Page 28 of The Damned (Coven of Bones #3)

M A R G O T

Amelia’s bedroom had dark textured wallpaper, golden filigree adorning it with antique furniture and accents along the walls.

The built-in bookshelves were painted the same black, covered by books of all shapes and sizes and genres.

Her bed was covered with pillows, a mix of red silken sheets and velvet throws making it look like an inviting haven of mixed colors and textures.

There was a book tossed over the foot of the bed, the weathered cover and spine hinting that it had been read more than once.

It felt like the kind of room that had been built to remind her of Crystal Hollow, of the gothic luxury I’d grown up in, but whereas most rooms designated to Red witches were overwhelming in the presence of the color of our magic, this had been done moderately with balance at the forefront.

“You have excellent taste,” I said as she guided me to the chair in front of her vanity.

My face stared back at me in the mirror as I lowered myself to sit, the comfortable cushion absorbing my weight and taking some of the pressure off my feet and my ankle that had begun to ache since I’d twisted it in the sand.

The mirror on the wall matched the vanity itself, hand-carved designs scrawled into the black surface and painted with a deep antique gold that had lost the shimmer that might have made it too gaudy to be pretty.

I turned my gaze away from my reflection to run my hands over the art of the vanity, greatly preferring the beauty of craftsmanship to the face that would stare back at me.

A face that hadn’t brought me anything but pain.

“You are perhaps the first Red witch I have encountered who did not obsess over their reflection the moment I sat them in this chair,” Amelia said, toying with the ends of my hair where it met my shoulders.

She fluffed the layers, and I felt the weight of her stare on the side of my face.

It left me little choice but to meet her gaze in the mirror, to carefully skate over my own reflection to give her a small smile and a shrug before my attention shifted to the intricacy of the mirror itself.

The border reminded me of the gate that had separated Hollow’s Grove from Hell, and I couldn’t help the tremble that came to my hands.

I held them tightly in my lap, hoping to disguise the moment of weakness so that Amelia wouldn’t see it.

“It is most ironic, considering you have one of the most objectively breathtaking faces of all the Red witches that have come to the Second Circle,” she said, raising a hand to wrap around me.

She moved slowly, as if she were already aware of my skittishness.

Her thumb and finger caught my chin, tipping them up so I couldn’t not look at my own face without drawing further attention to my reluctance to do so.

Upturned mahogany eyes stared back at me, burning like embers on the edge of being smothered.

My cheekbones were high, my lips soft and plump without overwhelming the more delicate features of my face.

My skin was ivory, the slight bronze of a tan gracing my skin that never seemed to go away.

“I’ve heard that a lot,” I forced myself to say, nodding through the pain of that reality.

When I’d been only a girl, the Council had identified me as the beauty of my generation, and for the Red witches who prided themselves on things like sex and beauty and attraction, it had been a victory.

A championship of excellent breeding. Someone to be paired off with a handsome man in the future so we could continue to grace the Erotes line with beautiful children.

It was the same proclamation and attention that had brought Itan to my door at night, seeking to own something that was never his to touch. A proclamation that had confirmed me to be my aunt’s eventual heir, and what I now knew had condemned me to the fate the Council chose.

The ends justified the means. My assault was simply an unfortunate consequence that they brushed off.

Amelia smiled, returning her hands to my hair.

She sprayed it with water and applied product to it, beginning the process of braiding it into small sections to let the wave set and refresh after my journey through Purgatory.

“When I was young, the minister noticed me. I believe it began as an attempt to arrange for me to marry his son, but he eventually fell in love with another woman and married her against his father’s wishes.

I thought it would be done and maybe I would have a chance of choosing a husband for myself, as best we were allowed at the time anyway.

I had no shortage of suitors knocking on my parents’ door, but the minister refused them all in favor of taking me as his second wife.

My parents were thrilled,” Amelia said with a chuckle, but there was no humor in it.

I found myself looking into the mirror of my own volition now, watching her face as she worked on my hair and the emotions that played over her features so plainly.

It was such a stark contrast to the way the witches of the Coven worked to disguise any and all emotions as a sign of weakness.

“Did you have to marry him?” I found myself asking, thinking of how old he must have been to have had a son her age.

The parallel between the minister and Itan, who had a nephew my age, wasn’t lost on me, and I found myself waiting for the moment she would give me a happy ending to the story that hadn’t ended well for me.

“No,” she said, giving me a rueful twist of her lips.

“I’d gone to the church to pray one day, and he caught me there alone after most of the others had left for the night.

He didn’t appreciate that I refused him that day, so he accused me of being a witch and they put me in jail.

I was there for two weeks while he waited for me to repent under threat of death before Charlotte made her deal with Lucifer.

His children went on to accuse countless others after she rescued me and brought me to Crystal Hollow, and I’m sure they were all killed for similar reasons as me.

Petty reasons. All those people who died during the witch trials, none of them were actually witches.

My favorite fact of our history is had it not been for their petty jealousy and accusations, our kind would have never come to be…

” She trailed off, allowing those words to sink in.

“You all chose to become the very thing they’d accused you of,” I said, but there was no judgment in the words.

I understood the choice they’d made, because how could I not?

To be condemned for something everyone involved knew wasn’t true was a frustration that none deserved, false allegations that would change the course of history forever.

“We were dying either way. What difference did it make? So when Lucifer asked me what kind of magic I would like to possess, I knew I wanted nothing more than to take all the jealousy and desire that had condemned me to my cell and make it my power. I wanted to take what they had made into a weakness, what they’d turned into something abhorrent, my beauty, and make them kneel before it.

That is what the darkest part of being a Red witch is all about. Finding power in desire.”

Everything in me stilled, her words loosening something in my mind.

They were an echo of my mother’s—of what the binding ritual had done to my magic when it separated me from the Source.

“The darkest part?” I asked, trying to feign casualness.

I didn’t want to raise any flags about what she might reveal out of fear that she would stop sharing her story, that she would stop teaching me the lore that I’d never be able to get from history books and a corrupt lineage.

“Yes,” she said, her smile twisting in a way that came off self-deprecating. “It was not my finest moment, though I like to believe it was understandable under the circumstances.”

She didn’t offer any further information, and my curiosity got the best of me as I pivoted my body in the chair suddenly, spinning to meet her stare head-on and foregoing the mirror entirely.

“But what you’re talking about is lust, ” I argued, surprising even myself as I reached out and took her hand in mine.

Touching another Red always brought a small measure of comfort, because I could not easily manipulate them to my will.

Touching another Red didn’t come with the same consequences as touching all others.

“What else would I be talking about?” she asked, her smile faltering as she stared down at me with such confusion. I couldn’t ignore the missing pieces, the implications in her story and her statement about our magic.

“But lust is the only magic we have. You said it is the darkest part of it, and that implies that there is something light in us,” I said, my desperation clear. Her brow furrowed as she studied me, stroking her thumb over the back of my hand.

“Magic is neither good nor evil. It simply exists within all of us, but it is balanced. Every darkness has a light,” she said, using her hold on my hand to tug me toward the window overlooking the gardens.

Couples lingered in the shadow of the trees and flowers, stealing moments of intimacy.

She pointed to one couple in particular, a brunette woman leaning against a tree while a blond woman cupped her cheek, leaning in close enough to touch their foreheads together.

The moment was so reminiscent of the one I’d shared with Beelzebub in the sanctuary before entering the Second Circle that my breath caught.

“When you look at them, what do you see?” she asked, turning her attention from the couple to watch me as I studied them.

“I see lust,” I said, my eyes falling to the place where the blonde trailed her fingers up the slit in the thigh of the brunette’s dress.