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“When was that?” Sebastian jeers from the sidelines. “During the Bronze Age?”
The comment earns him a glare not just from me, but Finn, Lilian, and a few of the other Moon Witches as well.
If he was sitting closer, I would smack him. It would likely break my hand and he wouldn’t feel it, but I would still enjoy hitting him. “Seriously, Sebastian, this would go so much better if you could learn to keep your thoughts to yourself.”
“Besides, if anyone here should be the butt of old age jokes, it should be him.” The young witch lets off a laugh as she strides to the closet by the front door.
Lilian looks like she might snap. “Violet Reine.”
The addition of the middle name makes me cringe, sparking memories of Grand-Mère standing in the back door with her hands on her hips as I ran and hid from her wrath.
“Yeah, yeah,” Violet grumbles as she finishes pulling on a pair of cheery yellow wellies. “The annoying burden is leaving. Don’t worry.”
I have no doubt that if the front door was still attached to its hinges, she would have slammed it shut on her way out.
I don’t envy Lilian the responsibility of raising a teen, that’s for sure. It’s hard enough going through the awkward adolescent years as a young woman with fluctuating hormones and emotions.
Throwing magic into the mix must be a recipe for disaster. Still, my heart goes out to the kid as well. Violet seems to handle herself better than I did back then. When I was her age, losing control of my magic as my emotions flared was nearly a daily occurrence.
Then I catch Fintan frowning after her with his brows drawn together. Is it more than teenage angst and unplaced anger?
“Will Violet be okay?” I ask, following Finn’s gaze when his attention flicks to the front window just as the young witch’s shadow passes by.
“My niece is fine. She won’t go far; she is bound to the house.”
“Talk about keeping the kid on a short leash.” Rune’s mumbled words are too quiet for Lilian to hear him from across the wide trunk of the bald cypress.
I hope.
Sebastian is doing well enough at pissing her off on his own. He doesn’t need Rune’s help.
Lilian rubs at her temples again, and I wonder if maybe it isn’t her teenage ward who is the cause of her headache. Regardless, she gets back on track.
“To truly understand Egan’s intentions and what we are dealing with, we have to go back to the beginning.”
“The war,” I answer absently.
She dips her chin. “Yes. Though perhaps it began even before then. How much do you know about the time when you still lived here as a child?”
“Grand-Mère used to tell me stories. She wanted to make sure I knew our history.”
Lilian nods. “Knowing one’s past is imperative, so we don’t repeat our mistakes, but I doubt you know the whole truth of what happened.”
A few short hours ago, I would have argued that, but after Adelaide’s betrayal and the revelation of who was truly behind my parents’ death, I’m wondering what else I thought I knew.
Sebastian scoffs. “Enlighten us then, o’ wizened hag of the swamp.”
I look at Finn. “Is there a way to make him keep his mouth shut?”
He runs a rough hand over the russet stubble gracing his perfectly sculpted jaw. “Ignore him, lass. Reacting to unacceptable behavior only reinforces it.”
Thankfully, Lilian takes the advice to heart, and we get back to the discussion of the war that plagued New Orleans. “In the beginning, the idea of the unity ritual stemmed from our intention to stop the war waging between the werewolves and the vampires. It had been months of endless fighting—one bloody battle after another, all of them senseless and leading to more chaos and suffering rather than any kind of conclusion.”
Grand-Mère told me the witches and a handful of other supernaturals were fleeing the city. With the vampires and the werewolves matching each other with equal forces of strength, it was a deadlock and neither side was willing to concede.
It was too dangerous to risk getting caught in the middle.
“The covens across the city came together,” she continues, “taking it upon ourselves to conceal the violent truths. We cleaned up the messes our fellow supernaturals made and they went about slaughtering one another.”
