He released his grip on my hair, stepping back and staring down at the bone necklace he’d forced on me. I raised tentative fingers to
touch them, wincing back from the feeling they created within me. My earth magic felt like life, like new growth and spring. This felt like the slow decay of autumn, like the death of all nature.
I pushed to my feet, heading for the mirror next to the doorway so that I could look at the bones slung around my neck. They were the finger bones of my ancestors, of the witches who had come before me. They dangled as if tied by an invisible chain, draping themselves in a single layer along my skin.
“You’re beautiful,” Gray said, approaching my side as if he intended to step into the mirror with me. There was no reflection of him in the glass, his Vessel not existing even as his hand touched my shoulder.
The faint purple of my eye seemed to glow in the same way the bones had when he’d opened the bag. I swallowed, grasping one of the bones and trying to pull it away from my neck.
Gray stepped away finally, going back to the portrait behind his desk and closing his safe. I tried not to think of what other treasures might exist within there, what he might be hiding from the world.
Kairos shoved open the door as he stepped into the office. “We found her. The plants didn’t want to let her go, but—”
I reached out with my hand, laying it on the bare skin of his neck.
The magic of the bones reached out immediately, spreading through my veins. He froze, his eyes wild as he looked down at me in horror, his gaze
settling on the bones around my neck.
“Release him, Witchling,” Gray said, taking a step toward me. Fury rose in me as his compulsion slid over my skin, never seeming to sink inside me and force me to obey as I turned my glare back to him.
I didn’t so much as glance at Kairos as I let that magic spread through the Vessel, Unmaking the very fabric that had woven him together. His body slipped, melting away. Gray’s jaw clenched.
When I turned my gaze back to Kairos, all that remained was a puddle of muddy earth on the floor, what my ancestor had given to lend to his creation.
“That was unnecessary. Look at the mess you’ve made,” Gray said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
He approached me, closing the distance between us and slamming my back into the door. I fought to find bare skin, touching his face and using it to press him away from me as he lunged with his teeth ready.
His fang pierced my hand, but I willed that magic into my palm to Unmake him. Smiling into my grip, Gray drew his tongue over the wound he’d created and pulled my blood into his body once again.
“There’s so much of your blood in me, Witchling. You cannot Unmake me, because those bones recognize me as part of you.”
The inside of my head roared like the wind in the trees, rustling the branches of my mind as I made the connections. The first time we’d met, he’d fed from me. He’d taken from me every chance he got.
“Is that what all this was about?” I asked, gesturing between us.
As if his betrayal with the bones wasn’t enough, the thought that he’d been using me, allowing me to think I was seducing him all along, just so he could have my blood in his veins, somehow made it worse.
“No, Witchling,” he said, guiding my hand away from his face finally. He pressed his body into mine, staring down at me with a cruel smirk. “You were a very unexpected surprise.”
I flinched into the wall at my back, desperately seeking distance between us as he raised his hand and toyed with the bones around my neck.
“Take them off,” I ordered. A tiny spark arched between him and the bone, burning the flesh from his finger as he pulled it away.
“I’m afraid I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to. They’re tied to your life now, and I definitely want you to stay alive,” Gray said. He ducked in front of me, taking a step back as he bent at the waist. His shoulder pressed
into my stomach, and he hefted me over until I stared at the ground behind him.
“Put me down!” I shrieked, kicking at him, but his arm lay flat across the back of my thighs and held me as still as possible.
The bones clattered around my neck, touching my jaw and making me hope they would somehow fall off, but the magic that held them fastened to me refused to release me.
He stepped through the open door. “I do not suggest you allow her to touch you unless you want to return to the mud from whence you came,” he said, barking the order at the Vessel who waited in the hall. “Have Susannah brought to the Tribunal room and tell Juliet to fetch the missing pieces.”
“I—okay,” the other man muttered, racing off to play errand boy.
I grabbed at Gray’s dress shirt, untucking it from his pants and sliding my hand into it so I could drag my nails across his skin as he walked down the stairs. He jostled me on his shoulder, whistling calmly as he made his way toward the Tribunal.
“I really wish you hadn’t taken my knife,” I muttered, hatred lacing my voice. Gray spun on the stair landing, adjusting me on his shoulder as he hurried down the rest of the stairs. “You’re awfully chipper for someone who just had all his plans ruined.”
