“I had an unusual source,” I replied.
Adrienne waved a hand dismissively. “Someone dead, then. No matter. The situation will rectify itself shortly. Anyway, that mark on your leg was entirely unintentional. As I’m sure Morgan told you, it was the leftover power from the curse. Luckily, you were too naive to take care of it right away. Had you contained the dark magic to the lower half of your leg, we wouldn’t be sitting here together.”
My calf, where the mark had started originally, clenched involuntarily. “What do you mean?”
Adrienne stroked my cheek with the tips of her manicured fingers. I felt her nails rake across my skin. “Oh, you simple girl. I’m surprised Morgan didn’t pass her sense of righteousness on to her protégé. Then again, from what I can tell, you’ve always been the type to take whatever you needed to fuel your own strength.”
I jerked away from her touch. “What are you talking about?”
“The power, Gwenlyn,” Adrienne clarified, sweeping her hands out to indicate the loft around us. “Feels good, doesn’t it? Admit it. The real reason you never bothered to quell the dark magic inside of you was because you liked it.”
Nausea made my stomach convulse. Adrienne was wrong. I didn’t want this overwhelming darkness inside of me. It was wrathful and uncontrollable, and it reminded me of the times during my youth when I did whatever was necessary to survive, even if that meant putting my life before someone else’s. But at the same time, Adrienne was right. I hadn’t made a conscious effort to control the mark. All I did was monitor its progress and hide the truth from Morgan. In some backwards way, did I enjoy holding on to power that didn’t belong to me?
Adrienne smiled knowingly. “Don’t fret, my dear. I’m sure you’ll find our partnership to be a rewarding one. Once the Summerses are gone, I’ll allow you to return to Windsor Falls with me and Nora. I could use a witch like you.”
“Our partnership?” I repeated. “What partnership?”
“Did you think you wandered outside the ward simply for a morning stroll?” Adrienne asked, chuckling. “No, no. I called you here. That mark binds you to me. Welcome to the team, Gwenlyn.”
My lack of concern for Morgan, Kennedy, Nora, and the rest of the Summers coven suddenly made sense. Adrienne had been waiting for this moment. She’d activated the connection between the two of us, forged by dark magic. I was free of moral thought and cut loose from my allegiance to Morgan.
I squeezed my eyes shut, letting it all sink in. “You were waiting for this, weren’t you? For the mark to have enough of a hold in order for you to use me?”
Adrienne winked. “Something like that.”
“You won’t win,” I told her with faint-hearted persuasion. “Morgan won’t let you. She has a weapon. Now that she knows you’re responsible for this, she can put you down as soon as she gets in range—”
“Oh, I know all about Morgan’s silly gun,” Adrienne interrupted. She daintily sipped her coffee. “When that sort of power returns to the earth, you feel it in your bones. Not to mention the gossip. Haven’t you already figured all of this out already? The curse was built on familial bonds. There are only two ways to break it. First, kill the catalyst. Quite frankly, I was hoping Morgan would opt for this simple solution. Two birds, one stone, you know?” She set down her coffee, flipped open a makeup mirror, and checked the status of her lipstick. “Alas, I suppose I’ll have to find an alternate way to rid the world of my darling stepdaughter. Anyway, the second way is for me to end the curse myself. Can you imagine?” Her high-pitched laughter grated against my eardrums. “Oh, and Nora, of course.”
I leaned forward. “What about her?”
“Well, she’s my direct descendant,” Adrienne explained. “I made her my failsafe, you see? If anything happens to me, the curse lives on in Nora. Why do you think I’ve kept her in the dark about her heritage all this time? She’s so unsullied, so pure. She would never even think of herself as the reason for the Summerses’ collective suffering.”
“But she can end it?” I pressed. “If you were gone and she knew what you had done—”
“I can see the gears turning in your head, Gwenlyn,” she said. With a condescending gesture, she patted the top of my hand. “Did you think I would tell you all of this if I knew you had a chance of returning to them? No, no. You should let go of any lingering attachments to your so-called family. You’re mine now, and when you see them again, it will be under my orders.”
