Page 148 of The Warlock's Trial

“No,” I realized. “Worse.”

The emptiness I felt in the woods made all too much sense now. It’s why I hadn’t heard the Executors’ last thoughts—because there was nothing left for me to hear.

“She destroyed their souls,” I said hollowly. My stomach lurched, and I abhorred the idea that I felt any connection with her at all. “No wonder you were banished from the coven. You don’t deserve this power. You are evil!”

“Is it evil to end evil itself, no matter the unconventional methods?” she challenged. “I told you that you would not understand.”

“How’s this even possible?” Nadine asked.

The woman tossed her beans into the stew. “Reaper magic can go wrong—so badly that it destroys the very soul you’re trying to help. The first soul I reaped, I screwed up. I destroyed the woman I was meant to cross over. The guilt nearly broke me, until I learned that I could harness such a power and use it for good.”

“There’s nothing good about destroying people’s souls!” I protested.

“Don’t act as if you haven’t had to make a tough call before,” the woman said. “Sometimes, standing on moral ground is not an option.”

“At least when I’ve killed people, I’ve given them a chance to move on,” I insisted. “The people you’ve killed cease to exist.”

“A piece of themselves is destroyed—not the entirety of their soul,” she argued. “I’m destroying this incarnation, not everything they originate from. Their energy will be recycled by the greater forces of the universe.”

“You can’t know that, and it’s not your call to make,” I sneered.

“Someone has to make the call!” she yelled. “You act as if these choices are black and white, but they aren’t. There is no good and evil. There are simply things that help and those that harm. Sometimes, it’s not a choice between one or the other, but merely the decision to accept that one cannot exist without the other.”

“That’s the voice of someone who’s given up,” I accused.

“Giving up is the last thing I’ve done!” she shouted. “Don’t you think if I’d given up I’d be long gone? I’d be far away from the coven. My master wasn’t there for me when I needed him. I wasn’t just going to leave you.”

“But you did!” I cried.

She placed her hands on her hips. “I didn’t have to show my face to help you.”

My hands balled into fists. “You could have helped more! I’ve been searching for answers on reapers since the day I got these powers, and there’s been one right on my doorstep all along.”

Her tone softened. “What good could come of that, Lucas? Now that you know who I am and what I can do, you’ll only try to stop me from my work. You can’t save my soul like you’ve tried to save so many others. I’ll never become a part of the Reaper Order after what I’ve done. I’m not going to Alora. I’m just trying to do the best with my magic while I still have it. I’m not part of the coven anymore, but I still have this power, so I’m going to do something with it.”

“That’s not true,” I argued. “You can still be redeemed.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I don’t want to. Tell me, Lucas. Do you really want to learn your powers from a woman whose greatest magic is that of destruction?”

My jaw clamped shut, and an answer refused to move past my lips. I didn’t know what to say.

Apparently, that was answer enough, because she scoffed and turned back to her table, where she began peeling an onion. “The reaper men never listened to us women, anyway. Why would I think you’d be any different?”

“Maybe I am,” I offered.

She simply shook her head but didn’t answer. She kept her eyes down, and her hands shook as she tried frantically to pull the onion skin off. I noticed her eyes were watering, and I didn’t think it was from the onion. After all she had done, it was obvious she still cared.

The sickness swelling in my gut eased. It made no sense, because after what this woman had just admitted to, I wanted nothing to do with her. But maybe there was more to her actions than I could understand. Whether I liked it or not, this woman and I shared a bond. She was meant to teach me, but maybe I was meant to teach her something, too.

I approached her and placed my hand on her shoulder. She stopped fidgeting, and her glistening eyes turned up to mine.

“Do you still hear their thoughts?” I asked in a near whisper.

Her voice cracked as she answered in a wavered tone. “Every day.”

“Then you’re still a part of this coven,” I said. “The choices you’ve made in the past don’t make you a bad person. You always have the power to make better choices in the moment. You cared enough to stay here on the outskirts of Octavia Falls, so that you could be there for me when the time came. The time is now. Nadine and I have to break the Reaper’s Shadow curse, and I need to pass the Warlock’s Trial. So… are you going to help me or not?”

She stared at me so long, I wasn’t certain she was going to answer at all. Finally, she said, “Autumn. My name is Autumn Loren.”

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