He touched his leg, and another chess piece took its place on the board in Pru’s mind. Rhiannon did this to him? Rhiannon maimed her father? He had known all along Rhiannon was a witch?
“They used to hang the likes of you for a reason. You’re dangerous.”
His voice, still deathly calm, was like a hammer, slamming into Pru’s consciousness again and again, leaving her weak and disoriented. Ceridwen moved closer to her, her hands balled, Pru seeing magic spilling from her fists slowly.
Victoria slapped her hand hard on the Fowler Bible, and her father recoiled.
“They? They used to hang witches? Ha, you coward. Mighty hypocritical of you to spout all this nonsense considering your own family history, Fowler.”
Another memory intruded, the line she had read from the Elizabeth Crowhart’s Compendium.
“The bird-catcher…”
Fowler… God dammit.
Fowler, the hunter of birds. The catcher.
“The Fowlers killed Gwendolyn Crowhart.”
She didn’t recognize her own voice. Her father flinched but stood his ground.
Victoria seemed unimpressed by the revelation. She pushed the Fowler Family Bible closer to the edge of the counter, and Pru finally saw what she had been pointing at. The very first branches of the family all had the symbol of the craft next to it, the same one the Crowhart Family Bible carried.
“You know, I expect to be let down by the world. After all, it’s a cruel and awful place. And the more I live, the more I get convinced of that. But what I never quite see coming is my own people becoming oppressors. Or, bar that, helping destroy us.”
Her father bared his teeth, but Victoria simply kept speaking.
“Still, as disappointing as this revelation is, it does explain Prudence and her powers?—”
Fowler reached for the book, Victoria slapping it shut in his face. Seren winced at the noise but stood her ground by the door like a sentinel. Ceridwen’s magic was pulsing stronger now. Pru counted the heartbeats ringing in her ears.
Too loud, too loud.
“That branch of the family is dead. That shame is over. We have chosen the righteous path—” Her father bit off his words only to be interrupted by Rhiannon.
“Righteous? Murder is righteous? How dare you, you sanctimonious asshole!”
He threw her a look full of hate.
“You really shouldn’t be speaking of murder, Rhiannon Crowhart. Of all the people?—”
“What do you mean, of all people?” Pru stepped between him and Rhiannon, laying a hand on her forearm, feeling the chill of the skin under her fingertips.
“Why do you care so much, Mayor Fowler?” Ceridwen’s quiet, somber words made everyone turn toward her. She stood silently by the open tome, her fingers splayed over its last page, magic spilling over it. An ornate piece of paper was pinned there.
Pru felt more than saw Rhiannon lean in, and then the already cold skin under her fingertips turned deathly frigid.
“Jedidiah Matthew Fowler to Margaux Belcourt. Paris. 1985.
23
RHIANNON, DREAMS UNDONE & FIRE (BECAUSE OF COURSE)
Rhiannon read the names on the French marriage certificate out loud. She moved closer to Ceridwen and noticed in the Fowler family tree there was only one tiny line emanating from under Jedidiah Fowler signifying offspring, and it carried Prudence’s name. There was no marriage listed as her origin. There was no divorce mark next to her Jedidiah either. Prudence’s mother was absent entirely.
Ceridwen’s eyes were huge, Seren’s inscrutable, and Prudence’s… Hers were full of resignation.
Rhiannon wondered how all these details had escaped her all her life. How she had been so blind to not see…
