SORINA

It wasn’t until the fourth Elder dropped dead, the Vampires came to my door, and I found out my mom was a murderer, that I began to suspect we had a problem.

I’m excellent at ignoring conflict until it gets serious. That’s just my way.

The Three Courts of Theara hadn’t seen supernatural homicides like this in some time. Definitely not since the Covenant, which summoned the Goddess of death and rebirth and ended the the millennia of human/kindred war. It created a Barrier between us, and the humans in the Kingdom of Rasa. 

 The Court of Blood vigorously denied any involvement in the murders. But then again, Vampires are assholes, so the Court of Blood remained the top suspect. 

It couldn’t be the Court of Silver, because they expressed so much righteous anger at the crimes that it started out as suspicious and then looped around to innocence again. Wolves get violently furious and vow revenge if you accidentally look at their lunch too long, so... 

They’re both idiots, but two distinct brands of idiot. 

Some of them have left imprints on my heart. The footfalls of giants.

Anyway. 

Then there was my home. The home of the Witches, the Court of Magick.

There hasn’t been much of a peep out of our elected officials. That had been a cause for mild concern for the rest of Theara, since we Witches are a sneaky bunch (although I prefer “smart”). But not much had come out of the last Summit, and our leaders had insisted they had no idea who was doing it.  

I did not want to get involved. I was in no head space to get involved. I wanted to hang out with my mom, help run the store with my best friend, and occasionally ride Arrowheart, my beautiful, grumpy horse with farts that could kill a moose.

I wanted to stay out of it because…well why wouldn’t I want to stay out of it? I like to stay alive. With the way I was hearing about how the Elders were being found? No thank you.

Even the Daughters were under suspicion. 

But they couldn’t have. The Daughters, our secret society of assassins trained exclusively to take out humans during the Great Wars, had faded into obscurity after helping build the Barrier. There was no use for such things in the age of the Barrier. If there were any Daughters left, they kept it hidden under layers of secret training and glamours that not even the strongest Kindred could penetrate. 

For four hundred years, it had been okay. 

And it would have continued to be okay.  

Until the Barrier popped a leak. 

I’m getting way, way ahead of myself, aren’t I? You’re probably very confused. Or you’re wondering how I can see you. 

Your eyes are nice. 

Cut your hair.

I should start at the beginning.  

One of the best days of my entire life was the first day I learned how to make magick from the ground around me.

It was a spring day, and I was sitting with my mother in the shade of a blooming kinglight tree. The kinglights, beautiful and golden in the blue-purple haze of morning, were used for psychic awareness and astral projection. As I held one in my hand, I began to see beyond the light of our small house and shoppe, into something infinitely more beautiful and sweet. The kinglight scent, like citrus and honey, perfumed the air.

When I opened my eyes again, everything was sharper, clearer. Most sharp and clear, however, was the look of pride in Mom’s eyes at what I had done. I had never felt so happy as I gazed at Mom, and she looked back at me, reflecting my own heart that was full of joy and promise. How she hugged me tight, smothering my little six year old body in her warmth. 

“You did it,” she murmured, stroking the top of my head. “Oh, Ri. I am so proud of you.” 

A kind of embarrassed euphoria flushed through me, and I fought back the urge to weep. I still don’t know exactly why I reacted so strongly to Mom’s compliment. It wasn’t like she wasn’t forthcoming with those kinds of endearments. But it felt like the beginning of something terribly important, one I couldn’t quite grasp yet.

Mom’s embrace crushed my hand to my chest, awkwardly smashing the kinglights. They bled golden syrup into my palm. For years after that, whenever I smelled the honey-tart smell of a kinglight blossom, I would think of that moment where magick swirled all around me and my mom.

Then came the day I wished I had never learned how to do magick at all. 

That morning dawned cold and clear, with cloudless skies and the barest streaks of apple red in the turning trees. Peak season for Witches, especially the ones just coming into their power. I relished these times; the shoppe would be busy and loud, filled with the delighted sounds of young ones picking out crystals, sniffing essential oils, and browsing our carefully sourced smudging sticks. The local schools would be full to bursting with witchlings discovering their true nature. Would they be a greenwitch, powered in herbs and plant life, controlling the earth out of deep respect for what it gives to us? Would they realize their gifts in helping and speaking to animals and be sworn in as an Animal Singer? Or would they commit their lives in service of one Goddess or another as a Sacred Servant, with the power to create images out of light and visions? The possibilities were endless. 

