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“There were some incidents last night,” Merle said. “I just got a call from Sarai, who heard it from Lenora.” A pregnant pause. “Elaine lost her niece, Cassie. And Sonia her daughter Leticia. They were out on patrol, different districts, and apparently some demons attacked them. The witches they were with fought hard, but both Cassie and Leticia…” Merle sighed. “It sounds like their magic failed. They didn’t make it.”
Hazel laid a hand over her face, her heart so heavy it threatened to pull her down to the ground.
“Those weren’t the only two incidents, though.” Merle’s voice vibrated with what Hazel knew was held-back anger. “At least two other patrol teams got into skirmishes with demons and barely escaped with their lives. They sustained heavy injuries.”
“I thought I wouldn’t be shocked,” Hazel said quietly, “because we both saw this coming. But I am. This hurts on a soul level.”
“Yeah,” Merle whispered. “I want to shake some fucking sense into the lot of them.”
“But we can’t even say anything to them anymore. We’re on shaky ground with them already. You and me, we’re both allied with Arawn, and we’ve seen what it looks like to them when we bring up the change of allegiance. It’s out of our hands.”
A long pause, suffused with all the heartbreak Hazel felt, which was mirrored in Merle’s tense silence.
“Anyway,” Merle said eventually. “Just wanted to let you know. You might get some more calls from others today. Not sure if there’ll be an Elder meeting.” Hazel could hear Merle’s shrug over the line. “Not like that’ll do them any good.”
They ended the call, and Hazel exhaled heavily into the pressing quiet of the room. Her gaze fell onto the sigil book again. Right. There was still that problem to solve. Seemed like the witch community was unraveling from multiple points, imploding on its own hubris and stubborn denial, old fault lines of hostility, and the rogue actions of a witch who’d violated sacred laws for some ulterior motive.
Well, there was still one thing Hazel hadn’t tried. If she couldn’t figure out the superior spell and wasn’t a step closer to identifying the witch, at least she could attempt to throw a wrench into the witch’s grand plan, whatever its evil intention.
Because, if she could destroy even one of the sigils the witch had already laid, it would sabotage the entire spell. All five sigils were needed to complete whatever the witch was working on. Take one out, and the whole chain would collapse, like a string of lights when one of the bulbs got fried.
Determination steeling her blood, she stood and gathered her supplies, then walked out into the foyer.
The sight of Rose on the stairs stopped her in her tracks. Looking just a little hungover, she still seemed to be…more settled than she’d seen her in a long while. Dressed in black jeans and a dark purple shirt, she carried herself with more presence, more…purpose than before.
“Are you going out?” Rose asked, hand on the railing.
“Um.” Hazel cleared her throat. “Yes. I’ve got some witch business to take care of. Do you need anything?”
Tentatively, Rose moved down the stairs, playing with the sleeves of her shirt. “Can I come?”
Shocked beyond speech, Hazel blinked a few times. Surreptitiously, she pinched herself in the side just to check if this was real. Ouch. Yep, it was real, all right.
“You…you want to join me?”
Rose nodded. “I want to learn.”
Beyond a few basic teachings early on after she’d arrived here from Faerie, Rose had mostly turned to books to soak up information on witchcraft, eschewing any attempts by Hazel to teach her in person. That she’d had the book on sigils in her room had been a part of her attempts at learning mainly by reading. At times in the past, though, it had seemed like she was entirely uninterested in getting to know her powers and learning how to handle them, and Hazel had often wondered if it was a reaction to how her being a witch had made her a target for abuse among the fae.
But now, after months of indifference and rejection of all of Hazel’s attempts to forge a connection, now Rose was approaching her. When she was about to walk back onto a crime scene of black magic, trying to destroy one of those fateful sigils.
Rose, apparently sensing her hesitation, took another step closer, opened and closed her mouth, then quietly said, “I want to spend time with you.”
Oh, for Powers’ sake, how could she turn her away?
Her mother’s heart melting, she swallowed. “Of course. Sure.”
Rose nodded eagerly, grabbed her jacket off the hanger in the cloak room, and followed her out to the car.
Hazel spoke into the humming silence once they were on their way. “This witch business I’m taking care of…it’s dark.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rose face her, listening attentively.
Hazel had deliberated how much to tell Rose about where she was heading, what she was going to do…what it was all about, but in the end, Rose was family, and in this, Hazel would show her trust. It was the least she could do to mend what she’d broken when she’d gone into Rose’s room and basically accused her of committing murder.
Rose had reached out today, and Hazel would answer her, would show her she was valued and appreciated by bringing her into the loop of what was going down in the witch community.
So she told her, all of it, and Rose listened with interest, her face thoughtful or appropriately disturbed when Hazel glanced at her.
