Page 84 of Demon's Bane

After lunch, Allie pulls me away for one last fitting with the seamstress, and with another apologetic goodbye to Rhett, we’re off. I hope he’s alright with Eren, or wherever he’s spending his day today. As much as I’m enjoying my time with Allie, I’m still missing him, too.

When the dresses are taken care of and promised to be safely delivered to Allie’s chambers so we can get ready later, Allie and I make a final pit stop in the fully equipped witch’s workshop in one of the court’s lower levels. A demon woman is on her way out when we arrive, with another familiar face right behind her.

“Emilia,” I say, surprised to see how much better she’s looking than the last time I saw her.

Emilia was the Tithe bride before Allie, only lasting a year in the demon realm before she was forced to come back through the Veil. The faltering bargain drained her and her magick, and it wasn’t until Allie figured out how to recast it that Emilia could come back to this realm and regain her health and power.

“I heard you were here,” Emilia says warmly, stepping forward and folding me into a quick, unexpected hug. “Are we going to be seeing you at the party tonight?”

“You will,” I tell her, and she makes a quick introduction to the demon beside her, Vayla.

Emilia not only fell in love with the demon she was originally paired with during the Tithe, Sylas, but with Vayla as well. And somehow, despite it all, the three of them wound up together and happier than ever after the new bargain was cast.

After Emilia and Vayla leave to make their own preparations for the evening, Allie shows me around the workshop. It’s made up of several chambers, including a library stacked to the ceiling with thousands of books, a room filled with maps andsolar models, and a greenhouse space with an enormous wall of windows set into the side of the mountain.

Sitting at the wide wooden table in the middle of the greenhouse, the first quiet moment we’ve had all day settles between us.

And, with nothing else to distract us, I know it’s damn well past time to talk about everything we didn’t get to when we were with Eren and Rhett.

They might be our demon mates, but that doesn’t mean they get to be included in this particular conversation.

“So,” I say. “Tell me how pissed at me you are.”

Allie settles back in her chair and takes a deep breath. “Honest version, or nice version?”

“Honest version, please.”

“Fine. I’m a little pissed, Jo. Scratch that, let’s go with moderately pissed. And confused. When the hell did you start keeping things like this from me?”

I run a hand through my hair. “Truthfully? Maybe since I stopped paying my coven dues about five years ago.”

Allie’s eyes widen. “You didwhat?”

“Stopped paying. And stopped going back there for any kind of duties.”

“And you thought Esme would be fine with that? That she wouldn’t show up one day to collect?”

I shrug. “I mean, yeah? Since when has your mom ever given a shit about me or what I contribute to the coven?”

Allie gnaws on her bottom lip, and I appreciate that we’re being honest enough for her not to even try to deny it.

“It wasn’t…” I start, not sure exactly how to explain it. “It wasn’t deliberate. At least not at first. I was just so sick of it, you know? Spending all that time and money for what? To barely have a place in the coven? It didn’t seem like a big deal to just… stop.”

A knowing smirk turns up one corner of her mouth. “And I bet it felt pretty good, sticking it to the coven.”

How well she knows me. I don’t bother arguing that point.

“So why didn’t you just revoke your membership?” Allie asks. “I know at least a few of the witches we used to hang out with in Beech Bay did. And Seren. There are plenty of people who’ve left the coven behind.”

The million dollar question. The one that would have kept me out of all this mess in the first place.

“I wish I could tell you,” I say, as honest as I can be. “And I wish I would have figured it out a lot sooner, so I never would have made the choices I did and never would have lied to you. I’m sorry, Allie. Truly.”

I don’t know if it’s a good enough apology, and I wouldn’t fault her if she didn’t accept it.

Allie sighs. “Believe me, if anyone knows what a mind fuck it is to still want to be a part of the coven after it’s been made very clear you don’t have a place there, it’s me.”

We both sit with that for a moment, lost to our individual and shared memories about slowly losing that place and belonging. Year by year, when it became abundantly clear our magick wasn’t keeping up, all the way until the day leadership decided it was going to be public school in the mundane world for us, not advanced tutoring in the coven hall.

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