Page 50 of Practically Witches

He moves to stand behind my mother. I glance at the others at the table. Mrs. Bradbury is watching Dad with a quiet kind of curiosity, one raised eyebrow but no scowl. Dylan’s mom, MaryAnn Tempest, reaches for my mom’s hand and clasps it. I didn’t know they were close, but I’m not really surprised by how little I actually know.

Three of the moms are staring between my dad and my mom, probably gauging her reaction. Maybe they’re trying to guess how long she’s been keeping this monster-sized secret from them. Or maybe they want to know by what right my dad is back in town. Or maybe they’re sorry they ran him away for being a syphoner when according to everything they know, the syphoner stealing the power of their children is a woman.

“I want to thank you all for coming.” His voice is steady and sure, and it strikes a chord inside me. Like from a distant memory. Like a dad who used to read me bedtime stories. “I have news you all need to hear about the syphoner.”

Now they’re all listening, and Zane reaches for my handand laces his fingers through mine. I know he means to comfort me, but it’s having a wholly different effect on me. I’m not complaining, but listening is going to be a lot harder with the sound of my heart pounding in my ears. I focus on my dad, listen harder than I ever have before.

“The syphoner is my sister, Elizabeth Hadley.” He just throws it out there without much preamble at all and he stands even as Rowen’s mother shoves her chair back and Ariya’s father advances until Mr. Bradbury steps in his way.

“Calm down, Paul. Vik can’t control Liz.” He speaks with the familiarity of a man who knows everyone in the room. Comfortably. “I think we owe him that, don’t you?”

Paul Glover shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so. If he’d finished Elizabeth when she started up back when the kids were young, Rowen wouldn’t be in the hospital fighting for her life right now.”

“You expected him to kill his sister. Then punished him when he couldn’t.” Mom shakes her head. “My husband and my daughters were punished for something that wasn’t his fault.”

“I could kill my sister.” Piper’s mom, Maura Steros, looks around. “If it came down to it.”

“Mom!” Piper shakes her head.

Maura shrugs. “She’s a bitch. Has been since we were kids.”

Piper hides her face. “She’s so embarrassing.” Aimee hugs her.

Dad waits for silence before he speaks again. “There had to be a next generation syphoner before anyone could end Elizabeth.” He doesn’t say it, doesn’t say that the next generation syphoner is in this room, but they all start looking at one another, then at their kids.

“Who is it, Hadley?” Felix Tempest demands of my dad. “We know it isn’t your girls since a syphoner isn’t born into the same family in consecutive generations. So, who is it?”

Dad is unbothered. He lets them all bicker among themselves. They’re arguing and it’s affecting my mom. She hates conflict. Except with me, that is. Until yesterday, I thought she lived to fight with me, but I’m cutting her some slack right now. She’s had a lot to live with, gave up a lot more for us. Right now, though, she’s probably trying to guess which one is going to stop being her friend because of what’s about to happen. To her credit, she lifts her chin. She has her pride.

Finally, Dad holds up his hand, and they all fall silent. It’s not hard to see who’s the leader of this pack. I hide a laugh behind a cough behind my hand. “It doesn’t matter who the syphoner is. What matters right now is that we need to produce the scepter.”

They look from one to another and back again. I can’t believe these are the people that the gods put in charge of a place as accomplished as the Institute, in charge of an entire generation of magic.

“I’m not giving you my wand.” Paul Glover crosses his arms and shakes his head. “Not without some guarantees.”

A couple of the others agree.

“Guarantees?” I don’t like the ominous sound of that word.

“What happens to the next generation syphoner once they end Elizabeth?” Ah. Now I understand the guarantees they want. Ending Elizabeth doesn’t end the problem. They want to end the syphoner who ends her.

“You know the prophecy as well as I do. If the next generation syphoner is killed”—Mom’s gaze flickers but everyone is watching Dad so it passes unnoticed—“Then a new syphoner will be created.”

“Then I want the next gen syphoner locked up. Chained in selenite.” I swallow hard, but I can’t blame them. I’m sure when my grandparents gave birth to Viktor and Elizabeth that they didn’t look at her and think she was going to grow to be a greedy magic thief who didn’t care who she hurts.

“And you know as well as we do that a syphoner can end another syphoner with the scepter, but that scepter can also be used by the syphoner to drain the entire population of magic.”

Well, I didn’t see that one printed anywhere, so I, in fact, did not know it.

Ariya’s mother, Analise, looks at my father. “What if this syphoner, the next gen one, loses the scepter to Elizabeth?”

Dad nods and glances my way. “This syphoner will need to be trained.”

“I’m not handing my wand over to some unnamed syphoner. Not happening.” Chad Foster has been through a lot with Rowen. They’d lost a son already, and Rowen had been stripped of her magic. He had every right to be nervous.

“I’m the syphoner.” I step forward, braver than I feel.

Aimee moves to stand beside me. “I’m the syphoner.”

---