Page 1

Chapter 1

Allie

The Goddess calls for her Tithe on a Friday night.

It’s inconvenient. I had plans to stay in tonight, catch up on some TV, maybe get tipsy off the half-full box of wine in my fridge and make a sad little charcuterie board out of whatever I could dig out of my pantry. An exciting night, I know, but that’s just me. Living for thrills.

Instead, I’m standing outside in an unseasonably chilly May evening, surrounded by three hundred other witches in an upstate New York wood.

Shivering against the stiff breeze through the trees, I'm reminded for the hundredth time that I should’ve changed before the drive here. I’m still wearing what I put on for work this morning: a knee-length, sleeveless purple dress, flats, and a light cardigan. The outfit was perfectly fine during the sunny afternoon, but is doing nothing now to keep out the cold. I’d be much warmer in one of the thick woolen cloaks and petticoats my foremothers used to wear when they practiced here.

The call about the Tithe came during my lunch break, and since coven lands are a three-hour drive north from the little town of Beech Bay where I live, I hadn’t had the time to swing by my apartment and change. Well, not unless I wanted to slink in late and embarrass my mother.

Though, maybe that’s unavoidable at this point.

I shift uncomfortably in shoes meant for brunch and Target runs, not traipsing through tangled woods, and really, really hope this doesn’t last long. I’m not thrilled with the idea of nodding off on the long drive back home. Or freezing my ass off out in this forest.

A ripple of movement and murmurs snakes through the crowd as the coven leaders take to the worn wooden dais near the front, speaking among themselves. Their faces are in shadow, but it’s easy enough to mark each familiar witch by posture and aura of power alone.

Beyond the dais, the rest of us stand in near-darkness. It’s a new moon tonight, and besides the stars the only other light comes from the torches burning on the dais.

And from the faint glimmering of the Veil.

The night air is crisp and fresh, but as always with gatherings like this, it’s tinged with a faint metallic edge. Magick, pure and potent, weaves its way through the crowd. It’s not only from the witches, but seeping from the Veil itself—one of thirteen portals spread across the globe that separate the human world from the realms beyond.

It’s the reason we’re all here. Tonight, one of us will step through that ethereal doorway and straight into the demon realm, bound by the Goddess to marry a demon of Her choosing.

For now the Veil is quiet, the light within opalescent and shifting lazily. When it’s time, we’ll all know.

Everyone is nervous. I don’t need to have any clairsentient abilities to perceive it. Stooped shoulders, tight features, nervous fidgeting, the coven is clearly on edge tonight and it’s not hard to understand why.

For the first time since… well, for the first time in any of our recorded histories, a witch was sent back.

Emilia was the last Tithe bride, and the first one in my lifetime. It’s usually a full generation between choosings—the witch selected is married to her demon and spirited immediately away into their realm to live out her days and uphold the bargain.

Emilia, however, came back.

Barely a year ago, she slipped through the Veil with her demon husband, and two weeks ago she stumbled back out.

Emilia had thrummed with power when she went in. Hers was a magick of manifestation and transformation, gifts reserved for the truly powerful. When she was chosen last spring, it had hardly been a surprise. She’d met her demon husband with courage and had been standing tall and proud when the rest of us had retreated silently into the night to leave her to her fate.

Now, she’s a shell, hardly able to summon a glass of water or warm up a cup of cold tea. It’s shocking to hear rumors of what she’s become—painfully thin and drained almost completely of her power. Nobody knows why, or at least nobody has toldmewhy, but the demon realm seems to have taken it from her.

There’s been no word from her demon husband, and Emilia won’t speak of him. Rumor has it that she weeps when she’s asked, and mumbles to herself about going back when she’s strong enough.

Whether she ever will be strong enough remains an open question.

Worse yet, it’s whispered that the magick which holds the Veil is waning. No one will come right out and say it, but witch brides and their magick are the single boon the demons exact to hold up their side of the bargain. It keeps them in their realm and stops them from meddling with the souls in ours. In return, our magick sustains their realm and maintains the Veil.

How it works? I have no idea. All of it’s beyond me, truly.

Just because my mother, Esme Hawthorn, is this coven’s High Priestess, that doesn’t make me privy to all the secrets coven leadership holds close.

It doesn’t make me privy to anything, actually, not with as powerless and disappointing as I turned out to be.

Some witches in the coven, the strongest ones,aretold. They’re coached and prepared before each choosing. Emilia was part of that chosen few, hand-selected and nurtured, all but guaranteed to be one of the witches considered by the Goddess to become a demon’s bride.

It’s absolutely no surprise to me that I didn’t end up in that group.