Page 35

“I need to go there,” I say.

He stares at me. “Where?”

“The archives.”

“No. No, absolutely not. You don’t mess with blood witches in their own house. If they find you, they’ll be furious, and you have no coven to protect you.”

“Then help me, and we’ll be quick.”

The atmosphere around us thickens by the minute. Human donors lounge half-naked across velvet seats, their wrists, thighs, and chests marked with shallow cuts. Blood glistens in thin red lines over skin while witches and vampires drift between them, touching, tasting, drinking. My stomach turns. Maybe I have witch blood in me, but not this kind. Not enough to make this feel like normal.

Ezra looks at my face and curses under his breath. “Don’t move.”

He flicks his fingers, and glamour rolls over me like cold silk. A second later, I’m staring into a nearby mirror at the brunette’s face, her messy hair and almost non-existent outfit.

“Awful,” I say.

“Stop complaining. It won’t last forever.” Ezra nods toward the real witch sprawled half-conscious on the couch. “Go look for whatever you want but make it quick. I’ll keep our little friend occupied.”

I slip out of the alcove and move through the party with my head down. The blood moonshine buzzes under my skin, fighting the stardust, making everything too arousing. I hate the feeling of losing control. Voices bleed from corners, witches laughing, people moaning behind curtains, vampires murmuring into open throats. Two women walk toward me like they know the body I’m wearing.

Damn it. I lean into the wall and fake a drunk stumble.

“Girl! Are you okay?” one asks.

“Bathroom,” I slur, waving vaguely and pushing past them.

“Drunk again,” the other says behind me. “She’ll be there all night.”

Around the next corner, I find stone stairs leading down. The music fades as I descend. At the bottom waits a heavy metal door. I try to open it – nothing. I whisper a few basic spells I can remember from school – nothing. Then I notice the needle beside the handle.

Fucking blood witches.

I grab the metal grip the right way and let the needle pierce my skin. A thick drop of my blood slides down slowly into the mechanism. I barely breathe as the crimson spreads across one lock after another. When the first opening sounds break the silence, something hits me. Even with my non-existent ties to Red Coven, their magic still answers to my blood.

The door opens.

Inside, the room feels like a library built inside a tomb with its stone walls and high shelves full with old ledgers. I leave the door slightly open to hear if someone comes and start searching. Most books are useless, coven histories and ritual inventories. But every coven keeps a census of all witches, their children, grandchildren, and family trees. They use it to navigate connecting bloodlines.

I find the ledgers on a lower shelf near the back and pull out the ones marked with older years. I look for Von Batten. Nothing. I flip through names, dates, marriages, births, deaths, my pulse ticking faster with every page. No Von Batten. No Julian.

I’m about to close the last ledger when my hand lands on a page marked Voss.

I stop breathing.

Normal family trees usually track men. Witch records follow women. The line runs down the page in looping black ink, grandmother to mother, mother to daughter, until it reaches the bottom.

Cornelia Voss.

Only her. The last name in the line.

They didn’t even write me in.

Was my mother ashamed of me? Or did I matter so little to her that nobody bothered?

I force myself to look higher, past the name that still hurts. On my grandmother’s level, a sister branches sideways into another line. And there I see it – Von Batten. No partner’s name, no dates, no children listed underneath.

Is it this Von Batten? Were Julian and I related?