Chapter 590: Lies And Deceptions
Charlotte had a firm hold on Demetrius the entire trip to Harvard. Not that I didn't trust him to stay with us in the veil, but one just never knew.
Would be just my luck to lose his ass in the transfer.
Gram and Shenka I left with firm instructions. We already knew the only way to combat the attack of the Brotherhood was by weakening our defenses and not giving them magic to feed their sorcery. We'd learned that lesson the hard way, when Liander Belaisle and his pack of bullies attacked the vampire mansion. But my heart still fought me, my logic, too. It felt so wrong to tell the family to let their shielding go. Not only because those shields kept us safe day to day, a natural part of who we were. But because I now had no idea if such a defense would even work against the sorcerer's new tactics.
Without the chance to have a look at this machine Demetrius mentioned, for all I knew, lowering the family's shielding signed my family's death warrants.
I tightened my link with the coven as we stepped out of the veil and into Harvard Yard. Gram's power reached back, Shenka's too, each of the witches in my family grasping hold.
The Brotherhood had a hell of a lot to answer for.
I could tell the second I arrived Mom wasn't in her office. I spun toward University Hall and found her easily. She was with the Council, in session.
Perfect.
I didn't ask permission. Didn't care how they'd react. Fear for my family and for all covens racing through my veins, I pushed my way past the front doors and into the magicked doorway leading to Council chambers. A pair of Enforcers tried to stop me.
Tried.
I don't think I hurt them too badly.
I used just enough magic to shove them aside, honest. And burst through the huge wooden portals to thunder to a furious halt before the gaping stares of the Council.
Mom's face flashed to immediate rage, her power crackling around her, but I had no time for her temper. Not while all of witchdom was at risk. My heart went out to the families we'd lost as I faced the Council in a flare of my own magic.
"How dare you interrupt a closed meeting." Huan Wong, the member for the Santos family, sat back in her seat, hands fluttering in front of her as her anger showed in a cascade of sparks from her fingertips. She'd never liked me, partly in thanks to the Santos's loyalties to the Dumont coven.
Tough cookies. She could hate me all she wanted, as long as she listened.
"Syd." Erica Plower, my own member on Council, clamped her jaw shut, anger flashing. She'd been Mom's second before I assigned her to Council. Old loyalties, old judgments, died hard. "What are you doing here?"
"We demand to know why you've intruded." Phylis Gaines, the tiny representative of the Bradford family glowered at me as though I were a bug she wished to squash.
"This is outrageous." That from Willa Rhodes, Rhodes coven. And similar sharp remarks from Lauren Noble of Hensley. Their individual voices were lost in the now constant, angry chatter of the Council as they talked over each other, glaring at me, aiming their unhappiness my way.
I let them shift and bubble and gather their petulant complaints. Let Mom stare me down, or try to, with her burning blue eyes. Let them seethe while I allowed my disgust and disappointment to sink into my soul and show on my face.
Children. Whiners. These were our representatives, those who had our best interest? I didn't hear them, didn't answer them. Their complaints fell away as I narrowed my field of focus on the one person in the room who didn't say a word.
"You knew." My voice cut through their angry talk, silencing them as I shot those words like weapons at my mother. Mom didn't move, didn't respond. Didn't have to. The twitch of guilt in her face told me everything I needed to know.
"I demand to know-"
Yeah. Like I cared what Huan demanded. I guided Demetrius forward, heard them all gasp, watched him slink ahead, hunched to the side, a lopsided smile under his tears as he clung to me, a frightened but eager child whipped one too many times.
"Show them," I said. "Like you showed me." My hand went into my pocket as I reached for the magic in the room, felt the Council's power reject me at first, Mom's touch trying to keep me from what came next.
Felt her fail.
Withdrew the bone.
Lived the deaths of the coven it belonged to again. And again. And again. I didn't stop, not this time, forced them to see what I'd seen, past where Demetrius took me in my kitchen, kept my own eyes, heart, soul open even as the goodness in me withered and dried up until there was nothing left but hate.
