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A laugh crept out of my throat. “Of course you didn’t.”
My smile was short-lived. My lips wavered.
“What exactly did you see?” I asked.
Walker swallowed. “I didn’t see the killer, but it sounded like a woman. Your mom, she was trapped. She…she called her attacker her friend.”
He squinted and rubbed his fingers on his temples. I waited for him to continue and fought the urge to puke. My stomach became a sinking ship.
“Your mom said the only way she could’ve bested her was to be high on death,” he said. “The death of her kind.”
I gasped.
“Your family’s curse, the dead witches, why my mother was even here,” I said. “How that bitch actually managed to kill Sybil! It all makes sense.”
Horrific, terrible sense.
Walker squinted at me in confusion.
“She Embraced them,” I explained. “Josephine—she was killing the witches and stealing their magic. That had to be why she came here. For Cadence.”
Walker’s confused expression softened. “Your mom stopped her.”
I nodded, and some of the anguish that gripped my heart eased. My mother had died doing what she’d always done—protecting witch-kind.
“Josephine’s power must’ve been knocked down after facing my mom and wiping away your memories. She couldn’t have performed the spell to steal your sister’s magic, even after Embracing so many witches.”
I wiped away a tear that slid down my cheek.
“But why?” I asked. “Why did she need this power? Why send me to kill you?”
“I don’t know why she needs all this damn power,” Walker said, “but I was a loose end she needed tied She thought you’d be too lost in grief to think straight. She thought you’d kill me before realizing what an inept hunter I really am.”
He chuckled softly, then his expression sobered. “Your mom already got in her way once. She didn’t want you doing the same.”
“So she sent me on a wild goose chase for the killer to clear a path to Cadence.” My hands curled into fists. “She tricked me.”
“Cadence said she felt watched,” Walker said. “When she found us in the woods, she said she ran because she was scared. If she hadn’t…”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Josephine didn’t get to her then, and she won’t get to her now.”
Despite my advice to let go of the past, guilt still gnawed at me. I’d been so close to killing an innocent man.
“Hey,” Walker said and smiled. “At least you didn’t actually kill me.”
I sighed. “I suppose there’s a bright side.”
He playfully punched my arm and got to his feet. I sighed, then accepted his outstretched hand and rose. I was relieved that magic no longer coated his skin. I glanced around the wilted forest, and my relief scattered.
“Was she afraid?” I asked.
Walker shook his head. “She was trapped, but she was confident. Like she knew that even if she didn’t make it out of the forest, everything would be all right.”
He squeezed my hand.
“She knew you’d fix everything,” he said.
I snorted and blinked away tears. “I’ve really let her down then.”
