I

hadn’t thought to ask if something had been taken from the second victim. It hadn’t seemed relevant when he lay there dead and…

Hell.

I tore my eyes off the organs lying discarded upon the floor, wincing when Gray tucked his fingers beneath my chin and raised my stare to meet his.

“Why?” I asked, searching his gaze for any sign of remorse. “You—that night when you came to my bathroom. You seemed worried for me.”

“I have had centuries of practice lying to naïve little girls just like you,” he murmured, the words striking me in the chest and causing a deeper ache to bloom.

Juliet came into the room, another Vessel at her side as they shuffled the ten remaining new students into the space. Gray was quick to bend down, taking the discarded organs in hand and placing them on top of the mirror on the floor. The female Vessel compelled the new students into a circle surrounding us, raising goosebumps all over my flesh.

“What are you doing?” I asked, holding her stare.

The humorous woman I’d met in the car on the way back from my mother’s house was gone, her mouth set into a stern line as she went about her business and maintained her compulsion.

Gray stepped away from me, approaching the first of the witches. The girl cowered, flinching back even though her feet wouldn’t allow her to move as Gray held out his hand. Juliet happily slipped a knife into his hand,

and he turned to hold my gaze as he dragged it slowly across the young witch’s throat.

“No!” I screamed, running forward.

Gray raised a hand, catching me around the front of the throat and holding me pinned there even as I struggled against his grip. The strength he possessed, the sheer power in that hold… He’d allowed me to think I stood a chance.

My feet left the ground as he lifted me, stepping to the side as the witch fell to the floor with a thump.

“Brain,” he said callously, and to my horror, Juliet nodded, bending down beside the felled witch to gather the body part.

“Why?” I rasped, clawing at Gray’s hand where he held me still. I watched in horror as he dragged his blade across another throat, uncaring for the life he ended. I felt the soul leave, felt the life end and death claim it. My fingers tingled, magic that I didn’t know how to use yet coursing through them. Gray felt it spark against his skin, smirking at me as he

stepped to the side and moved onto the next witch.

“Are you going to come out and play with me, Little Necromancer?” he murmured, smiling cruelly.

His expert cuts across throats ceased to matter. They stopped existing as I focused in on that heated stare and felt nothing but hatred for the man who had deceived me. For the murderer who would kill my own kind.

“Your aunt was one of the few who couldn’t be compelled, not with those bones attached to her hip. The way she screamed lives on in my dreams.”

Silence roared in my head, deafening and drowning out the subtle whimpers of the few witches he hadn’t killed. Another throat, another slit.

“What did you just say?” I asked, the emptiness in my chest spreading ever wider.

“Your aunt screamed when I cut her throat before she could ever lay a hand on me to Unmake me,” he repeated. He watched his knife cut across the next throat, allowing it to move much more slowly. Letting the witch feel every piece of skin sever before death finally claimed him.

I recognized him as one of the ones who had attacked me that night, and the fact that he seemed to get extra attention from Gray should have come as a shock.

“Why? She was a Hecate witch. Why would you kill her?” I asked, the breath rushing out of me. None of it made any sense. None of it added up.

Gray cut the last witch’s throat, walking me backward toward the mirror at the center. He stopped just beside it as Juliet continued to gather the organs from the bodies that littered the Tribunal room floor in a circle.

He released me, letting me fall to my knees in a heap as I stared up at him.

“Every moment Loralei spent with the Coven was a threat to her brother’s existence. I couldn’t risk the Covenant learning the truth of his birth. Not before he met your mother and contributed to you.”

He reached down, grabbing me and pulling me to my feet in front of him. “Bleed them,” he said, raising a single hand to point at where the Covenant hung suspended. They’d not spoken a single word, watching in unnatural silence that led me to believe they couldn’t speak.

“They’re nothing but bones. They cannot be bled,” I answered, shaking my head.

“Then I guess you will just have to give them flesh first,” he said, touching a pinky finger to the edge of one of the bones on my neck. That inky, dark magic snapped out, lashing forward toward Susannah like a whip. It wrapped around her bones, drawing her closer to us as Gray slid his fingers into mine and entwined them. “Take what you are owed, Witchling.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head in protest. “I won’t be like you. I won’t be like them.”

Gray tucked my hair behind my ear, leaning in to whisper against my skin. “I think you’ll find you will, whether you like it or not. Please do not make me force your hand. We both know you will hate me for it, and neither of us want that.”

“Speak for yourself, Headmaster,” I snapped, jerking away from his touch.

He sighed into the side of my neck. “You disappoint me, Willow. Remember this moment when you cannot bear to look at me come morning. I didn’t want to have to do this.” He touched his mouth to my temple in something that seemed close to pity. “Bring him,” he said, turning to look at one of the other Vessels.

He hadn’t been able to compel Lorelai because of the bones. He couldn’t compel me any longer either, I realized.

“Bring who?” I asked, glancing around the room. I tried to think of who he might have to hurt me, who he might think he could use to force me to become a monster like him.

Iban.

