by Sarra Cannon
“If she’s scared enough to believe we’ll really do it, maybe we can convince her to let Franki go,” he said.
“I don’t think that will work,” Mary Kathryn said. “She’s very shrewd and intelligent. She knows how much Rend loves my daughter and how far he’s already gone to save her life multiple times. She will never believe that he’s willing to end her life, and she’ll call his bluff on it. Besides, following through with that plan and even having a chance of convincing her that we’re serious about our threats would mean having to hurt or kill some of the other crow women or children. We can’t do that.”
“If we captured the village and took everyone away from the Mother Crow, maybe we could convince her that we’d kill them all,” Silas said. “Some kind of illusion spell might do the trick.”
“And if we can capture the Mother Crow herself and tell her that if she lets the transfer go through, we’ll kill her the moment it’s done, anyway,” Connery said. “If she’s backed into a corner, she’ll have to do what we ask her to.”
Mary Kathryn shook her head. “You don’t understand the way she works,” she said. “She’s the type of person who has already thought through every possibility on her own. The same way we’re sitting here thinking about all of our options, she’s sitting there coming up with ways to get out of everything we might throw at her. She’ll already have a plan in place if we capture her. Some kind of escape or threat we haven’t considered.”
I brought my hand to my forehead, my mind spinning in circles.
Mary Kathryn was right. This whole time, I’d felt like a pawn in some massive game of chess, being moved around the board without even knowing it until it was too late.
The Mother Crow would be expecting us to try to capture her and force her to release Franki, and unless we were smart enough to figure out her next move, she would most likely find a way to defeat us.
I had always been skilled at taking action. Moving forward with violence and threats, if needed. But when it came down to the mental game of chess we’d been playing with the Mother Crow, I had lost every round.
I turned to Silas, instead. He was the most intelligent, most observant person I knew.
“What do you think?” I asked. “Would a plan to capture the village and the Mother Crow have any chance of working?”
He took his father’s black stone in his hand and rolled it between his fingertips.
“I think Mary Kathryn’s right,” he said. “I think she’ll already be two steps ahead of us with a plan like that. If we’re going to defeat her, we need to be smarter than she is. We need to anticipate her actions or catch her off guard.”
Franki slammed the book closed and leaned against the back of the couch.
“There’s nothing in here that’s going to be useful for us right now,” she said. “There’s a lot of dark magic in here, but nothing that can stop the spell or convince the Mother Crow to let me go. As far as I can tell, there’s only one thing she wants more than a youthful body. Only one other thing that will give her the immortality she desires.”
“And what’s that?” Connery asked.
“A demon of her own,” Franki said. “That’s how she trapped Solomon in that stone to begin with. I saw the whole thing.”
“What do you mean, you saw it?” Mary Kathryn asked, turning to look at Franki and then glancing over at Silas. “That’s not the stone, is it?”
Her face crumpled when Silas nodded.
“I tried to stop her,” she said. “I begged her, but she is a heartless woman.”
“I saw the whole thing in a dream,” Franki said. “Her memories have been coming to me when I’m asleep. It’s part of the soul transfer. It’s as though I’m reliving them completely.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Raum brought Solomon to the crow village shortly before I was born,” she said. “The Mother Crow had set up a ritual room of her own, just like the ones the Order of Shadows uses in their rituals. Except this time, the stone in the floor and on the ritual items was black as midnight. A soul stone. The necklace Silas is wearing with our father locked inside was the necklace she planned to use in the ritual, but it backfired on her.”
“How did it go wrong for her?” Mary Kathryn asked. “I always wondered, but she sent me away, and I didn’t dare ask about it.”
“The spell was a trap,” Franki said. “The crows had gotten it from the sapphire priestess’s house, but she knew they had sent a spy to look for it, so she set it out for them to find. Only the spell was the wrong one. It did something terrible to the Mother Crow, and I think it was meant to kill her, but she was too powerful and managed to resist it.”
I listened, thinking of the horror that woman would have been able to create in this world if she’d gotten her own demon gate more than twenty years ago.
“She’d planned on using Solomon as the demon to create the gate,” Franki said. “And when it didn’t work, she tried to consume his soul more directly.”
“Why didn’t it work?” I asked.
“It’s hard to explain,” Franki said. “But I think Solomon focused so hard on his love for my mother that he injured the Mother Crow in the process. It was like the light coming from him singed her darkness, if that makes sense. When she realized she couldn’t draw from his power directly, she encased him in that stone and tried to use that instead. When that didn’t work, and her body decayed even more rapidly, she told one of her guards to get rid of it.”
Franki explained to us how she had used a similar tactic to try to control the Mother Crow.
“And it worked?” I asked.
“For a moment,” she said. “But holding onto it enough to get her to release this spell is going to be impossible. She’s just too strong, Rend, and connecting to her in that way accelerated the transfer. The more time goes by, the more control she’ll take for herself as I lose mine.”
