Page 27 of The Blood Witch

“They’re doing well,” Leandra told her. “Some of them are picking up on their powers remarkably quickly. Better than I’d ever hoped.”

Fey nodded. She’d noticed that same thing, too. For many of the older Witches, their control over their new elements came naturally, and surprisingly quickly. It was as though a part of them had always known that a path to those powers existed, and now that the gate was unlocked, it was an easy path for them to follow.

Still, when Leandra looked out at the crowd as they relaxed and ate their lunches, she didn’t look proud. She looked worried.

“Something you’re not telling me?” Fey asked, eyes narrowing warily.

Leandra released a heavy breath. She looked tired.

“We’re missing one,” she said simply, with just a hint of sadness coloring her voice.

Fey knew without asking who Leandra meant.

For months after Fey started these lessons, Leandra insisted the princess would come. “Just give her time,” Leandra had said, over and over, day after day.

They had. The coven leaders had given Princess Amalia time, and space, and everything else she could have desired.

And, still, she hadn’t shown up.

Not once, not even for a single session.

Fey didn’t particularly care if the princess ever joined her classes or not. A small part of her was relieved every morning she arrived and didn’t see those familiar brown curls in the crowd waiting for her. Didn’t see the living reminder of the world she’d turned her back on, the code she betrayed.

And who could blame Amalia for staying away, when the class was taught by the very Witch she blamed for her parents’ deaths?

Leandra pursed her lips. “I’m worried about her,” she confided in Fey. “She barely eats anymore. Hardly ever leavesher room. She won’t talk to me, and now that Linh isn’t coming by the palace anymore… I don’t know if she talks to anyone.”

Fey bit her tongue to keep her own opinions in check. It had been a mistake to put Amalia on the council, in her opinion. And a bigger mistake to keep her in the palace locked away from kids her own age. It was no mystery to her at all why the princess was retreating.

“Maybe if you tried to talk to her—” Leandra began.

“No,” Fey said, anger rising in her chest.

Leandra blinked and shut her mouth.

For a moment, Fey pulled back on her rage, ready to leash it once more.

But…

Let them see you.

Fey let it out instead. Let that rage burn against her skin. And when she turned to look Leandra in the eyes, she knew the Priestess could see it burning in her gaze.

“I’m not going to talk to her, Leandra,” Fey said, feeling the strength of that power in her voice. “Because I’m the last person she wants to talk to. Don’t forget that I killed her parents. I’m the reason she’s alone.”

Leandra swallowed and opened her mouth as though to speak, but Fey continued. “You want to give her some support? Let her be a kid. Let her meet new people, let her put some distance between herself and all this pain she’s been put through. Let her grow up. You have her trapped in the same cage she’s been in since she was born, and you’re wondering why she doesn’t sing for you all like a happy little bird. You need to open the cage and let her out. She doesn’t need me, Leandra. What she needs is freedom.”

“I just think a little closure?—”

“No,” Fey insisted. “And I won’t have this conversation with you again. My answer is no. There’s no such thing as closure, Priestess. There’s no putting this behind her and getting over it. There’s no healing. There’s only surviving it, one day at a time. And I can’t help her do that. Only she can.”

Leandra didn’t stop her when she turned to walk away, and Fey let that rage continue to burn, feeling more herself than she had in years.

Chapter 10

VEE

Their clubhouse had rats.

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