I stared at the door that led to the halls, watching for any sign of the male witch who had become one of the closest things I had to a friend. In spite of the fact that I suspected he didn’t approve of what he assumed was happening between Gray and me, he hadn’t judged me for it.

My heart sunk, dropping into my stomach as two figures strode into the Tribunal room. My father’s face was twisted with arrogance as he guided the small figure at his side. His knife lingered just in front of Ash’s throat as everything in me stilled.

“No.”

“Do as you’re told, and I promise you nothing will happen to your brother,” he said, running his nose along my cheek.

I gasped, breath evading me as my father took up his place at the side of the room. Ash’s gaze held mine, the terror in his brown eyes hardening something inside me that I’d sworn I’d always keep soft.

Killing the ember of life within me and turning it to rot and decay.

“I will kill you for this,” I growled at my father, my jaw tensing as I rolled my neck.

“Don’t worry, baby girl. You won’t live long enough to make good on that threat,” he said, his laugh coating my skin.

Gray touched a hand to the bone necklace, drawing my attention back to him with a ragged gasp. He leaned in, whispering in my ear as he smiled. “Do what you’re told, and I’ll let you kill him and raise him as many times as it takes for you to work out that anger.”

“And what about the hatred I feel for you? Do I get to kill you, too?” I asked, wincing when he stepped behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist once again.

He held me, that dark magic that existed within him drawing mine to the surface. He covered my hand with his, raising my palm to face Susannah. Her bones had started to heal, forming back into her original shape just enough that I could make out the horror on her face.

Her bones covered with raw, bloodied flesh as the magic sprang forward in dark tendrils. It wrapped around her as Gray raised his knife to my palm

and slashed the skin. My blood dripped down, the dark tendrils swallowing it as it grew.

Susannah’s eye sockets filled with opaque flesh, muscles wrapping around her leg bones. Gray raised my other hand toward George, doing the same as life once again filled his features. Reversing the rot that claimed a body was disgusting work; their bodies a mess of blood and gore and organs.

When it seemed like Susannah would fill out with skin finally, Gray tore my hands down and severed the magic. The freshly grown flesh melted from their bodies, dropping to the ground as liquid. The thick, viscous blood slid across the floor, gathering in a pool just on top of the mirror and filling the space between the pile of organs.

George shook his head as the last of his flesh faded, leaving him as nothing but bones again. They sparkled for just a moment as he turned to face his other half, the Covenant reaching toward one another.

The tips of their finger bones just brushed against one another—the barest of touches—and the Covenant exploded into bone dust. I stared in horror at the space they’d once occupied, only turning my attention away when Gray spun me to face him.

His eyes were on mine as he placed his hand on top of one of my shoulders, steadying me against the panic I felt. Not knowing what he was doing, what was next, was almost too much to bear. The tip of his blade pressed into my stomach, pushing forward slowly as he held me still.

I gasped as it cut me open, sliding into my skin.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, touching his forehead to mine as he pushed the blade into the hilt. I wheezed, gasping for breath as the white hot burning consumed me. “It will be over soon.”

The betrayal hurt almost as much as the knife. It felt as if it punctured a hole in my heart that would never heal. I stared up at him as tears streamed down my cheeks, whimpering in pain as he dragged the blade up and made the wound bigger.

I couldn’t breathe.

“Gray,” I mumbled, swaying on my feet as he pulled the knife free and tossed it to the side.

“I didn’t expect to regret this part,” he said, slipping his fingers into the hole he’d created in my stomach.

I pulled against his grip, tears streaming down my face as Ash screamed from the side of the room. Gray held my gaze as his hand filled the chasm the knife had made, grasping onto something and pulling it free slowly.

The fabric he pulled from my abdomen was stained with blood, wrapped around something curved and narrow. He sank his teeth into his wrist, pressing the wounds to my mouth and offering me the blood I needed to heal.

To heal the wound he’d inflicted. Because he’d fucking stabbed me.

I struggled, pulling away as my hands covered my stomach and tried to stem the bleeding. “What is that?” I asked, staring at the rune covered fabric in horror. The symbols were painted in black, standing out sharply against the bright red of my blood. Gray continued to shove his wrist against my mouth, forcing me to drink more and waiting until my stomach healed before he answered my question.

Unwrapping the fabric, he held up a single rib bone and smiled.

“Blood and bones,” he said, turning back to face the pile of organs and blood. He held up the rib, and I watched from behind him in horror as the blood formed a vortex. It swirled around in a circle, getting taller and taller, but staying within the confines of the mirror. Gray glanced back at me once more, cocking back his arm as if he meant to throw the rib.

“No!” I screamed, taking a single step toward him just as he tossed the rib into that storm.

It absorbed it, a flash of purple light erupting through the space. The blood drained to the ground, evaporating and revealing the form of a woman standing on the surface of the mirror. She wore a dress of dark fabric so shiny it looked like liquid.

Her face was tipped toward the ceiling, her chin angling down slowly as I stared at her in shock. Her hair was the same auburn tinted ebony.

She opened her eyes slowly, a spark of pale purple shining out from each. She smiled, the expression softening the harsh lines of her face.

“Hello, Willow.”