Page 40 of Practically Witches

She nods. “A syphoner can save magic or store it, if you will, in an object. If it’s stored, it cannot be stolen.” That was how it opened to the specific page I needed. “It can be retrieved and returned when the spell is taken off the object.”

“Whose power did he put into it?”

She smiles softly. “It’s a mixture of mine and his.”

I shake my head. “This is all a lovely story, Mom, but I need something. A scepter. A wand. The pearl of illusion.”

Her face pinches. “How do you know about that?”

“I did some poking around.” And when her frown deepens, I continue. “I’m an adult and a witch. I can protect myself.” I don’t tell her that the syphoner had been unable to take my power. “I did some research with Zane.”

Aimee twists her head to look at me. “Nice.” And gives me a thumbs up.

“We need the wand to create the Scepter of Power to kill the syphoner.” Another syphoner, so I have to find my dad. “Do you know where Dad is?”

Mom shakes her head. “I don’t hear from him. Occasionally, I’ll open the top drawer of my dresser and see a note in a spell that wasn’t there before. But I don’t know where they come from.” She shakes her head. “And sinceyou girls found the grimoire, I can feel him as though he’s nearby, but I believe it’s only his magic from the book.”

As angry as I am at her, her sadness cuts me. It’s so visceral. “How did you know how to tend to Aimee? Is it because of the grimoire?”

Mom looks at Aimee then at me, then she nods at Aimee as if Aimee is the one who asked. “Because of RJ, Viktor wrote in the grimoire what to do in case…”

“Because of RJ?” What the hell does that mean?

Mom glances at me and nods. “We knew from the time Aimee was a few months old that she had the gift. She filled her room with bubbles when she was six months old.” Yeah. I’ve heard the story before. “Since she had magic so young, we knew she wasn’t a syphoner.”

“And that means I am?” It explains a lot, even if I don’t particularly want to believe it.

“We started checking with other families to see if there was a syphoner. It was no easy task.”

I scoff. “Yeah. I’ll bet.”

“We were in the middle of rebuilding the Institute so we were all around one another.” I stare at her through narrowed eyes. She’s saying I’m a syphoner. It’s a broad change of fucking tune from all the years she was telling me tousemy magic,callon my magic, feel my magic. Anger burns inside of me as she continues. “We checked the children of all the first families for the girls. Because if the syphoner in one generation is a man, the next generation will be a woman.” She closes her eyes as if she’s remembering. “But it doesn’t have to be his daughter.”

I nod. “All the others have magic of their own.” Because of course they do. “So that means you thought, or maybe youthink,I’m a danger to Aimee.” I don’t phrase it as aquestion because there’s no question to it. “So you’ve had the antidote spell ready since I was a baby.”

Mom nods. “You were young and we didn’t know what we do now.”

“Which is?”

“You have toknowthat you can take the power. You wouldn’t know to try until you were told. And it isn’t as easy as just taking someone’s power.” Although it had certainly looked that way when the syphoner I’d seen—one whose identity I still don’t know—was draining the power from my sister. Apparently, she isn’t going to tell me how to do it either.

I stand because no way in hell am I going to let my mom justify not telling me what I am as a matter of safety. She’s my parent. If she was worried about me using my power for evil instead of good, she should’ve told me what I am and then taught me how to be the good version of a syphoner.

“You should’ve told me.”

She nods. “Yes.”

Nothing like agreement to take all the wind out of my anger. “Why didn’t you?” She’s my mom. The person who tells me when my jeans make me look shorter or my hair needs a good conditioning. She tells me when I’m hurting Aimee’s feelings. She could tell me anything. I might get mad, but I would hear her. Ialwayshear her.

She sighs. “Because if you didn’t know what you could do, then you couldn’t do it.” She shakes her head. “Syphoning magic is a conscious decision. You can’t do it by accident. Can’t stumble on how to do it.”

“And you didn’t trust me?”

“You don’t know what that kind of hunger for power will do to you.” She tries to reach for my hand, but I crossmy arms and sit back. “It brings all the darkness a witch is to the surface.”

“So it was better to let me think I was inadequate? Better to let me…suffer?” Weren’t parents supposed to want to help their kids, make their kids stronger, better? “Thanks for that, by the way.”

I can’t even see past how angry I am at her. How disappointed I am that they didn’t trust me. That there’s a spell in the fucking grimoire that was writtenin caseI hurt Aimee.

---