And though I knew I should’ve, I felt no anguish at the sound of Adrienne’s words. I didn’t cry or scream or yell. I didn’t think of all the love and respect that Morgan and the Summerses had afforded to me over the last ten years. I didn’t think of how I would never be able to apologize to Kennedy for the way I treated her when she first arrived in Yew Hollow. I didn’t feel anything at all. Adrienne had cut off all of my emotions and rerouted my loyalty to suit her needs.
She set aside her coffee and clapped her hands together. “So! Down to business. The Summerses’ second day is upon us, and I can only imagine what the scene is at the main house right now.” She wriggled gleefully in her chair, grinning from ear to ear. “Just picture it: Morgan desperately trying to maintain control while the rest of the coven calls for Kennedy’s blood. Oh, it’s better than chocolate.”
Despite Adrienne’s new hold over me, a hint of disgust found its way to the forefront of my mind. Adrienne was enjoying having the Summerses under her thumb a bit too much. “What are we supposed to do then? Just wait for them to hack it out?”
“And miss all the fun?” Adrienne giggled. “Never! I have an assignment for you, my dear.”
At the end of the second day, when the moon and the sun had switched places, I waited on the line between Adrienne’s loft and the outdoor world, where details of both places blurred together, unsure how to exist in the same space. A tree grew through a side table, the coat rack sported a layer of moss, and a decorative vase was filled to the brim with bright white snow. Adrienne sat on the corner of the bed in an elegant black nightgown, one leg crossed over the other as she watched me.
“Well?” she prompted. “It’s time. What are you waiting for?”
The cold bit at my ears. I retrieved my parka from the coat rack, slid my arms into it, and pulled up the hood. Then I stared at the ground, where snow and fancy plank floors merged into one.
“Off you go,” Adrienne said, with a flick of her fingers as if to shoo a dog.
Once again, my legs moved without my conscious decision. I threw one last desperate look over my shoulder, silently pleading with Adrienne to not make me do this. She only wiggled her long fingers in farewell, and I strolled off into the woods.
The snow softened the tread of my boots across the ground, but it did nothing to soothe the thoughts in my head. Adrienne’s list of instructions played on a loop while my own consciousness, however subdued, fought for freedom. It was like listening to a poorly-tuned radio station of music, overlapping morning talk shows, and static.
Morgan’s first order of business had been to seal the opening in the ward to keep Adrienne out of Yew Hollow for as long as possible. Unfortunately, Morgan hadn’t foreseen my betrayal. I located the weak spot without trouble and broke through for the second time. It was even easier with the added power rushing around inside me. I slid through the tunnel, back into Yew Hollow.
The town was quiet. Serene. The snow almost made me forget that everything here was dead for a reason other than nature. The town glistened like a Christmas postcard, perfectly untouched. I cast a spell to fill in my trail of footprints as I headed through the square. Adrienne had been adamant about covering my tracks.
At the start of the witches’ cul-de-sac, I stopped and observed silently from the street corner. All was still. The coven had retired for the evening, stressed and exhausted from what was undoubtedly a busy day of planning for the final confrontation with Adrienne. I half-hoped that someone would look out their window at just the right time to see me
standing there, but Adrienne had made me an omen of death, so I prayed for a silent night and moved on.
As I approached a certain house, the witch’s mark fed me an endless stream of intel. Yvette and Yvonne were both asleep, their breathing patterns and heart rates normal. The front door was locked and protected by a spell meant to alert the residents to any intruders. The back doors and windows, including Alana’s, were also charmed. It was inconvenient but not impossible to disable the spells. After all, none of the Summerses had expected me to be the one to turn on them.
I crept through the window like a thief and stood at the side of Alana’s bed. Part of me envied her. She was oblivious to the perils of her sisters and cousins, wrapped up in her own little world of unconsciousness. As I lifted an extra pillow from the rocking chair in the corner of the room, I realized that it was impossible to ignore the similarities between Alana and Kennedy now. It lifted Adrienne’s influence ever-so-slightly, causing me to hesitate, but another surge of power forced me forward. I moved closer to the bed. Took a deep breath. Closed my eyes. And pressed the pillow down.
