Page 52

Forty-Eight

HARLOW

I’m woken by the clasping of metal around my wrists, and like a veil has been lifted off my face, I’m instantly alert, searching for anything telling about where I am.

The space is dim, but not as bad as the cells Alec kept me in. It’s small—suffocatingly small—and only deep inhales keep me focused on the fact I’m fucking chained, which is a much bigger problem than my claustrophobia flaring up. Cuffs are latched around my wrist, connected to chains bolted to the wall.

No, not the wall. But something… It’s dirt, like a small cave, the ceiling dripping with roots. There’s a familiarity in this too, like I’ve been here before.

Been here in my nightmares, in the flashes of concealed memories discovered last night.

I’ve been here in the past.

Fuck. Fear can’t take hold just yet. Not if I want to survive, so swallowing through the short breaths and clammy skin, I grab onto the chains, yanking them until determining my mortal-level strength won't do shit against them. The metal around my wrists line so well with the old scars there and it all comes crashing down.

The similarities. The small space, the handcuffs.

Wherever I am, this is where I was kept when I was eight and stolen from Banff the first time.

Something scrapes nearby. I’m not alone, but the cave is too dim to make out the obscure blob coming toward me, the length of the cave stretching farther than I initially believed; the peek of light, of nighttime, far away.

Alec! I call through the bond, hoping, praying he hears me, while yanking on the chains as I try to channel every ounce of my power into something tangible. Something that will free me.

No response.

Hecate, find him for me. Please.

“Give up. The cuffs are enchanted that even your magick won’t be able to break them.”

That’s impossible.

The blob splits apart into two. Two people approach, one casting a small fire in the corner to light up the cave.

Then, and now, nothing’s changed. Not the cuffs, the cave, or the people behind it.

They’re strangers. Their expressions blank and nothing like the affection I knew. Everything about them is a premonition of events to come.

“Mom. Dad.”

I’d like to believe they’re ghosts haunting me—if ghosts were real. Witches go to the otherworld, Summerland, to be with Hecate or get reincarnated, more often determined by having unfinished business or not. Human spirits pass on to Heaven or Hell, decided by their life’s deeds, and vampires go nowhere, their bodies left for nature to reclaim.

But these aren’t ghosts. They’re real unfortunately. They’re the people I once loved, who called me theirs.

Everything, what they hid from me, is so much clearer now. Perhaps it’s always been and I couldn’t see it, but clearer than ever, is their own shadows clinging to them. Darkness, as thick and as poignant as mud, and as suffocating as this cave is. They’re so encased, it’s taken the red hair I knew and the brown from the picture and transformed my ex-mother’s hair into a deep black.

“How? You died.” I killed you.

Mom—Violet steps forward. “You believed you did because we wanted you to.”

“But your bodies?—”

“Weren’t ours,” Arthur, the man I knew as Dad, interrupts. “You did exactly what we hoped.”

Rocks settle in the base of my stomach because if the burned bodies weren’t them, then— “ Who did I murder?”

“Mortals. No one important.”

“But why?” I let my eyes travel between the two of them before jerking against the cuffs, the current predicament more important than deaths they may never tell me the truth over. “What am I doing here?”

Violet waves her hands and black smoke materializes two chairs. They each sit in one facing me, as though conducting an interview. “I’m sure you have questions, and we’ll be happy to answer them while we wait.”

My blood freezes over. “Wait for what?”

“The reckoning, of course,” Violet replies, making zero sense. She crosses one leg over the other, her hands resting primly on her knees. Even her mannerisms are so different than the woman I knew. “You’re about to become even more powerful than you already are, Harlow Sinclair.”

While so many questions arise, her saying my surname and the one they claimed as their own for so long distracts me, forcing another thought instead. One whispered with the weight of our history.

“You killed my parents.”

“We needed you,” Arthur chimes nonchalantly. “More than they ever would. You’re meant for bigger things.”

“Like utilizing black magick,” I guess, willing it or my fire magick to function. Anything to help me out of here. Instead, I’m left with a pitiful attempt at yanking the chains, my skin reminding me of the last time I did this and the marks I got to show for it.

Violet watches my attempt with pursed lips. “They’re charmed to not break. And yes, Darkness is a very big part of your future. You should be thanking us.”

“You’re monsters,” I spit. “Murdering monsters who kidnap children and steal identities.”

Violet uncrosses her legs to lower her hands, woven together, between her knees. She leans closer, her depthless eyes taking on a near familiar flicker. “We work for a higher power. A war is coming, and there’s a few key players to ensure witches are on the winning side. Unfortunately, the winning side is not the one Hecate insists on being.” She speaks the Goddess’ name like it’s poison. “Hecate has chosen the side of good, when we must follow a different path. Earth will be in danger and if we wish to survive, we need to become soldiers. Light magick will not save us.”

Higher power. Coming war. Soldiers.

“You’re crazy.”

She shrugs. “I’m not. Something’s coming, and we have to be ready. The man we work for needs you at your best.”

I scan them, noting what “best” they mean. “You’ve been teaching me black hexes for years and wiping my memory of them. Wiping my memory of everything .”

“Yes,” Arthur continues, “you were much trickier than we expected. Our original job was to kidnap a Sinclair descendant, which is why we tricked our way into your coven. Your mother would have never turned Dark, but you? At eight, you were untapped, not yet come into power, which meant we could shape you into anything. We took you, as per our orders, but then instead of handing you over, we were asked to raise you, teach you the better ways. The vampirism cure in your veins was created from black magick; don’t know if you ever figured that tidbit out, so you had great potential already. Essentially, you were halfway there.”

