“I suspect they are still practicing, yet not providing services to the people. Not as they once did. Much like yourself, pet, they likely practice in their private gardens or for their own family.”
“I don’t like this. I thought Flores were just small in number, that we didn’t produce enough babies. Not that my entire coven effectively disappeared one day,” I replied and turned away from her, upset.
She slid her arm under me and around my waist, pulling me into her body. “Don’t,” I protested. She ignored me, her nose pressing against my neck, her lips ghosting over her mark, my sensitive skin caused a shiver to run through me.
“Why does this upset you so? Nothing has materially changed since before yesterday afternoon,” she questioned.
“Because they abandoned me!” I cried, the truth of it scratching out of my throat and hot tears rolling down my cheeks. I was sobbing before I could control myself.
“It wasn’t like every Flores witch awoke one morning and independently decided to vanish. I always thought Flores witches were alone by nature. That we were like home.Independent from the system. Not a true coven. I thought that’s why my mother was happy to live in the village with Father. But that’s not the case. It can’t be. They had to have made a decision. And a decision like that isn’t small. There had to be those that disagreed. But everyone followed the order or whatever, and none have said why they chose to stop practicing, even when questioned!
And I’m not stupid, I know what the Houses are like, how they would have treated the Flores witches that they found that first year when we didn’t come back to help with harvest. They wouldn’t have been treated nicely Selene! You know that. And still they didn’t say anything.
But no one told me the big secret. My mum never wrote about it in her book. Never told my father anything or he would have told me! I know he wouldn’t keep something like that from me.
They just abandoned me. Left me alone. I had no guidance. Nothing but a few books to connect me to my coven, to teach me about my magic. They left me alone!”
I cried harder as Selene pulled me tighter against her.
“Shh, darling,” she whispered soothingly, her leg entwining with mine, her heat melting into me as she pressed herself more tightly against me. “You are not alone,” she stated. “You will never be alone.”
“It, it’s not, you d-don’t understand. You have a family. It’s only been me and Father and now with Rosemary having a baby, and I’m happy for them, I am, but Father will have a son, and a wife and he won’t need me anymore. It’s not like I’ll ever live at home again. And, and…” I trailed off, sobbing hard into my pillow.
“Your father, Rosemary and brother can live with us,” she suggested.
I cried harder. Father would not leave the village and neither would Rosemary—it was their home. It was a good home. I didn’t want my unborn brother to grow up in the House system.
While I loved my new friends, they didn’t understand what it meant to be free. To be able to truly choose how they live. They were all following paths that one way or another had been chosen for them, through virtue of their birth and place in their House.
“I will find every Flores witch, including those that have taken the Enchanters Guild pledge, and force them to reveal the truth of their disappearance from public life. You will have answers,” she promised.
“I don’t want you to hurt anyone,” I cried, taking hold of her arm around my waist and pulling it across my chest to hug to my body. I knew Selene was trying her best in the only way she knew how. But the mystery of my coven was obviously something that force could not unveil or it would have done so already.
“Percy, my pet, tell me how I can help you,” she begged, and I felt her own sorrow overlap mine, a tightness in my throat that was not caused by my tears.
I twisted in her hold to face her and buried my head against her chest.
“Never leave me,” I begged in return.
She was all I truly had. I didn’t know my place in the world without her. From our first meeting a part of me knew that everything I had ever known was to be lost and replaced with something I could not have imagined.
But I had secretly imagined that one day I would find my coven, others like me, that I might have a place with them. My village was home, but it never felt permanent. When Selenearrived for me, it was almost too easy to leave with her. I knew my time, as a child under my father’s roof and care, was coming to an end. The revelation that Sasha had revealed about my coven felt like another ending, even if it was the ending of something that never began. The ending of something that was only ever in my imagination. I had had too many endings in too short a time.
“I miss our home at the academy,” I said, my voice muffled against her chest. “I don’t like it here,” I confessed to her.
“I will never leave you pet,” she promised. “Hades himself could not take me from you. I would make my way back to you.”
She pressed her lips firmly against the top of my head.
“We cannot return to Sanguis Academy,” she continued, her voice apologetic. “For now, Ardens and its harsh terrain and distance from other Houses is the best protection I can offer you. No doubt rumours of your novel ability or participation with inter-coven magic is spreading across the kingdom. I am surprised that Adamantia has not questioned me and that I have not heard whispers from the servants yet. We will be safe in Borealis, but only for a time,” she hesitated, a soft frustrated growl rumbling against me, “Once the Royal Conference is aware of your novel ability, I fear it will only be a matter of time before Father tries to use you as a weapon. Then others will seek you also,” Selene explained.
“I don’t feel safe here,” I told her.
“Why?” she asked.
I shrugged against her.
“It’s just a feeling. It doesn’t feel like home.”
