Page 20 of Heart of a Witch
The host greeted us at the front desk of the Diamond Hotel, the most expensive establishment in Dawnridge. It was a risk coming to the main city of Salvius, but it was also the smartest move. Going to a small hotel on a rundown street was anticipated, and I didn’t put it past Shaw to search our town and every neighboring village through the night before coming here.
“Felicity Moreton,” I said, with the plummy accent of high society. “We require a room for the night.”
Cas stood next to me. Mother and Alex waited outside. The host’s brown eyes slid toward my brother. Agitation shuddered through me. She waited for him to speak, and under different circumstances, I’d slap her for ignoring me. “Sir?”
He cleared his throat. “Yes, uh, one room for me and my…” He looked from me to the host. “My wife.”
My nostrils flared, but I forced a smile when she looked at me. Discreetly, I pulled one of my rings from my other hand and put it on my ring finger. He wasn’t wearing one on his, but I prayed she wouldn’t look.
“That will be three gold dramair.”
His eyes widened at the price, but I placed a hand on his shoulder gently, a show of affection for the host, but a reminder to him of the position we were in. With a slight squeeze of his shoulder, he tensed, then handed over the coins.
She handed him a key and gestured toward a man wearing a fancy uniform to take us to our room. I glanced at the front door but walked in step with my brother as the man led us to a gold-furnished room. Once he was gone and the door was shut, I grabbed Cas’s wrist. “Wife? We agreed we’d say I’m your business partner.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Come on, Tori, this was more believable.”
I gritted my teeth. “You’re not even wearing your ring on the right finger.”
He looked down at his hand. “Oh, I’m sure they didn’t notice.”
“I’m not fucking around, Cas. Move your ring to the right finger.” I grabbed his bag and dropped it on the bed. Anger steeled my heart when I saw his hair cream. “You did not bring your fucking hair cream as an essential.”
His sheepish stare found me across the room. He ducked when I threw the cream on the bed. My eye twitched. He’d expected me to hurl it at him. “I’m not Ember,” I said thickly, recalling their banter and affinity to throw things at each other when they were mad.
Silence befell the room. He ran a hand through his waves. “It was stupid of me to grab it. I wasn’t thinking. I just grabbed things and… It was all a blur. I’m still in shock.”
I shook my head. “Forget about it.”
He peeked through the crack in the drapes. “Mother and Alex are still outside.”
“I am well aware of where they’re stationed, brother, considering that’s where we left them.”
“Stationed?” He let out a long exhale. “You sound like a prison guard.”
“Stop.” Tears glimmered in my eyes. It was a rare show of emotion, but I was barely holding it together, and I needed him to see it, to see how close to the edge I was. I wouldn’t play games.
He sat on the bed, slumping his shoulders and drooping his head in his hands. I wanted to do the same. To drop and do nothing but sit in silence, but I couldn’t stop moving.
I walked downstairs, running a hand through my long dark hair and pushing it back over my shoulder, giving half smiles to passersby as I made my way through the lobby. I did everything I could to look as normal as possible, for someone who’d watched her sister die a few hours earlier.
Once I’d snuck Mother and Alex into our hotel room, I let myself pause, until the pain threatened to break through again. I looked at them in turn, jutting my chin in an attempt to look half together, for them. It was mostly for my mother, who appeared fragile thin, as if she might break at a moment’s notice into another crying fit, but it was also for Alex, whose brown eyes shimmered with tears. She wrung her small hands together as she shifted from foot to foot. Cas could handle it himself, I decided, but even he needed me. “What do we do?”he’d asked after—
Alex pulled Ebony and Buttercup out of her pocket. “I kept them safe.”
“Thank you.” I took them, letting my snakes entwine and coil around my fingers. They stayed there as if they could feel my pain, as if they knew.
“Settle down for the night. We’re as safe here as we can be. In the morning, we will leave, but we need sleep.”
“Mama and I were talking outside, and we think we should go to Aunt Terra’s.”
I shook my head, stealing a look at Mother. Her eyes were far too like Ember’s for me to hold. “Absolutely not. That’s where the hunter will go next.”
Mother looked up at me for the first time since we left the house. “We need to tell her.”
“We can’t risk it.”
Tears trickled again down her cheeks. I was surprised she had any left. “I can’t let my sister die.”
