Chapter 6

I walked into a wall of silence. My home was never that quiet when I was here; usually Shadow was snoring or Fluffy was chasing cats in his sleep. I guessed Mum was asleep and maybe Arabella was too. I felt bad at the surge of hope that we could maybe forget going out for dinner.

I slunk into the kitchen to feed us. I fed Shadow and Fluffy first because I'm a good fur-mother, and while they were eating I boiled the kettle and microwaved a cup of blood. My stomach was rumbling and I suddenly realised that I could hear my mum's heart beating – worse, it was close. I whirled around just as there was a spate of obnoxious yapping.

‘Is that you, darling?' Mum called from the living room.

I bit back the snarky response ‘Who else were you expecting?' and managed a civil, ‘Yes, Mum,' instead.

I downed my warm blood, for once savouring its taste. I had needed it too much; I needed to be more careful. My awareness of Mum's heartbeats settled to a steady thrum, background noise that I could disregard. These days, I could easily pick out Shadow's racing heart and the constant comforting beat of Fluffy's; they sounded like home to me.

Since Mum was awake, I prepared a pot of tea – she preferred it to come in a pot. She walked in, her hair wrapped in a silk scarf and wearing her dressing gown and bright-pink, fluffy-heeled slippers. Who wore heels to relax? A psychopath, that's who. She was carrying Arabella.

‘I'm sorry if we woke you,' I offered. ‘We were trying to be quiet.'

She waved a hand dismissively. ‘It was Arabella rather than you. She thinks she's the size of your dog, Fuzzy.' Fuzzy was a ridiculous name for a dog: Fuzzy was a name for a muppet.

‘Fluffy,' I corrected flatly. ‘Arabella would be a single-bite snack for him.' I looked at Mum's pooch in warning in case she was half as smart as my canine and could understand.

My four-legged companions had disappeared and I assumed they were in my bedroom; they both seemed a little allergic to the Pomeranian. Who could blame them?

After the tea had brewed, I put some milk in Mum's and searched the cabinet for some biscuits. They were gone, eaten by me on a lonely day. I groaned inwardly; I hadn't been to the market for a while.

I passed her the tea and we sipped in awkward silence. Well, this wouldn't do. We wouldn't get anything resolved if we didn't speak. ‘We didn't get a chance to finish our conversation, Mum,' I started.

She sipped her tea carefully, avoiding my eyes. I was breaking the rules; we'd always used tea to avoid conversation. ‘I know that was upsetting for you,' she said carefully, setting down her cup. She laid her hands primly in her lap.

Upsetting?She'd uprooted my whole existence and she thought I was upset? I wasn't upset, I was fucking furious. I wanted to scream at her but I held it together and forced myself to take another drink before I spoke. ‘I'm not upset; I'm hurt and angry. Imagine how you'd feel if your parents had lied to you your entire life. It's a lot to take in. To accept.' To forgive.

She sighed. ‘We didn't have a choice, Elizabeth. You should have been a strong and powerful witch but your powers never manifested. We couldn't tell you the truth because you weren't a supernat. It wouldn't have been so bad if we weren't so closely aligned with Octavius, but we were. Are. We have to follow the letter of the law – we couldn't tell you and risk him finding out that you knew. It was bad enough when you discovered vampires existed. Gods, that was a headache and a half.'

It was time to confront what had been haunting me; I needed to know the truth. ‘Nana. She was a witch too?'

She must have been. I touched my triskele charm, remembered some odd things she'd said and done. I realised now that she'd been trying to let me know about the supernat world. She knew about my exceptional memory, and she'd hoped that if she dropped enough crumbs I'd put them together on my own.

She'd told me many times about the power of crystals but I'd dismissed it as ‘new-age nonsense'. More fool me: I'd remained clueless. My vaunted powers of memory and observation had failed me because I hadn't wanted to see.

Mum nodded and her chest puffed out with pride. ‘Yes, dear, she was. You come from a long line of powerful fire elemental witches.'

For fuck's sake. A long line – and for the longest time I'd been the dud who was ignorant of her fiery heritage. Well, I wasn't ignorant now.

I knew what I could do with the flames within me, but for some reason I didn't tell mum. Maybe I'd tell her after we'd had time to bond. A child-like part of me wanted her approval without my magic. Let her think I was an ordinary vampire – that would do for now.

‘Fire?' I asked casually, as if I didn't know full well what she was talking about.

‘Yes, fire. Of course, I can do many other things with magic but fire comes naturally, like breathing. The other magics require gestures and incantations, rituals and potions.' She paused. ‘Do you know any witches here?'

