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“Ask Maura. ” I jerk my head at her. “Tell them what you did. ”
Maura won’t meet my eyes. “Don’t make this about us. There are more important things to discuss. ” She turns her back on me, and her condescension makes me want to yank her red curls out by the roots. I wish we could settle this as easily as one of our old childhood brawls.
“I’ll tell them, then. ” I step into the center of the hall, the center of attention—a place I’ve never relished. The words spill out of me, jumbled and passionate. “Finn joined the Brotherhood for me. He hated every minute of it, everything they stand for. He knew I was a witch, and he loved me anyway—no, not anyway. He was proud of me. He risked his life to spy for the Sisterhood and to help free you all. If they’d caught him, he would have been executed. ” I feel as though I’m giving a eulogy, and perhaps I am. “But Sister Inez wanted Maura to prove just how ruthless she could be. She didn’t approve of a Brother knowing our secrets. And Maura—she’s always been jealous that I had Finn, so she went into his mind and erased me. That’s the kind of girl she is—the kind of sister. She would betray any one of us in a heartbeat. ”
Maura stares at me, wordless, cheeks flaming. The other girls draw away from her as if the brush of her skirts contains some contagion.
“Go, Maura. Go to your room,” Tess says finally, her voice low. “Cate shouldn’t have to look at you right now. Frankly, I don’t want to see you, either. ”
Maura whirls on her. “Who are you to tell me what to do?”
The oracle. The prophesied one. I want Tess to toss it in Maura’s face, but I know she won’t. She’s not power-mad like Maura or vengeful like me.
Tess purses her lips. “I’m the sister who’s still speaking to you. ”
Maura’s face falls. “You haven’t even heard my side of things!”
Tess hovers between Maura and me, her gray eyes like knives. “I don’t know what you could possibly say that would make me understand why you’d do this. ”
“Fine. Take her side, like always. I don’t need either of you! You’ll see. ” Maura pushes through the crowd of gaping girls and runs upstairs, boots clattering on the wooden steps.
And I’m left feeling—how?
Unsatisfied with my petty vengeance.
Rilla is the first to recover her wits. She takes my hand, hazel eyes full of sympathy. “Come upstairs, Cate. You must be—”
I yank away. “No. ” She means well—she always does—but her kindness makes me want to fling myself onto the floor and cry.
I look around at the girls gathered in the hall. I can’t fall to pieces, because they need me. I’m not the only person Maura hurt tonight. Even now, the Head Council’s subordinates will be finding them, childlike and confused, unable to recall their own names. Tomorrow, New London will be in an uproar against witches, and it will only get worse once the town learns of the mutiny at Harwood.
The Brotherhood will strike back. We’ve got to prepare ourselves for that.
The Harwood girls have been starved and drugged and brutalized. They need a place to heal, and the convent isn’t that kind of haven anymore. Not with Sister Cora dead and Inez in charge. She’ll do anything to oust the Brothers and put herself in power; she doesn’t care who might be destroyed in the process.
But I do.
I’ve cast off one sister tonight, but now I’ve got dozens.
I mean to make New England safe for all of them.
My magic rises, sparking through my fingertips. The candles on the hall table burst into flame, followed by the old-fashioned brass candelabras along the hall.
I am tired of hiding what I am. There’s got to be a better way. Not Inez’s way. Not Brother Covington’s, either.
If it’s war the Brothers and Maura want, it’s war they’ll get. I’ll fight both of them.
“Welcome to the Sisterhood. ” I tilt my chin up, meeting each girl’s eyes in turn. “As you’ve probably figured, I’m Cate Cahill, and this is my sister Tess. Let’s get you all something to eat, and then we’ll show you to your rooms. This is your home now. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure you’re protected. ”
• • •
We get the six Harwood girls settled before the fire in the sitting room, eating yesterday’s bread with slabs of butter and strawberry jam, drinking cups of hot cocoa. Once I assure myself that Rilla and Vi will take care of them, I make my way up to the third floor, to Sister Cora’s suite.
Sister Gretchen opens the door at my knock. Her hazel eyes are bloodshot and rimmed in red. “Cate. You’ve heard?”
I nod, brushing a hand through my tangled blond hair. “I’ll miss her, but I’m glad she’s at peace now. ”
Gretchen swallows a sob. “I knew it was coming, but I don’t quite know what to do without her. ” She and Cora have been the best of friends since their days studying in the convent school.
“I know. ” I press her hand. “I’d like to say good-bye, if you don’t mind. ”
“Of course. ” Gretchen ushers me in, and we cross through Cora’s shadowy sitting room to her bedroom. Her body is laid out on the four-poster bed, dressed in a plain black gown. Her white hair cascades over her shoulders; her thin hands are as bare as winter trees without her dozen rings. “I’ll give you a moment alone. ”
“Thank you. ”
I step closer to the body. Most days, I don’t know what I believe insofar as religion, but I suspect Cora’s soul is elsewhere now. Instinctively, I glance toward the ceiling, as though expecting to find her spirit floating there.
I’ve never found much comfort in the notion of my mother watching over me. At her funeral, that was the Brothers’ favorite platitude. They stopped short of suggesting I should ask her spirit for guidance. That would be sacrilegious; a girl should turn to her father or her husband or the Brothers themselves for wisdom. But they insisted she would still be looking after me from heaven, thinking that would bring me solace. Mother’s instruction to keep my sisters safe weighed heavily enough on me, though; I didn’t relish the notion of her spirit peering over my shoulder, judging whether I was doing a good enough job of it.
Sister Cora set me an even bigger task—to protect the entire Sisterhood. Tess may be the prophesied witch, but she’s too young to lead, and neither of us trusts Inez to do it for her.
“I won’t let Inez ruin everything you worked for,” I vow. My voice is soft, swallowed up by the rug and the heavy green curtains pulled shut against the snowy night.
I rather like the idea of Cora looking down on me, I discover. She demanded a great deal, but she made her own mistakes, like with Zara. She’d forgive mine.
The notion gives me courage.
“Thank you,” I add. “For believing in me. ”
I leave her with candles burning on the dressing table to chase away the darkness. In the sitting room, Gretchen is slumped in Cora’s green flowered armchair.
“You’ll sit up with her?” I ask, and Gretchen nods. “Do you want me to take a turn?”
She shakes her head, gray sausage curls bouncing. “You need your rest. How did things go at Harwood? I should’ve asked straight off. ”