I stare down at my hands, as though envisioning the cure. Logically, it makes sense. Magick like this isn’t natural, nothing gifted by the Goddess. But it also means the High Priestess who put the cure in my veins dabbled in it, and it’s a fact no one’s ever mentioned and I never put together.

Arthur chuckles. “Your coven has quite the history with black magick. Why do you think it’s taboo now? When your powers came in, you were stronger than anticipated, though it shouldn’t be entirely surprising. Sinclairs are some of the original, and with the cure, you’re a level above the rest of us.”

A slither coasts around my neck and for once, I’m happy to have the Darkness because I might need it to fight theirs.

“As a result, we had to bind your magic,” he continues. “As you got older, you got stronger. Every time we taught you a spell, your fire responded to the Darkness, even before you had the capacity to use that kind of magick. We knew it was only a matter of time before locking it wouldn’t be possible—which ended up being for the best. The cure may be infused with Darkness, but it’s not nearly enough. You at full strength? Your element mixed with Darkness…you’d be the ideal weapon—once activated.”

If my stomach could drop lower, it would.

Darkness snakes down my spine, reminding me it’s still here, its low hissing voice urging me to destroy them.

I jerk. It’s still here. The cuffs are supposed to render my magick useless, but they’re not. At least not all of it.

I drop onto my hands, pretending exhaustion has taken me out, but I dig my nails into the dirt, aiming to fill myself with every kind of power I can pull upon.

“Activated?” I repeat, wanting the rest of the story and to keep them talking so they don’t pay attention to my hands.

“Murder creates Darkness. You needed to kill, but we knew you, Harlow. You were a Sinclair through and through, no matter how much we tried to alter that. You wouldn’t do it willingly.”

Then—no. Now…it’s debatable.

“We planned the attack with help from vampires. Bloodsuckers had no idea they wouldn’t make it out alive, and believed they’d receive sips of your blood—the cure—by the end. When they came, we fought to make it look realistic but knew you’d never leave your parents.” Arthur’s smirk turns mocking, my hate only growing that much more. “And you didn’t, not once disappointing us that night. What we didn’t expect was your magick to be that strong. We underestimated it after years of hindering your abilities. The explosion took us by surprise, but we got out of there in time and popped back to drop the drugged humans we had waiting. They burned in your fire alongside the vampires, and you were never the wiser. Pulled you from the wreckage and went into hiding.”

“Of course,” Violet speaks up, “we never foresaw the possibility of you extending yourself so far that your magick faded. What you gained with the murders was almost immediately expelled, though hung around. Black magick is similar to elemental magick in that it’s almost alive, so it recognized everything you were, are, and could be and lingered, waiting for the time you’d get your abilities back. Which was only a matter of time; no witch could live long without them. We’ve been brainstorming how to help you retrieve them—without making ourselves known—when that vampire showed up and took you away. Our orders changed once again, and we watched and waited.”

“He’ll come for me. The instance the sun sets.”

“We’ll be gone by then,” Violet says. “Your mate will end his search shortly after he begins.”

What does that mean? The words stick to my throat because I’m also not entirely sure I want to know.

If black magick chose me, then I need it to choose me again. To protect me. To defend. And I focus all my energy into channeling the very, semi-living power I have no clue how to control, while also trying to keep them talking.

“What mate?” I ask, downplaying the effect of her words.

Arthur laughs. “You always were a shit liar. Our alliance is partners with a vampire, so we’ve been let in on all your new secrets.”

Another vampire knows about Alec and me?

“Why me? That’s the only part I don’t understand. You could have stolen any witch.”

“The four mortals who were given the gift of the elements became the first four witches in existence. A Sinclair being one of them. You are the remaining heir of that bloodline, so you are one of the four chosen.”

Thank fuck for Morgan’s recent lesson in witch history. But if I’m one of the four, that means three other bloodline heirs are in danger. Or will be. Or have been.

“Who are the other three?”

Silence from them both, though it’s not entirely unexpected.

Arthur goes on, “Once all four of you are Dark, there is a ceremony our High Priestess will complete to inject the combined power through all witches.”

All…they’re planning on turning everyone away from the Goddess.

“So what now?” I tug on the chains. “We sit here until I fully turn to your side?”

“You already have.” Violet huffs. “We’ve been at this for decades, so don’t think us stupid. When you regained your magick a few nights ago, Darkness infused with your element. You are the exact witch our cause needs. Now, we wait for sundown, when you’ll be retrieved and brought to another place to be kept safe until the time of the war when we’ll need you.”

“Which is when?”

She shrugs. “In a few months or years perhaps. Until then, you’ll continue developing your powers under new teachers.”

“You still sound crazy.”

“You’re the lucky one, Harlow. The other three witches, while we need them, they’re less important. You, as the only vampire cure in current existence, are a very valuable commodity and our boss wants you all to himself for an insurance policy. If the war doesn’t turn in the way they think, you might be their Plan B.”

“And you? When this war doesn’t go how you want, you’ll die for this supposed cause?”

“Yes,” both echo at the same time. It’s Violet who continues, “We’re doing this for witches. When the four bloodlines join, our High Priestess will be performing magick to save everyone. Everyone will understand eventually.”

“You can both fuck off.”

The tunnel behind them suggests how low the sun is getting. Now dusk, the trees barely filtering any light through. If sundown is coming, I need to get out of here before then.

So I focus. Magick is ruled by emotions and I’m about to feel stronger than ever. Emotions greater than what I felt when supposedly killing them.

This time, I won’t miss.