“Ruined?” he scoffed, reaching the bottom of the steps. “All Susannah did was force me to work on a tighter timeline. Believe it or not, I was trying to be kind to you.”
He set me to my feet, taking my hand in his and guiding me through the darkened halls.
“By lying to me? Hiding my birthright from me?” I asked, tugging back on his grip. He was relentless, his hold like a cage I couldn’t escape.
“Yes,” he said, turning to level me with a steely stare that danced with something like twisted delight. “I am furious that things had to happen this way, because you will not walk away without hating me for what I am about to do.”
I swallowed, forcing my feet to still. He dragged me over the stones, stopping and turning an exasperated sigh to me.
“Then don’t do it. There’s still time to decide to do the right thing.”
“The right thing,” Gray scoffed, looking at the window where moonlight shone in. The hall to the Tribunal room was empty, the doors thrown open wide in a way I’d never seen at the end of it. “You mean like
Susannah’s plan to allow the witches to die out and make way for a new era?”
“I never said that was right,” I snapped. “What is it with the people of Crystal Hollow and being determined to destroy everything you’ve built here? It could have been a haven, instead it’s a curse.”
“Crystal Hollow was always just a stepping stone to getting what I needed,” Gray said, guiding me into the door to the Tribunal. George was pacing in the center of the circle, walking back and forth as he muttered to himself.
“I get the distinct impression a lot of things fall into that category,” I muttered.
George turned to face us finally. His jaw fell open when he found the bones around my neck, and it was readily apparent that Susannah hadn’t shared her epiphany about me.
“Willow…”
Gray came up behind me, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me in close as he ran the back of his knuckles along my jaw and nuzzled into my hair.
“A lot of things do,” he agreed, his words a soft caress despite the pain they brought me. “But never you, Witchling. You’re the key to everything. You’re exactly what I’ve been waiting for all these years.”
He touched the flat of his palm to the bones where they touched my chest. The edges sharpened by time pressed into my skin, drawing blood as they scraped me.
“Willow!” George protested, taking a single step toward me.
He froze in place, and Gray raised his other hand to face his palm toward the half of the Covenant. George fell to his knees beneath the weight of the pure, dark power Gray sent toward him.
“Only a Hecate can Unmake a Vessel, and only a child of Charlotte can end the corruption of the Covenant she trusted her people with,” Gray said, flinging his hand toward George.
The skeletal figure flew into the wall at his back, his bones clattering against the stone and remaining pinned there even after Gray released me.
“You touched my magic,” I whispered, raising a hand to touch the bones.
It was unheard of for anyone to be able to channel what wasn’t in their blood, leaving me to sputter as Gray found the center of the circle in the
Tribunal. But my magic was in my blood—the same blood that filled his Vessel. He lifted a hatch in the tile, shoving the floor out of the way to reveal something beneath it.
“Where did you think Charlotte got her magic?” he asked, squatting down to examine the mirror on the ground. It reflected the ceiling, curving in a circle with the head of a woman at the top. I recognized her immediately.
From the paperweight I’d thrown at Gray.
“What is that?” I asked, staring at the mirror and trying to decide my next move. I had the distinct impression running was in my best interest but knew I wouldn’t get far until there was something to distract Gray.
The Vessel Gray had sent to get Susannah came scurrying into the room, dragging the brittle, broken bones of the other half of the Covenant behind him. She groaned and whimpered, her skeletal form slowly working to repair itself.
I had a feeling she’d been better off buried alive.
I swallowed, stepping toward her. Gray’s hand grabbed my wrist, standing smoothly as he held my gaze. I watched from the corner of my eye as he used the darkness, twisting it into a mass of knots and using it to tie Susannah’s bones back together. He flung her toward the wall beside George, suspending her from the ceiling as the Vessel who’d brought her dropped two items onto the floor next to the mirror.
I stared at them, my heart beating wildly as I tried to determine what they were. Tried to make sense of what I was seeing.
A heart.
The deep bluish-purple flesh should have been rotted by now if it was what I suspected. I gagged, horror dawning along with my realization. The piece of flesh beside it was less identifiable, but I couldn’t stop my hand from trembling where Gray held me.
“It’s a liver,” he said, answering my silent question.
Two.
A heart and a liver.
I swallowed back bile, blood roaring in my ears. “What have you done?”