15
Kennedy
All knowledge of witchcraft disappeared from my mind as I leapt through the window of Alana’s bedroom and tackled Gwenlyn. We tumbled to the floor in a tangle of knees and elbows, and the pillow fell off the side of the bed. I rolled over, taking Gwenlyn with me, and pinned her to the floor.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Get off of me!”
She planted her feet against my stomach and heaved. I slammed against the bed, stunned not by the plow but by her sudden increase in strength. Not long ago, Gwenlyn never would’ve been able to pull a move like that on me. She flipped up to her feet, and I scrambled to rise from the floor as she stalked toward me.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked. “Where have you been all day?”
“You should leave, Kennedy.”
I stepped between her and Alana. “You just tried to kill my mother. What I should do is ensure that you’ll never get another chance.”
Her complete lack of emotional response unnerved me. She fixed me with an unblinking stare. There was no light in her eyes. Her green irises almost looked black.
“What happened to you?” I murmured.
The answer came in the form of an attack spell. Gwenlyn’s aura, like her eyes, was no longer the green and gold that I was accustomed to. It wrapped me up like a straightjacket and I fell to the floor for the second time in a matter of minutes. I struggled to free myself manually before remembering that I had powers too. I flicked the switch, ignited my inner fire, and blew apart Gwenlyn’s binding hex. Panting, I rolled to my feet, but Gwenlyn wasn’t offering me a break. Another attack spell headed my way, and I blocked just in time to prevent it from burning the hair off of my head.
“It’s Adrienne, isn’t it?” I gasped. “It’s the mark. Gwen, do you remember what you asked me to do if this sort of thing happened?”
She didn’t reply. Instead, she readied herself to cast another hex.
“Gwen, you told me to dispatch you,” I reminded her. “You said to take you out with a ward. I didn’t think I’d have to do it. Please don’t make me do it.”
She raised her hand, in the palm of which she held a steadily growing ball of black power. When she arched her arm back, I knew that I had no choice. Fire and warmth grew in the pit of my stomach, waiting for me to call on it. I let it loose, creating the strongest ward possible.
It rushed through the room like a bright orange shock wave, knocking Gwenlyn right off of her feet. I didn’t stop though. The ward continued to pulse from my core, sending a new ripple of energy outward with every beat of my heart. Gwenlyn fought against it, a ward of her own—black like Adrienne’s dark magic—shielding her from most of its effect. We were evenly matched, both more powerful than the average witch, both recently recovering from complete drainage. It was a battle of endurance, and neither one of us was gaining any ground.
Gwenlyn inched toward me, keeping to the edge of the room. I mirrored her footsteps to even out the distance between us. We circled around the room, edging around Alana’s bed, each of us pushing mentally against the other’s wards. When Gwenlyn’s back was even with the open window, I realized—too late—what she had been doing.
“No!” I yelled, extinguishing my ward to leap across the space between us. My fingers closed around Gwenlyn’s coat as she escaped through the window, but she slid gracefully out of the garment and sprinted off. I heaved myself out of the room, slipping on a patch of ice as I navigated around the corner of the house. Gwenlyn moved eerily fast, enshrouded in black magic as she vanished into the night.
“I should’ve known,” Morgan moaned, burying her face in her hands as she sat at the table in the dining room.
I paced from one end of the room to the other, running my fingers so neurotically through my hair that it now stood up in waves from my scalp. “It was so weird, Morgan. She looked like a robot. No emotion. Her eyes were completely empty, like her soul wasn’t even there anymore.”
Morgan groaned, her shoulders shaking as she bent over the table and pressed her forehead to the wood, as though it might afford her information about Gwenlyn’s betrayal by way of osmosis. Either that, or she had finally lost it. Unsure of what to do, I paused behind her chair and rested a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “Gwenlyn should’ve told you—”
“She did tell me,” Morgan interrupted, her voice muffled behind her arms. “We should’ve contained the mark when we had the chance, but with everything else going on, I completely forgot about it. I never expected Gwen to keep something like this from me. Why would she do that?”
