Page 79 of Bones

Suspicions that’d been hovering in the back of my mind for a few years.

“Bingo,” Denny said.

Nate took in my lack of shock. “You’ve had interaction with them.”

I lifted my chin. “Believe so, at least.”

What’s an absolve?

“A group of evil hypocrites,” I answered my mate. “They speak out and fight against anything they claim is ungodly. Anything different. Music. Changing fashion. People. But especially magicks.”

Juno regarded me. “You really do remember everything. Why weren’t you cursed in the church?”

Golden hair flung out as she whipped her head to look at me with wide eyes. I knew her heart was racing as she wrote because I could feel it in my own chest.

Curse? Church?

“Remember, just pinch,” I said softly before inhaling.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

PREVIOUSLY ON AS THE CHAIR SPINS

DEKE

With my siblings there tofill in the gaps, I dove into the deep history that I’d barely skimmed the surface of during our previous conversation.

I explained how Absolve used stolen souls to become powerful. How they’d used the witch trials to see how quickly hysteria could catch on and how far people were willing to go to fit in.

How much people were willing to hate when they were presented with an innocent target while the actual guilty watched on without consequence.

And then I told her about the battle in the church after Nate’s friend betrayed him and set us up. The evil that coated the entire building. Emanated from it to taint the town.

Theemptiness.

Aurora took my hand, and I waited to see if she was going to pinch me.

She didn’t. She just squeezed me tightly, easing the ache and filling the spot in my chest.

Juno jumped in at my pause to confirm what I’d long assumed. “Joseph Martin was warded, not just the room. Our own magicks bounced back against us. Or did you already know that? Were you left there?”

“I woke up a few hours later in the middle of nothing. Come to find out, I was partway across the country and had to hitch a ride with a French explorer to get back to Salem even though I already knew you three were gone. I felt it.”

That time, Aurora didn’t just squeeze my hand. She reached her other hand over to touch my chest.

I shook off the loneliness that’d haunted me and asked my siblings the question I’d been dying to know for centuries. “What happened to you?”

Nate spoke first, telling us about how he’d spent the stretching years living as a ghost without his memories. Invisible, he’d been rooted to the house. Once she’d inherited it, he’d been able to leave with her. And then eventually speak to her. She told us about how she’d sought help to get rid of the stalker voice.

First, with the kind of con-people who took out late-night ads on local TV.

Next, with a man they eventually learned was a soul-stealer, human trafficker member of Absolve.

Then finally who she believed was a real witch.

“That’s me, baby.” Juno did jazz hands before deflating. “I’m still mad I couldn’t get rid of him.”

Nate held his arms out. “What did I do?”

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