“I was the second child,” Sabrina sang in a voice that was eerily sweet and high-pitched.
“What were you thinking going to that temple?” asked Sinora as she crouched behind the kitchen island to check the open shelves there. Sabrina shot down to join her. “What with the Council watching your every move. Did you not see the stories in the paper?”
My forehead wrinkled. “No?” I’d closed the paper last night after Farrah started droning on about childbirth, and all the babies that wouldn’t be brought into the world now that Trist was gone. “What stories?”
“Warning about you,” said Sinora gravely. “Prone to fits of rage.”
“Fits of rage?” I repeated, unable to control my volume, and prompting Sinora to haul herself up from the floor. “Why would she say that?” At the way Sinora was eyeing my balled fists through her lens, I forced myself to unclench my hands. “I’ve barely been here.”
Slow and confused, Sabrina finally rose from behind the counter, shocked to find herself standing exactly where she had been. Then her dark-brown eyes panned to me, and she started humming.
“You’re a half witch,” Sinora explained. “And the Goddess wants you to be a powerful one. That’s how Farrah’s reported it anyway — ‘Half Witch is an Eight.’ ‘Half Witch Destroys Circle of Seven.’ ‘Half Witch and Truth-Teller in a Mud Brawl.’ ‘Half Witch Barks at Echelon to School of Dark Magic.’ ”
She raised her lens again, her almond-shaped eyes shrinking to narrow slits as she peered at me through the old artifact’s cracks and fog. “Oh, it’s not all bad,” she said, lowering the lens and smiling kindly. “There was a charming picture of you and the Truth-Teller sharing meat pastries on a park bench. Well, he was charming. You, my dear, were covered in quite a lot of mud.”
“Destiny,” Sabrina said wistfully.
Sinora thwacked her on the arm with a backhand. “I see you’ve been wondering if she’s deteriorated,” she said.
I assumed her lens showed her.
“I’m afraid she’s been this way a while now. She’s meant to be an Allwitch, you know, but she never even made it to first year. No, it wasn’t easy being a half witch in our time. How yourgrandmother, Leda, got the idea to reproduce with a human, I’ll never understand.” She sighed. “The woman loved the human realm more than her children. She’s the one who first discovered it, you know, that mating’s easier with humankind. She would’ve taken that secret to her grave, but then Helen went and followed in her footsteps. And when the realm found out Ash existed, well, let’s just say they weren’t happy about it.”
“They hid me in the basement,” Sabrina said, the words airily fluttering out of her.
I swigged from my flask and tried not to think about her condition, how that might be me one day. Deteriorated.
“Yes, the basement. I was getting to that,” Sinora said, shaking her head in distaste. “What Leda did to Sabrina — she said it was to keep us safe. Maybe she was right. Look what they did to your sister when they found out about it. Leda protected us from that, at least, but . . . Sabrina was neglected.”
“Like you,” Sabrina added delicately. She stared up at the hanging bundle of tarnished silver pots with the fascination of a baby staring at a crib mobile. Then she started singing. “The second child belongs to dark. The other schools will leave their mark.”
“Sabrina!” Sinora scolded, and swatted her arm for it. “Helen is . . . Well, she shut herself down after they took Ash away for the half-witch experiments. Now you’d have to out-Mentalist her to know what goes on inherhard head. She’d shut it all down before she’d let herself get exploited like that again.”
I stared out the window, watching the tree sway and shed blossoms, the petals blowing and dusting the neatly trimmed blades of waving grass.
“We don’t mean to frighten you, dear,” Sinora said. “Times are changing now. Everden will need humans to reproduce, with pregnancies hardly happening anymore, and nine times out of ten, the mothers aren’t surviving them. Allwitches and DarkWitches — they’re the only ones strong enough to endure the labor required to deliver a full witch, and no one wants more of them! No, they’ll need you here. Times are changing, and if the Council has any wits about them, they’ll turn you into an example. A harmless half witch to welcome in a new era of cross-breeding.
“Look at Ash, a half-witch Allwitch, and she grew to be beloved. Granted, she played the game. Worshipping at the Echelons’ temple. Pledging herself to the Echelon to the School of Dark Magic and telling him her gift.” Sinora huffed a laugh. “I thought she was a bootlicker for it, but look where she is now. Safe in Alchemia, and not a witch in Everden will tell you it was the wrong move. Otherwise, she would have turned into . . .”
She didn’t finish the thought, but I knew she meant Sabrina.
“Sevens are meant to be Allwitches — infullpower, with all seven light magics in their blood system.”
“I saw Ash on the mainland,” Sabrina said softly.
Ignoring the comment, Sinora uncapped a small jar and sniffed.
“I don’t understand — ”
“And Helen will have our throats if you ever do. Come, help us find the mugroot.” Turning back to the kitchen, her fingers flickered across a tall rack of bottled spices and crushed herbs, with Sabrina scanning from behind her as she worked. “It looks like minced basil and smells like . . . Well. When you smell it, you will know.”
Deciding they were harmless, I joined them in the kitchen. Sinora had taken the time to explain things to me that no one else had. And Sabrina . . . I could only imagine how long it had been since someone other than her sister really spoke to her.
I searched a rack behind a thick, velvet curtain while Sinora talked about what it was like to be a Dark Witch. She said she’d made a few good Deals and at least one bad one, but shadowsnever got old. I tried asking about Jaxan, but after Sabrina clapped her hands over her ears and wailed, Sinora warned me not to speak his name unless I wanted to set her off again. I tried asking Sabrina what she meant by “the second child belongs to dark,” but Sinora gave her a sharp look and Sabrina didn’t reply.
I unscrewed a green-tinted bottle and nearly passed out. I’d thought the iron smell of magic was bad, butthis. . . This was the decay of curdled milk, served with a side of rotten meat. “I think . . .” Holding my breath, I held the jar out to my aunt. “Oh, it’s awful.” I turned my head to the side so I could breathe enough to speak. “I think this is it.”
“Well done, child!” said Sinora, giving it a sniff and grinning as Sabrina clapped.
