Score one for the good guys.
“Mom and Sebastian were the two most qualified witches to weigh-in on the problem, but because you didn’t like what was being said, you turned your back and left them in a desperate and dangerous situation.”
Before they can argue, I raise my hand. “I could get into everything that happened, but obviously you’ll just defend yourchoices, so there’s no use. That’s not why we’re here today, anyway.”
Laurel leans back in her throne and lifts her hands. “Then please, for the love of all that’s sacred, tell us why you are here so we can be done with this moratorium on how the evil Emberwood elders did you wrong.”
“I’m here to inform the elder council and the coven members that none of what happened that night needed to happen, of how you conspired against my mother because you wanted her place as the next high priestess of the coven, and of how you got rid of the people who knew what you did.”
Laurel tilts her head back and laughs out loud. “All right, we’re done here.”
“No, we’re not,” Wylder snaps, standing beside me.
Laurel’s shock at his outburst is actually comical. “Wylder? What’s gotten into you? Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for the sob story of the girl behind everything you lost.”
He drops his chin and, for once, the intensity of his hostility is directed at someone other than me. “Poppy had no part in anything that happened that night, and it was a cruel abuse of power for you to preemptively condemn her for it.”
He pulls out a worn iron-and-silver pocket watch with a cracked glass face and clicks the crown. The moment the mechanism clicks, the ghostly image of his mother takes form beside him. “And no, it wasn’t Poppy who opened my eyes to your duplicity. It was my mother, Dana.”
A riot of voices fills the room before the man with the silver hair stands and holds up his hand. “Silence!”
The gathering witches fall silent as confused gazes dart from Laurel to Wylder to Dana to the shocked elders. But while their gazes bounce around the room, my focus is solidly locked on the high priestess.
The color in Laurel’s face has drained and I can practically see the frantic rate her mental wheels are turning to figure out how to get out of this.
“Hello, Laurel.” Dana stands tall beside her son, her gaze locked on the other end of the table. “It’s been a long time.”
Laurel swallows and flicks her hand through the air. “This is obviously a Hallowind trick of spirit magic. Wylder, darling, your mother is dead.”
“Thanks to you!” Dana shouts. “You manipulated everything so perfectly, but what you didn’t expect was that Zoe, knowing she or Sebastian might not survive the ritual, cast an anchor spell to capture any lost Wiccan souls for a second chance. It was pure luck that Ken, Lainey, and I were caught in her spell.”
Laurel scoffs. “If that’s true, then why haven’t you come forward sooner?”
“Because the spell to release our spirits was bound within Hallowind House. It was only when Poppy returned with her memories that she was able to sense it. Then, Zoe instructed Wylder how to bind me to a Howe family heirloom.”
Dana looks to a middle-aged woman with auburn curls sitting along the wall, and I recognize her from the night I was kidnapped and held in the warehouse. I think she was the one taking the vials of my blood. “Jane, if you find an item of power in Ken and Lainey’s lives, Wylder will do the same for you and Andrei.”
There’s a collective buzz among the members, and the man with the silver beard once again raises his hand to hush the room. “Welcome back, Dana. Of course we’re thrilled to know the three of you weren’t completely lost, but that doesn’t change the fact that what Zoe did?—”
“Get over yourself, Stuart,” Dana says. “Zoe was a senior witch, next in line to be high priestess, and we left her twisting in the wind as if she were a new pledge. When Laurel came tous that night with the order to shut down the ritual in progress, we objected, but were told it was a direct order from the elders’ council.”
Stuart frowns. “There was no such order given. We didn’t even know the details of the ritual’s timing and location until after it was destroyed and you were dead.”
“But Laurel did.” People are now looking at me, waiting to hear the juicy details. “The real reason Laurel blocked my memories and banned me from my life was because I answered the door that night and was there when she convinced my father—a nocana—that he was the only one who could save my mother.”
“No,” Laurel protests, “you were banned because we’d seen how dangerous the Hallowind spirit affinity was, your bloodline was marked by a demon, and you posed a direct threat to not only our coven but to Emberwood and the non-magical world beyond.”
I roll my eyes and lean forward with my palms on the table, looking at the elders. “Do you believe that? There’s a reason Laurel survived that night. She sent three senior witches to counter Mom and Sebastian’s spell, she brought my father to break her concentration, and then she ducked out of the circle like a weaselly coward and left them all to die. Then, she spun the entire tragedy to her benefit and slipped right into my mother’s shoes.”
“How dare you!” Laurel pegs me with a look more feral than any I’ve received since arriving home. “I didn’t have to spin anything. My roots run just as deep in this world as yours. The Hallowinds have nothing on the Cromwells, and your mother had nothing going for her that I couldn’t match and surpass. I didn’t need to kill her to get what I deserved.”
“But you did,” Dana interrupts. “Your family roots might run as deeply, but you never embodied the ideals and faith inthe goddess the way Zoe did. We voted her as next to lead us because she exuded everything a high-priestess should be: power tempered with patience, inclusive and nurturing?—”
“Enough of this!” Laurel says. “Your delusions have been indulged long enough. As the high priestess of this coven, I want all three of you to leave. The poison you’re spewing serves no purpose except to weaken the bonds of the coven.”
“Bullshit.” I shake my head and look at all the bewildered sheep lining the room. “We’re not here to poison the coven. We’re here to point out that the coven has been poisoned.”
Wylder’s mom straightens. “It’s true. Zoe did nothing but try to secure the ley lines and stop a demon incursion. Laurel made her the scapegoat and built her place in this coven on a foundation of lies.”