I remembered my first days in training when I began to realize the power I had over herbs, flowers, and plants. It thrilled and terrified me. Hells, everything about being a Witch was thrilling and terrifying. Each day was a new opportunity to discover something wholly new. Working in a shoppe such as this one provided a perfect opportunity to have that kind of newness and beauty every day, over and over. 

I was meant to do this. 

There were days, however, that I just wanted to stay in bed and do it all from the nest of my blankets. Not because I was scared or sad, but because it was all so damn comfortable. 

There were days when I was sad and scared. Those days I didn’t even lift the shades. 

Those days were dark and cold, no matter how sunny or warm it was outside. I would sit in bed, or lay down, and I wouldn’t let anyone come into the room. Sometimes Mom would find her way in by picking the lock, or to let me know food was waiting by the door. It was usually a waiting game; waiting until my head felt like it wasn’t going to fly off my shoulders. Then, and only then, I could stand up and walk down to the shoppe without wanting to smash my head into the banister. 

Those days weren’t happening as much anymore. I’m not sure why. The sisters at the coven told me my mind is a weapon. Sometimes it is sharp, sometimes it goes dull, and sometimes, not all the time but sometimes, it lashes out and strikes the wrong object. Everyone bleeds.

And that day was certainly not one of those days. It had promise. It held possibility. 

For a few peaceful moments I lay back in bed, surrounded by the quilts my mother made, and stared out the window at the perfect blue of the sky. Faint speckles of frost dotted the glass; I traced them with my finger, trying to connect them all to form a picture. 

This was going to be a good day. I could wear the large knitted scarf I had purchased on my recent trip into the city. I was going to be cooking dinner that night for Mom and the rest of our shoppe keepers. 

My comfort was interrupted by a pillow, the thick one with the fleece cover, flying at my head. “Out.” 

Breasha Kane, my roommate and best friend, threw another pillow at me, the tiny one with the piglets embroidered on it (a gift from my Mom when she was able to drop me off at school without a full throated tantrum from me). This one landed right on my head. “Bree,” I slurred, voice still thick with sleep. “Nooooo.” 

Bree sat down on the end of my bed, right at my feet, so I was pinned. “You have twenty minutes to look presentable. I let you sleep a little while longer,” she said, crisp and amused as always. 

In spite of her butt on my ankles, I twisted my upper body into the pillows, shoving my head into a sea of blankets. “Ermph,” I mumbled, voicing my displeasure in the most eloquent of ways. “You couldn’t get me up earlier?” If I was less than five minutes late to my post, it would be a huge success. 

“Do you want me to bring up the last time we didn’t let you sleep in until the absolute last minute?” A third voice, laughter rising in it like a wave. “I think my ears are still ringing.” 

“Too many people in here, Li,” I moaned.

“Fine.” Li’s voice had a sleepy smile in it. Where Bree was all soft curves, Li Wooding was carved from sharp, near impossible angles, with eyes so blue they looked violet under the right lighting. They liked magicking their hair into a variety of different colors - today, the longer pieces, curled and piled on top of their head, were pink, while the shaved sides were bleached a blinding white. That’s where their sharpness ended; Li was as soft as velvet once you got to know them. I’d told them numerous times that they were, apart from my Mom, the nicest person I had ever met. They just grinned and said “That’s because I like you. You wouldn’t think that so much if I didn’t.”

Bree, on the other hand, was a little bit harder to crack. She could be impenetrable when she wanted. But her stealth humor and sudden, shockwave laugh, one that rumbled through the very ground, immediately endeared her to me. That laugh hadn’t changed from the second we met, just little things on our first day in the Greenery.

I would kill for both of them.

Li waved their hand towards the bathroom, where the tap opened to pour hot water into the tub - probably at just the right temperature, and with lavender oil. “You’re welcome, by the way,” they added, before sweeping out the door to finish getting the shoppe ready for the day. 

“You’re the best in the land, you know,” I said, yawning. Li just snorted like they knew.

“Ioana’s downstairs,” Bree murmured as I finally managed to sit up, stretching until my shoulders popped. 

* 

The Hasdeu House Of Traditional Supplies was fairly popular, despite the large amount of establishments in town that were very similar to ours in both style and wares. Ioana, my mom, posited it was because we operated directly out of our own home, which gave it a comfortable, familial vibe. Iposited it was because Li flirted with every single living thing of legal age that came through the door. 

