Page 13 of Alpha Charmed

“You’re quiet,” he observes.

“I’m thinking.”

“You’re always thinking. This is different.”

The words come out anyway.

“She tried to tell people.”

“You didn’t know.”

“I should have. I’m the coven leader. It’s my job to know when trouble is brewing.” My voice sharpens more than I intend. “Instead, I was so busy managing council politics and pretending my magic wasn’t⁠—”

I stop. Some confessions are too dangerous, even now.

Caius stops walking.

I take two more steps before I realize he’s no longer beside me. When I turn back, he’s watching me with an expression I can’t quite decipher—concern and frustration and warmth all tangled up.

“We should get back.” I turn away before my face can betray anything else. “Cordelia is stopping by the apothecary this afternoon. She sent word that she has ‘concerns’ about my inquiries.”

“Of course she does.” Caius falls into step beside me again, and I’m acutely aware of the warmth radiating from him, the controlled power in every movement. “I’ll make myself scarce while she’s there.”

“That’s probably wise. If she suspects we’re coordinating⁠—”

“She’ll escalate.” His hand brushes my elbow as we turn a corner—a steadying touch, present then gone before I can react. “I’ll be at The Den. If you need me.”

If I need him.

The words settle into my chest and refuse to leave.

Elder Cordelia Ashworth arrives at precisely three o’clock.

“Coven Leader Darkwater.” Cordelia settles into the visitor’s chair across from my desk with the ease of someone who’s occupied it many times before. “Thank you for making time to see me. I know how busy you must be.”

“Of course, Elder Ashworth.” I fold my hands on the desk—a gesture that looks calm and feels like restraint. “Your message mentioned concerns.”

“Yes.” The word comes weighted with gentle disapproval. “About this… investigation you seem to be conducting into poor Mathilda’s passing.”

“An elder is dead. Looking into the circumstances seems appropriate.”

“An elderly witch passed away from magical exhaustion.” Cordelia’s hands fold in her lap, mirroring mine—a technique I recognize from years of council negotiations. “Tragic, certainly. But natural. These things happen as we age.”

“The healers said she had decades left. Her magic was stable. Strong.”

“Healers can be wrong.” A flicker passes behind Cordelia’s warm expression—brief, cold, quickly hidden. “And Mathilda had been… struggling, these past weeks. Confused. Distracted. Speaking of things that made no sense. Her mind was clearly failing. When that happens, the body often follows.”

“You visited her three times in her final week.”

The flicker again. Longer this time. “I was concerned about her welfare. Forty years of friendship tends to create such attachments.”

“What did you discuss during those visits?”

“Nothing of consequence.” Cordelia waves a dismissive hand, her rings catching the afternoon light. “Old memories. Council gossip. She rambled about dreams—nonsense, mostly. Her sister. Her childhood. Things that supposedly happened before any coven records began.” A soft, pitying smile. “The wanderings of an aging mind.”

Things that happened before coven records began.

The same things Mathilda was researching obsessively in the archives. The same things she wrote about in her letter to me. The same things, apparently, that got her killed.