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“I,” he said and cleared his throat. “I do care about you.”
I scoffed. “I’m a witch.”
He sighed and paced the small distance between us.
“It makes sense for you to be a witch,” he argued. “I mean, think about how we first met. Everything about you is…”
“Is what?” I asked.
“Power.”
I was a stupid, horrible fool.
I’d never wanted to be seen as anything but what I was, and I would never feel shame for who I was, yet something in my chest cracked at his words.
All this time, I’d thought Walker saw me as a girl—not the heir to Hecate’s coven or role model for the younger witches or even the great Sybil’s daughter.
I thought he saw me.
I recalled my mother’s warning to me after my Awakening. They were words that still rang in my ears years later.
“From now on, everyone is going to look at you and see power. Some will desire you for it, some will envy you for it, and many will fear you because of it. It’s why you must hold onto you, my darling. No one else will remember for you.”
Maybe there was something wrong with my life—a witch’s life—but it felt like a betrayal to even think it.
“Not all of us can see in black and white,” I said.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” he asked. “Just because my first instinct isn’t to kill people?”
I didn’t give him the satisfaction of even frowning. As I stared him down, ice covered the raw ache of my hurt.
“It means that not all of us get to save vampires from cages without a second thought,” I said, “that some of us have to think of the people we’re responsible for—something I thought you got, but you can’t even get over your own fear to help your sister.”
My words hit their mark, and he winced, but I couldn’t find it in myself to feel satisfied. I couldn’t apologize either.
“I just found out,” he argued. “Can I not have a moment to process? Can I not be scared for her?”
“Don’t lie to yourself,” I said. “You’ve known since she dream-shared in the cave, and you’ve probably suspected something was different about her long before then. You just can’t run from it anymore.”
“Excuse me then,” he said and sneered. “We can’t all be as perfect as the great Freya Redfern.”
Anger and hurt marred his boyish features into something unrecognizable. I turned back to the counter and picked up the pestle.
“There you go again,” he said. “Shutting yourself off as soon as anything gets real. Maybe you should ask yourself who’s the real coward here.”
I flinched at his words and ground the herbs together. At least I managed to hold back my tears until he finally sighed and walked out of the kitchen.
Chapter Twenty
Walker
Freya poured the green potion or whatever it was into Cadence’s mouth, then promptly disappeared into her bathroom down the hall. A shower turned on. When she emerged, her curls were still damp. She wore black tights, and a comfy-looking sweatshirt.
“You should shower,” Freya told me. “You stink. There are clothes in there for you.”
With that, she vanished into the garden. Though I hated doing what she’d practically ordered me to do, I was sick of sitting in my own filth. Ashes and blood clung to not only my clothes, but my hair and my skin.
I walked down the hall. Paintings and portraits lined its walls, which made it feel as homey as the rest of the cottage. I studied the portraits. Many of the women had Freya’s bright eyes, and a few of them had her flaming hair.