We lived upstairs, the shoppe taking up the back part of the house. Mom inherited the house from her own mother, who lived down by the sea and worked as an Animal Singer with a specialty in fish and other sea creatures. I had visited her a few times in the past, but when I turned nine, the visits stopped happening. I had asked Mom about it a few times, and she would dismiss it with some sort of argument about how her mother wasn’t up for visitors anymore, that her magick required solitary living. I stopped asking about it, but  

I bathed quickly, then threw on a pair of warm ribbed leggings and a loose blouse. Breasha tossed me a cardigan. Bless that woman. I’d marry her if we hadn’t already tried the whole “what if we were friends that also shoved their tongues in each other’s mouths” thing when we were twelve and realized we were better off as friends. Plus, Li would literally smack my face right off of my face if I tried to do that again. 

Li waited for me outside my bedroom door, holding my apron in one hand and my leather jacket in the other. “You’re out in the garden today. Bree’s up front with the stones and crystals. I’m at the cashwrap.” 

“Sounds good.” I tied on my apron, failing to conceal my glee. I was the only weirdo who loved yard work. Then again, I’m a Field Walker. A greenwitch. My powers come from the plants, flowers, and herbs around me. A sacred worship of nature itself. 

I’m a fairly anxious person. Well, scratch that. I’m an extremely anxious person. But all of that seems to go away when I’m at my altar, surrounded by my candles (the color depending on what spell I wish to work), the feeling of pure love swirling through my veins as I offer up my prayers to the Mothers. Even if I’m not feeling at my most calm and centered, I feel good about my meditations. Sometimes, oddly, it seems to help. 

I am utterly, freakishly blessed to have the powers I do, and to be surrounded by women who revere the same beliefs as I.

None of this means I can’t handle weapons. Mom taught me well and made me take self-defense classes along with my Greenery courses. If Theara’s hard won peace ever went ass over teakettle or the humans found a way in, I needed to be prepared. Plus, nothing helps a bad mood quite like throwing knives at a target in the wall. I’m no slouch at combat either, although both Bree and Li can kick the ever loving tar out of me and both of them are too happy to let me know it every chance they get.

From the garage, I could hear singing. Mom. She must be back from her run, singing all the way. 

From the time I could remember, Mom was always singing. Love songs, sad songs, funny songs, songs she didn’t even know the lyrics to, or even the specific melody. When I’d made fun of her for it, she’d cocked her eyebrow and said “Who cares, Sorina? I just like to sing. Who needs a reason for anything?” I’d strived for years to have that confidence. Nothing would ever come close.  

The singing came closer, then stopped as Mom popped in through the door, sweating and out of breath. She had taken to rising early to jog on the weekdays and had just gotten out of the shower. I preferred to do my fitness routine at the end of the day. Soon, she’ll have to take her running indoors away from the harsh bite of eastern winters. When I was a child she would put socks on her hands instead of gloves. Apparently that was too much of a hassle.  

She was still as beautiful as ever, with strawberry blonde hair. Despite the onset of autumn, her skin was still tan and barely showed her age. Witches aged faster than Vampires, but much slower than the average human, so my mother still looked like she was in her late twenties, even more so than other Witches. I always took this as a positive, since it would mean I would also look pretty good when heading into an older age. Sometimes this was a disadvantage, though; I was twenty-four, and in my work clothes, I sometimes felt as if I looked too young to be taken seriously. I didn’t get her hair, though – my hair was slightly darker, with more caramel in it than strawberry. But I did inherit Mom’s tawny skin that burned, then tanned, in the warmer months. I also managed to get her deep-set brown eyes that sometimes looked a bit amber-flecked in the right lighting. “Like pieces of amber,” someone had told me once, and that had been enough for me to flop right into bed with them.  

Mom reached out with her gentle, long fingers and flicked a wet strand of my hair as I passed. “You’ll catch cold,” she tutted.  

I shook my head. The water evaporated with a light hiss as my body temperature heat up just enough to dry my hair down to the root. A nifty little trick, one I’d perfected over the years. Mainly out of laziness. 

What? I was bored a lot as a kid. It’s what happens when you grow up comfortable and privileged. You have the time to practice dumb spells. Plus, when your unknown asshole of a dad leaves your pregnant mom with a ton of money and zero contact information, you tend to pass the time doing anything other than thinking about the myriad of snappy one-liners you’d use if you ever came into contact with that shit-brick.

I knew I’d gotten my soft curves from that side, though – Mom was all angles and edges physically. But her temperament and careful nature were so utterly warm and inviting, it made all of her feel as threatening as a warm blanket. 

My hairdrying trick wasn’t very impressive to Mom, who rolled her eyes as I shook my now dry hair at her. “You think you’re so clever,” she sighed.

“It’s all your fault!” I fired back over my shoulder as I lifted the latch on the back door that led into our garden. 

