Page 28 of Demon's Bane

Coven lands are about three hours north of Beech Bay, and the drive gives me time to think. Too much time to think.

I think about how shitty I felt when I got up to my apartment, how exhausted. I think about the way I snapped at Rhett for trying to make simple conversation, and how gently he responded.

Mostly, I think about what he told me about his village and his people.

He sounded just as exhausted as I felt. And even more than that, the weight of grief in his voice, the determination and responsibility to do right by the people he cares about… I believe he was being honest with me. Every word he said, I believe.

Maybe I shouldn’t. I still don’t fully understand everything that’s happening with the coven and the demon realm and all the complicated moving parts, but… despite that, I believe him.

Whatever he thinks about witches and the Crescent Coven, however much he might resent being in this realm, I at least believe he’s got a good motive for being here.

Throughout the drive, I also spend a lot of time thinking—a bit painfully—about when I touched him.

Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, either, but I can’t forget the warmth of his skin even with the barrier of the glamour. I can’t forget the surprise in his eyes and his soft inhale, or the glimmer of something almost like magick in the air when I did.

It’s probably some remnant of our bargain—demon power is heavily tied up in the ability to cast and maintain magickal bargains, after all—but even now, almost a day later, I swear I can still feel that power lingering on my skin.

The miles pass, and I think about the way we’ve been bickering with each other for the past few days and how it’s started to feel more like sport than argument. I think about his crooked, knowing smile. I think, more than I care to admit, about what he might actually look like under his glamour.

Even when I try to snap my focus back to the drive and turn the radio up to drown out my internal monologue, it’s not long before all those thoughts creep back in.

It’s all a tangle, and I’m still nowhere near making heads or tails of it by the time I reach a quiet stretch of woods down a forgotten gravel road.

The wards at the edge of coven lands whisper across the hood of my car and prickle down the back of my neck as I take one turn, then another, driving down familiar lanes until I reach a small grassy meadow at the edge of a deeper, thicker wood. It’s already occupied by a few cars from the witches traveling from outside coven lands to see the spectacle, and I park and lock my own behind me before heading toward the Veil.

The woods are thick with brambles and magick as I pick my way down a well-trod path through the underbrush. One set of wards, then another, and another, snap and crackle over me. Confounding charms meant to keep mundane folk out, turn them around and send them in the opposite direction, leavethem with no memory of the path they were walking down before they stumbled into that magickal wall.

For a Crescent witch, though, the wards are a homecoming.

Keyed to the magick in each witch’s blood, they’re a reminder of stepping back into the protection of the coven. A haven away from the mundane world, a place to live and breathe magick with no fear of discovery and no need to hide.

Well, at least in theory.

In practice, however, the Crescent Coven doesn’t exactly live up to those shining ideals.

With each step, the chorus of magick grows stronger, and it’s not just from the wards.

Voices join the magick, wending through the woods, and when I turn one last bend in the path, I see the witches those voices belong to. A hundred, at least, all milling around a clearing in the heart of the woods.

And in the center of that clearing, the Veil.

A towering stone archway filled with shifting, shimmering, opalescent light.

The power seeping from the Veil far eclipses the strength of the magick from the witches surrounding it. Ancient, unfathomable, ruled by the Goddess herself. My breath catches in my throat and a shock of pure, undiluted power races down my spine as I enter the clearing.

Tonight, just like on the night of the Tithe, I hang back, keeping to the edge of the clearing.

Only unlike Tithe night, tonight I don’t have anyone by my side. Allie isn’t here to keep up a steady stream of snark and reassurance, to make me feel like I’m not entirely alone.

I scan the crowd of familiar faces. I see Sylvie and Marianne, and a handful of other witches I grew up with. Some who were invited to stay on for more advanced training, and others like me and Allie, who were destined for public school and mundanelife instead. My eyes dart across the crowd, taking in witch after witch, until one in particular makes me pause.

Soleil, Seren’s twin sister, returns my stare for a second or two before she drops her gaze toward the forest floor.

She’s Seren’s dark mirror, raven-haired and reserved in the face of her twin’s blond exuberance. Just like Seren, though, she’s one of the most gifted witches of our generation. Potion craft and healing are her signatures, and the last I heard, she was studying under one of the coven council members, getting ready to take her own spot in that upper echelon of witches someday.

It’s all part of the dubious Crescent-Coven-to-Beech-Bay rumor mill, though, so I don’t know how good any of that information is. Seren hasn’t said a word about her in years, and as far as I know, the two of them haven’t spoken since Seren left the coven behind.

Turning away from Soleil, I can’t help but smile to see a few wide-eyed witchlings have tagged along with their mothers. They stand in stunned silence, gaping at the Veil and at the council in their dark ceremonial robes, no doubt overwhelmed with the ocean of magick around them. It always crests and gathers on nights like this, awe-inspiring and intense and reminding each of us of our own small place in the Goddess’s grand scheme.

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