The Witches of the Dark Power

by Gabriella Lepore

  As they hovered over the gently steaming cauldron, Jonathan’s hand strayed closer to where Mia’s rested on the table.

  ‘I could tell you more, if you want,’ Jonathan began, sounding a little uncertain. ‘I know about your father, too.’

  Mia flinched, suddenly sober again. The potion’s effects didn’t seem all that sedating anymore. ‘I think you mean Tol.’

  They sat upright in their chairs.

  ‘But,’ Jonathan began, casting a wayward glance at her, ‘he was your father, though, wasn’t he?’

  ‘My father? You mean, the Hunter who tried to kill me and turn my brother evil?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jonathan, oblivious to her barbed tone. ‘He’s your father, right?’

  ‘Technically.’

  Jonathan gave a perfunctory nod as if Mia had answered a question on a pop quiz correctly. ‘Tol was a respected Hunter in his day,’ Jonathan mused, speaking without empathy.

  ‘Good for him,’ Mia replied in a flat tone.

  Abruptly, Jonathan hopped from his seat and wandered towards the very back of the room, to a corner that was almost entirely swallowed by shadows and dust. ‘This is him, isn’t it?’ He pointed to a small framed picture—a photograph this time.

  All of a sudden, Mia’s throat went dry. She rose from her chair and walked quickly to Jonathan’s side. She’d seen that picture before—glimpsed at it, anyway—but she had never truly looked at it. There were others like it, too. They were group photos, staged in the castle’s courtyard. This one in particular was an old snapshot of people so small and out of focus that it would have been easy to overlook it. And, indeed, Mia had overlooked it many times before.

  However, as Mia stood before it now, she saw it all perfectly, as though it were the size and resolution of the looming portraits.

  Jonathan’s finger was pressed to the top left-hand corner, where a man—not entirely unlike Dino—stood smiling roguishly. His arm was enveloping a girl with wild red hair and a porcelain complexion.

  ‘That’s my mother,’ Mia whispered.

  ‘Cassandra Sayles,’ Jonathan confirmed, as though she needed telling.

  Lost for words, Mia stared at the photograph. She followed the curve of her mother’s arm all the way down to her delicate hand, where her fingers knotted with Tol’s. Their joined hands were almost undetectable, almost out of sight of the camera’s lens. Almost, but not quite.

  Here Mia stood, nearly twenty years later, glimpsing into a private moment shared between her parents. The facts were all right there, preserved in the still frame. Tol had been human. And her mother had loved him.

  The irony stung. It could have been her and Colt in that photograph. It could have been their hands clasped in that undefinable mutual need to be in constant connection with one another, their bodies innately leaning into each other as though they were joined by a thread being pulled slowly tighter. Their expressions were woozy with love—an expression only detectable by someone infected with that very same impairment.

  ‘That’s the problem with Hunters,’ Jonathan’s voice cut through the silent drawing room. ‘They can turn so quickly. They’re not like us. They have no moral code.’

  Mia bristled, but her pale grey eyes remained glued to the photo. ‘That’s a generalisation,’ she muttered distantly. ‘And it’s not true.’

  Back within the photograph, amongst a sea of teens with dated clothes and staged smiles, was another commanding girl with a mane of red corkscrew curls and a surly pout.

  Mia blinked. ‘Aunt Maddie,’ she murmured, smiling. It was like sneaking a peek into a past she hadn’t realised existed. Or rather, like looking through a portal into a parallel universe. Her aunt and mother were people before they were her aunt and mother.

  With a quick glance to the closed drawing room door, Mia lifted the frame from the panelled wall. She unhooked the catch on the back of the frame and slipped the photograph out.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Jonathan exclaimed.

  Mia shushed him. ‘I’m just borrowing it. No one will even know it’s gone.’

  She folded the photo once and tucked it into her jeans pocket, then returned the frame to its spot on the wall.

  ‘I think they’re going to notice an empty frame,’ Jonathan warned her.

  ‘Good point.’ Mia took the frame off the wall and nudged it under an armchair just as the drawing room door creaked open.

  Mia jumped, then hastily straightened, trying to appear nonchalant while Jonathan wrung out his hands.

  Amos strode into the drawing room, followed by Demetrius and the four Glass Castle Hunters. Colt was the last to appear. As he crossed the threshold, he stopped in his tracks, staring steadily at Jonathan before his focus landed on Mia.

