“You know why,” Jezi says with a note of sympathy in her tone. I didn’t notice her beside me, but she looks like she’s been through the wringer as well. Her perfectly groomed hair is frazzled and her eyeliner looks smudged.
Mack slams his hands on the desk, and I’m surprised they didn’t go straight through with how hard he hit it. “Oh, believe me,” he snorts, his rant far from over. “I know good and well why she suddenly has the temperament of a two-year-old.” His aged eyes are pegged on me, and I feel myself shriveling beneath his heated gaze. “It’s because it’s been nearly a month since that awful night at the manor, and she hasn’t said a word about it. That’s why. It’s her goddamn avoidance of grieving and accepting what happened to her mother.”
I flinch at the word mother.
“I don’t think she’s even tried to grieve her loss,” he continues without an ounce of remorse, throwing his hands up in the air. “And this is the result of bottling all those emotions up—reckless, careless behavior. She’s too unstable to trust anymore.”
Weldon steps in front of me beside Jaxen, forming a wall of protection I don’t want to hide behind. “So give her something to use that explosiveness with,” he counters, using what I’ve done to ignite the same exact argument we’ve been in with Mack since we’ve returned. “You can’t force her to come to terms with her loss. We all deal with it in different ways, so let her use that anger against the Darkyns. We should be prepping with the armies you’re putting together right now. Hell, with everything that happened at the manor, we should be helping you with the inclusion of all the witch-hating families like the Carters, who are practically pawing at our city gates, asking for a chance to get at the Darkyns.”
Mack looks put off by the knowledge of this and disgusted by the suggestion.
Weldon brushes his look off with a wave of his hand. “Oh, don’t act surprised, Brother. I don’t sleep. Therefore, I have time to kill. Ergo, I see shit.”
Mack straightens up and smoothes his hands down the front of his yellow and grey sweater vest. “That very same suggestion is what landed Katie and Chett in the position they’re in. With Chett’s aunt suddenly switching sides and standing behind Clara, there’s no telling what the Carters will do. They aren’t trustworthy. Turning against your own kind isn’t something we condone. That’s what the Rebellion was founded upon, and I won’t let a little desperation change that now.”
Weldon rolls his eyes and throws his hands up. “This coming from the man who was recently inducted as a High Priest. It must feel good to finally have all that power to abuse.” He turns, his eyes narrowed and pointed on Mack like laser beams. “You act like you can control how people feel and think. They will hate who they want to hate, with or without your permission, and with or without you knowing. And Evelyn Carter is a piece of crap on the bottom of our shoes. She married into the Carter family because of her bond, and then she murdered her way right back out of that family when she joined Clara in the Underground. We all know that story.”
Mack moves around the desk, stopping in front of Weldon’s face. “You just don’t know when to shut up, do you? I swear, between you and your partner, maybe it’s you two who should be locked up and—”
I feel like a small child in the room again. Like all the adults are discussing how they’re going to punish me, and it strikes a fire in my limbs. Using the searing pain from my body as fuel to squeeze my way in between the two pillars of men trying to protect me, I stand in the spotlight of my own wrongdoings.
Mack’s right there, in my face, prepared to point out every flaw. His eyes are hard-edged and his lips are tightly pressed.
I think I know now why he was paired with Clara.
“Whatever I did, I take full responsibility for, but, please, don’t let me be the cause of another argument between you two,” I say, my voice light and filmy as my heart beats painfully against my chest.
Mack’s face pulls tight with anger. “Do you even know what you did?”
I glance at my hands. “Clearly something I wasn’t supposed to do,” I remark, wishing the furnace in my neck and face would shut off.
Mack slaps his hands against his sides. Looks around the room in disbelief. “And she makes a joke about it,” he says to no one in particular. He stops, pinches the bridge of his nose, and then turns back to me, inching toward my face. “You’re so lucky the injuries you’ve caused today are minor. Had they not been, that would be it. If you ever, and I mean ever, do something like that again, Everlasting or not, I’ll have you locked up. Do you hear me?”
I draw back, feeling every inch of the wreck that I am as shame paints itself on my skin.
“That’s it. We’re going home,” Jaxen says, the tone in his voice telling me he’s one word away from losing it. He tugs on my elbow.
“Home?” I pull away from him, feeling like the black hole in my soul will never mend. “I don’t have a home.”
In his eyes, there’s a sadness I don’t want to recognize. One I don’t have the strength to mend. I turn back to Mack. “I came here because I want to know why Katie’s being detained.”
“You should be more concerned about your own life than hers at this point,” Mack says. He steps aside, and it’s then I find Seamus across the room. He’s rubbing at his neck, his eyes bloodshot. When he moves his hands, there are deep red welts across the wrinkled skin of his neck.
A sick feeling drowns the air from my lungs. “No,” I say, backing up a step. My voice is weighted by humiliation. Acrid heat scrapes up the back of my throat.
“You lost it, Faye,” Mack says, a prickle still in his voice. “You didn’t even give us a chance to explain. You just…” He stops and points to something behind me.
I don’t want to turn because I know once I do, I’ll have to face what I’ve done, but I do it anyway. The door is gone, ripped clean off the hinges. Two Elites lay on the floor, blood pooled around them, with another two witches hovering over them, working healing spells.
