With a wave, she brushed the question away. “We aren’t here to discuss things like that. We’re here to talk about the vial.”
“Do you have it?” Maddy asked. The hunger in her eyes when she said that made me a little nervous.
The woman shook her head and sipped more tea. “My mother has it. She would have sent me with it, but she wasworried about me getting here with it without incident. You’ll need to go to her.”
“Couldn’t she have come? Surely both of you together would be enough to keep it safe on the trip here,” Maddy said.
The knowing, cocky smile vanished. Deep, weary sadness melted her face into a mask of anguish. “My mother… she’s… she is not long for this world. Even for a witch, she has lived nearly two full lives, all in a desperate attempt to stay alive until this very moment. She wants to be the one to give it to Edemas’s descendant. Once she completes her contract with Edemas, she’ll be free to cross beyond the veil.”
That was one hell of a contract. To live hundreds of years until the stipulations were played out. I wondered how he’d ever even talked her into it in the first place. I’d heard the stories and legends, but this Edemas guy had to have been a charismatic force of nature.
Maddy leaned forward and put her hand on Sinthy’s. “I’m sorry.”
Sinthy patted Maddy’s arm and smiled. “Don’t be sad for me. My mother has lived a long life. Longer than any I’ve ever known. It’s time for her to rest. To go on to the next adventure.” The witch glanced at me. “What time is it?”
I blinked and dug out my phone, showing her the screen.
She sighed. “About time to go. I wish I could teleport us to my mother, but my magic isn’t quite as strong as hers. I’ll need to rest up a bit first.”
“Teleport?” Maddy asked. “Seriously?”
“It’s a tad difficult,” she said. “Especially when you don’t know exactly where you’re going. If I’m being honest, it took me two whole days to get your location right. Since I know where we’re going, we can make the trip in no time.”
The idea of my body vanishing in one place and reappearing in another was possibly the most terrifying thing I’d ever heard.She must have seen the worry in my eyes and waved a hand at me. “Still, I’ve never done three people at once. Good lord, I’ll probably end up with you guys a thousand feet under the surface of the ocean or something.”
My look of horror intensified, and Sinthy grinned. “Kidding. I’m kidding, of course. We’ll be fine. You all need to lighten up. I need to get my strength back, that’s all.”
“Where is your mother?” Maddy asked.
With a small shrug, she said, “Australia. She went there about a hundred years ago to live out her days as she waited for the last descendant of Edemas to make themselves known. That’s where she found me. You see, she isn’t my birth mother, more like an adoptive mother. I was a bit of a prodigy with the magical arts, and when she saw what I could do, she took me in as an apprentice of sorts. She’s been teaching me all she knows for many years now.”
That piqued my interest, and the obvious question was out of my mouth before I could stop myself. “What happened to your birth parents?”
The smile vanished from Sinthy’s face, and her eyes went cold and hard as she looked at me. Her lip curled back from her teeth, and I was almost positive the temperature outside dropped at least five degrees. I struggled not to flinch away from her.
“Shifters are not the only target the royals have had over the centuries. Witches are rare, and we keep ourselves hidden at all costs because when we are discovered, we are used. Throughout history, the rich and powerful have done everything they can to ensure that they and their familiesremainrich and powerful. The royals have been the most egregious of those who have forced us to do their bidding.
“You don’t think the royals have stayed rich on nothing but smart business moves, do you? No. They seek out witches touse forbidden magics that put the practitioner’s life and very soul at risk. My parents were discovered by Viola Monroe’s late father. He tried to force them to help find the last descendants of Edemas, but they refused. They wouldn’t allow themselves to be used as puppets… so, her father had my parents killed.” Sinthy turned her fiery gaze from my eyes, and I saw the level of pain she was holding inside. Once she got herself under control, she looked at us again, and this time the look was gentler. “I want the royals done. I will dance on their graves and spit on their tombstones. This is my one wish for life. I’ll see their line ended or die trying.”
The fierceness and fire in her tone were all I needed to hear. This was a woman who hated the royals as much as we did, perhaps even more if that was possible. Hate, like love, was an emotion that could not be faked. It was something you either felt or you didn’t. Her rage was exactly the thing I needed to see to let me know that we were with a true ally. A person we could trust.
92
MADDY
The idea of being teleported anywhere was scary. Like, how did that even work? Would she open up some kind of portal for us to step through? Or would our bodies be broken down into atoms and then reappear halfway across the planet like a big giant fax? My mind kept going back to that throughout the rest of our conversation.
Sinthy, her tea finished, set her cup down, and sighed. “I will need a couple of days to rest to be strong enough to teleport all three of us. I’m happy to stay at a place in town, but do you perhaps have a free room here? It would make things… less awkward.”
Nico nodded. “Yeah, I still have one more guest room that isn’t being used. You’re helping us out, which means you’re more than welcome to crash here for a day or two.”
The young woman smiled thinly. “Thank you. I always hate asking for favors.”
Nico stood and led her to her room. I watched them go, and the irritation built up inside me again. The way Nico had acted when I told him weird things had been happening in the forest still irked me. I went inside to put all the tea stuff away whenNico came downstairs, his phone in his hand. He was probably talking to his friends, telling them to come over because he had new information to share.
“I’m going upstairs,” I said, walking past him.
Nico looked confused. “Uh, don’t you want to stay? Everyone will be here in a few minutes. I was going to let them know about it and…” He trailed off when he saw the look on my face.
