She laughed, the sound completely devoid of mirth. “No, dear, it is not you who needs to be sacrificed.”
“What, then?”
Isadora fixed me with those violet eyes. “A mother must plunge a knife into the heart of her child.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MAEVE
My heart stopped beating.
“What – what did you say?”
“You must sacrifice an innocent. And the only true innocents are children who have not yet had the chance to sin. The fae are trying to do something unnatural – to force the restless dead to walk across the earth and kill the living. To make that happen, they must bend the forces of nature until they break. The only way to combat that kind of power is to also do something unnatural. In Aline’s case, she killed her child.” Isadora frowned at me. “Except she didn’t.”
My mind reeled. My mother hadn’t just gone into that ritual knowing she would die. She’d gone into it ready to killme.
Bile rose in my throat.How could she?—
How couldanyone?It was inhuman. It was monstrous. The room spun, the stark white like a siren pulsing inside my head. I covered my mouth with my hands.
Corbin was at my side in a moment. “Can we sit down?”
With a flick of her wrist, Isadora motioned to a long white chaise lounge under the window. Corbin led me over to it. My body had gone numb. I couldn’t feel his hands on me.
Isadora stood at the bar for a moment, mixing something in one of the crystal glasses. Ice cubes tinkled, the sound like gunshots. She came over and handed us each a glass of something red. I lifted it to my lips and sipped. Alcohol burned my throat, but the drink tasted like ash. I choked, nearly bringing the mouthful back up again.
Corbin rubbed my shoulder, but suddenly I didn’t want comfort. Rage surged through me. How could my mother be a part of that? How couldanyone?This woman in front of me had been a part of that ritual, and now she was offering me a drink like…like…
“How could you do that?” I demanded, finding my voice. I tossed the glass across the room. It slammed into the wall and fell to the floor, where it smashed into a thousand pieces, splashing the red drink across the crisp white paint like a bloodstain. “How could you murder a child?”
“Do they not teach you philosophy in your hideous American schools?” Isadora shot back. “Witches are governed by the laws of nature, which are utilitarian in principle. That utilitarianism must be applied across all sentient species. We cannot place the suffering of one child and the mother who bore her over the lives of every living being on earth.”
She sounded just like Uncle Bob or Dora, trying to justify cruelty with religion.
“I thought witches were different, that centuries of persecution might’ve taught you something about compassion and justice. But you’re just as cruel as the fae you tried to destroy.” I sat back, folding my arms. “You know what? Fuck it. Let them come. I’m done trying to fight for a world that just wants to hurt and maim and kill in the name of dead philosophies or invisible gods. Let the fae torch this place and start fresh. They can’t be any worse than we are.”
“Maeve.” Corbin tried to take my arm, but I jerked away, the movement causing bile to rise in my throat.
Isadora’s body sagged. Her face aged ten years in a moment – lines appearing around her perfectly made-up eyes, her bow-shaped lips turning down at the edges. “No one wanted it. We didn’t think we had a choice.”
“That’s bollocks and you know it. There’s always a choice.”
Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. Don’t…
She turned away, staring at the juice dribbling down the wall. “I suppose I best tell you what happened that night.”
“It would be helpful, yes.”
“At least two hundred witches converged on Briarwood Castle,” Isadora spoke to the wall, her arms hanging at her sides, red talons bright against her black silk dress. “This was highly unusual. We do not congregate outside our covens, for we do not need the large rituals any longer, and it makes it too easy for ordinary humans to observe our powers and persecute us. Each coven has its own duties and guardianships. We rarely share information or contact each other outside of establishments like this.
“When the Briarwood coven realized the fae were close to raising the Slaugh, they contacted all the covens they could find and begged for our help. Even though they grossly disregarded our protocols, the situation was too dire to ignore. So the witches came – from all corners of the British Isles, from Germany, from Slovakia and Finland and Turkey, even as far afield as Australia.
“We went down to the sidhe. Twelve High Priestesses gathered in the inner circle, our bodies pressed together so no one could see what went on in the centre. The rest of the witches formed a larger circle around us. Aline Moore led the ritual, with her magister and two witches to serve as assistants. Aline had given birth only hours before. She had to be carried into the circle by her Magister. She held the baby in her arms.”
I imagined my mother as I knew her in the painting, her beautiful face wrecked with exhaustion, her body pushed past its breaking point. She wore a white dress that fluttered in the breeze, the hem already streaked with blood from the birth. In her arms I wriggled and begged for milk, tipping my head toward the woman who was supposed to care for me.
My stomach heaved. I coughed, struggling to keep down the curry I’d foolishly eaten before we left.How could she do this? How could she make all these people complicit? She’s evil. My own mother is?—
