“We cannot alter the past, but we can determine how it impacts our future.” Garrick’s eyes swung to me as I repeated Tomin’s words. Whether he’d meant to or not, the acolyte had given me a clue. “I have to intervene. I have to change it. That is how we get out of the gate.”
But before I could move or decide what to change, Garrick angled his body and slid down the roof. He landed hard in the snow, the sound echoing across the street, but none of the three occupants reacted.
I turned, ready to mimic his movements.
“Let him do it,”Isanara whispered into my mind.
If they hadn’t heard Garrick’s landing, they certainly could not hear my familiar speaking into my mind. But I did as she said. Despite her age and her moodiness, she had yet to lead me astray.
Garrick reached the trio in the street just as the last spark fell on the snow, melting the ring of salt. But instead of explodingwith power, he was there to catch me. I watched as his hands closed over my own. I watched my eyes flicker with confusion, then recognition. Even this memory of myself seemed to know him.
The power that had surged inside of me in that street calmed. So did the ice surging in my veins. Warmth filled me instead. I had only a second to savor it before the darkness took us once again.
CHAPTER 66
I landedon my feet with Isanara at my side. She shoved her head into my hand, her horns scraping against my palm. Victory flooded my chest. I’d survived the Memory Gate—done what only one other before me had ever achieved. There was truly a chance that I would make it through the Seven Gates, lift the curse, regain my coven, and save Kyrelle like I’d been unable to save her mother. I reached for Garrick?—
And there he was.
At my side.
But that could not be right. He should still be inside the Memory Gate, inside his own memory. Unless the Lifebind had somehow altered things and bound us so that we could not leave without the other?—
Familiarity came in brutal, merciless waves.
First was the smell. The cave was always thick with herbs, burned to strengthen spells or stewed to add to potions. Then came the contrast of temperatures. Cold along the walls where our beds were placed, but burning hot at the center where Maura’s ever-burning fire blazed. But worst of all had always been the noise. Trapped together in that cave, there was always too much noise echoing between the sloped walls. The otherwitches in my coven always seemed so unbothered, but I had never learned to manage the gifts the Dark God had granted me. The cacophony of sensory input overloaded me, just as it had for centuries.
Garrick’s hand curled around mine.
I took a deep breath, nearly choking on the thick scent, but I managed to count to five and then exhale. I did it again.
But there was no further respite. This was the Memory Gate. And this was my worst memory.
“These are the coven lands,”Isanara said from my side. She’d twined between my legs, a movement of protection.
She did not need me to confirm it. I could not speak, even within my mind.
I watched, helpless, as the commotion unfolded at the entrance to the cave. A beautiful blonde witch appeared, clothed in close-fitting trousers and a vest. McKean, the final member of the Midnight Coven. She dragged a limping young woman behind her. It was nearly midnight, but none of the other witches slept.
Aurienna and Elodie sat with Maura around a cauldron, chanting a protection spell. They had to be renewed more and more often as the power in Velora weakened. There was hardly a point. With the fae gone, the witches had no natural enemies. But Maura insisted we be prepared, that our borders be strong and fortified at all times.
Maura spoke obsessively of the day the curse would be broken. That was the true duty of the coven—to be ready for when it was, to assume power. All the other covens had fled Velora, but not Maura. She bided her time, waiting for the moment when the curse would lift and the Midnight Coven would be the first to grab that newfound power. We were immortals. We could afford to wait.
Maybe McKean had foreseen it. She was the coven sister I feared the most, Maura’s right hand.
Even with Garrick’s hand around mine, ice surged in my veins. There were some things beyond even his comforting reach.
McKean threw her prisoner down on the ground, her blonde hair swirling around her like a sun-kissed halo. I knew what was coming, and still it made me sick to watch—to see the young woman’s body, thin from her long journey north, bruised from the beating McKean had given her upon discovering her in the coven lands.
“Intruder,” McKean hissed.
“Please, please, I am not an intruder. I came… I must speak with… I need… I need Koryn.”
My coven turned as one to where the past version of me stood frozen by my bed.
Ice cracked inside of me as I watched the horror on my past self’s face, the pleading in Kyrelle’s eyes, the realization of how truly terrible whatever happened next was going to be. Isanara moved toward the other me.
“No,”I said to my familiar.“Not yet.”