I thought of Elsa Wintersteen, Shirley Thompson and Vitus Vogler. Without exception, they'd all been a tad deadly. ‘Um, yes,' I said blandly. ‘I've met a few.' I tried to think of a good witch that I'd met and Sigrid popped into my mind right away. I'd almost forgotten about Gunnar's invite for dinner. ‘Actually, talking of witches, we're invited to my boss's house for supper tomorrow. His wife is a witch.'

Mum brightened and clapped her hands. ‘Oh, how delightful. Do you know what manner of witch she is?'

‘She's a hearth witch – at least that's what Gunnar calls her. I've never asked her directly.' I waited for my mother's face to screw into a moue of distaste at something so lowly, but her smile broadened.

‘Wonderful. I love a good hearth witch – they have such beautiful homes and cook such delicious food.' She hesitated then added, ‘Hilda is a hearth witch.'

I blinked. ‘Hilda? Our cook?'

‘Yes, dear.'

I stored that piece of information in my memory then groaned as I recalled telling Hilda on more than one occasion that her cooking was magic. She'd always grimaced and I'd thought that she had a problem accepting compliments like many women do; it was far easier to cling to our societally imposed low self-esteem. But no, Hilda was grimacing for a whole different reason.

‘I try and hire witches when I can,' Mum said primly.

‘Because they're better than anyone else?' I asked cynically, prepared for her to wax lyrical about how much better witches were than peds or werewolves or vampires.

‘No, because it is so hard to earn an honest living these days. Centuries of persecution mean that witches instinctively stay hidden. We can't play to our strengths, not unless we come to one of the supernat havens, like Portlock.'

‘Are there other places like this? In the UK, I mean?'

‘Of course! I'd love to take you to a few of them.' Her eager smile faded. That wouldn't be possible because Octavius would seize me for my one hundred years of conclave service if I set foot on UK soil. Officially I might be part of Connor's group but I had no doubt that Octavius would do anything to get me under his control again.

And after the one hundred years were up? By then my mum would be six feet under. There would be no mummy and daughter daytrips to British supernat havens in our future and we both knew it. ‘We'll have to enjoy Portlock,' I said finally.

She nodded. ‘Yes, I've heard so much about this town. I'm excited to meet its covens.'

‘Do you belong to a coven?' I asked curiously.

She gave a brisk nod. ‘I do. Actually, I lead all the covens in the United Kingdom.'

I sputtered. You didn't get to lead all the witches in the UK without stepping on some toes, so no doubt she'd made some powerful enemies. It was making more and more sense that my being turned was not about me but about her.

I desperately wanted to ask her about it but I couldn't figure out a way that didn't sound accusatory, and I didn't want to make her feel like I thought it was her fault. I put that aside – for now – but, man, the blows kept coming.

‘How did you keep that a secret?' I demanded.

‘You thought I did a lot of charity work and I do, but it's all related to my duties as High Priestix.'

That made sense. I'd been hurt by how often she'd been away; for a stay-at-home mum, she was never home. But if she were heading all the UK covens, she'd have to travel a lot. It didn't alleviate my sense of being unwanted and unloved, but at least it explained some of it. And maybe that was what all her social climbing had been about: a way of covering up her real activities? Maybe she'd really been encouraging me to mix with supernat children?

Before I could ask, my phone rang. I glanced down, expecting it to be Gunnar with another issue, but it was Liv. Why was she calling me? I swiped it open. ‘Liv. How are you?'

‘Peachy,' she said abruptly. ‘Did your mother make it into town?'

I frowned. ‘Yes, I didn't know you knew she was coming.'

‘Of course I did. I invited her,' she said stridently. ‘I didn't know she was your mom at the time, I only realised when she told me she wouldn't be staying at the Portlock Hotel with the others. Why did you never mention you had a witch mother? Ashamed?'

It felt like the walls were closing in on me. Liv had invited my mum here. Mum wasn't here to see me and confess her deepest, darkest secret face to face; she was here to see Liv. I felt such an idiot. Even with my mother's confessions, I'd somehow hoped that she was here for me, for us to build something. Instead the heat in my gut told me that I was a consolation prize, like always.

‘No,' I snarled, taking out some of my anger on Liv. ‘I would never have been ashamed of having a witch as mother.' If I'd known. I looked at my mother and met her eyes. ‘You invited her to Portlock?' I repeated, letting my hurt show on my face.

Mum flinched.

‘Yes,' Liv said impatiently. ‘I told you I'd called the four most powerful elemental witches in the world to come help with the barrier gems.'

‘Yes, you did. Here she is.' I handed over my phone.

‘Elizabeth…' Mum said, her tone pleading.

I turned and left the room. I was fresh out of fucks to give.