Chapter 643: Visitors
I held her against me a moment before pushing my sister out to arm's length. "What are you doing here?"
"Syd." Meira clutched at me, face younger only because of her obvious fear. "We have to get you out of here." She tugged on me, pulling me with her, toward the wavering slice in the veil still gaping behind her.
I slipped free, shaking my head. "I can't go," I said. "Not until I know if Gram is okay."
Meira's lips trembled. "Do you have any idea how much power it took to reach you? To cross?" She wrung her hands at me. "Grandmother is helping, but she won't be able to hold it forever. The power of the stronghold is fighting her. We have to go now."
"Meems." I hesitated. Maybe going with her was a good idea. We could sort out all the mess later, after I'd had time to think.
No. I couldn't abandon Gram. Even if that meant the Council managed to tie me to a stake and set me on fire.
"I have a plan," I said. Not much of one. But there was enough truth in what I said I was able to smile at my sister, to hug her again. To appreciate the love she poured over me. "I promise, I'll be fine."
Meira nodded against my shoulder before backing up. Wiping her nose on her sleeve, amber eyes welling with more tears.
"That's why you're my hero," she whispered before spinning and plunging into the veil just as it snapped shut behind her.
Hero? Me?
Wow, kid had some serious issues to work out if I was her role model.
I sat on the end of the narrow bed, feeling worse for having seen Meira, for some reason. Maybe because I really was alone in this, and knew it now. No rescue. Yes, I could run. Would when the time came. But I refused to take anyone else down with me.
Visitor number five shocked me so much when she stormed through the door I almost forgot to ask about Gram.
"Mom." I gasped out her name, stumbled to my feet as my mother slammed the door behind her and turned to glare at me.
"You will give a statement," she snarled, power crawling around her like a living thing. "You will confess to freeing Ameline Benoit." Her fingers crept to her neck, clutched at it. "You will be punished for your crimes." Her hand scrabbled as though searching for something even as she choked on her words.
No necklace. She'd lost her pentagram long ago, back when she'd first become Council Leader. And though Meira and I had a new one made for her, infused it with our magic, she'd never worn it. At least to my knowledge.
And this wasn't the first time I'd seen her claw at her neck like that. I let my power out, touched Mom with it, felt the emptiness before the Council power crashed against me.
"You dare, criminal?" Spittle flew from Mom's lips as she stormed to face me, both hands on her throat now. "You will burn on a pyre and your bones will be crushed to dust!"
Holy. Freaking. Crap. Council magic or not, this was not my mother.
Was. Not.
My eyes fell to her hands, so desperate around her neck. "Mom," I said, stomach lurching as I made a connection in my head. "Where is the necklace I gave you?"
Mom's eyes bulged, her breath coming in short gasps. "You will confess," she said. Barked out.
I was an idiot. A total, complete idiot. Blamed the influence of the Council power for Mom's shift. I'd wondered once if a darker power was to blame, but when I'd felt the pressure she was under, the push of the Council magic, I'd allowed myself to believe that was the reason she'd become someone I didn't know anymore.
But the emptiness I felt around her, every time I touched her, just before her magic rejected me. That wasn't witch magic.
How had I missed it?
Mom spun away from me, body convulsing as she bent over, gasping for air even as she repeated, "you will," like some kind of mantra.
My heart breaking, I raised my hands to my own neck and slid free the pentagram necklace she'd given me. They'd left it with me, for whatever reason. And I was grateful. Because her power sat embedded in it, and a spell of protection, one she'd tried for years to make me wear. Something I'd only done recently.
The same as hers, made by her mother.
As Mom straightened, her back still to me, I stepped into her space. She spun, eyes bloodshot and face crimson from an internal battle I could only begin to imagine. Before she could stop me, I lifted the necklace over her head, sliver sliding through my fingers as I whispered power into the metal and dropped the pentagram pendant around her neck.
***