The garden was my favorite part of the property. The plants and herbs were set out in rows, increasing in toxicity. Trees lined the perimeter of the plot. That had been Bree’s idea, to drape the place in trees rather than disrupt the landscape with wire or fencing. Deer snuck in to eat the plants at first, but after the fifth obscenity-laden tirade by my mother, we kindly suggested she create some sort of insecticide for the plants so they’d taste like garbage to any outside animals. There was nothing funnier to me than watching my regularly more mild-manner Mom run out onto our back porch with a broom, waving it furiously at the bewildered deer, expletives falling from her mouth like a waterfall. Yes, we’re the nature-worshipers of the Kindred, but sometimes we have to rage out when deer are being assholes. 

The space was quiet, with the occasional peal of mourning doves splitting through the air. It invigorated me, but I liked the silence too. Nothing cutting through the simple ability to be still, and tend to my work. That’s one of the most important elements of the type of magick I excel in. Without peace, I can’t transfer enough potency into the plants, and then the customers won’t be happy with the efficacy of the product. 

I’d been working in the shoppe full time for two years. When I turned sixteen, I graduated from the Greenery, a school of Witchcraft specifically for herb and plant Witches. When I hit legal age, all bets were off, and I was given a choice - go through the Barrier, never to return, or stay within Theara. Easiest decision I’d ever made. Nobody ever went through the Barrier. It was a fool’s errand. Why go with the humans and their bullshit when all the beauty was here?  

The decision hadn’t been flaw-free of course. I’d gone through the Barrier three times to observe human behavior for extra credits at the Greenery. The first two times had gone great, but I suffered from a hair trigger temper and paralyzing anxiety. This proved dangerous as hell, because overt displays of emotion - specifically anger - can punch holes in the glamour Witches wore to prevent humans from seeing our true Kindred selves. But I had always managed to find a loophole or escape route right before the humans saw through it. Mom always said I was born lucky, which I thought was a knock on my intelligence. But looking back, I know she was right. 

I pulled my scarf closer around my neck and picked up a basket. In the fall, we had various types of squash, crowberries, sweet potatoes, and several types of apples and pears, but that was more Mom’s realm. My property was beyond the food, into the huge plot of land beyond that held our pots of herbs. We housed pretty much everything you could think of to use in a spell, and what we didn’t have, we could procure from the neighboring town. Our prices were better, though. Crae’s shoppes overcharged everyone, mainly because Vampire and Wolf tourists always came through there. But little did they know, we had a better variety. 

My favorite of all was the collection of toxic plants, mainly because I got to design the sign that went at the top of the aisle. Today it read Please Ask For Assistance When Dealing with Toxic Plants.I had begged Mom to let me write Don’t Eat These If You Don’t Want to Die Like A Fucking Idiot, but Mom had demurred. “Maybe something without swear words?” 

Boring. I get it, but boring.

The sky was a deep, perfect sapphire by the time I completed my initial rounds. The wolfsbane looked pretty decent, and the foxgloves were about to go dormant. In the house, I could hear Bree’s laughter amid the tinkling of stones being sifted between her careful hands. 

I settled myself in front of a pot of ivy that was slowly starting to grow. It was the month of ivy, according to our calendar. The time of fertility and growth, as this plant was used for. I would use it later to decorate our altars, as a celebration of the season.

* 

Mom had noticed my gift when I was five, after a boy slapped my ass at recess and I made a tomato explode near his feet, splattering his white pants with fresh red juice. Mom thought it was hilarious, and told me she would have done the same thing if a guy had done that to her. She was also a little surprised - she’d pegged me as a Sacred Servant, like her, so the fact I turned out a Field Walker struck her as infinitely interesting.

Once it was sorted out what I was, I was instantly sent to the Greenery. It starts out twice a week, and once you get older, the amount gets upped. On my first day, pigtailed and nervous at six years old, I met Bree, who became dear to me very quickly. I thought she was beautiful and smart, and the fact that she could manipulate metal and stones into pure light and energy was the coolest thing. The various colors pulled from rose quartz, calcite, pyrite, and blood coral shimmered out of her closed hands, making her cherrywood-colored skin glow. I was entranced. Then, I found out how weirdshe was, and that was it. We were joined at the hip. Adding Li into the equation two years ago wasn’t difficult at all - Li perfectly balanced out Bree’s tendency for the dramatic.

My life was calm. Mom called it a blessing from the Mothers that we hadn’t had a big issue with any of the other Courts since the Treaty was signed. Sure, some tend to act like douchewaffles for the sake of fame and a little notoriety (ahem, Vampires), but on the whole, peace had come to Theara after so many years of pointless fighting and bloodshed. 