  She winced.

  ‘Hello!’ Amos greeted them cheerily. ‘What are you two kids doing in here?’

  ‘Nothing!’ Jonathan blurted out, sounding far from innocent. His face turned beet red, which did little to alleviate Colt’s damning glare.

  ‘Well,’ said Amos, unconcerned, ‘I’m about to take my boys out to the forest for a spot of training. Care to watch?’

  Watch the Hunters train? Mia was taken aback, to say the least. They were normally so secretive about their training. Not to mention the fact that the forest had always been off-limits to Arcana.

  As it happened, if Mia was startled by the invitation, her reaction was nothing compared to the expressions of sheer horror that painted the faces of the four Glass Castle Hunters.

  Siren cleared his throat. ‘With all due respect, sir,’ he purred in a dark, silken voice, ‘here at the castle, we do not train under the eyes of Arcana.’

  Amos waved his hand. ‘Oh, nonsense.’

  Colt and Siren swapped a grimace.

  ‘What do you say, Mia?’ Jonathan asked, swivelling to face her, his silver-blue eyes alive with excitement.

  ‘Um . . .’ She glanced at Colt. ‘Is that okay?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Of course it’s okay!’ Amos chortled brightly. ‘At the Lighthouse I encourage my Arcana to study the Hunter. It’s educational for them.’

  ‘With all due respect, sir,’ Siren began again, ‘here at the Glass Castle, training is not a spectator sport.’

  Amos patted him on the back. ‘Buck up, lad. Try something new for once! You’ll go stale if you’re not careful.’

  Siren and Colt glanced at each other again, fuming silently through their stormy eyes.

  ‘Let’s get started, then,’ Amos cheered. ‘It’s time for me to see what you Glass Castle Hunters are made of!’ He heaved out a dusty old volume from a bookshelf behind the door and started leading the group back out into the hallway.

  Mia walked quickly to Colt’s side. She took hold of his arm, urging him to break away from the group. He looked uncertain as his coven exited the drawing room, but he lingered behind all the same.

  They waited until they were alone before they spoke.

  ‘If you’re planning on replacing me,’ Colt said huskily, ‘you can surely choose better than that.’ He tutted in disappointment.

  Mia slipped her fingers through his as they ventured into the tall, echoing corridor and headed towards the main door. The rest of the group had already disappeared into the courtyard. ‘I’m not replacing you. I was making a potion.’

  Colt smiled dryly. ‘Be careful of the sort of potion he prepares for you. Unless you want to be love drunk on him for the next decade.’

  Mia laughed off the accusation. ‘Jonathan wouldn’t give me a love potion, if that’s what you mean. He’s harmless.’

  ‘Aren’t we all,’ Colt muttered.

  He dragged open the main door and they stepped out into the courtyard. The sky was white, and the remnants of frost clung to the lanterns. Colt moved his arm around Mia, shielding her from the biting winter breeze. The gale bowed away from them, controlled by Colt’s will.

  ‘Even if you don’t trust Jonathan,’ Mia added, ‘you should at least
trust me.’

  He sucked in his breath dramatically. ‘I absolutely trust you! I trust you with the very breath I speak these trusting words on. But, even the most trustworthy of trusted people can be swayed by the beguilement of a canny Arcana.’

  ‘I’m not going to be bejewelled by anyone,’ Mia scoffed.

  ‘Beguiled.’

  ‘And you should trust that.’

  ‘I do.’

  Their footsteps fell in sync as they crossed beneath the hedge archway and emerged into the gardens. The flower beds, once rich with colourful foliage, now seemed sparse and shrivelled in the grip of the harsh winter. Only the hedge mazes still stood tall, pruned to perfection and glistening with dew.

  ‘Do you trust me?’ Colt mused as an afterthought.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Mia mimicked him.

  Her breath caught as he abruptly pulled her off course. He steered her behind a tall hedgerow and dipped her in his arms.

  ‘Are you sure you trust me?’ Colt dipped her lower, threatening to drop her on the cold, damp grass.

  ‘Yes!’ she cried. ‘I trust you!’

  Colt drew her upright and pulled her into a kiss.

