She’d spoken in too many riddles. I could not comprehend what she meant. Or who was my aunt? I glanced over my shoulder, hoping to catch Katrinka’s gaze and see if she understood any of this better than I did. She was already looking back at me, brow furrowed, mouth in a flat frown. The look on her face betrayed her confusion as well. How were we to understand any of this?
“It is here,” she continued. “The crown your aunt seeks, the one she hopes will revive her kingdom. It lives among the dead.”
It lives among the dead? “Please, speak plainly,” I begged her. I knew what she was saying was important, but my mind struggled to understand it all. “Name our aunt. We do not know her.”
She smiled, and the movement between the trees grew more frenzied. Bodies wrapped in similar thin cloth as this lady ran in circles, hiding behind the tree trunks and dead shrubbery. “You are her guest, child. I should hope you know her.”
Ravanna Presydia. Our aunt? I would have rejected the entirety of such a preposterous idea, except for those initials. TF + RP + GA. Tyrn Finnick plus Ravanna Presydia plus Gwynlynn Allisand.
The old way is the true way.
“You’re saying our mother was a witch?” Katrinka demanded. “And that she was from Blackthorne?”
“Not just a witch, darling child. A witch of the highest order. She was the Moon Priestess.”
I had no idea what that meant or how to interpret this information. “But she married the king of Elysia. Our father enforced the ban on magic.”
Her dark eyes glimmered with memories. “She was negotiating peace for her pagan people. And she was killed for it. There are those out there who cannot tolerate peace. Who will not abide by it, even now.”
“You’re saying someone killed my family because of my mother’s desire to bring magic back to the realm?” The world dipped and faltered in front of my eyes. Had Ravanna known that? Had Tyrn? Had my father?
“Your mother died because she believed peace was possible. She believed in the magic she wielded. And your father believed in her. When they died... even the land gave up hope.” She reached out to rest her fingers on the barren branches of a dead tree trunk. But as she held her hand there, a new leafling began to sprout and grow with fresh life. “But here you are. A larger moon and a smaller moon alive and more formidable than all who came before you.”
A power thumped in my chest. It was my heart, I realized. But beating in a way I had never known it to before.
Shiksa finally reappeared. She pranced over the puddles, as white and pristine as she’d always been. The bog had not touched her. She climbed up a fallen log and then leaped into my arms. She was not a weapon, not sharp like my sword or quick like a dagger, but I felt better protected with her nearby.
“What is this?” the Bog Witch asked with renewed curiosity.
I held Shiksa closer to me. “My fox.”
“Your fox?” she repeated, extending her elegant arm so Shiksa could sniff her. At this distance, I could smell her too—wet earth, smoky campfire, and dried leaves. She smelled as though autumn had sprouted legs and began to walk around. She smelled of incense too. Like the Cavolia, only fainter.
I held Shiksa closer to my chest. “I found her in the Blood Woods when she was a kitling.” I didn’t know what possessed me to keep speaking, but I felt the incessant need to explain why I’d taken something from the wild. “Her family had been killed by a wild animal. She had no one. She would have died without me.”
“You found this pure beauty in woods of blood after her family had been killed in the same manner as your own.” Her explanation sounded like a question, but it was not one. She wasn’t asking. She was telling me something I had not understood before. “She is yours, future witch. Yours to command. And you are hers. Hers to protect. If you do not believe in magic, your path with hers will show it to you.”
“I believe in magic.” My voice was sharp, defensive. But I had been unable to deny it since I left Heprin. “I’m learning to, anyway.”
Her smile was back, but it was condescending. “As you should, since it’s as deep inside you as the blood in your veins and the marrow in your bones.” She stepped back and looked between Katrinka and me. “You must finish what your mother started. It will not be easy, and you might die before you see it to completion, but it is your legacy to take hold of, your mantle to carry.”
“We don’t know what she set out to do, though,” Katrinka argued. “And who is there to tell us? If Ravanna is our aunt, not even she has been willing to admit it. And Tyrn hardly acknowledges we’re alive. There is no one left to interrogate.”
I thought of Brahm Havish in the castle dungeons. He’d known Ravanna and my mother were close, but he had not known they were sisters. Had anyone? What about my grandparents? We had never met them before. Only my father’s mother had been alive while I was also, but she’d died peacefully in her sleep when I was very little.
“There was a spell book. The Fenwick Grimoire. It should have more answers than I can give you.”
“A spell book?” Katrinka gasped. “Where could we possibly find that?”
I did not say anything, so the witch turned to me. “Your sister knows.”
“It’s in a language I don’t speak.” I felt Katrinka’s gaping stare on my face, but I held the witch’s gaze. “It tells me nothing if I cannot make sense of it.”
The Bog Witch looked down at Shiksa and spoke in words that sounded like trills and curls. She held out her hand, and my fox nudged it with her little pink nose, seeming to give her permission of sorts. Then the witch rested her hand over my forehead and continued speaking in that same foreign language, her voice growing stronger and more confident.
Shiksa stretched up to lay her head in the crook of my neck as if assuring me all was well. I closed my eyes as an unseen power seemed to wash over me. She was casting a spell on me.
“Wait,” I gasped as it seemed to take hold. But it was too late. The witch’s hand dropped over my eyes, and her words held more force, more... magic.