Even the Daughters and their Shields had disbanded, despite the rumors that still haunted Theara about how they were still working undercover, particularly in the Court of Blood. Vampires and their shitty covert operations. 

Nobody really bought into it, and nobody cared to investigate. That thought would otherwise worry me, but I had a good life in my little house with the little shoppe and my family and my friends. Life was calm. 

It is at this moment I would like to take full blame for the shitstorm that happened next. I was being optimistic and hunky-dory and full of blind hubris. Everything was going SO well! There was NOTHING that could go wrong! I’m a moron, and you can all beat me up later.

* 

So, there I was, inspecting our belladonna, when Li came out of the house looking like they had stepped in cow manure. “You have a visitor,” they announced, their nose crinkling up like the stench was lingering.

“You’re really selling your enthusiasm,” I joked, but Li didn’t smile back. 

“It’s Lyneth.”

My blood stilled in my veins. The sky darkened from a pleasant cerulean to a pale green. The birds all died. Everyone in the Kingdom evacuated their bowels in unison. 

Not really. I just got a little hot around the collar and tried to feign high annoyance. 

“Really,” I said, trying to sound like I couldn’t be bothered. 

The look on Li’s face, however, suggested that my tone was perilously close to a whine. “Yes. Really. All I know is she wants to talk to you.” They shrugged, pushing a shank of pink hair out of their face. “She wouldn’t say anything else.”

“But why me? Why not Mom?” 

“Ioana went out. And you know her, she’ll get distracted by something at the market and be gone for two hours.”

True story. When I was nine, I came home from a friend’s house to find one of my mother’s coven elders waiting for me. “Your mother needed to go into the Court of Silver for a conference,” she said. “She’ll be away for a few weeks.” But apparently the Court of Silver was really damn fun, because the weeks turned into three months, and by the time Mom came back I was about to rip her a new one. But she looked so pale and drawn that I instantly forgave her.   

That tendency to wander off, though, remained.

I let out a long, exasperated sigh that was probably too melodramatic for its own good. “Okay. Just let me do one thing first.” I turned on my heel and marched up the aisle towards the even more dangerous plant life. 

“None of the toxic ones will work on her, Sorina, although I would really, really love to see you try and kill a Vampire. Just to see the blob on the floor where your body had been." 

I leaned away from the foxglove. “It can’t hurt to try! Nobody likes a quitter, Li.” 

*

There was a Vampire sitting at my kitchen nook, elbow on my kitchen table, drinking out of one of my mugs.  

Her booted feet were placed on the throw rug I had made for Mom’s birthday a few years ago. She looked calm, and in no way eager to start a fight. I wanted to punch her in the neck just to start one.

She turned to face me at the sound of the door clicking shut behind Li, and I fought back the desire to flatten myself against the nearest wall so she couldn’t see me, like that would work with Vampires or something. 

I knew her. I knew her very well. More than I cared to admit sometimes.  

She was beautiful, like all Vampires are - even if they’re missing a limb or covered in battle scars. They have a luminous quality to their eyes, their skin. Mom knew one Vampire with a missing right arm and said he was as fearsome as any other warrior. He’d refused a prosthetic piece, insisting that he was just as skilled with one arm, she’d said. He had been right - Mom recalled how she’d watched him take down an entire human army nearly by himself.

The Vampire’s eyes, a dark brown with gold flecks like drips of paint into the iris, were calm. Something I had noticed about her immediately when we had first met was that we had similar eyes. But that initial color is where the similarities ended. When Vampires got angry their eyes changed color, and I had only seen this one angry once. But it had been enough - her eyes had burned a hard, vivid blue, as if there were oceans of rage inside her very muscles, urging to break out of any open spot. It contrasted with her hair, a deep chocolate, today done up in a ponytail scraped hard away from her face. She wore a greatcoat that made her already impressive frame look even more terrifying than normal, especially since I couldn’t see what she was wearing underneath. Could be a dress, could be battle leathers. 

Her eyes held the space of a galaxy, but I had seen them in moments where the focus was narrowed to the end of a pin, or the length of my arms. 

She hadn’t even had the courtesy to take off her damn coat. That meant she was here to mess with me and walk around for two hours without buying anything, as she had done so many times in the past, or something big was happening.  

I felt a rush of feeling similar to the rumble one gets in their stomach when they want to emotionally eat.

She spoke before I could come up with something pithy to say. 

“Hi, Sorina. It’s been a while.” A smile played on her lips, like the end of a knife stroking the skin before the plunge.

