“I found you in Faerie and took care of the two males who were attacking you.”
“Yeah, I gathered that much.” Words are still slow—but whether that’s because of my aching lungs or the utter absurdity of the situation, I don’t know. “But… how?”
Callum doesn’t answer right away. He won’t meet my eye, and he hesitates for long enough that suspicion tightens my chest.
Not great, considering I can still barely breathe.
“Callum. How did you find me?” I start to sit up so I can get a better look at him, make him see I’m not going to take silence for an answer.
Before I make it more than a couple of inches, though, he lays a hand on my shoulder.
Goddess, that touch shouldn’t do things to me.
It shouldn’t send a wave of warmth and calm through me. It shouldn’t send a pulse ofrightall the way down to my bones, driving out some of the unsettlingwrongof this place.
“I… felt you.”
“Felt me?”
“Yes… I… it’s hard to explain.”
“Well try.”
Despite the lingering aches and pains, despite the slight edge of panic over the idea that he can justfindme at will, something in me calms when he touches the center of his chest. Something soothes, gentles, and he smiles slightly.
“Don’t you know?” he says. “Can’t you feel it, too?”
I don’t know how to answer that.
Correction, I don’t want to answer that.
I don’t want to think about some weird magick that lodged itself in my chest without my say-so. Weird magick that brought Callum right to me, apparently, and that I’m almost certain might bring me to him, too. If I let it in, if I let myself follow all those strands to…
No.
Not going there.
Not when the idea of it still makes my skin crawl, even as it warms me.
One more way my magick makes me who I am, makes me worthy, rather than the other way around.
“And is that common for demons who’ve found their…” I still can’t quite make the word come out. “For demons in this situation?”
“Every bond is different.” Callum’s voice is lower now, more gentle. “It’s… personal to those within it, and ruled by the Goddess in all her infinite wisdom. You have some sort of seeking magick, don’t you? Maybe parts of it have woven themselves into our bond.”
Despite all my misgiving, curiosity sparks. The same insatiable hunger for knowledge the coven instills in all of us.
It’s an intriguing idea.
My mind skips ahead to who I might talk to about it. Joan, for sure, and maybe Allie, if Callum and I ever travel back to the demon—
The door creaks open, halting our conversation and those thoughts in their tracks.
When I meet my sister’s eyes, the years fall away.
For a moment, we’re seven, standing in front of Esme Hawthorn while she judges our magick and finds us worthy.
In the next, we’re thirteen, on the first night we spent in the Crescent Coven dorms the year we started our advanced training. Twin beds in the darkness, whispers filled with hope, stars shining bright in the sky outside.
