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“With what?” Randy demanded.

“Norah.”

Walter stared at me, his expression earnest. “How do you affect them?”

I took a deep breath. “When we do magic together, their magic levels up.”

He nodded. “And what else? Is there something else?” Walter asked.

Liam clucked his tongue. “There is something a little different. Ever since she came, we’ve been able to control an element. I can make fire appear in my hands and use it,” Liam said.

“And water?” Walter asked, looking around.

Gabe nodded, not even bothering to look at him.

“Earth for me,” Randy said.

“Wind,” Travis tacked on.

Walter moved around in a circle, waiting for each of them to tell him what they could do. When they were finished, he moved to me. “And you’re spirit.”

“Spirit?”

He nodded. “Spirit. That’s why you can make them stronger. You give yourself to them whenever they need. It’s both an amazing talent and a tragic one.”

My stomach twisted. I didn’t like the sound of that.

“What do you mean?” Travis asked. “It wears her out sometimes, but we haven’t seen any other side effects.”

Walter ran his hand over his forehead and then took a seat in the recliner. “This was why we were forced to tell you you could not be with one another. There are stories about covens like you. One female, four male Enforcers. They are stronger than any other coven because of the bonds between them. When their bonds grow, such as with intimacy, so does their magic. It gets stronger and stronger until…”

“They implode,” Gabe said.

Walter looked up, his fingers tapping on his chin. “How did you know?”

“My grandfather said he heard rumors.”

“They aren’t rumors,” Walter said. “It’s the truth.”

“But we couldn’t find anything about it in the Order books,” Liam said.

“You wouldn’t,” Walter said. “All the stories were erased from journals. The Orders vowed to never let anything like that happen again. So, when we heard that your fifth was a female, our mind went there. It wasn’t until we saw you with one another that we feared that you had already taken your relationships to the forbidden level.”

“Forbidden?” I asked, about to put up a fight.

“It was for everyone’s own good.”

“So, how many covens has this happened to?” Liam asked. His face held that open look like it always did when he was interested and learning something.

“They’re rare,” Walter said. “Very rare. They’re power cannot be matched, but it comes at a cost.” He looked up, his eyes sad. “You’ll have to be careful. I know you don’t understand our decision and I can’t speak for the others, but I thought it best that we at least try to help you guys through this. Use your magic in stride.”

“Nothing’s happened to us yet,” I said, grasping at straws. That wasn’t entirely true because how many times had I gotten depleted after we did magic with one another. I’d been taking the brunt of it, but that came with the territory, right?

At that moment, Granny’s words filtered through my head that she’d told me all along. I wasn’t safe, but I was also exactly where I should be. Was this all destined then?

“Maybe not yet,” Walter said, “But there isn’t a coven in history like yours that hasn’t just…”

“When we say implode, we mean…?” Randy asked.