Page 39 of This Coven Won't Break
The Elder steps out of the kitchen, and Alice drapes onearm over the back of her chair. “I don’t get what she sees in you.”
“Do we have to do this right now?” I rub my temples, already irritated with her.
Alice continues like I haven’t spoken. “Maybe it’s your self-righteous attitude. It’s irritating as hell, but I guess Elders like that sort of thing.” She pauses, and though I’m expecting her to gear up for bigger insults, instead, all the earlier venom leaks out of her. “But I get what it’s like, losing people. You two don’t have the monopoly on that, you know.”
I sit silent in my chair, watching as the Alice I know fades away, revealing the real girl underneath all the bravado.
“When I was a little younger than you,” she starts, fussing with the plain ring on her middle finger, “I lost both my parents.” She blinks fast and stares at the ceiling like she’s trying to prevent tears. “I know you think I’m a monster, but I did what I had to do to survive.”
Her admission softens me, and a thread of kinship stretches between us. “Why are you telling me this?”
She shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “I got Morgan’s number from Archer, but she won’t return my texts. She’s the only Blood Witch I’ve met since I lost my family. Just... tell her I’m sorry about what happened at the hotel, okay?”
There’s something so desperate about the way Alice is looking at me that I can’t help but nod. “Sure. Of course.”
Down the hall, the Elder’s voice rises in volume. “How could this happen?” Keating’s words cut through the kitchen, and both Alice and I look toward the hallway. “How many?” There’s another pause, and then Keating sighs. “Thank you for letting me know.”
The clock on the wall ticks down the seconds, but eventuallythe Elder returns to the kitchen. Her eyes are red, and her hair is even more disheveled than before.
“Is everything okay?” It’s a pointless question—something is obviously wrong—but I don’t know how else to ask.
Tears shimmer unshed in the Elder’s eyes. “Six of my Casters just lost their magic.”
13
FEAR SETTLES OVER ARCHER’Skitchen.
“Is it too late?” Alice finds her voice first. “Is the drug airborne?”
Keating shakes her head and calls for Archer and Cal. When they arrive, she shares the update from her call. The Chicago Casters thought their water filtration system was too sophisticated to be compromised, so they were careless.
Careless, and now they’ve lost all connection to their power. All their potions are useless mixes of water and herbs.
I want todo something, to fight back, but Keating sends Alice to her hotel and me back home with instructions to prepare for the missions she’s already given us. Ithaca, to recruit the Caster who may be able to give witches their magic back. Then the raid, to destroy the drug and prevent anyone else from losing their goddess-given power. Keating makes us promise to leave the rest to her.
Reluctantly, I agree.
By the time I get home, the weekend’s events finally catch up to me. I’mexhausted. Bone weary in a way I haven’t felt in ages. Everything weighs heavy on me—the fight with Alice, Riley’s attack, Sarah losing her magic because of me, even the mortifying conversation with my mom. It’s hard to believe it all happened over a single weekend, and each piece settles on myshoulders like a brick, compressing my spine until it’s hard to walk.
And to top it all off, thanks to Cal’s suggestion that I dig up my most painful emotions in an attempt to access my magic, the carefully crafted dam that kept me from drowning is now full of cracks.
I crawl into bed, desperate for sleep despite the fact that it’s only seven. Unfortunately, sleep is more elusive than my magic. After staring uselessly at the ceiling for twenty minutes, I pull out my phone and pause, unsure who to call. The person I most want to talk to is Morgan, but with Riley in Salem, this weekend was harder for her than it was for me. I don’t want to make things worse.
Since Gemma knows about the Clans, she’s actually a viable option, but even though sheknows, that doesn’t mean she gets the danger we’re facing. She won’t understand how horrific it is to have your magic stripped away, how scary it is to know that people are out there, plotting how to destroy you.
So that leaves...
“Hey.” Veronica answers on the second ring, and her voice is pitched with worry. “Is everything okay?”
“No.” I tell her everything. About Riley coming into the shop. The barrier spell around the town and our water supply in Beverly. She’s the only person I tell about whatreallyhappened when Alice saw me again for the first time, and she’s the only one who understands why I feel so guilty about what happened to Sarah.
“It’s awful, V. I thought capturing the three Hunters would give us an advantage, but Archer says they don’t know anything useful.” Riley, Wes, and Paige are all under twenty, and they’reat the very bottom of the Hunters’ chain of command. Archer said all they do is follow orders, but no one tells them the big picture. “Having them locked up didn’t even protect the Casters in Chicago. If they didn’t even know about a mission happening the same weekend they were captured, what good is having them?”
My covenmate-turned-girlfriend-turned-terrible-ex-turned-friendgoes silent on the other line.
“Veronica?”
“Sorry,” she says, but she sounds distracted now, like her thoughts have wandered elsewhere. She pauses for a long time, and I’m about to ask if she’s still there when she speaks again. “Wasn’t Lexie from Chicago? Do you think she knows the Casters who lost their magic?”