“Was kind of hoping it would be longer, to be honest.” I kept close to the wall, just in case she wasn’t in a joking mood. But Lyneth just smiled a little wider, the knife cutting dangerously close. She gently spun the mug around on the table so the front faced Li and I. It proclaimed in neon blue scriptI POOP RAINBOWS.

I choked out a laugh. “Bree, you didn’t.”

“Oh, I did,” Bree said, entering from the bathroom. “She came here. Might as well give her the full five-star treatment.” She topped off Lyneth’s mug for her trouble before coming to stand next to Li. I peeled myself away from the wallpaper so the three of us would form a makeshift phalanx, like that would have protected us. 

We needn’t have even bothered, to be honest. This was Lyneth Der-Ilei Walker, one of the most dangerous Vampires in Theara. Her feats in the battles pre-Treaty were legendary, the stuff of nightmares for young Witches and Wolves. To say nothing of her clashes with the humans. It had been rumored for years that she had started training Daughters again, in secret camps hidden away from even the eyes of the Kindred.  

Rumors, of course. But they were getting louder.

“Stay alive until Mom gets back from Crae, you got it, Ri?” Li murmured. They interlaced their fingers with Bree’s. 

“So, Lyneth,” I started, trying to keep my tone at least adjacent to polite. “As great as it is to see you, and watch you drink mycoffee, you might want to tell me what’s going on before I alert our customers that there’s a Vampire in the shoppe. They might not be as inclined to niceties.” 

“The last time I was around, you were a lot sweeter to me,” Lyneth said, her tone so casual it drove me mad. 

 “The last time you were here? You and I nearly came to blows.” I gnawed on the inside of my cheek. 

Lyneth slowly raised her eyes to mine. She knew what that did. What that always did. 

“Was that all that happened?” she said quietly, her eyes burning holes in my skull.

 Fucking damn it all to the many hells. 

“Are you as uncomfortable as I am?” Bree murmured to Li. 

“Nah, this is hilarious," Li said.

I was about to do, well, something (scream? Fight her? Make out with her?), when the sound of the kitchen door swinging open made us all jump. Mom rushed in, her hands empty.

“Mom?” I asked. “I thought you went…”

Mom ignored me, still out of breath. Her eyes were panicked, focused on Lyneth, who instantly turned her body to pay attention to the new presence in the room. 

My anger dissolved, replaced with concern. “Mom, are you okay?” 

My mother, who was always the anchor of my world in so many ways, looked like the grass around her foundation had been ripped open and she was floundering, drowning in some unknown sea of threat and fear. “Lyneth,” she murmured. 

“Ioana Hasdeu.” 

Lyneth inclined her head as she spoke, almost as if she were deferring to my Mom. It struck me just then that this was the first time I had ever seen Lyneth truly interact with Mom. Normally, when I saw Lyneth, it was either alone or with a mutual friend, an affable, annoyingly charming Vampire called Gabe. And Lyneth’s status as a Vampire – to say nothing of the other things she was rumored to be – made her an object of trepidation and grudging awe amongst Witches. She, along with a select group of Vampires, were also skilled with magick, the kind that comes from knowing how to handle and manipulate blood. Not many Witches had that skill. Made sense, then, that Vampires, who couldn’t survive without it, needed it in ways other than a necessary life-giving force. 

“Is it true?” Mom’s hands flexed at her sides, and I caught the barest edge of a tremble.

“I wish it wasn’t.” Lyneth’s eyes were blurring into something different. Empathetic. “But it is.” 

“No.” Mom sank into the chair opposite of Lyneth, face ashen.

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t true.” Lyneth put the mug down and reached across, placed her hand on top of Mom’s, gentle. I saw her rub her thumb across the visible vein on the top of Mom’s hand, back and forth. For a moment I was struck with a paralyzing fear that she was preparing that hand for food.

“Will someone just tell us what the hell is going on!?” I exclaimed, voicing what everyone was probably feeling.  

Lyneth turned back to me, and for the first time, maybe ever, I saw genuine fear in a Vampire’s eyes. “It’s the bodies.” 

“...Yeah, everyone knows about the bodies.”

“Don’t be flip, Sorina. The Elders are panicking. They all think they’re next, and none of them have any idea who’s causing it.” 

“Well, they should figure it out!” I snapped, suddenly sick of the entire day and the twists it had taken. “I have shit to do, Lyneth. There are seeds to harvest and herbs to grow and customers to take care of…” and blankets to knit, and peace to be had, and a life to be led. I didn’t want to be involved, at all. I clenched and loosened my fists, faking ignorance and utterly failing.  

