“You’re thinking with your gut again,” Calma grumbled. “We’re staying.”
“How about you blow me,” Olc said, but he made no move to leave. This was the way it was. Olc was chaos. Calma was order. They fought constantly, but Calma put up with the insults as long as Olc did as he was told. And Dubh…Dubh was simply the youngest, always the bottom rung. Expected to go along with whatever his brothers said. To let his brothers take over his mission and make the decisions, to let them take the glory.
But not this time.
This was his time. His mission. And the freckle-faced witch was his.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CORA
“If we joined covens, we could do the ascension,” Meiner said.
Cora glared at her. Meiner had been pacing the floor of Cora’s guest bedroom for the past fifteen minutes.
Cora wanted to ascend, probably more than Meiner. Knowing the other witchlings would have a head start on them, that their power would shift from a trickle to a flood and they would leave her behind in the minor leagues, well, it rankled. She’d been practicing actual spells for years, preparing for when she’d have the power, leaving simple crap like scrying and tarot behind. Card tricks and staring into bowls of water no longer held her interest, and praying to the gods in hopes that one of them cared enough to lend a trickle of power was demeaning. But it didn’t mean she wanted Reagan and Dayna in the coven.
“We’re not joining,” Cora snapped. “We don’t need them.” Especially not the stupid tea girl. This she didn’t add, because she could already see the anger on Meiner’s face as she swung around to stare at her.
“It’s the only way we could do our ascension.”
“Who exactly are you trying to convince? It’s not like either of us is calling the shots here.” She knew her voice sounded sullen; she couldn’t help it. The coven should be hers when Grandma King died, not Meiner’s. For multiple reasons, number one being that it was her birthright. Her mother had been the leader when Cora was very young. She’d died suddenly, and without warning, and Grandma King had stepped into the role and never left. But that meant she, Cora, should be the next in line when the old woman was gone. It was only fair.
Besides, she knew Meiner better than she knew herself, and Meiner didn’t actually want the coven. She dreaded the thought of following in her grandmother’s footsteps. Cora could see the conflict on her face whenever the subject came up.
Meiner turned away, falling silent, and Cora picked at the flower-print bedspread. Meiner had been pissed off since the meeting. Cora was, too, of course, but a part of her was at least happy about Meiner’s reaction to the whole thing. How she’d snapped at Dayna.
Now there was no way anything would happen between them.
Cora hated Meiner. But mostly, she hated the way Meiner made her feel. Full of spite and rage and hurt. But worst of all was the confusion. Cora was nearly always certain of what she wanted, except when it came to Meiner.
She wanted to be Meiner, or she wanted to be with Meiner. Or…It was too much to even think about. It made the rage in the pit of her stomach reignite all over again.
But as much as she hated to admit it, Dayna was exactly to Meiner’s taste: the splash of freckles over her cheeks, the delicate hoop of her nose ring, the curve of her lips. When she’d come around the corner at Sage Widow and turned her full attention on Cora, it’d been almost startling. Something about her eyes was terribly haunted. Of course Meiner was fascinated by her; she was probably painting some contrived picture of sweeping in to rescue her from something.
Meiner could be annoyingly noble like that.
Cora huffed a sigh and collapsed onto the bed. They were holed up in her guest room until suppertime, since neither of them was comfortable hanging around the kitchen with Reagan and her mother. She could hear them out there now. Apparently Reagan had grown too enthusiastic while gesturing with a wooden spoon, and flicked the contents
of her mixing bowl all over the tapestry on the wall—“That took Bronagh hours to make. Gods, girl, you’ve got butter all over Lugh!”—and Cora didn’t feel like dealing with their annoyingly high levels of energy.
They were in Cora’s room less out of choice and more out of habit. Cora was used to having the other girl around. They were cut from the same cloth, she and Meiner, ambitious and driven, burning with want.
There was a shuffle and thump from outside in the hall, and both girls stiffened as Grandma King’s low muttering drifted past outside the door. Cora relaxed as the noise trailed off, and the thud of footfalls on the stairs followed.
She darted a look at Meiner, who had relaxed back against the window frame.
You had to be a special kind of fucked up to survive being raised by Harriet King.
Man-eater, the rumors called her.
The first time Meiner had told her was when Cora had just moved in. They’d been thirteen and fourteen, getting adjusted to staying in the same bedroom. She remembered how Meiner had looked leaning over the side of her bunk, her long white hair ghostly in the half darkness, telling horror stories about the old woman.
She ate men to fuel her magic. She’d pledged herself to the devil. She had a freezer full of body parts in the basement.
If asked straight out, both Cora and Meiner would tell you that, of course, they were just ridiculous rumors. But sometimes Cora would catch a certain look on the old woman’s face, a kind of dark glitter in her eyes. And neither girl ever ventured out of their bedroom at night.
It was easier to brush things off that way. Like the shadows that lurked in the corners of the old house a little too long after sunrise, or the scrape and bump in the basement after everyone was in bed. If you didn’t look or listen too hard, it didn’t exist.
They’d survived together.
She kicked the side of the mattress with her heels, watching Meiner as she leaned forward to look out the window, white hair obscuring her face.
“We should be the ones ascending tonight. We’ll be stronger than they will,” Cora said. “They haven’t had to struggle to survive. They’re not like us.”
Meiner glanced back over her shoulder, frowning. “There is no us. Don’t try to pretend we’re some kind of team.”
Cora narrowed her eyes at Meiner. Being disagreeable was Meiner’s way of dealing with her hurt, though she’d never admit it. She’d seen the look on her face when Grandma King had sided with the other witchlings. Cora wasn’t sure why Meiner had expected the old woman to back them up; she wasn’t that sort of person.
Their coven was not like the Carman coven. She’d seen the pictures on the wall and nearly pulled a muscle rolling her eyes. A gathering of witches did not automatically equal a family. You did not go on picnics and pose for portraits. It was completely ridiculous. But of course Meiner was reacting badly to seeing the way they were. Like it was something she was missing out on.
It shouldn’t surprise her. Again and again, she’d seen some small part of Meiner that hadn’t frozen over yet. Hadn’t hardened.
That part made her weak. Would get her killed if she wasn’t careful.
She closed the distance between them, leaning one shoulder against the window frame so Meiner was forced to look at her. “Don’t try to pretend. There’ll always be an us, whether you like it or not.”