortunately, in no particular order. It was more difficult to write than we imagined. Difficult to decide what was most

important to teach you first.

Is it full of spells? I'd asked.

Babe, you don't need spells. You're Highblood Royal. The craft is will-based; that's why it's called the Way of the Will, or the way of intentions. We each have varying degrees of magic in our blood. We focus that power with our will, shape it, try to make it grow into reality. With a lesser degree of magic in the blood, words, spells, even enchanted objects become necessary to focus and amplify the witch's intention. Even then, it doesn't always work. Sometimes it works but not the way you meant it to. Spells are tricky, they have teeth. You must always respect that, and be extremely precise with your intention. If deep beneath the intention you believe you're shaping lurks another less savory one, you can spell yourself into a serious mess.

Did you ever do that?

She'd laughed. Massively and more than once, especially during puberty, when my hormones were crazed and I had no idea how to handle them.

Fortunately, Mom was there to rescue me. With the degree of magic your blood contains, will alone is enough, or it will be,

once you've trained. That's why Royals are so feared. While most of us have to work hard to affect reality, to bring our vision

into the world, the truly dangerous Royals, with undiluted blood and decades of practice, have merely to draw power from a

source rich enough, and think their intentions into existence.

She'd shuddered . Don't get me started on the gray witches. When they battle another witch, every witch out there runs and hides.

Este herself was a craft witch, she'd told me, which meant her power was in her hands. She was driven to create, and painting

was the way she'd chosen to focus her power. If she didn't create for a long enough period of time, she began to feel physically

ill. I remembered the times she'd shut herself away in her studio, painting feverishly, for weeks on end, coming out with

twenty-five new pieces, each more brilliantly realized than the last.

But that's not magic that you're doing, I'd said, That's painting.

Remember Tilda Schomber, who couldn't get pregnant and wanted desperately to have children? When she commissioned a painting

from me, I worked a fertility spell into it, Este had said, smiling. It was some of the most potent magic I've done. I adore Tilly and poured my whole heart into it.

I'd gotten chills. She has three kids now.

She's a fantastic mom. If someone with health problems commissions a painting, like Doc Fields with his liver issues, I layer a healing spell into it. That's why all my paintings are two in one: the actual painting you see in the daylight and the one that glows at night, from the luminescent paint I layer into it, laced with magic.

I'd said in a low voice, Could you have healed my mother?

Her eyes darkened. Not a chance. Nothing could have healed Joanna Grey.

Why not?

She'd sighed. Complicated. Let's tackle that later.

Later. I'd accepted the deferral, mind whirling.

What's my power? What kind of witch am I? She'd described sacral witches, skull witches, heart witches, craft or hand witches. There were the elemental ones: fire,

water, air, and soil witches. And darker ones: war, pestilence, famine, and death witches. Where did I fit?

She'd stared at me, gaze troubled, then said quietly, I don't know.

"Great," I muttered now, smoothing my dress, flexing my leg and absently admiring the line of my calf in high heels. I'd rarely

felt pretty; there'd been no time for it in my life. I did tonight.

Your power will present itself , Este told me. By seeing what presents, we'll know what you are. Highblood Royals often have multiple talents, sometimes two or even three

aspects.

"So, I might be a death witch and a war witch. Lovely," I growled, as I pushed up from the bed. "Or maybe pestilence plus famine. Fan-freaking-tastic."

Mentally, I scooped up the entire mess and boxed it. Este had also asked me to try to imagine being her, at nine, threatened

by both our moms. Asked if I could have defied both Joanna and Dalia at that age.

No , I'd told her wearily. I do understand.

Then understand, also, that the longer the lie went on, the more impossible it became to tell you. I will always have your back. I will always be your biggest advocate and champion. I will battle beside you through anything. I love you, Zo. I couldn't lose you. And once I was older, and considered defying them, I was pretty sure I'd only blow up our whole world. At the very least, you would hate me; at the worst, Joanna would have whisked you off somewhere I'd never be able to find you again. Life is messy, Zo. But you're free now. Please don't hate me for it. I was only trying to hold on to us, to our friendship, praying for the day I could help you become who and what you were always meant to be. When we could be sister witches forever. I lived for that day.

Never hate you , I'd told her, always love you , and we'd hugged and made plans to go out tonight. Hit the Gossamer, then the Shadows. Be young and wild and free, party

like rock stars. Be passionately alive and thrilled to be.

It was long overdue, and I was more than ready.