Lyneth let out a long gust of air. “I have shit to do too, you know. I don’t want to be in the middle of Bumfuck, Stonewell, drinking out of a frankly insulting mug. But when you hear what’s going on, I think you’ll understand why coming all the way out here isn’t exactly low on the list of my priorities right now.” She darted a glance at Mom, who looked away.

“You should tell us everything, right now,” Li said, as carefully as they could manage, given the knife-edge tension in the air. They didn’t sound nearly as stressed as I thought the situation warranted, but it was a start. When Li sounded like this, it was a sign for everyone else to start panicking.

Lyneth pinched the space between her brows with her forefingers, then laid her hands flat on the table. “Four Elders of Theara, killed. Not just murdered, but desecrated. Their bodies reduced to husks.” She clasped her hands together. “Ioana, some help if you wouldn’t mind?” Again, that oddly deferent tone of voice. 

Mom nodded and leaned forward, extending her palms out. For a moment, we all fell silent as her hands sketched images in the air, light passing across her fingers. I had seen her do this hundreds of times, but it was always such a privilege to watch. Conjuring illustrations, maps, and even replicas of people out of pure light and energy. Sacred Servants were taught from a young ages how to manipulate light, and Mom had taken that gift to and used it to vivid effect. When I was a small child, I learned about the history of Theara from light shows displayed on the tips of my mother’s fingers. Now, the magick between her palms bent and shifted to form a map of Theara itself, with the three Courts clearly visible: The Court of Silver to the left, the Court of Blood in the upper middle, the Court of Magick on the right, with the Middle Plains taking up the center. Winding through it all was the Unity River and on the bottom right hand corner, the southern coast of Theara, a unified area known as the Bronze that many Kindred used as a vacation destination. Surrounding us on all sides were the Great Seas, and then, on the right, looming like a vast wild land, was Rasa, with the invisible Barrier walling us off from them.

“One year ago, Magnus Bartos of the Court of Silver was found by his daughter, Elsebet, in the front yard of their family home. Ioana, zoom in on the upper right quadrant.” The picture narrowed down to a replica of Magnus Bartos, body shriveled like a raisin. I had heard about it, obviously, but I hadn’t seen the full impact of what exactly had happened to the bodies. I had met Magnus Bartos once before, when the Wolf delegation had come to the Court of Magick for a diplomatic conference. He had struck me as imposing, but fundamentally decent. Elsebet Bartos was a terrifying presence, broad and strong with giant hands that could probably pluck my head clean off like a grape from its stem. She didn’t look like either of those things in the simulation shimmering between my mother’s palms - the daughter of the most powerful werewolf in Theara, frozen in a howl of pain and shock within the image between my mother’s careful hands. 

“Again.” Lyneth’s voice was quiet now. Mom closed her hands, reopened them. This time, a female, in the same contorted position, in what I instantly recognized from old school maps as Songhra, the capital city of the Court of Blood. “Three months ago, Claire Ionescu was found. Her son is a friend of mine and charged me to help him.” 

“Gabe.” I closed my eyes and opened them. An acknowledgement. My stomach clenched. I had never met Claire Ionescu, but oh, I knew her son. And if the mother was anything like the son…well. Theara had lost someone who would set her own house on fire, would walk through the flames itself, would walk directly into sunlight if it meant keeping her family and the Vampires safe. Nobody was more proud of their family line than the Ionescus, as everyone knew and they would be more than happy to say. We learned about them in school, about how they were the last known line of pureblooded vampires in the Kingdom.

“Anyway. As one of the last surviving descendants of -”

“Lyneth, don’t you dare say the name of those murderers in this house,” I hissed. Mom’s hands twitched slightly, causing the light to crackle and fizz. A break in concentration. It only happened when she was seriously distressed. I looked at her, confused, but she didn’t look at me at all. 

Lyneth darted her eyes from the space between Mom’s fingertips to my eyes, then back. “Okay,” she said, trying again. “As someone who has it in my lineage to guard the barriers of Theara, I feel it’s my duty to help. 

“Which brings me to four days ago.” Lyneth motioned for Mom to change the picture again. Mom seemed to regain some of her steadiness, and closed her hands. This time, I knew what was coming. “Lavende Wickham and her wife, Sarai.” The first double, and the two most outspoken Witchcraft elders.” They were found torn to pieces in their bed.” 

We’d of course heard of the Wickhams. They were going to be keynote speakers at the next Peace Summit.

“There might not be a Peace Summit, Ri. There might not be a Unity Week, or even a Theara.” 

“If you could stop reading my damn mind, that would be great,” I growled. 

Lyneth didn’t even act like she wantedto apologize. “The circumstances surrounding all of these deaths are why we are here.”  

“We?” The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. “We?”

