If I still had a heart, it would surely be pounding now. “What do you gain?”
“You promise to share the knowledge with the rest of our coven. You teach us how to access the magic.”
“You claim to know my legacy, and yet you seem ignorant of the nature of who I serve. If you wish to access the deep magic, then you will have the Darkness to contend with.”
The woman’s smile grows. “Then we shall contend with him. Do we have a bargain?”
I hesitate. My last attempt to crack open the Source went terribly wrong. There is no guarantee that it will go right this time. And even if it does, the Darkness surely will not be pleased that I shared the secret with another coven. I study the witch before me. She is confident—ludicrously so. She does not understand the Darkness the way I do. She does not comprehend the full extent of his power, or she would not be so foolish as to propose such a plan. What does it matter if I share the secret with her? The Darkness and I, together in our power, will crush her and her coven to dust.
We stand there, two witches in the dark under the blood moon, each sure she will get what she desires.
Only one of us is right.
“A bargain,” I whisper.
22
Iwas flying through the air as I entered my own thoughts again, just in time to land on my back with a merciless thump. I lay gasping, all the air gone from my lungs, head spinning, teeth chattering with cold.
“Wren! Talk to me, kid, are you okay?”
It was Jess’ voice. I felt her hands pressed to my forehead, slapping gently at my cheek, shaking my shoulder. I wrenched my eyes open, and saw her terrified face swim into focus, only to be shoved roughly aside as my mother and Persi took her place.
“I’m… I’m okay…” I managed to force out. “I… she showed me… I understand.”
“I know,” Jess said. “I saw it, too. I was in the circle.” She sounded as badly shaken as I felt.
The three of us: Jess, Sarah, and me, all joined together through the same memories. Bernadette’s painting made sense at last; she’d foreseen that journey, and now I had lived it.
I felt three pairs of hands help me up into a sitting position, but all I wanted to do was bat them away. I didn’t have time for this. I didn’t want to be coddled. I finally understood. My blurry vision began to resolve, and I focused it right back onto Sarah Claire.
She still hovered within the boundaries of the circle. Our strange connection through her memories had not managed to free her from the trap Jess had laid.
“What happened, Wren?” my mother asked. “Are you all right? What did she show you?”
“Everything,” I said, and I could hear the wonder in my own voice. “I know how she first encountered the Darkness. He saved her life—the whole village—and then she saved his. And then he promised her power… so much power…”
I met Sarah’s gaze. She looked triumphant, like she had just proved an unprovable point beyond a shadow of a doubt.
“And so now you see,” she said in a voice vibrating with emotion, “why I cannot simply let go. I have seen it, what will be mine.”
“Oh, Sarah,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry, but that’s just not true.”
Her mouth twitched like she was swallowing a curse she longed to hurl at me. “Of course, it’s true.”
“He showed you your desire. He showed you what he wanted you to see, because he needed you. He tried to steal the power of the Gateway, and he nearly died. He knew that whoever tried next would likely be a sacrifice. He used you.”
Sarah was shaking her head violently. “You know nothing, child. Nothing of which you speak.”
“You think he didn’t try to show me those very same things?” I asked. “That night at the lighthouse, do you really believe he didn’t try to convince me the way he convinced you?”
She wanted to shout, I knew, but the words wouldn’t come. Her body convulsed with the words she wasn’t speaking.
“When I walked into the ocean, I saw it—the same vision he showed to you, or a version of it, anyway. The Darkness and a witch, as one, a new and terrifying being with dizzying power. He showed me what he thought I would want—what he thought every witch must want, because it is the only thing a monster like him thinks about. But he was wrong. I didn’t want it, and it’s the only reason I was able to break his grip on me.”
“All your words have proven,” Sarah hissed, “is that you are weak. That is why I am still here.”
“No, Sarah,” I said, and there was sadness in my voice. “The weakness is your own.”