  Mia was met with a familiar surge of love that consumed her. It was the feeling like she might burst if she had to be away from him for even a second. How could she possibly have survived the last four months without him? The notion seemed inconceivable to her now.

  ‘I would never let you fall,’ he whispered with a smile.

  Mia planted one final kiss on his lips. ‘I know,’ she whispered back. She knotted her fingers through his and they trotted out of the hedge maze back into the open gardens, their eyes glowing from the private moment. The others were nowhere in sight.

  Mia glanced at Colt and smiled. ‘What will you say if your coven ask what took you so long?’

  ‘I’ll tell them I’ve been busy,’ he said with a wicked smile. ‘Busy with you,’ he added.

  Mia laughed as they weaved in and out of the shrubbery. ‘You wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘I’d say a variation of that.’

  ‘So you’d just leave out the part about me,’ Mia predicted in good-humour.

  ‘No,’ he denied with a grin. ‘I’m not ashamed.’ He raised his voice. ‘World, listen,’ he shouted into the cold morning. ‘This girl has my heart! And she keeps me damn busy!’

  ‘Okay, okay!’ Mia reached up and clasped a hand over his mouth. ‘I believe you!’ she giggled.

  He kissed her hand before she dropped it.

  Ahead, the others were lined up on the embankment, looking down on the misted forest below.

  ‘What’s this training you’re doing, anyway?’ Mia asked as they closed in on the group.

  ‘Amos has kindly prepared an exercise for us,’ Colt explained in a drawl, as though he couldn’t imagine anything so outrageous. He rolled his eyes, then paused, waiting for Mia to do the same. ‘He wants to assess our strengths and weaknesses, apparently.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t have any weaknesses,’ Mia jested.

  ‘You are correct, rendering this exercise pointless.’

  Mia shrugged her shoulders. ‘Amos must have his reasons.’

  ‘He does. Pointless reasons.’

  Mia leaned into him as they walked, listening to the slow thud of his heartbeat. ‘Are Amos’s methods that different from yours?’

  Colt sighed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you like things done your way?’ Mia guessed.

  ‘Yes. Well, no. Not my way, exactly. The Glass Castle way. Lotan’s way,’ he added quietly. His teeth clenched suddenly, as though he was reprimanding himself for mentioning Lotan’s name.

  Mia felt a pang of sympathy for him. All of a sudden, the humour was gone from their exchange, as though the simple mention of Lotan’s name had brought a weight over them. Lotan had been one of Tol’s victims. He’d been coven leader, Colt’s brother and best friend. And now he was gone, and Colt was left behind to fill his shoes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Mia gently. And she really was. After all, it had been her father who had killed Lotan.

  ‘Don’t be,’ Colt brushed off her concern. ‘As it happens, you were right the first time. I am set in my ways.’ He smirked. ‘But can you blame me? I’ve got such great ways.’

  As they approached the embankment, four menacing Hunters turned to look at them, their eyes sullen and their strong builds casting shadows across the frosted grass. Amos and Jonathan stood beside them, meagre in comparison.

  Amos beckoned for Mia and Colt to join them. Mia felt Colt’s arm slip away from her, and he grew suddenly rigid under his coven’s watchful stare.

  ‘Hunters,’ Amos called, ‘today you will be training out in the open.’ He gestured to a clearing at the foot of the embankment—the stretch of land bordering the pine forest, where a curtain of mist clung to the first row of trees. ‘Arcana,’ he signalled to Mia and Jonathan, ‘you will watch from here. Follow me, Hunters!’ With that, Amos and Demetrius started down the dewy slope.

  ‘But,’ Finn began, helplessly turning to Colt, ‘the forest is our training ground.’

  ‘Limited thinking, young Hunter!’ Amos called over his shoulder. ‘Variation makes for an all-round accomplished soldier!’ he continued, shouting jovially as he negotiated the hill.

  Colt rolled his eyes at Amos’s words. ‘I find the forest optimum for training,’ he noted, his voice raised to address Amos.

  Amos gave an aloof wave of his hand.

  ‘However,’ Colt went on, evidently sensing a failing argument, ‘I am nothing if not adaptable and compromising.’

  Siren sniggered under his breath.

  Colt ignored him. ‘Go,’ he ordered Talon and Finn, nodding towards the open patch of land at the foot of the embankment. ‘Go on. Comply. Adapt,’ he said with a retch.

