I walked forward, keeping my head bowed as I followed my roommates in a line. They did the same, echoing the respect for the
dead as we made our way down the steps to the front entry of Hollow’s Grove. The sun seemed far too bright as we approached the bottom of the stairs, moving toward the six doors that had been thrown wide open to allow us all to funnel onto the front lawn.
The line extended around the corner, curving toward the back of the school. I’d wandered there occasionally after classes when I needed a moment to myself, and I knew that the back of the school was home to the cliffs overlooking the sea. Before we came to that though, the sprawling remnants of what had once been a beautiful, glorious flower garden separated the school from the tiny patch of land designated for burials.
Only the Greens would be buried in the earth, allowing their bodies to rot freely and the land to reclaim what belonged to it. I didn’t know what magic the witch who’d died had called her own, having never had classes with the others of the Thirteen. As a legacy, I’d been strictly kept away from them, despite being brought here as one of them.
I didn’t really belong to the legacies, but neither did I belong to the new students. Crystal Hollow and I had far too much history between us for me to ever be a bright-eyed first year, openly gazing upon the magic I’d been forced to keep secret. I was far too cynical for that, and I knew just how many bones the Coven kept hidden in the closets of Hollow’s Grove.
I followed Della as she walked through the path; the gardens at our sides withered and dying. There was no life to be found here, and I didn’t
understand why no one at the school thought that unusual. To be a witch and to take no issue with the world dying around us…
It was unfathomable.
When my magic was fully restored, I’d come and make another offering. I couldn’t so soon, not when I knew the garden would take it all once again. Last time, I’d been stumbling when I got up from the ground after the vines finally released me.
I suspected I wouldn’t get up at all if I tried to restore the garden. The level of starvation that awaited me made me uncertain the plants would be able to stop once they started.
Della joined the circle that surrounded the freshly dug grave, the witches of Hollow’s Grove standing in a single-file barrier between the grave and the rest of the school. The Vessels lingered just beyond, having come to pay their respects to the student taken too soon, but remaining far away enough to allow us to grieve our own.
I searched for Gray without meaning to, my gaze sweeping over the Vessels who all dressed so similarly. Whether it had happened before the extinction of the Hecate line or after, they’d chosen to take the color black as their own. Most wore suits day in and day out, but even those who favored more casual black clothing had dressed up for the occasion.
I found him, my body going still when I found his eyes on me. The rush of heat that filled me was indecent, making me shift on my feet as I remembered the feeling of his mouth on mine, of his hand between my legs. I’d spent most of the night seeking release, desperately trying to find it without him and praying that his compulsion wouldn’t work.
All I’d done was aggravate myself, jumping into a cold shower to try to cool my overheated skin. I’d wanted to throttle him, to tear out his throat for leaving me like that.
Now I just wanted to fuck him, all sense of hatred disappearing from me with just his molten stare on mine. My thighs rubbed together as I shifted again, realizing what I was doing. Seeking pressure, seeking touch.
At a fucking funeral.
I shook my head, snapping myself out of it as my stare settled into a glare. He chuckled, his lips tipping up as he looked away. I let my gaze wander toward the witch to be buried, to the Covenant, who stood beside her. My mouth dropped open at the sight of the casket, of the wooden box that would separate her from the earth that needed her so desperately.
“Why is she in a casket?” I whispered, looking to Della at my side.
She turned her head to look at me slowly, her brow furrowing in confusion as a concerned smile tipped her lips up. “What do you mean, why is she in a casket? What else would she be in?” she asked.
“Greens are meant to be buried in the earth. Not in a box,” I argued, my gaze snapping back to where the Covenant awaited. George found my stare, his jaw clenching as he seemed to realize just how horrified I was.
“Oh, well, she wasn’t a Green. Quincy was a White,” she answered, shrugging as if that explained it. My horror only grew, my eyes flashing to the box that contained a white witch. She should have been laid out upon a bed of sacred stones, allowing them to reabsorb her into the source.
“This is wrong,” I whispered, and I realized that Margot and the others had started looking at me in concern.
I ignored them. Taking a step forward, I prepared to approach the Covenant. I sincerely doubted they would appreciate my interfering, but I couldn’t stand there and do nothing. I couldn’t watch while they kept a witch separate from her magic and her ancestors.
A hand grasped me by the elbow, pulling me back. My body seemed to recognize exactly who it was that dared to touch me, freezing in place as I looked to the spot where he’d stood only a moment before. Gray was no longer there, and as I shifted to look over my shoulder at him, I found those steely eyes staring down at me in warning.
“Not now, Witchling,” he said, his voice dropping low as he tugged me back.
I tried not to show any reaction, tried not to give into the way my body reacted without thought. It was as if it knew that he was the only one who could bring me pleasure now, and it wanted to press into him and writhe like a cat.
Traitorous bitch.
“This is wrong,” I said, repeating my words from earlier.
“That may be, but part of bringing change is knowing when to act and when to remain silent. You cannot restore the old ways if you piss Susannah off enough that she kills you on the spot,” he said, growling his warning into my ear.
I was vaguely aware of the way the Coven’s eyes came to us, watching our interaction as if it were abnormal for the two kinds to mix in the light of day.
The cover of darkness usually disguised those stolen moments.
“You cannot expect me to let them condemn her soul to this,” I whispered, my heart cracking in my chest. To be unable to connect with the source and her ancestors, to suffer through a Christian burial and afterlife….
“Approach the Covenant privately, if you must, but do not be foolish enough to challenge them so publicly,” he said. Even I knew the logic to his words, but my bottom lip trembled at the thought of what I would have to do.
Another scar, another stain on my soul. It may have been sold to the devil long before I was born, but that didn’t mean I had to earn it myself on top of it.
“I can’t do this,” I said, shaking my head as my eyes burned with tears. “You tasked me with protecting you. Let me do that,” he said, releasing
my arm. His hand slid down over the fabric of my deep green blazer, his fingers threading through mine until he held my hand. I stared down at it in shock, at the way we somehow fit together.
Nobody outside my mother and brother had ever held my hand before. I bit back tears at the reminder of Ash’s little hand clutching mine when we’d stared down into our mother’s casket not long ago, swallowing down my need to speak. Finding the bones and finding a way to get back to the brother I missed more than anything had to be my priority—even if I’d wear her soul on my conscience for the rest of my life.
My eyes traveled up over his torso and chest, back to his eyes, where he held my gaze. The burial began as George started to speak, invoking the elements that had long since turned their back on the Coven. I hoped they ignored his call, hoped he was humiliated for what he would do to the white witch who was to be buried against her nature.
They didn’t, but for the strongest amongst us, the light breeze that blew against my face was a mockery of what it should have been.
The powers Charlotte had granted to the Covenant faded along with the rest of them. So what did they hope to gain by turning their backs on our ways?
A few of the Grays lifted her casket with the air, lowering her into the hole in the ground that would become her unwilling tomb. Her prison in the afterlife.
I closed my eyes and swore to find a way to make it right. I’d free her when I could. I glanced around the cemetery grounds, studying each grave marker with a new horror dawning on me.
I’d free them all.
