“Um, 3866 Belvedere Court.” She shifts, as if she’s unsure if this is the answer I’m looking for. When I continue to stare, she adds, “In Burnaby, BC, Canada. Why?”
My heart beats faster. How did I get so far from Fort Langley, and why don’t I recall how I came to be here? “And your name?”
“Hannah Schmidt. Will you tell me what’s going on?”
Schmidt.Germanic. No one I know by that surname. No relation to my coven.
Another question rises to my lips, one I’m afraid to ask. “And…what is the date?”
Hannah hesitates, looking at me warily. “It’s October 28, 2009.”
The earth seems to jolt beneath my feet. I sway, dizzy with the impossibility of her words. The year begins with atwo?
I press a hand to my throat, where my pulse ticks rapidly.
“That’s…no.” I try to calculate how long it’s been, but my brain will not cooperate. “It’s… 1891 was…”
“1891?” Hannah repeats, as if she’s never heard of such a number.
“Yes,” I snap, growing impatient. “How many years ago was that?”
She pulls something rectangular out of her pocket and taps it with her thumbs. “Hundred eighteen.”
“I’ve been gone for118 years?” I roar.
“Okay, um—a little quieter, please.” Hannah puts her hands out. “My neighbors are probably putting their baby to bed, and… Look, I’m going to get someone to come pick you up and bring you back to your caretaker, okay?”
My heart slams against my ribs.Over a century.God, this cannot be! The number feels impossible, yet the strange world around me confirms it. Do any of my coven sisters remain, or has everyone I knew turned to bones? Did anyone mourn me when I vanished? Did they wonder about my fate or cast a tracking spell to find me? Or did they move on and assume I chose to disappear?
My chest tightens unbearably with a loneliness I have not felt since my mother passed. The utter terror of having no one who cares where I am or what happens to me. Of having no one who knows my face, my name, my soul.
My breaths come quick and tremulous, and I clamp my jaw shut before the girl notices. I am Julia Moreau, and I do not break.
Instinctively, I lift my hands to cast a kinship spell. I must know if anybody I can trust is near.
“Sorores, voces vestras nunc exquiro…” I murmur, but it’s clear from the first word that it’s no use. Dark wisps of magic sprout feebly between my fingers, too weak for a complex spell. My hands tremble, and I curl them into fists. The void inside me pulsates, my power desperate to be replenished.
“Is there a phone number I can call?” Hannah asks. “Your family or caretaker?”
Drawing deep breaths, I take in the houses with the colored lights flashing in the windows, the putrid air, the uniform grass under my bare feet… No wonder everything looks foreign. The world has undergone generations of change since…
A shiver rolls through me. Sincewhat? What happened to me?
My memories are hazy, like trying to see through fog. What is the last thing I remember?
Warmth. The scent of sage and jasmine and sweat. Rebecca’s lips grazing my throat as her blonde hair spilled through my fingers.
We were on the floor of her sanctum, the pentagram beneath us, candles casting moving shadows on the stone walls. I’d gone there to help her with a spell, but we never finished the chant. As we knelt and joined hands, sharing our breath to strengthen the enchantment…she leaned in.
In the next beat of my heart, we were kissing hard, both of us finally giving in after weeks of wanting. I pushed her onto her back, scattering our carefully placed herbs. The candles snuffed out, leaving us in darkness while the wind howled outside.
“I want to feel your power, Julia,” she’d whispered.
The words sparked a fire in me. Of course that’s what this was about: her desire to feel what it was like to be fed on by a sanguine witch.
So I’d pressed my body against hers, and she moaned under me, parting her legs. I teased her lips with mine and plunged my tongue into her mouth. Lifted her skirts. Slid my fingers between her thighs. Her teeth stung my bottom lip. My hair came undone beneath her frantic fingers, cascading down and caressing her face. She came apart at my touch, arching her back beneath me.
I’d just begun to recite the feeding incantation when…