  The younger boys obeyed orders and set off down the slope. Colt and Siren followed, leaving Mia and Jonathan alone on the ridge.

  Mia planted herself cross-legged on the grass.

  ‘Today’s exercise will be a test of initiative,’ Amos boomed. He reached into the breast pocket of his tweed jacket and produced a small sphere-shaped object and an even smaller control pad. ‘This is the missile,’ he declared, holding the sphere between his thumb and index finger and raising it high in the air for his audience to see. ‘That forked white pine,’ he went on, pointing towards the tallest and broadest tree along the forest border one hundred yards away, ‘is its target.’ He unfolded his hand to reveal the control pad. ‘And I am the detonator. Your task is to prevent the missile from hitting the target.’

  The younger hunters’ eyes flickered back and forth between the tree and the missile.

  ‘How does it work?’ Finn asked, frowning at the sphere.

  ‘Ah ha!’ Amos beamed. ‘I shall demonstrate.’ He tossed the little sphere into the air and quickly pressed down on the control pad. The missile shot forward across the clearing in a blur.

  Finn’s jaw dropped. ‘We have to stop that? Impossible!’

  Talon grunted in agreement. Colt and Siren swapped another intolerant look.

  ‘Is it?’ asked Amos cryptically. ‘Or is there always a way . . .’ He pressed a button on the control pad and the missile looped back around. It floated along the breeze and landed neatly in Amos’s awaiting hand. ‘I am the enemy, and your job is to stop me from hitting my target. I will allow three seconds before I activate the controller.’

  More protests from the Hunters.

  ‘A little hint,’ Amos forged on, seemingly unaware of their objections. ‘This’—he held up the control pad—‘is my weapon. The question remains, what is yours?’

  ‘That’s unfair!’ Finn wailed. ‘Colt can use his Tempestus power to knock it from its course.’

  ‘All active powers are banned,’ Amos confirmed. ‘Only powers of the mind are allowed,’ he added, tapping his temple with a long forefinger.

  ‘What?’ Colt cried. ‘That makes no sense! My powe
rs are a part of my mind, just as they’re a part of the rest of me. Banning them is like removing my eyes. Or my brain!’

  ‘The exercise is one of wits and resourcefulness,’ Amos explained to Colt. ‘Your active powers give you an unfair advantage.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And it’s unfair,’ Amos replied. ‘Youngest, you will go first.’

  Finn huffed in annoyance. His jet-black curls drooped into his eyes as he marched forward.

  Amos threw the missile into the air. It hummed and hovered, waiting for its command. He raised the controller and began counting. ‘One . . . Two . . .’

  Finn lunged for the control pad, but Amos—wilier than his age and doughy build would suggest—ducked and spun in a full circle, dodging Finn’s attack. As Finn floundered for an opening to seize the controller, Amos hit the activation button. The missile hurtled across the clearing, eventually colliding into the target tree and rebounding onto the grass.

  Amos gave Finn a commiserative smile. ‘You would be wise, young Hunter, to use what you excel at.’ He pressed a button, commanding the sphere to zoom back to him.

  ‘But I’m a Seer!’ Finn protested. ‘What use is that?’

  ‘Work on bringing visions to you when you need them most.’

  ‘Impossible,’ Finn grumbled again. ‘I can’t choose when visions come to me. Nor can I choose what they are of.’

  ‘Impossible, you say? Interesting,’ Amos replied meaningfully.

  Finn scowled at him.

  ‘Next!’ Amos called. ‘Young, voiceless Hunter. He who hears so much but says so little.’

  Talon grunted and stepped forward.

  ‘You are a Reader,’ Amos guessed. ‘Am I right?’

  Talon mumbled an answer that sounded affirmative.

  ‘Then use your gift to aid your assignment,’ Amos advised. ‘That is, if you can.’

  Finn scowled again.

  Amos prepared the missile for launch, and at once, Talon sprang into action. He lurched to the left, just as Amos ducked to the right. Amos pressed the button and the sphere propelled through the air, striking the tree trunk with incredible precision.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Amos said with a grin. ‘You used your power to read my thoughts. Your downfall was telling me your power in the first place! I manipulated you to move left, while last minute changing my tack to move right. In the future, you must be more careful in whom you share such information with.’