I reached out to place a city and my shoulders itched as I sensed a presence behind me. Every time I looked over, Bree Harris stood in the doorway, watching me with hawklike intensity.
I didn’t blame her, not after what she’d seen the last time we met – me, five days out of rehab, tearing trees up from the castle grounds with my magic and hurling them through the lower floor windows.
Of course, she thought I was dangerous for her daughters to be around.
Around seven, Corbin’s father arrived home. He was a Don in nearby Oxford, so he came up the front path in his academic dress, looking like a character from a Harry Potter book. The girls met him at the door, leaping all over him while he tried to wrap his weary arms around their squirming bodies. Emptiness echoed in my head as I watched the warm family scene. This loud house, those gorgeous girls, the smell of warm sausages wafting from the kitchen…it was everything I’d always wanted.
Corbin gave up all of this – this joy, this love – for the coven, for me. He had everything and he gave it up because he believed it was the right thing to do. If I’d had this I’d never have been strong enough to turn away from it, especially not for waste-of-space like me.
With burning shame, I remembered the person I was when Corbin found me. A street punk with a heroin addiction and a power I couldn’t control. I resented Corbin for dragging me away from London and forcing me into rehab. I deliberately failed, twice, just to prove to him that he was wrong. I brought drugs into Briarwood – something he forbid me to do – and tore up a priceless tapestry during one of my fits.
Flynn and Arthur wanted me out of the castle. I didn’t blame them – all they saw was a dangerous, unpredictable addict who had a vendetta against tapestries. I must have destroyed thousands of dollars of priceless antiques in those first few months.
But Corbin never gave up on me. Always he was there beside me, at all my sessions, talking to my counsellors, patiently waiting for me to get my shit together.
And I did.
When I emerged from the drug-fueled haze, a pair of shining emerald eyes greeted me, filled with such pride and love that I’d never been able to look away from them since.
But without the drugs, the anxiety crept on me, and it was getting worse, especially since Maeve had turned up. The voice wailed at me day and night that I was an imposter, I wasn’t supposed to be there, I wasn’t strong enough or good enough to be part of the coven, and I would never have the love I so desperately wished for.
On my worst days, I believed that voice. Today was one of those days.
Corbin’s dad extricated himself from his daughters and hung up his coat and gown. He stood up and his eyes flashed with pain when he noticed his eldest son.
“Hey, Dad,” Corbin’s soft voice betrayed his hope.
Wordlessly, Corbin’s dad nodded his head, then pushed past Corbin and headed to the kitchen. “It’s dinnertime,” he called to the girls. “Wash your hands.”
Corbin’s shoulders sagged, but when he looked at me, his face was as kind and impassive as ever. I moved toward him, but he stepped back and shook his head.
“We should get going,” he said, his voice soft.
“Yes.” His mother nodded vehemently, her eyes darting toward the kitchen. “Traffic going back to London will be slow. You’ll want to catch the next bus.”
She didn’t ask us to stay for dinner. I’d seen her place an enormous toad-in-the-hole into the oven. There would have been plenty to go around. But Corbin’s dad?—
He didn’t even acknowledge Corbin’s presence. How could he refuse to even see his son?
Couldn’t he see what that did to Corbin?
Didn’t hecare?
“Can I just go say goodbye to the girls?”
She shook her head. “Put your shoes on. I’ll bring them out.”
“If you change your mind about what we talked about?—”
“Goodbye, son.” Corbin’s mother stepped forward, raising her arms slightly, as if she was going to hug him. But halfway there she seemed to think better of it, and patted him awkwardly on the shoulder instead. She turned and went into the kitchen, and a moment later appeared again with the girls in tow.
“Corby, come back soon!” Tessa wrapped herself around Corbin’s leg.
“And Rowan, too.” Bianca wrapped her tiny body around my leg. Her warmth seeped through my trousers. I bit back a rising lump in my throat and patted her shoulder, not knowing what to say.
“Girls, don’t keep your brother. He’s got to catch the bus now.”
Reluctantly, the girls let go of our legs and crawled back behind their mother. Their earnest faces questioned Corbin, begging him without words to explain why he didn’t live with them, why he couldn’t stay for dinner and dessert and bedtime stories.
