A mansion shaped like a human’s, but not designed us such. Rather than glass and refined finishings, Sloane’s home is bark and vines, like a hovel in a fantasy movie. Vines twist intricate patterns up the uneven bark walls and line the glassless oval windows. They’re charmed to block the wind the way glass would.
Forgetting I’m supposed to be following her, I force my feet in front of one another, stepping lightly on the smooth floor, even while my head doesn’t stop roving, taking in the branches above head that criss-cross over the ceiling in a winding pattern. Leaves hang low, reminding me of Banff’s forests.
“It’s lovely,” I breathe, reaching up for a low-hanging branch. For a moment, my heart slows, forgetting everything else but the uniqueness of my kidnapper’s house.
“I’m aware.” Sloane rests her hand on popped-out strip of bark. “It’s built upon my family’s magick; there are centuries of power within this place.”
“Do you miss your earth magick?”
“Sweet girl.” With a slow spreading smirk, green lights up her palm and a vine lining the floor shoots up to greet its owner. “You know as well as I do that I never lost my powers. It’ll all make sense to you soon, if you’re ready to move on?”
As she pats the vine a final time, my own skin feels clammy. Already, I’m questioning all I know, so an entire conversation will destroy everything. When I expected a cage and yelling, Sloane’s oddly cooperative.
For that reason alone, I exhale through my nerves.
“And if I choose not to join you, where will my bedroom be?” What she’s not telling me is choice isn’t an option. She wouldn’t have done all this only to allow me to walk away.
“We’ll visit your other options later. First, you need to see something.”
At the end of the hallway, a wide staircase is cut from logs, the smooth banister gleaming with—starlight?—glitter. Sloane rests her hand on it and leads me down the steps.
“This place is unreal.” Another compliment, but it’s too true to lie about.
She peeks over her shoulder. “It is, isn’t it? It’s a shame you’re led to believe certain facts about us and not understandthat we’re simply a coven, like you, very much steeped in earth magick, existing for ourselves.”
Skipping past the Darkness and murdering…
As we enter the house’s foyer, the ceiling changes from branches and leaves to low-hanging fern—some low enough that my fingertips brush as I stretch. Everything flows together, distracting nearly to the point I skip memorizing the route, which could be the difference between escape and captivity if this doesn’t end peacefully.
“Tell me what you know about your birth mother.”
Turning away from the house’s beauty, Sloane’s abrupt question returns me to the present—to the stomach-clenching nerves of the situation. “Why should I?”
“It’s only fair a witch knows her history. I’d like to fill in the gaps of yours.”
“She’s from the Coven of the Silver Seas and is dead after running from you.”
Sloane drums her fingers along her pants as she crosses the large foyer towards another hallway, this one darker and unlit. “Yes, but it was more than me. She’d been running for a while.”
The hallway grows progressively darker by each step. There are no windows, but the wood colour itself also darkens from an oak to a walnut until we eventually reach the end. Thedead end.
I peek over my shoulder, wishing I counted the steps it took us to get this far, as air expels in the stagnant space.
Sloane murmurs an incantation beneath her breath before a green glow—Earth magick—emits. The wall ripples into a plain door with a black metal handle, which she gestures at to fling open. She leads me through, and I follow after a second’s hesitation. The door slams shut at my back, as loud as my heartbeat is now.
“Where are we going?”
“To the answers you so desire.”
She continues down the hallway that grows chillier with every step. Unless it’s my nerves behind the goosebumps littering my arms and my lungs requiring a deeper pull each time.
As the ground slopes downward, I realize we’re likely going deeper underground. I reach out and stroke the walls—which are no longer wood but dirt that crumbles beneath the brush of my fingertips. Scattered roots tangle along them, even hanging from the ceiling.
“Why Darkness?” I ask, breaking up the silence. Conversation to give me something to focus on other than nerves. “Why betray Hecate?”
“She will not save us from what is coming, so we must protect ourselves. I’m doing what is necessary for us all since She isn’t.”
“Where’s your faith?”
