“The very next day she went down to Cambridge to submit her withdrawal paperwork, and returned a week later with a towering man with bright eyes and a kind smile. She introduced him as George, her husband. They’d married in secret that weekend. Your mother was so timid, I never expected it of her, especially not without consulting her parents first. Especially because…” Aline’s face had that apologetic look people get when they know they’re about to say something you won’t want to hear.
Because my grandparents wouldn’t approve,I filled in for her inside my head. My legs trembled.Because my father was black.
Because no one in your family is ever good enough.
My shoulders tightened as the anxiety clawed its way up my spine, lodging itself in my windpipe. My breathing slowed. I scrabbled at the edge of the counter for something to hold me upright.
No, not now.I need to hear this. I need to know.
If you dig into the past, you’ll kill everyone you care about. Maeve will suffer if you don’t stop asking about your parents. Corbin will die if you keep pushing. You think everyone accepts your relationship with Corbin, but you’re wrong. You’ll be ostracised from Briarwood. You’ll have to go back to the streets...
I whipped my head up, fixing my gaze behind Aline’s ear at my jars of herbs and spell mixtures lined up on the shelf.One…two…three…
The counting brought some relief. The tension in my shoulders loosened. The room no longer spun. But it wasn’t enough, wasn’t nearly enough.
If Aline noticed anything unusual about my behaviour, she didn’t say anything. “Dana may have been quiet, but she was stubborn,” she continued. “She and George moved into the room Corbin has now. She flaunted their marriage in the village, holding his hand and flashing her ring around so word got back to their mother. They had a screaming fight at the farmer’s market one day. Dana made a pipe burst in the public bathroom, so a huge spray of filthy water hit her mother right in the face.” She hooted at the memory. “I’d never seen Dana use her magic like that before, never out of anger. But her parents were cruel. They deserved it!”
...ten, eleven, twelve…
My nails dragged against the granite countertop. I strained to hear Aline’s words over the screaming voice in my head.
“Your father was the chef here at Briarwood. More than that, he was the life of every single party. He was always joking and telling ludicrious stories at the top of his lungs. Anyone living in the castle spent most of their day in here, throwing whatever they could find into his pots when his back was turned and gorging themselves on all his amazing baking.”
...sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…I gasped for air. My chest ached, a heavy weight squeezing my lungs.
“Dana had tremendous skill as a healer. She trained as a midwife and delivered every one of the babies at Briarwood, including Maeve. She acted as a midwife for any woman who needed her around the shire, even if they couldn’t pay. I often woke in the night to the sounds of her collecting her things and driving off into the night. She used to sell soaps she made and infused with herbs from the garden at the castle gift shop. A cosmetic company in London wanted to give her forty grand for her soap recipe, but she refused because they couldn’t assure her they wouldn’t test on animals. I can’t believe you didn’t know any of this already.”
“How would I know?” I choked out.Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four...
“Surely your grandparents looked after you after your parents died? They knew all about your mother’s powers, even though they never appreciated her.”
“They told me I had no family left,” I whispered. “That’s why I went into the foster system.”
Aline clamped her hands over her mouth. “That doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know about George's parents – I think they live on a Caribbean island somewhere, but Melanie and Richard definitely still lived at Pembroke Hall and they had so much money.” Her face lit up. “I know. We could visit them. I bet they’re still up at that hall, or another relative is. Melanie would’ve returned as a zombie before she let anyone else get their hands on their estate.”
Visit them?
My legs jerked beneath me. My whole life I’d dealt with the crushing pain of being completely alone in the world. The care workers had never been able to locate my family. All this time,they had been right around the corner, living it up in a huge mansion while I drowned in my own private hell.
Did they even care when my mother died? Did they even know? Theyhadto know. Why didn’t they want to help her son? Why didn’t they want me?
Because no one wants you. Your grandparents let you live in hell rather than take you in.
My vision blurred. The jars on the shelf melded together, impossible to count. I wrenched my neck around, searching for the comfort of something else to count.
Another thought occurred to me.Corbin must know. He’d worked his way back through the coven history and done extensive research to find me. The first place he’d have looked was my grandparents.
He knew they lived nearby – practically next door – and he never told me.
Because he doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t want you to have family. He wants you to be his broken boy, the brother he could save.
I swivelled my head back to the shelves, but the jars and bottles blurred into one. I grabbed for the counter, but my fingers slid off. Aline leaned toward me, her mouth moving.
“Help,” I whispered, but it was pointless. No one could help me. No one wanted me.
My legs gave out from underneath me. My head hit something hard. Bright lights spun in front of my eyes, and a dark shadow loomed over me, before it consumed the light entirely, and the world turned black.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