“Well, yes. I couldn’t come alone. I needed backup.” Lyneth sat back in her chair. 

The picture between Mom’s hands winked out. 

* 

Gabriel Ionescu was standing at the edge of the gravel walkway that led out from our house to the main road, looking like an uninvited party guest. It wasn’t until I got closer that I realized his clunky posture was due to holding in the desire to feed on everything in sight. It vibrated off his frame like loud music. I had the urge to throw a piece of raw meat at him to keep his hunger down.

Despite his clear discomfort, he was nothing if not stylish. His brown-blond hair looked too artfully mussed to be accidental, and his black greatcoat was clearly more expensive than most of my closet. He carried a cross-body bag that was aggressively stuffed with papers and files. He was tall and lanky, with long, careful fingers and a sharp jaw. Unlike most Vampires, his beautiful face was covered in stubble, a difference from the last time I had seen him. He tended to keep his body and wardrobe perfectly groomed, as befitted his status as the son of a Vampire Elder. Now, despite his elegant dress, he looked almost haggard, even though to anybody else he would still look shockingly well put-together. This was someone who was still coming out of the clutches of deep grief. If I put my empathy out there to touch him, I was sure the waves of sorrow would knock me over.

“Hey Ri-Ri,” Gabriel said, the bright smile on his face belying his body language and making him even more lovely than I’d remembered him. “Lyneth must have let you in on the surprise.”

“What the fuck are you doing here, Gabe?” I hissed. “And could everyone use my adult name. I’m not a kid anymore.”

“If you could calm down just a little bit before you start tearing each other to pieces in the front lawn of a family business, I’d appreciate it,” Bree called from somewhere behind me. 

 “Not quite sure this is the right time to calm down.” Lyneth materialized out of nowhere at Gabriel’s side, making me jolt.  

“Would you stop doing that?!” 

“I had to bring him along, since this involves him more than you know,” Lyneth said, totally ignoring me. “In case you forgot, Gabe’s mother was murdered, so forgive his mopey appearance.” 

I looked back at Gabriel, my anger fading. “Oh, Gabe.”  

Gabe’s posturing slid down his body to something new, a look I had never seen on him. It fit him like a badly tailored jacket. Grief is never something we can just shrug on for a perfect fit. He stared down at the grass for a long moment. When he spoke again, it had the hard glint of rage in it. “I want to find the sons of bitches that killed my mother.”

What can one say? I couldn’t say I was sorry. It was the worst possible thing to say to someone who’d just lost their mother. And I couldn’t ask how he was feeling. That’s the second worst thing. How the fuck did I expect him to feel? Jubilant? 

“Thank you for coming,” I said instead.

Gabe looked up, and the corner of his mouth twitched like he wanted to thank me or slap me. “Well, we need all the help we can get," he said. His tone was back to that lazy sweetness I had come to know.

“I get it. I do.” I spread my palms upward, helpless. “But if you think this is because of the Witches, you’re wrong, okay? The Court of Magick was exonerated after the death of your mother, and the murders of the Wickhams were proof positive that we didn’t have anything to do with it. Why are you here, Lyneth?” I kept my voice down to a low register, so I didn’t sound like I felt.  

“Because you’re the only Witches I know who don’t want me dead!” Lyneth snapped.

“Find better people to hang out with!” 

“Oh for the love of the Mother,” Gabriel scowled, and pulled a sheaf of paper out of his cross-body bag. “Lyneth. Blood Sign.”

Lyneth’s fangs jutted out from her gums faster than lightning, and a streak of red appeared on her palm before I could even see her bite the skin. She flattened it against the paper Gabriel had produced, then closed her eyes. The blood mutated and almost fluttered against the page, before splaying out into a sketch. I could make out the lightest smear of darker red next to what had to be the corpse of Lavende Wickham. 

Dread formed a knot in my stomach. “Well, what am I looking at?”

Gabe’s lips pursed. “That is not a heat signature from Theara. It wouldn’t show up on your mother’s Lightwork, mainly because she wasn’t looking for it.” 

The knot pulled up and forward, churning my gut.  

“Due to the Elders being murdered, the Mother Light we’ve relied on to keep the Barrier solid has weakened,” Lyneth said in a hush. “Someone, or a group of someones, is actively trying to get it to crack open.” 

“And this heat signature…” I looked at Lyneth, hoping to every Mother she wasn’t about to say what I thought she would. 

“It’s a human. They’ve succeeded in cracking it enough that a human has gotten into Theara. And…” For the first time maybe ever, I saw a flash of guilt behind Lyneth’s eyes. “We can’t find them.” 

“....Fuck.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 2