“Even you don’t believe that,” I said.
Hector took a step towards me, and I found myself naturally taking one back as well. There was danger in his eyes, warning me of all those vengeful thoughts swirling in his brilliant mind. “You won the Witch Trials, you hold the greatest power and threat against witch-kind in the palm of your hand. Everything you have wanted, you have achieved.”
“Lies. More of them,” I said, burning up from the inside at the suggestion. “Don’t speak on what you don’t know. Assuming makes an ass out of you and me.”
“So we finally agree. I really do knownothingabout you.”
Hector wasn’t wrong, not entirely. Except when it came to my feelings for him. But this wasn’t the moment to tell him that. “I would’ve rather died during that last trial, but you are the one who commanded Bahmet to possess me. Don’t forget that.”
His eyes flared, and I was sure I felt the air of my room kick up in a swirl of power. The loose colouring pages fluttered on my childhood desk, some falling to the floor. And yet no window was open, no natural gust of wind allowed in.
This was magic… this was Hector. His eyes spilled with a bright circle of silver, proving my point.
“You were dying,” Hector announced as if it was a fact I didn’t know. “I—I can see now that my moment of weakness wasa mistake. I should have let you die. If I could turn the clocks back, it’s exactly what I would have done.”
More lies.
I swallowed down the bile in my throat. “You need to listen to me.”
“No, I need tokillyou.”
“Me, or whatyouput inside of me?”
Bahmet stirred at the suggestion of him, and it was in that moment that I sensedhisfear. It curdled inside of me as if it was my own, but I wasn’t frightened of Hector. In fact, I wanted the brunt of his revenge and punishment, whereas Bahmet viewed this daring man before me like a weapon.
Why?
“Both,” Hector answered, winds picking up until the blonde waves of his hair twisted from his damp forehead.
Going against Bahmet’s desire to get away from Hector, I took a step closer to him. I’d reached out to Hector to warn him, not give in to my selfish desires to see him again. Although that was a bonus. “You can do it, and I would let you.” To prove it, I dropped to my knees before him, bowing my head. “But before you do, you should know what I have to say. Because whether I’m dead or alive, the inevitable will happen and… and you need to be warned.”
Hector’s winds slowed, no longer enforceable as it coiled around me, although still there. “If you are trying to stall me, you’re wasting your time.”
“Hector, I don’t deserve your trust, and I certainly don’t deserve your time. But if I can help you—if I can aid the witches, and prove that my intentions arenotin line with my father, then let me.Please.”
Once again, at the mention of my father, it was like any control Hector had over himself dissipated. His eyes flickedtowards the closed door, the cogs turning in his mind as he conjured a plan.
I didn’t have long to warn him before he did something we would all regret.
I reached out and grasped his trousers, my fingers fixing into the material and anchoring myself to him.
“Tomorrow my… Father Tomin has planned an attack against the prime minister. He seeks to pin the attack on witch-kind, and out you to the public. I can only guess he is doing this to spread a plague of fear against you, so he can come in and save the day. You need to do something to stop him, otherwise I fear that a real witch hunt will begin, and spread with ease. If this attack is successful, he will turn every witch into the very demons they have been thought to be, and the world will turn against you. Witch Hunters will not be the only people to hunt you. The time for stakes and burning will return. Hector…” I stood again, my hands holding his arms without thought. I kept my touch gentle. If he wanted to pull free, he could have, but Hector didn’t fight me. Instead, he looked up through a veil of dark lashes, drinking in every word of my warning. “You must utilise the trust of the Coven, warn them and either stop Tomin, or run. Run and hide. Every last one of you.”
For a moment, it was like all the deception between us was gone, and we were back in the Witch Trials, working together to keep each other alive.
I believed it, for a second, before Hector replied.
“The Coven does not trust me,” he said.
I shook my head. “What do you mean…”
Hector snatched himself away from me, repulsed by me. “Unlike you, I’m not a good liar.”
I blanched, working out what was not spoken. “You never told them, did you?”
“There was no point. At first, I thought me returning alive was enough, but then the witches started losing their connection to their Gifts. Fingers were pointed, and in Jonathan Bailey’s… absence, they started accusing me.”
Ah, Jonathan Bailey. The man who sold out Hector’s parents to my father. The witch who worked against witch-kind for his own gain. Just the thought of him inspired the darkness inside of me to swell.