He finally released them when I drew my arm back and threw the fragment of bone across the room. It bounced against the bottom of the Council podium, spinning like a top. I registered the sounds of the Council's sobs, their cries of horror, their magic flashing and ebbing as they struggled for control in a moment of terror, struggling with what to do next, to think.
I didn't have that problem. I had never had such clarity in my life.
And I never took my eyes from Mom's.
Instead of shock-I'd really hoped I'd see shock, wished for it like a silly child wishes with all her heart for something she knows will never happen-there was only cold rage.
Not at the Brotherhood for what they'd done. Not for the deaths of so many, for no reason, deaths that could have been prevented, covens lost that could have been saved.
No, her anger was aimed locally.
At me.
Me.
"This can't be true." Erica rose half to her feet, gripping the edge of the table for support, grief pouring out of her like the tears that ran endlessly down her pale face. "Miriam, it can't be. We would know, wouldn't we?"
Mom sat back, hands folded on the table in front of her. "I did know," she said.
Silence. Utter, deathly, overwhelming silence that tore a gaping hole in my chest. I'd assumed the entire Council was complicit. Only to discover I was wrong.
Mom had lied to all of us.
Their wailing began, rose in tempo and volume.
Because now they knew what I'd show them was true.
They ran from the room, the gathered Councilors, only Erica remaining behind. I knew where they were going, didn't have to ask. Had the same instinctual response to the news I'd uncovered. Even though they didn't officially belong to their covens anymore, gave up their family magicks to serve on the Council, I had absolutely no doubt each and every one of them ran to contact their relatives.
To make sure they were okay.
But not everyone was, were they? No, not by a long shot. How easy it was to forget there were many more families, without the power and influence necessary to demand a seat on Council. Families now diminished.
How many were gone? And did they care, these representatives of the witch world?
Doubtful. They were as selfish as I was. Focused on the ones they loved, fled to warn them, to fill them with the fear they now felt.
And Mom just sat there and glared at me like it was my fault the Brotherhood succeeded.
Erica came to my side, shaking hands taking mine. "I had no idea," she whispered. "I swear it."
I nodded, still focused on my mother. "I know," I said. "This has nothing to do with you."
"Or you." Mom's earlier attack in her office felt like nothing as she lashed out at me vocally, a walk in the park. This Mom's rage grew like a monster around her as she stood, a vortex of magic forming at her feet as the Council power answered her need to crush me. I had no doubt, from the fury in her face, she would hurt me if she could. "And now you've ruined everything."
For the briefest of moments, I died inside as I reached for Mom and felt the same emptiness I'd encountered earlier. My mother... was my mother one of them?
Had she been taken by the Brotherhood?
But no, no, I could feel her now. She'd shielded against me, locked me out, shoved me aside like a bully on a playground unhappy her target stood up to her. I could only guess she no longer felt the need to pretend she cared anymore. Mom stalked toward me, body shaking violently as she visibly struggled to control her temper.
"Do you have any idea," she snarled, Charlotte immediately snarling back in answer, "what kind of a mess you've just unleashed?"
Even Erica gaped at her. "Miriam," she said, face paling further, her tan a dull wash over her whitened cheeks.
Mom cut her off with a sharp chop of one hand. "I had everything under control," Mom grated out through teeth clenched so tight it was hard to make her out. "And you've created mass panic. For no reason."
No reason.
No-
"If you really believe that," I whispered, her words punching me in the gut, "if you really think you have to keep the covens from protecting themselves out of your misguided fear, you've lost your damned mind." I drew myself up to my full height, not caring that my hands shook, or my voice for that matter.
"You fool," she snarled. "I can't protect them if they know the truth."
Erica gasped, backed away, shaking her head. "What are you saying?"
Mom's rage emerged in a sharp bark of laughter. "Really, Erica," she said, snapping blue eyes fixed on her oldest friend. "How naive. This Council would crumble if you knew a fraction of what threatens us."
Erica's shoulders sagged. "How do you know," she whispered, "if you don't give us the chance to find out?"
I crossed my arms over my chest as Mom looked away from Erica and met my eyes.
"I have no idea who you are," I said. "But you're not my mother."
***
