After Sabrina’s out of earshot, I ask, “How long has she been like that?” How long do I have before Ember turns into something similar?
Sinora’s shoulders sigh with fatigue. “Since her Selection, I’m afraid. You see how she’s in and out? The past disturbs her. That’s why I don’t let her speak about it. When she gets disturbed, she . . .” Her tongue catches on something, and she stops and starts over. “Perhaps you’ve seen another young witch do something similar.”
The elaborately mystical hand flourish she gives suggests particles floating around in the ether, and I know what she’s getting at. Like Ember, when Sabrina’s disturbed, she etherizes.
“We can’t be chasing her all the time, you know. The gargoyles want to enjoy their evenings too.”
“The gargoyles?”
“Sabrina’s Familiars,” Sinora says. “She has two.”
I process this, taking a pull of warm tea. Generally, Familiars are small and portable. Cats. Rodents. Owls. I realized Venhad been different when I was in boarding school. And while I’m not surprised Sabrina’s Familiars are unconventional, I’m concerned Ember’s will be too. With half the Echelons looking for any reason to cast her out, what will happen if she makes it to Selection and her Familiar emerges as a five-headed dragon? There’s no doubt in my mind that’s what it will be. The opposite of everything she is. Loud, controlling, and vain.
I set the small teacup in its saucer with a shakyclink. “She’s in danger, isn’t she?”
“Sabrina was.” Sinora shrugs. “They are Cursed, Truth-Teller. Only a second child can end the Curse of the Witch’s Limit, or seal it forever. But Sabrina couldn’t make the choice, so now it falls on Ember.”
“Why a second child?”
“They are the loopholes,” Sinora says over the rim of her teacup before taking a sip. “One child per male, that was what it was always supposed to be. Only, Curses don’t work on humans, which left them free to go around impregnating witches as they pleased. The thing is, there wasn’t a witch in Everden who wanted to mate with one before Leda went and did it. Then Helen followed in her footsteps, but she was young, naïve. Perhaps she would have terminated the pregnancy once she learned what was at stake, but Jaxan made sure she went through with it. He ran those half witch experiments, you know. He didn’t stop until after Ember was born.”
Then, in order to explain what she must have been Tongue Bound for, she speaks in lies, which I hear, interpret, and slowly gather her meaning.
When Sabrina was eighteen, she drank quantum magic. As a consequence, her mother and stepfather, Rex and Leda, were killed. She had the quantum magic Siphoned from her afterward, so she could etherize and demand answers from the Goddess in the ether.
The Goddess told Sabrina the Dark Witch who cast the Witch’s Limit Cursed every second child. They would all be Eights, which meant that, unlike the rest of us, they got to choose between light and dark magic, and whatever choice they made would decide Everden’s fate.
Choosing dark magic, Sinora said, would make the Witch’s Limit irreversible, no longer a Curse, but something that could never be changed. Choosing light magic could end the Witch’s Limit, but not without consequences —tests. To end it, a second child must become an Allwitch. But, for every school of light magic a second child drinks, a disaster is triggered.
Sabrina refused to go through with becoming an Allwitch after what happened after she drank quantum magic. The consequence,Someone who you love will die, resulted in the deaths of Rex and Leda.
Sinora doesn’t know what the other disasters are, except for the one that was in Helen’s Vision.
If Ember drinks elemental magic, she’ll trigger a fire big enough to burn Hector Ambrosia’s entire jurisdiction, scorching Edgewood and draining Lake Artemesia. It was the same Vision Helen shared with the Council, the day she told them Ember was dangerous, though she never mentioned it had anything to do with the Witch’s Limit.
Sabrina asked the Goddess to tell her the seven disasters, but She wouldn’t. She only warned they were designed for a half witch to prove their loyalty to magic, and that meant sacrificing loved ones and innocents.
My teeth grind. My muscles are tense, and I feel a twitch in a vein along my forearm. “Why would Helen keep this from her?” The best way to stop a Vision from becoming reality is to share it. If Helen’s so worried about Ember becoming “dangerous,”telling heris the simplest way to prevent it.
“It’s not so simple . . .” Sinora lets out a heavy sigh. “You see,light magic dies if a second child doesn’t become an Allwitch, and Ember is . . . she is quick to view the plight of others as her fault and responsibility. If she knew she was the key to ending the Witch’s Limit — well, what doyouthink she would pick?”
“That’s why Helen wants her sent back to the human realm . . .”
Sinora nods. “At this point, I think she would be fine with Ember staying, if Ember selects dark magic. That, at least, would spare us from seven disasters. But, mothers dying in childbirth would continue, the population of light witches will continue to shrink, and eventually, perhaps in ten — twenty — years, there will be no light magic left in the Circle of Seven.”
“Who else on the Council knows about this?”
“As far as I know, only Jaxan and Helen. The rest know Ember can end the Witch’s Limit — there’s a prophecy about it — but they don’t know how. Jaxan keeps his cards hidden. He knows Dark Witches will reign if Ember becomes a Dark Witch. And the Council would mostcertainlyinsist upon her becoming an Allwitch if they knewthatwas a possibility.”
My throat closes up on me, and I swallow a hard gulp of tea. “Jaxan put a Death Bond on me. I die if she doesn’t go to Selection.”
Sinora nods gravely. “Smartest thing he ever did. She won’t leave you, Truth-Teller. Truth be told, I think he could have put the Death Bond on Helen, and the outcome would be the same. The Lens of Intentions has shown me all I need to see. That girl will always be the first to throw herself in harm’s way. The best thing you can do is convince her to select dark magic. Everden is already used to the Witch’s Limit. Not much would change.”
Dark magic . . .
I saw it once in a Vision. Ember as a Dark Witch. She looks happy as one, but I know it’s not what she wants. Even if she did,Idon’t want it. Not as long as Jaxan’s the Echelon to theSchool of Dark Magic. Jaxan actually teaches his students. There are rumors about his methods, and based on how I was raised, I believe them. Even if Jaxan wasn’t a factor, Ember has told him, again and again. She doesn’t want to be a Dark Witch.
When the time comes for her to drink the magic she selects, she has towillit to fuse with her blood, or the magic’s wasted. There’s no point in her picking something she doesn’t want. The Echelons punish every witch who wastes magic.
