“You cannot just decide this!” I shout. “I am Serena Avery, the last Blackblood witch, and Idemandyou stop this right now.”
“Tradition demands a price,” Esther taunts. I feel my shadows curling around my wrists, poised to lash out and force them all to their knees if I have to.
“Serena, don’t—don’t hurt them. Please.” I’ve never heard Mar’s voice shake, but it does as she begs me to stand down.
Her grandmother steps forward, placing her hands on Mar’s shoulders and muttering a quiet incantation. Mar goes pale, her eyes closing. Her body starts to twitch as if submerged in a nightmare. Then her grandmother slips the ring off her finger, and she crashes to the ground, gasping. Dover falls down beside her, reaching for her face with bound hands.
I walk up to Esther. “You will pay for this.”
Her only answer is the ugliest grin I have ever seen.
“Come. All of you.” Mar’s grandmother waves a hand, and the ropes binding my friends fall to the ground. We follow her outside—Dover a few feet behind, supporting Mar as I sidle up to her grandmother.
“Why did you do that?”
“To prevent mutiny. They would never have relented without some form of retribution. They cling to the old ways.”
“Mar didn’t do anything. She only used her magic to help me. This entire time, she has been helping me. She shouldn’t lose her power over that.”
The Blueblood stops, turning to me. And though she is several inches shorter, it’s as though she’s looking down at me.
“She is my granddaughter, and she always will be. But she did break the law. Do not question my choice to protect her and your friends the only way I know how.”
We follow her inside a nearby cabin. The multiroom space is large, fully furnished, and decorated with cottage-like warmth. Closing the door behind us, she moves toward Mar.
“Come here, child, let me have a look at you.” She tilts her chin up to the little fae lights dancing around above us. “You look different.”
“I was fifteen when you last saw me.”
Her lips invert into a frown as she regards the rest of us, windblown and steely. “You always did know how to find trouble. Just like your aunt.”
Mar’s mouth opens like she needs to say something, but the elder points at the plush-looking couch. “Sit.”
“I’m fine, Grandmother.”
“I won’t ask twice.”
She sinks onto the couch without further protest. The witch walks around and stops in front of me. “Now what is it you need, child?”
“My familiar is dead.” I swallow, the words tasting like charcoal on my tongue. “I need you to help me bring him back.”
She retreats a step, her mouth flattening into a thin line.
“I do not know what my granddaughter told you. But we do not deal in such magics.”
“But you know about them. You know how to help me.”
“It is dark magic, girl. Magic borrowed from the gods by your kind. You do not belong meddling in it.”
My temper flares. The walls begin to tremble, and the fae lights flicker. It’s only when I feel the flames dancing on the tips of my fingers, feel my eyes narrowing to slits, that I realize I’m the one causing it.
“His mother was one of us.” The elder’s eyes go wide as she stares at Marideth, unblinking. An unspoken conversation happens in the look they share.
She lets out a long sigh, glancing back to me. “I assume you brought the body.”
I turn to Dover and Kai. They nod, heading out the door to retrieve it.
“Is it in one piece?”
