She’d paused beside me earlier, when her mother had sent her out of the spell room to fetch something to drink. For a foolish moment, I’d thought she might say something helpful like“I’ll talk to my mother. Tell her you’re starving. See if she’ll do something about it.”
Instead, all she’d said was “Listen.”
Listen.
Her voice swam through my mind, calm and insistent, forcing my attention outward. I didn’t want to eavesdrop on Isadora. I trusted her implicitly. And Icertainlywanted to stay out of her business like she’d asked me to.
But between the hunger pangs, the fatigue, and my inability to move from the couch, there wasn’t much choice left to me.
I lay there, eyes closed, breathing slow and even, and let their voices wash over me.
Just listening.
“Honestly, Mother, I don’t see what possible use you have for him. All he does is sit there with those puppy-dog eyes, watching you. Surely you could find a more useful one?” Priscilla’s voice was monotone, as if she were speaking purely to fill the silence.
Isadora’s reply was ice-cold. “I have a habit of keeping useless things around me, Daughter.”
“It’s notmyfault you sired me with such a weak warlock,” Priscilla snapped back, her tone just as sharp.
“He wasnotweak.” Isadora’s voice rose, brittle with fury. “I spent years hunting down and compelling the most powerful warlock I could find—just as my mother did before me. By all rights, had you turned out as you weremeantto, you should have been powerful enough to overthrow that bitch head of a coven by now.”
“As I recall, Grandmother wasmatedto her warlock,” Priscilla said coolly. “She didn’t need tocompelhim into herbed.” A beat passed before Priscilla said, “And perhaps I took afteryourmagic, Mother. Not my father’s.”
The sound of flesh striking flesh cracked through the room, followed by the crash of a picture frame hitting the floor as Priscilla was presumably hurled into the wall by the force of the blow.
My shadows billowed out of me—the urge to intervene almost uncontrollable—only stopping at the threshold of the spell room when I snapped back to my senses.
Stay out of my business.
Isadora’s words rattled through my head, and my shadows recoiled.
This isn’t right,I thought.
I managed to creep the slightest wisp of shadow into the corner of the spell room—just enough to press beneath Priscilla’s elbow and help her push herself upright. Her emotions were a whirlpool of brine and static, an ocean storm waiting to break, but threaded through it was the faintest scent of sun-kissed sea spray at my quiet, defiant offer of help.
“Look at the mess you’ve made! You insolent, pathetic excuse for a child!”
Silence followed.
I could almost picture Priscilla sitting there, calmly fixing her hair, preening as though nothing at all had happened.
“If you had taken aftermymagic, at least you’d be of some use,” Isadora said, her voice now eerily calm. “Your grandmother was one of the most powerful sirens that ever existed. She ruledoceans. And yet she chose to mate with a land dweller, lost her fins, and cursed our line to walk this barren earth, unable to answer the call of the ocean, and forever alien to the witch blood she polluted our lineage with.”
“Yes, Mother,” Priscilla said, her tone flat, as if she’d heard the story a hundred times before.
“And for what?” Isadora spat, ignoring her. “Forlove? A love that has been nothing but a curse on this family. It cursed me to fail at everything. It cursed me with a siren’s song so diluted I can barely keep that idiot out there in line.” Her voice sharpened. “It cursed me to have only half the magic those other witches wield so effortlessly. I finally found a coven that had everything handed to them on a silver platter, and it cursed even the coven’s magic to reject me. It’s cursed me with a daughter who is not siren enough to sing even a single note of compulsion, and not witch enough to wield even a drop of useful magic.” She laughed, bitter and hollow. “Love is a curse.”
“I know, Mother,” Priscilla said wearily. “It’s why you raised me without it.”
“And you’re better for it,” Isadora replied coolly. “Now, unless you’d like a jaw to match that black eye, change the water in that cauldron. You do have enough magic forthat, don’t you?”
“Just about,” Priscilla said, the barest hint of sarcasm threading her tone.
Hours passed. The only sounds from the room were the dullclankof the stirring rod against the cauldron and the low hum of Isadora’s voice as she sang a wordless, lilting melody.
When her voice began to rasp, she finally fell silent.
“How long is this going to take, Mother?” Priscilla asked.
