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I didn’t want him here.

Sure you don’t.

I ignored my inner twisted glutton for punishment and walked through the wide iron gates to the cemetery and pulled up short.

Mom was right, it was so much worse.

The dead patches had spread, and, shit, there was now an obvious ring around the old shed where I’d stored the bones. The dark magic embedded in Charity’s bones was leaching out into the soil. The roots of the tree she’d been underneath must have been poisoned by it, and carried it underground right into the cemetery.

I rushed forward and opened the door to the rickety shed and cursed. My ward hadn’t held. Her dark magic was still too powerful, and the ground around the box was black and smelled of rot. It was cloudy, but light still filtered through the windows, and I could see more clearly as my eyes adjusted. The box had several cracks around the bottom edge, and the seal of the lid had been compromised.

I hadn’t seen the damage in here when I brought it in. But we’d battled here at the cemetery a year ago. The ground had been torn up in several places and could have easily caused this damage. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the roots of the tree hadn’t done some of this as well.

I gripped the edge and opened the box—

A force knocked me back, and I hit the wall, my hands flying to my head as voices filled it, so many voices all talking over one another. I fell to my knees, my eyes rolling back in my head, and everything went black.

I was standing in a cave, witches, so many of them stood around me. Their eyes were black, their hair matted and limp, faces pale, skin and bone. They smiled at me with yellowed teeth. Three of them stepped forward. The elder crones.

“Bring Charity to us. Bring our sister home,” the crones said as one terrifying voice.

The room spun, and I was floating down a dark tunnel, moving deeper into the cave. I tried to scream, to fight, but hands covered my mouth, held my arms. It was so dark I couldn’t see anything, the blackness closing in, suffocating.

I came to a stop and a single candle was lit.

A row of bottles filled with different colored potions.

“You must pay the price. Skin, blood, potion.”

My body was jolted, hard.

I gasped, my eyes flying open.

I blinked several times. It was dark. I looked around. I was still in the shed. I’d been unconscious for hours.

And I knew what that vision meant, what I had to do.

I had to take Charity’s bones to Shadow Falls, where all dark witches went to be with the crones.

An image of those bottles was still in my head.

Skin, blood, potion.

I had to offer the crones my blood, and I had to drink whatever potions were in those bottles, I knew it without the crones having to spell it out, and I had to go alone.

When a witch turned to dark magic, their remains had to be placed in Shadow Falls to stop what was happening to us right now. To stop the evil from poisoning their family burial grounds. But there was a price, a test that must be taken by a member of the dark witch’s coven.

This was the mother’s task for me. It had to be.

I didn’t know what it had to do with the missing witches yet. Maybe I’d find out when I got to Shadow Falls? But I needed to do this now, before the cemetery was completely destroyed and before more innocent witches were taken.

I stumbled to my feet and searched for a bag.

And before I had too much time to think about what I was about to do.

CHAPTER 15

Iris