“It could still be worth trying, though,” Silas said. “But the fact that she was able to still resist the sapphire priestess and then also condemn Solomon to this stone after using so much of her power doesn’t bode well for Franki’s ability to control her for very long.”
We spent an hour talking through more possibilities, but nothing was good enough. Everything was a risk. Everything ended in an unknown.
I wanted to find something that we knew would work. Something that was so solid, we couldn’t possibly lose.
But what?
As they continued to talk, I thought about what Mary Kathryn had said.
Threats were not going to work. The Mother Crow was too smart. Too conniving. She would see through anything we had planned, knowing that we weren’t truly willing to kill nearly a hundred witches and Franki.
She would always have a fail-safe. A backup plan for anything we tried to do to her in the way of an attack or threat.
But what about an offering?
The Mother Crow was motivated by one thing, and one thing only—her own desires. So if the only thing the Mother Crow wanted more than anything in the whole world was a demon gate of her own, wasn't that our best chance at convincing her to release Franki?
If we could promise her that she could have her own gate, maybe she would be willing to make a trade.
Which then brought us back to what Silas and I had discussed yesterday.
In order to open a gate for the Mother Crow, we would need a powerful demon. Someone whose power she would desire more than Franki’s.
A plan began forming in my mind, but I didn’t dare speak it out loud.
I watched as Franki paced the floor, worry etched onto her beautiful face. She was so young. She had her entire life ahead of her, and I had already lived mine. As much as I longed to spend an eternity at her side, if it came down to the question of her or me, I would sacrifice myself without a second thought.
So, no, I didn’t tell the others what I was thinking, but as I sat there, I began working out the details of it on my own.
A tra
de that the Mother Crow might actually agree to.
Let Franki go, and take me, instead.
Not Anymore
Franki
The more we discussed our options, the more hope began to slip away.
We could bring an entire army down on that village, and she still wouldn’t let me go. This was personal for her, and she was set on having my body—my power—for herself.
She was also a narcissist of the worst kind. She believed she could not lose. She refused to believe anyone was more powerful than she was, and the only thing she wanted was to gain more power.
There was no way out except to put an end to the Mother Crow once and for all.
Which meant putting an end to my life, too.
And maybe it would be worth it to save so many others.
If Rend didn’t kill the Mother Crow, he and his friends would be sentenced to either death or an eternity in the dungeons of the Brotherhood’s castle. And if Dagon killed the Mother Crow first, Rend and I both would die.
I couldn’t let that happen, and while I still wanted to believe that we could figure out another way, I knew that if we ran out of time, I would have to do what needed to be done to put an end to the Mother Crow’s power forever.
“Franki?” Rend asked, and I looked up.
“I’m sorry, I was lost in thought,” I said. “What did you say?”
“I just asked if you were feeling okay, or if you needed to rest,” he said. “If you’d like to get some sleep—”
“No,” I said quickly. “Sleep only hastens the transfer. It helps me to absorb her memories. If you can make me something like you did that day before Paris, something to help me stay awake, that would be more helpful.”
He nodded. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll head down to make a few of those potions for you, but then I need to do something. I’ll only be gone for a little while, but I just wanted to be sure you were okay first.”
I stared into his dark eyes. “Where are you going?”
“There’s someone I need to talk to,” he said. “If it all pans out, I’ll tell you about it when I get home. Do you want to come down to the lab with me?”
I was just about to agree when a flurry of activity at the top of the stairs pulled my attention away from him.
Mary Anne stood at the top of the staircase, a huge smile on her face. She held the hand of a woman who looked very similar to her, and behind them stood an entire group of women who were obviously crows like us.
“You won’t believe who I found at Venom,” she said. “They told me you were home, Franki, so I hope it’s okay that I brought everyone here.”
“It’s fine as long as the one who betrayed this small coven isn’t here,” Rend said.
“Mary Allen never returned to our hiding place,” the woman near Mary Anne said. “We worried that all four of our sisters had been captured, and we thought about moving on, but we wanted to wait for word from them. I’m so glad we did. I’m Mary Grace, Mary Anne’s mother.”
I smiled, welcoming the new crow witches to our home.
There were now eleven total, including my own mother and Mary Krista.
“Why don’t you spend some time with your family for a little while?” Rend asked in a whisper. “I’ll bring the potions up for you before I leave, and then I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Are you sure you have to go?” I asked. “I don’t want to be apart from you, Rend. There isn’t much time left, and what I do have, I want to spend close to you.”
“I know, but I have to keep searching for ways to put an end to this, so we can have our lives back,” he said. “I won’t be long.”
He kissed my forehead and disappeared up the stairs toward the elevator.
Silas and Connery seemed to understand that this was now a crow family gathering, and they made excuses of their own and left the room. Katy stayed with me, though, excited to meet so many witches.
