Witches were, and had been, exactly what the Witch Hunters had hunted us for. That, in itself, was a large pill to swallow. And the Coven clearly were better spitters, because they still petitioned against everything Romy fought to reveal.
The Coven wanted witch-kind to believe that evil wasn’t real. The power that Arwyn stole from us was not a demon. Ifanything, I was the thorn in their side, my actions resulting in the obvious failure to our kind.
“I won’t do it again,” I lied, and Romy knew it.
“Bullshit.”
I dropped my banana peel and swivelled in my chair to face her. “Okay then, it is bullshit. But you knowwhyI’m doing this. If the Coven aren’t going to turn their full attention to Father Tomin and his new weapon of destruction, someone else has to. I have to. This is my fault… mine.”
My heart beat fast in my chest, my hands shaking violently on my lap.
“This isn’t your fault. I don’t know how many times I need to say it. Perhaps I could tattoo those exact words on your arm, or drill them into your thick skull.”
If I’d passed the final Trial, I would be the host for Bahmet and not Arwyn. My actions had handed over our greatest power, and threat, into the hands of our enemies. “I have to stop him, Romy. You know I do.”
I thought about Arwyn non-stop, but I hadn’t said his name aloud in so long that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Romy didn’t suffer from the same reaction, because she spit it out like soured milk whenever he was brought up in conversation.
“Arwyn will be dealt with. Believe that,” Romy said, looking down at her gloved hands. “He will face the judgement, and we will get our power back… we need to get our power back.”
My breath lodged in my throat as I read the nuance of her gaze. “Is it still not working?” I asked.
Romy shook her head. “No, and the same goes for almost half of the Coven’s members. In a matter of weeks, or days, we will be left without our Gifts. Well, all but you apparently.”
It had been three weeks ago when Romy mentioned a handful of witches reporting that their Gifts had just stopped working. Since then, every day the number of those who sufferedthe same fate grew larger. And it was only going to get worse. We both knew that it was Bahmet who offered witch-kind their Gifts, but now that he was not in the grasp or control of witches, I could only imagine that was the root cause of why our Gifts were failing.
Well, like Romy said, all but me.
I lifted a hand and rubbed at the centre of my ribs, directly where I knew the broken shard of the very demon lived. It connected me to the monster who had started all of this, so my Gift was as strong as ever. But that didn’t solve the issue at hand.
How were we to face Arwyn, and the Witch Hunters, without our Gifts? We would be powerless to stop them, and that was a problem—whether I liked the Coven or not.
“Then you keep training,” I said, forcing confidence into my voice. “Gather as many of the Coven members who are willing to fight, and teach them everything we’ve learned.”
Romy brightened at the reminder of her focus. And I mean that literally. To demonstrate what I was suggesting, she lifted her spare hand up and held it to the side of her mug. For a flash, her brown eyes glowed with a circlet of gold. Heat sparked in the air and I was transported back to the Witch Hunter’s flat when I’d set him ablaze. Except Romy’s use of our old magic was not as sinister as that. Fire curdled between her palm and the mug until steam rose from her tea.
“I’m doing my best,” she said. “I’ve got about twenty witches who are learning the old magics again, but the rest of the Coven refuse to listen. They’d rather follow blindly in the reality of Bahmet, then turn back to the old ways.”
“Twenty is better than two,” I added. “It’s a start. A spark which should, when the rest of the Coven realise this is the only way to regain power, become an inferno. You just need to keep trying. I would help if it wouldn’t result in them locking me behind bars again.”
Still grasping onto the element of fire, Romy was able to down the hot tea until she was breathless and the mug empty. Her throat couldn’t scald when she used the element she was most naturally connected with. Once finished, she cracked her mug down on the side and stood. “Then I really should get going. Now you’ve exposed that the Witch Hunters are back, I need to petition more of our numbers to go looking for them. It’s obvious they’ve been using their time away to regroup, and I want to find out why. I don’t like being on the back foot, and I certainly don’t like having time to think about all the fucked-up things Arwyn is doing with his new power.”
There it was again… his name. My body shivered, reminding me of the power he still held over me.
Romy had been the sunshine to my grumpy since I met her, but since the end of the Witch Trials, it was like a cloud had passed over the sun and blocked out its light. I got it, trust me. The trauma of being surrounded by death and danger really had taken a toll on us. I wouldn’t speak for Romy, but I sensed we both had a burden on our shoulders. Differing and yet the end goal was the same. Thing was, I just worried that the burden would suffocate us before we got the chance to make a change. More so for Romy, since she was the only one of us both who could actively make a change at the moment.
It was why I still tried to help. I couldn’t sit back and let her bow beneath the weight of responsibility. I wouldn’t.
“Romy,” I said, reaching out and taking her hand in mine. “It’s going to be alright. All of this will come to an end, because it has to. Okay?”
She regarded me, eyes searching me from head to toe. “I hope so, Hector.”
“I know so, Romy.” I released her hand, and yet it hovered there for a second. “Cross my heart and hope to die, I promiseI won’t leave home today. Anyway, I’m pretty sure I’m going to sleep for the majority of it.”
Her eyes flicked over towards the unspoken bag I’d brought with us. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Really sure, in fact. Although I may do some light research before I sleep.”
Light research including looking through everything I’d stolen from the Witch Hunter in hopes to find a lead on where they’d all been, and where Arwyn was hiding.
