Gray stepped away from the window finally, giving me a reprieve from the feeling of his eyes on me. I’d come out to the gardens to be alone
for a few moments, to sink myself into the only thing that made sense to me.
Nature was constant. It ebbed and flowed, but the force of it always lingered in the earth, waiting for something to draw it to the surface.
Waiting for someone to love it so it could meet its full potential.
The rose bush dipped a stem into the dirt, a single leaf forming a cup as it scooped up a bit of dirt. Raising it to my hand, it dropped the dirt into my open palm and let it heal the wound I’d created to give them new life.
“Bene facis,” I murmured, running the tip of my pointer finger over the sharp edge of the leaflet.
I rose to my feet, smiling as I backed away from the portion of the garden I’d already brought back. I wouldn’t allow Susannah’s machinations to pollute the earth to continue. I’d do whatever I could to preserve that which was truly innocent in her crimes. I walked through the gardens, losing track of time as I allowed my thoughts to wander. I didn’t know what last night meant for the future of my duty, if I would be able to find the bones if Gray helped me as he said he would.
And what if he did? Would I turn around and Unmake him after?
I stared toward the school, swaying toward the stones of the building and running my fingers over the abrasive surface. There was evil and corruption within those walls. That couldn’t be denied.
But there was also Della, with the kindness and compassion she’d shown me when I’d lost my shit the night of the Reaping. She’d been far more patient than she needed to be, never pressing me for more information to appease her curiosity.
She’d been a friend when I needed one the most.
There was Iban, with his quiet steadfastness and flirtation. Iban, who was so determined to find the love of his life that he’d given up a huge part of who he was.
Margot, who had suffered and didn’t like to be touched, but no one had ever taught her that just because her magic was rooted in desire didn’t mean she had to participate in it.
There was corruption, but there were also decent people who didn’t know any better or understand the consequences the Coven would cause.
My neck prickled, forcing me to spin back to face the path. The hair on my arms rose, alerting me to something approaching that I didn’t understand. I’d never had those senses before coming to Crystal Hollow.
I’d never felt things coming or seen the past in my dreams. I wondered if it was the proximity to the bones, if even them being somewhere closer was enough to bring my abilities to the surface to some extent.
Not the physical, but the internal magic.
The bones of half the Covenant approached as if I’d summoned her with my thoughts. There was something so tense in the set of her jaw that my skin crawled.
“Susannah,” I said cautiously. I hadn’t forgotten what she’d done the last time we’d been alone.
What she’d threatened to do.
But these gardens were my territory, and the roses swayed into the path and blocked her from reaching me.
“I’ve no intention of hurting you today, Willow,” Susannah said, as if I was an insufferable problem that she intended to rid herself of.
“Then what do you want?” I asked, waving a hand.
The roses retracted back into their garden beds, staying ready if Susannah chose to change her mind. My blood was so fresh here, they would defend me even without my request.
“I knew there was something wrong about you the moment I saw you,” she said, her eyes dropping to the fresh puncture wounds on my neck. There
was a set on either side, one from last night and one from this morning, and she shoved her hand into her pocket as she made a disgusted sigh.
“Likewise,” I said, smiling sweetly. “Though I think yours is probably a little more obvious. Bag of bones and all.”
“It took me too long to decide why you looked so familiar, even though you look nothing like Flora did,” she said, pulling her hand from her pocket slowly.
I swallowed, my eyes dropping to the picture she held in her hands. It was in black and white, but the face of a woman stared back at me as she held it out for me to take. It was a face I’d seen far too often in my father’s cabin.
One I’d seen in my dream.
One that he hated to see staring back at him when he looked at me.
“You’re the spitting image of Loralei, girl,” she said, her voice dropping low as she spoke the words. “Your aunt, if I assume correctly?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, shaking my head in denial. “I’ve never met this woman.”
“Of course you haven’t,” Susannah scoffed. “She was murdered within these walls long before you were born. That doesn’t mean you don’t know exactly what she is.”