My mother introduced me to everyone, but it was hard to keep the names straight. I couldn’t imagine growing up in an entire village where everyone was called Mary. Thankfully, they all agreed to call me Franki and leave it at that.
We talked about what the women had been up to since leaving the Mother Crow’s village. How they’d kept an eye on me and Mary Anne the whole time. How they’d kept track of where the Mother Crow was with Mary Krista’s help.
Before long, Rend returned with the potions to help me stay awake, and I was so grateful for it. The thought of going back to sleep and having to live through another terrible memory was too much for me right now.
I kissed him and downed the first potion.
“That should hold you over until I’m back, but I made about ten for now,” he said. “Take one every eight hours, and you should be fine, but eventually your body is going to get too exhausted to keep this up. You are still part human, after all.”
“Well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” I said with a sigh. “Promise you won’t be gone long.”
“You’ll hardly even know I was gone,” he said, smiling, but I could see the fear in his eyes. The worry.
He turned to walk away but stopped just shy of the stairs.
“Mary Anne, can I speak with you for a moment?” he asked. “In private.”
I stepped away to rejoin the women, but I kept an eye on Rend and Mary Anne as they talked. She didn’t seem to like what he was saying to her, which put me on edge.
What were they discussing? And why hadn’t he wanted me to hear it?
When she finally returned to the group, she was frowning. I tried to catch her gaze, but she seemed to be avoiding me.
Not a good sign.
What did Rend have up his sleeve?
Worry threaded itself through me for the rest of the morning and afternoon. It was good to be surrounded by women from my family who were good and kind and determined to help me put an end to the Mother Crow, but nothing could relieve the anxiety in my stomach as the hours ticked by.
I was going out of my mind after a while, so I excused myself to go outside for fresh air.
Mary Anne caught my arm just before I left the house. “Hey, so I think we’re mostly going to just head back to the castle in the Southern Kingdom,” she said. “I think your mom and Mary Krista want to stay here, if that’s okay with you. But the rest of us figured maybe you’d like to have some time with your mom and Rend tonight without a group of us hovering over you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I just wish we could find a way out of this.”
“We will,” she said. “We’re going to talk through everything tonight back at the castle. If we come up with anything good, I’ll reach out, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. I hugged her, but before she left, I touched her shoulder. “So, what was Rend talking to you about earlier?”
She frowned and lowered her eyes.
“Don’t ask me about that, Franki,” she said. “It’s something I don’t think he wants you to know about just yet, and I don’t want to get between you.”
“If it’s going to put his life in danger, I want to know,” I said.
“You really don’t,” she said. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll be back later tonight or tomorrow.”
She pressed a ruby communication stone into my hand.
“Call me if you need anything,” she said. “I’ll keep the stone with me at all times.”
I said goodbye to Mary Anne and the other crows, but I didn’t feel good about what she’d told me. Or rather, what she’d refused to tell me.
Rend was up to something, and I didn’t want us keeping secrets from each other. Not anymore.
I walked outside to be alone for a few minutes and try more meditation. I still needed to work on filling myself with light and hoping that could lead to a solution, so I sat down on the edge of the cliff and folded my legs under me.
It was near sunset here, and the mountains were bathed in a beautiful golden light.
Another day almost over.
Another day closer to death.
I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. It took a long time to push the negative thoughts out of my mind, and even when I did manage to do it, they always seemed to sneak right back in. Meditating on happy thoughts and love was an exercise in discipline, but as I refocused my attention every few seconds, it also felt like an exercise in futility.
Finally, I let my mind empty of all thoughts, seeing nothing but the void. Darkness and nothingness.
I imagined an orb of soft, white light, and it appeared before me, hovering in the darkness. I poured all of my energy into that light, allowing a single memory to come to the surface.
Rend finding me on the dance floor that first night at Venom. He’d come up behind me and pressed his body against mine. Always my protector, even before I knew his name or what he truly was. He’d been there for me the whole time, and I loved him more than life itself.
I focused on us there—two strangers dancing, connecting—for as long as I could, allowing the orb inside the void to grow brighter until the power of our love flowed through my body like ribbons of light.
When I was sure I was completely connected to that power, I reached out to find the Mother Crow. It was slow at first. She was so far away from here that it was difficult to even find our connection, but after a few minutes, I could feel the taste of her evil spirit in the back of my throat.
She was still there in the crow village. Sleeping now. Her body had weakened since we left, and she’d been needing more rest throughout the day.
I tested our connection, sending out a harmful thought, as though I intended to hurt her. I imagined gathering some dark spell in my hands and hurling it at her.
The pain came instantly, and my mouth opened in shock as I gasped for breath. I kept my eyes closed, not wanting to drop our connection. Instead, I leaned into the pain, imagining my power wrapping itself around her throat and choking her.
The heat coming from the stone in my chest blinded me, and I screamed, clawing at it despite my determination to stay focused. At some point, pure animal instinct took over, and I could no longer control my own reaction to the agony.