“I think she was hoping that she could use the extra power to protect you,” I replied quietly. “It was for a noble cause.”
“No dark magic is noble.”
I knelt down so that I was on the same level as Morgan. “Hey. It’s not really her. Gwenlyn loves you, Morgan. She would never do something like this if she couldn’t help it.”
Morgan stirred, tilting her head to the side to look at me. Her eyes watered with tears, but she kept them at bay. “Why her?” she whispered, lips trembling.
“Because she matters most to you,” I answered easily. “I felt the same way when you took Nora from me.”
Her expression crumpled, and she surprised me by taking my face between the palms of her hands like I’d seen her do with Gwenlyn a few times. I almost pulled away, taken aback by the closeness of the gesture.
“Kennedy, listen to me,” Morgan said. “I am so, so sorry about what we did to your family. None of this was ever your fault. Your stepmother took advantage of you and pulled the wool over all of our eyes, but I was the one who tore a family apart to save my own.”
“You didn’t have a choice.”
“We always have a choice,” she replied firmly, cupping my cheeks tighter. “But sometimes we get shoehorned into a corner and it feels like we don’t. What I did—”
I took her hands in my own. “Morgan, stop. I know, okay? We’ve all done terrible things to survive. We’re all prioritized ourselves over others at times. Sometimes, all we know is how to be selfish. And this was always going to come crashing down on us. We were all wrapped up in it from the very beginning. You couldn’t have stopped any of it. All that matters now is getting Gwen back and taking care of Adrienne. You were made the leader of this coven for a reason, Morgan, so you tell me: what’s the first step?”
I moved away to give Morgan even room to push her chair away from the table. As she rose, she wiped her tears with her sleeve, and though her eyes still shone with the shock of losing Gwenlyn, there was something different and determined about her now. It was time for her second—or twentieth—wind.
“Gather the coven.”
I rounded up every witch who wasn’t too sick from the curse. Camryn was gone, cast out of Yew Hollow late last night before Morgan closed
the ward. Without her devilish influence, the coven had returned to fully supporting Morgan as their leader. No one doubted her abilities, even with Adrienne’s threat looming overhead. In fact, the witches that Camryn had corrupted were some of the most determined to prove themselves worth of Morgan’s attention. They did everything that was asked of them with an unwavering dedication, bowing their heads apologetically any time Morgan addressed them.
Soon, the main house was full to bursting with auras and energy, but there was one person missing that I could never forget about. I hadn’t seen Nora since waking up in the barn that morning. With Gwenlyn on the fritz and Adrienne lurking nearby, my little sister was bound to be a wreck. I left Morgan with her family and jogged back to the barn.
To my relief, Nora’s aura was present and strong. She was up in the loft, kneeling next to the chest of drawers with an open backpack beside her. She looked over her shoulder as I climbed the stairs and attempted to slide the backpack across the floor so that it was hidden behind the bed.
I frowned, leaned over the bed, and picked up her bag. “Nice try, kid. What are you up to?” I glanced into the bag. It was full of the clothes that Nora had borrowed from Morgan, along with a few snacks, a water bottle, and a small journal. I upended the contents on the bedspread. “What is this? What do you think you’re doing?”
“Kennedy!” Nora gathered her things in her arms and tried to take the empty backpack away from me. I held it out of her reach. “Give it back!”
“Not until you tell me what’s going through that thick head of yours,” I said.
Nora jumped on the bed and snatched the backpack out of my hands. “Fine,” she replied, hugging the tattered fabric to her chest. “If you must know, I was going to meet Mom.”
“You were—what?”
She threw up her hands in defeat. “God, Ken, I don’t know what else to do, okay? This is all too much for me. Morgan, you, Gwenlyn, you’re all in danger, and I’m the only one who can stop it. Mom promised—”
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