Page 27 of Little Witch

"Oh, Amber, darling." She hummed and I burst into tears. "I miss you so much."

"I miss you too..." I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. "And I would love to sit down and speak for a while but Aria said we don't have long - and I need your help."

"Tell me." Her voice demanded.

"Do you know what's happening here? What's going on with me, with the woods, with all of it?" I asked. "The voices are back. In my head, and the twins. We keep getting called into the woods."

"Yes." Just that, steady and certain, before her voice softened. "I can tell you what I know. But I think I do have to be quick. It's hard, staying this long in someone else's body."

"Please." My voice cracked. "Tell me everything you can."

"Your father was Rose blood. The last of them, though he didn't know it himself until the year before he vanished. When the whispers started calling you, when you were small, he panicked. He couldn't bear the thought of the Hollow taking his little girl the way it had taken every other Rose before her. That's what happened to that family - they didn't die in a spell. The woods claimed them one by one..." A pause, her borrowed breath unsteady. "Yakob put a piece of his own magic into that locket you're wearing right now. Bound it to shield you from the call. As long as you wore it and believed in it enough to let it work, the whispers couldn't find you."

My hand went to the locket instantly, fingers closing tight around the metal. "So it really was protecting me. This whole time."

"It was. But magic like that has a cost, Amber. The Hollow still wanted a Rose. If it couldn't have you, it needed someone else to answer instead." Her voice thinned, strained by whatever it cost her to hold this shape. "Your father offered himself. Walked into the Pines with Cian Thorne, because Cian's family carried the other half of what the town needed — a Thorne, and a Rose, together, the way it's always required both. They thought if they went in together, willingly, it might fix the balance for good and leave you out of it entirely."

"But they never came back."

"No." The word came out fractured, grief bleeding through even secondhand, even filtered through someone else's throat. "I don't know exactly what happened once they crossed in. Only that whatever the Hollow wanted from them, it wasn't finished getting it. And now the pull has found you anyway. The locket's magic was never meant to last forever. It was only ever meant to buy you time."

"Time for what?"

"To grow strong enough to face it properly, when it finally came for you." Her presence wavered, the edges of her going thin. "You're not walking into those woods unprepared, my love, whatever it feels like right now. You're a Rose. You're stronger than either of us ever gave you credit for, and you have two Thornes standing beside you who'd tear the whole forest apart before they let it take you the way it took your father."

Tears blurred my vision before I could stop them. "I really do miss you. Every day. I don't know how to do this without you."

"You don't need me the way you think you do." Her voice softened, the warning fading back into something gentler. "You have people around you now who love you the way you deserve to be loved. Let them help you carry this."

I glanced at Rowan and Orias without meaning to. Neither of them said anything, but I caught Orias's throat working, and I caught Rowan's hand curling tight against the edge of the counter.

"I have to go soon," she said. "But before I do—"

She turned. Aria's borrowed eyes found the twins across the table.

"Your mother sends her love. She wants you both to know she's proud of the men you've become, and she wants you to take care of each other. And take care of my girl."

Orias made a small, wrecked sound and looked down at his hands. Rowan's jaw tightened hard enough that a muscle jumped along it, his eyes gone glassy in a way I'd never once seen from him before.

"I love you, Amber," she said, fading further with every word. "I'll always—"

The candles guttered out at once. Aria's whole body sagged forward, catching herself against the table with both palms, gasping like she'd been underwater too long.

"Aria." I was up out of my chair immediately, hand on her back. "Hey. You okay?"

"Mm." She waved a hand weakly, not lifting her head yet. "Give me a second. Always feels like getting hit by a bus, doing that."

"Thank you," I said, throat still tight. "Really. Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. Thank me once I can feel my legs properly." She managed a small, tired laugh and finally sat up, blinking hard, color slowly coming back into her pale face. "That was a strong one, though. She really loves you. It practically bled through the whole thing. I'm absolutely shattered."

I helped her up from the chair. My own legs weren't much steadier. "Go sleep upstairs. Second door on the left. Help yourself to whatever's in the kitchen when you wake up, we won't be back for hours."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

She squeezed my hand, glancing between me and the twins with something soft and knowing in her expression. "Good luck, Amber." She pulled me into a quick, tight hug, the kind that said more than the words had room for, then headed for the stairs, one hand trailing along the banister like she still wasn't fully steady on her feet.