It’s then that everything comes back to me.
I didn’t stop.
I didn’t stop when Jaxen tried to keep me from entering the building. I didn’t stop when my thumb didn’t work on the keypad that would lead me to where Seamus and Mack’s offices were. I didn’t stop when the Elites on guard told me to. Or when they tried to contain me with magic and volation.
I ripped through doors. Punched my way through walls when the doors wouldn’t budge, and set off an alarm in the process, warranting more to come after me.
All I could think about was Katie being locked up again, her body tortured just like it had been by Clara. Held captive like my mother. Put away by the very men I trust. I couldn’t let it happen to her again. Not after everything. Not after all we had lost.
And it sent me into a rage unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
I stumble, ashamed of myself, and fall back into a chair that Weldon moves in behind me. Everyone circles around me, and I want to tell them to go away. To leave me in my shame. I feel like I’m living my life in a glass room for everyone to see.
All my mistakes. All my pain. Everything.
Jaxen crouches in front of me and takes my hand in his, running his thumb over it in soothing circles. “Maybe it’s time you went to see your dad. He’s asked to see you every day since we’ve been back.”
My heart feels like an oak tree struck by lightning. “No.”
“Faye,” Weldon adds in, “you haven’t seen him since—”
I spin in my chair. “I said no.” I get up, feeling like I should be moving, and stop in front of Mack and Seamus. “I can’t say I’m sorry enough about how I reacted. I know it’s uncalled for, and I agree with you about locking me up… This is something I swear won’t ever happen again.”
Mack folds his arms across his chest, his head tilting slightly. “The damage alone you have caused will cost us time and money we don’t have, Miss Middleton. We should be focusing on the fight, not fighting with one another.??
?
I feel like I’m stuck in a web of my own doing. “If there’s anything I can do to turn this around,” I say, wishing I could go back and do this again. The right way. The less angry way.
Mack exchanges a glance with Seamus, whose color has finally returned to his face. Seamus clears his throat and says, “We’ll dock your pay to cover the expenses incurred with your reckless behavior.”
“Great,” I say, feeling like the clouds of my shame are beginning to part.
“And…” Seamus continues, his bushy, silver eyebrows inching up his forehead, “you’ll help with the cleanup.”
I nod, taking in a large breath. “Okay. Anything you want, but, please, explain to me why you have my best friend in that awful place.”
Seamus opens one of the draws on his desk and pulls out a piece of paper in a plastic bag labeled evidence. He drops it on the edge of his desk near me.
As I pick it up, Mack says, “We found it in Katie’s room when we rummaged through the manor after the fire. It’s a letter from her mother, Eliza Fellwood.”
“You mean Eliza Coccia,” I correct, not understanding why he used her maiden name.
He nods his head to the letter, as if the answer will be found there.
The edges of the paper are charred, but the words are still visible enough to be read.
Katie,
I hope this letter finds you healthy and happy. I have much to tell you and not a lot of time to tell it, so I fear I must be abrupt. I don’t know if your father told you, but we’re separating. I’ve chosen to follow a different path than he and, because of this, we must go our separate ways.
As you know, we’re in the midst of a war. One that is centuries old. Your father has chosen to fight against the change Clara’s trying to bring to our Coven, and I can’t help but feel his choice is a selfish one. A choice that continues to stifle the needs of witches, which is why I’m leaving the Coven to follow Clara and join the Darkyns.
I know this must come as a shock to you, but I’m not the first in our family to join. Your aunt Meredith chose to walk that path long ago, as did our mother before her, and her grandmother before her.
It’s in our blood.
I thought I could be different. I wanted to… for you and for your father, but there are things you don’t understand yet. Things you’ll come to learn as you marry and settle down with Chett Carter.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Come with me. Meet me at our house at midnight in one week’s time. I’ll take you with me. I’ll protect you from that witch-hating family and, once we’ve joined, we’ll have our powers back without the need of a hunter.
Despite what you may think, I do love you with all of my heart.
Love always,
Mom
They found a letter from Katie’s mother in the remains of the manor.
A letter stating she was abandoning Jonathon and the Coven to fight alongside the Darkyns.
A letter pleading for Katie to do the same.
“We had no choice, Faye,” Mack says, his voice growing somber. “With the foundation of what we’re trying to build here still fresh and easily broken, we have to tread carefully. Chett’s Aunt Evelyn—the former High Priestess—has already abandoned her position to follow Clara’s cause and, until we can find a way to prove the Carter family isn’t working with them to try to infiltrate from the inside, they have to be detained.”
“The Carters hate witches. Evelyn wasn’t an actual Carter—she was just married to one—so why would the Carters help her?” I ask, trying to connect the dots for myself.
Mack levels his gaze on me. “Because, Miss Middleton, Clara’s offering a way to undo the affinity bond, which means all the Carters will no longer have to be tied to the witches they hate. What better reason to help than for personal gain?”
“Locking Chett up is simply a precaution,” Seamus adds.
Weldon mutters something crude under his breath, and then says, “Right, like you’re not going to try to get information out of him.”
