Page 112 of Blood and Moonlight

We turn one last corner and Gregor stops inside the edge of a shadow, facing an open space bright with moonlight. Like many plazas throughout the city, this one is set lower in the ground and ringed with three steps, but it’s much larger than any I’ve seen. Selenae gather within like it’s a park on a sunny afternoon, some spreading blankets for picnics. On the far side, a group of mostly women work looms and spinning wheels. They sit in full moonlight, singing as they weave silver-gray fabric thatshimmers like ripples on water. Moonweave. Others stir boiling vats of violet dye. The cloth they lift out to examine is as dark as the night sky.

In the very center of everything lies a shallow pool. Most neighborhoods in Collis are built around a communal well or fountain, but this is too small to be a water supply. The textured black stone bottom is only a few inches below the surface. Round patterns under the water mirror those on the face of the moon, which I should have expected. The edge is a halo of golden flames.

I shiver as I realize the crown of fire represents a solar eclipse. They’ve covered the Blessed Sun with the moon. Blaspheme.

Gregor watches me take it all in, saying nothing. Aside from a few infants snuggling in parents’ arms, there are no children younger than twelve. A half dozen young people near my age sit in a circle, passing an object from hand to hand, each taking several seconds to hold it. “At what age are Selenae introduced to moon magick?” I ask.

“At the first crescent after their fourteenth birthday,” he answers. “It can be overwhelming, so we start when power is weaker and introduce them gradually over two weeks as the moon waxes and lasts longer, then celebrate their first full moon.”

There’s a long pause before he continues. “A young person’s initiation is usually done by their moonparent. Blood must be exposed to moonlight to wake the magick within, so the skin is cut. The first time leaves a distinctive scar.”

Gregor opens his right hand to show me. In the center of his palm is a raised purple mark in the shape of a crescent, no larger than a pea. “Only a drop is required,” he explains. “Once the moonlight touches it, the magick conducts through the whole body.”

I study his scar, puzzled. “That was never done to me.”

“Sometimes it happens by accident.” My uncle takes my left hand and raises it, pointing to my middle finger, where a violet spot sits half under the nail—the place I got a splinter that night on the Sanctum. “I could see it from the street as you stood by the statue,” he says. “I realized then that not only did you have moon magick, but that it was fully awake.”

I stare at the mark, remembering how sharp the blood had tasted in my mouth and Perrete’s scream reaching me from an impossible distance. And then I fell, and the moon flashed through my vision and for an awful second Iwasher—just like with Nichole.

Gregor drops my hand. “The moon works in mysterious ways. Though I’ve always watched over you from a distance, that night I felt compelled to find you. I can only think it was calling me to be with you in that moment.”

I smile in spite of all the horror of that night. “I’m not sure I would’ve been receptive had you tried to speak to me.”

His scarred lips twist up, yet the sadness remains in his shining eyes. “Perhaps not, but the result was you discovered much on your own, without guidance.”

I gaze out into the plaza, the need to join them surging through me. “I’m here now.”

Gregor clears his throat. “Yes, Catrin, you are. And while your magick is already awake and the time is not traditional, I’d like to introduce you as I should have. As I would have if you were raised among us.”

His use of my Hadrian name is deliberate, saying I can do this on my own terms. “All right.”

He lifts the silver chain from around his neck over his head, cupping the glowing teardrop-shaped pendant in his hand. “This is also when we test for blood magick, to see if thoughts can be heard through a moonstone.”

“You already know I have it.”

“True, but I’d still like to say something.” Gregor takes my hand once more, holding his underneath with the moonstone between them, then stretches them out together into the silver light as though to catch it like falling rain.

The world becomes instantly clearer, as if I’m waking up from a deep sleep or coming out from underwater, suddenly able to breathe and see again. Like I’m finally home after a long journey.

My uncle says nothing, but I hear his voice in my head as I heard Marguerite’s, coming through the stone against my hand.

The night welcomes you.