Page 56 of Dark Flame

“They were earth witches.”

Freya blinks. “Yeah, how’d you guess?”

“Smelled it in their room. When Harlow told me what happened, I found it strange that two fire witches couldn’t put the blaze out.”

“You’re better than I guessed you’d be. Yeah, most trained witchescando other elemental magick outside of their own, but it’s typically weak. The Hartmans knew enough to keep the show up.”

My gaze returns to the shoe box. If Harlow knew all this, it’d kill her. Half her life was a lie. Her memories constantly stolen. The people she knew weren’t who they claimed. Her magick being forever weakened from her true state.

Her magick…

Again, I look at the box, but this time with different considerations. For her to learn the people she loved were the villains in her story, it’d make her angry. Viciously angry.

Angry enough to spark the match her magick needs.

Hell,I’mpissed.

For her. I’m pissed for my Hellion. That she was deceived and the people who called her their daughter and earned her affection when they didn’t deserve it. If they weren’t already dead, I’d rip them apart limb by limb myself. I’d burn them alive again. I’d allow her to throw the match and revel as she danced on their ashes, letting her take charge of her own story for once.

“Your fangs are peeking out,” Freya states in a sing-song voice. “So much emotion for the witch you hate. It’s interesting.”

“Your point?” I press into the chair, rubbing my tongue over my fangs until they ease the ache. “Surely this would spark a deep enough emotion to trigger her powers?”

Freya lifts a brow. “That’s a choice you need to make. Do you show her the evidence, knowing it’ll probably hurt her more than their deaths? Certainly anything more than you’ve done to her. All to trigger her magick, and thus the cure. Or do you save the pain, but possibly never gain the cure back?”

First one. Obviously.

I think.

Harlow will have to know, because the effect will be enough to meet my needs.

For Cora, I must.

But I don’t want to harm Sinclair that way.

There’s a strange notion of protection twisting me up, of wanting to keep her from this. It pulls on parts of me I didn’t know to exist. Parts that want to soothe and protect her from the pain, to save and comfort her and allow her to cling to the positive memories she has. The Hartmans are gone and she’s alive, and that’s all that matters. Regardless of which set of parents were her real ones,she’sliving with the outcome, and her continuously drawing breath is all that matters to me. That she’sokay—as much as she can be.

Freya gets to her feet, slapping her thighs. “Anyway, I’m off. You really are a pain in my ass.”

“Wait.” I snatch her arm before she can pull her disappearing act. “You knew, even back then. Why didn’t you help her?”

She doesn’t meet my eyes when she replies, “Because fate sucks. I can’t interfere in witches’ lives when it happens for a reason. That past had to occur so the present can pass as it should.”

“What does that mean?”

By the time I finish my question, my hand is gripping air, the First Witch gone.

Twenty-Two

HARLOW

I haveto get out of here.

I pace towards the right side of the room.

I have to get out of here.

Towards the left.