“I’m not. I speak merely the truth.”
“And what is this truth?” Voren asks, also blocking me from Taye’s–Tabitha’s–view.
I duck out from around the gods and glare at the witch, who has been pulling the wool over my eyes for twelve years. “Stop speaking in riddles. What do I need to do?”
Her eyes land on me, and my soul nearly withers away.
“There is nothing you can do, dear. I, however, can do a lot.”
“Meaning?” Dastian snaps, getting pissed off.
“The powers of the slayers have diluted in your bloodline over the years. We need to bring it back to the force it once was.”
“Define ‘bring it back’ before I punch you in your orderly face,” I say.
Tabitha smiles that dead-eyed librarian smile. “Convergence. The Firsts forced a single line to carry the weight. Your Order syphoned it.”
Time stands still for a long moment as I stare at this Witch of Order and wish for one fucking second that the grenades would stop landing.
“Syphoned it?” Voren asks for me.
“Since the First Slayers converged their power into one, the rest of the slayers who lost their powers became The Order. They wanted their powers back. But they couldn’t simply remove the powers from the one slayer without causing a catastrophic event. So, they have been syphoning it off, bit by bit, for centuries.”
“Are you saying that Cormac and Finnian are the other slayers?”
“Two of some.”
“Some?” I croak. I had no idea they were ancient beings, ex-slayers salivating over my power. I should’ve known, should’ve sensed it.
“Chapters across Europe,” Tabitha says, like she’s reading a shopping list. “Old slayers who took the robe when their light went quiet. They built a syphon under your oath rooms. A net. Every vow skims. Every kill skims. Every death pays interest.”
I swallow acid. “And you let them.”
“I had no choice. This has nothing to do with me, child. I am no ex-slayer.”
“But you still knew about it and let them. You let them bleed me,” I snap. “You let them bleed every person in my line who was chosen. You said you could fix this earlier, and now you’re backtracking?”
Dreven’s shadows flex, a silent snarl I feel in my bones. Voren has gone very still in the way that means something is about to regret existing. Dastian’s hands crackle softly, like a lit fuse pretending to mind itself.
Tabitha tips her head, studying me like I’m a problem set. “Ramming all of that power back into one person required therightperson.”
I clench my jaw tight. It’s fair, but still. “How do you fix it?” I grit out.
“Convergence. You go to the engine and take it back. You break the net.”
“Where is it?” I demand.
“The Chamber of Hidden Power,” she says. “Under the Oath Chamber. They hid it under a layer of respectable stone and incense.”
Of course they did. “And what happens when I break it?”
“You stop phasing,” she says. “You’ll anchor. The syphoned power will rebound to the line, to you.”
“How do I do this?”
“You will need my help.”
“Of course,” I grit out.