I dropped my hand, letting the picture fall to my side as I considered my options. It wouldn’t take much to find my father now that she knew what she was looking for. There had to be records of his birth somewhere, and all things hidden could be found once someone knew what to look for.
“And what do you intend to do with that knowledge? Kill me?” I asked, staring my potential death in the face. I looped a finger in a circle, rousing the plants beside me. They pulled back, preparing to strike if they needed to defend me.
“You are the last of my bloodline. Surely you must know that I would do anything to preserve that,” Susannah said, hanging her head forward. She pinched her brow between two finger bones. “Leave. Leave this place and never return. Ward yourself so that even the Covenant and Alaric cannot find you. I will allow you to live out of loyalty to the blood we share, but you cannot remain here.”
A few weeks prior, the offer would have been everything I wanted. I’d attempted to fulfill my duty and failed, but I’d done what I could. She’d
given me permission to leave, to go to Ash and live out our lives free of the Coven.
And yet…
“Where are the bones, Susannah?” I asked, staring her in the face. It was the closest thing she would get to a confession from me, the acknowledgement that I was searching for something only a Hecate would care about.
Susannah laughed, the sound vibrating against her rib bones awkwardly. A chill ran up my spine. I didn’t want to consider what it was that she found entertaining in all of this. I glanced at the rosebush at my side, swallowing as she took a step toward me.
“Foolish girl, your lover has had them all this time. Surely you know that and that’s why you allowed him to touch you. Why you’ve let him take such liberties.”
My heart jolted at the certainty in her voice. In the way she was so confident in her assertion. I couldn’t be positive if she was lying to trick me, but I felt like I couldn’t breathe past the sudden pressure in my chest.
“You’re wrong,” I said, forcing myself to laugh off the pain. “Gray knows what I am. He said he would help me find the bones. He would have given them to me if he had them.”
Susannah stilled, her skull going slack as the traces of amusement faded from her bones. “He knows?” The closest thing I’d ever heard to fear filled the tremor in that voice as she closed the distance between us, clutching my hands in her grip. “Hell’s sake, Willow. Listen to me. If you only ever listen to one thing I tell you, let it be this. Run. Run and do not ever come back,” she ordered, wincing as the thorny vines of the roses wrapped around her bones and pulled her arm back away from me.
“Why would I run? The Vessels loved Charlotte for what she was to them,” I said, laughing in the face of her terror. I couldn’t shake that sinking feeling in my gut, no matter how hard I tried, not even when the roses wrapped around Susannah’s waist and she didn’t fight.
“All that I have done, the choice male witches are forced to make, has been to keep him from getting his hands on you,” she said as the rosebush dragged her toward the ground.
I didn’t command them to stop; I couldn’t. Not when I didn’t believe she’d allow me to live.
Not when she knew who I was.
“You’re not making any sense,” I said, shaking my head in denial.
“Those bones are not worth what you will unleash if you stay here. You don’t know him, Willow. The bargain swore those of us who do to secrecy,” she said, something that resembled a strangled sob leaving her as the rose bush dragged her to the fresh dirt in the garden bed. It pulled her to the surface, snapping her bones as I winced. She lay in a heap of bones as the flowers and thorns wrapped around her, pulling her into the earth.
She disappeared bit by bit, the plants dragging her below. “I won’t unleash anything. I just want to do what’s right.”
“Your destiny is not to do what is right. Your destiny is to destroy us all.” Susannah gave me one last horrified look before her skull started to fade into the dirt.
The rosebush shifted to cover the grave where it had buried the Covenant alive, leaving me blinking at it in shock. My bottom lip trembled as I stood, looking back toward the doors to the school.
I took a step, determined to ask Gray what she’d meant. I stopped.
She hadn’t fought. She was the Covenant, and plants or not, she could have easily escaped. She hadn’t wanted to, not if…
Run.
I looked away from the school, turning my body toward the woods surrounding Hollow’s Grove.
Casting one last glance over my shoulder and heaving a deep breath to calm my panic, I ran.