Mack stills, his shoulders tense. “We will do what we must to protect the Coven.”
Seamus points to the letter, his finger shaking slightly from age. “Look at the date,” he says to me, his voice dry and hollow.
I quickly count back the days and feel my stomach bottom out. She received the letter one week to the day before Bael showed up at the manor. Before he burnt it to the ground.
Before he took my mother’s life.
I go stiff. “No,” I say, shaking my head. “This… she wouldn’t. This doesn’t prove anything. She came with us. She didn’t go to her mother.”
Mack wears a sad smile. “She never had the chance. Even if she did, how do we know she isn’t working from the inside now?” He pauses, as if he’s waiting for me to give him a valid reason.
I can’t.
“We can’t risk it,” he concludes, and it’s like a gavel striking my heart, because he’s right.
I grip the back of the chair to help me stand. I thought it couldn’t get any worse after losing my mom.
I thought wrong.
Seamus splays his palms out against his desk, leaning his weight on them. “This is a blessing in disguise.”
“How?” I ask, unable to understand.
“One of our major issues in this Coven is what takes place in the correctional facility. What the actual process of correction is. Even now, I do not know. Having your friend in there may help.”
“How so?”
“By learning what the scientist has to offer. I’ve already assigned you four to her correction.”
I laugh, but the sound is pained. “You can’t possibly be suggesting you would allow for this process to continue—” I start to say, but he cuts me off.
“I can, and I am,” Seamus says firmly, unwaveringly. “As of right now, we have no proof the correction process doesn’t work. Therefore, Katie will be corrected for her misgivings. It is highly important that we keep some of the foundation of this Coven. Something for our members to continue to latch onto in the face of this colossal change.”
Jaxen, Weldon, and I start to protest, but Seamus holds his finger up.
“Unless you can prove otherwise. If you can prove Katie isn’t working for the Darkyns, and that the correction process is indeed more harmful than not, I will call off her correction.” He looks at the watch on his hand. “You have two hours. Good luck.”
We aren’t given the chance to argue any further with him.
I feel like I’m stuck in a game of Jenga, one pull away from toppling over.
Mack has us moving toward the door with angered words dangling off our lips. Weldon follows Mack, being careful to step around the two Elites who are just now sitting up, looking over at me in fear.
I look away, burying my embarrassment deep, along with every other emotion I refuse to acknowledge.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to do this,” I hear Weldon say under his breath. “She’s already teetering on the edge. She needs all the friends she can get.”
“She’s fine,” Mack says, continuing to walk us toward the elevator, ensuring we leave this time.
Anger ripples over Weldon’s features. He grabs Mack’s arm, stopping him in place. “She just lost her mother, Maddock. She’s not your puppet you can keep stringing along to fulfill this Coven’s needs. She’s a living, breathing person. At some point, she deserves a damn break!”
Weldon lets go when Jaxen clears his throat and nods his head in my direction. I don’t think he meant for us to hear that. Stress, I think, is tearing at all our seams.
Mack scowls. “We all deserve a break, Weldon, but breaks aren’t a part of the job,” he says, uncaring of who hears him.
“How can you be so callous?” Weldon hisses.
Mack jerks back. “Callous? You’re saying I’m callous?”
“Did I stutter?” Weldon retorts.
My words barge in. “I’m fine,” I say, try
ing to mediate the anger steadily rising.
I try to move in between them, but Mack leans past me and says, “I’m trying to keep our entire world from falling apart, and you’re standing here calling me callous? Get a grip. We weren’t born into a kind world.”
“You’ve shown me that, time and time again,” Weldon shoots back.
Mack turns and presses the button for the elevator. “Are you done now? Can we get on with it? We have a Coven full of people with millions of problems, and an army to prep before Bael and Clara return.”
And with that, he shoves past into the elevator, telling us it’s time to go.
MY HEART IS A BASS DRUM.
“I’m here to see Katie Coccia,” I say through the glass hole at the bottom of the window separating me from the Elite secretary on the other side. She doesn’t look up as she presses a button that opens a small, metal panel on the wall next to me.
“Place your thumb on the pad, please,” she says mechanically.
I turn back to Jaxen, Weldon, and Jezi, and they all nod at me. Turning back to the wall, I place my thumb against it. A moment later, the door buzzes and then clicks open.
“Head down the hall, make a left, and then two doors down—room 107—you’ll find her. Your thumb is your access to her holding cell. Be sure to use it going in, and then when you leave, to lock back up.”
This new system was set in place by Mack shortly after our return. Fingerprint trails for everything. One of the few things magic can’t change. Appearance is one thing, but to replicate the very thing that makes us unique is impossible.
Jaxen’s hand hovers just a whisper beneath my elbow. “Are you sure you want to go alone?”
“Yes. I don’t want to bombard her.”
“You have to get a solid answer from her, Faye. Something we can use as proof for Seamus and Mack,” he adds.
I nod, feeling like the weight on my shoulders just got heavier.
“She’s not a traitor,” Jezi says, reading the look on my face. “I… I tapped into her mind a time or two while we were at the manor and never caught wind of anything less than a loyal friend. She just… she made a mistake.”