Page 75 of Flowerheart

“You’ve not talked to me for fifteen years!” I snapped. “People aresuffering, Mother, and if you could put a stop to it—”

A word I didn’t understand echoed in my ears, as sharp and discordant as nails on glass. I fell to my knees at the shock of the sound, and in my surprise, dropped the phial of Euphoria. It plinked softly against the floorboards and rolled away from me.

Dots danced around my vision. My neck burned and strained as I lifted my head towards Imogen. Her finger was raised. Her eyes were soft and sad.

“Listen to me,” she said. “If I tell you too much, the Council will be able to draw the truth from you. If they do that, they’ll hunt down my coven, who’ll come for you, even if you are my own blood. Do you understand? If you do anything that interferes with their work, if you tell the Council,they will find you and kill you.”

The room tilted back and forth like a bobbing ship. “You—you enchanted me—”

“I’m sorry. I just needed you to listen.”

Would she have treated me like this, had she stayed in our house? Would she have punished me with curses for bad behavior?

Crawling on my hands and knees, I propped myself against the shelf of potions. All along my line of vision was phial upon phial of purple potion, rows of Euphoria standing shoulder to shoulder.

Proof of Xavier’s shame. Proof of pain that he and others had caused—which Mother was sharing so carelessly.

I threw my weight forwards, sweeping my arm across the shelf, casting all the bottles of Euphoria onto the floor. They shattered, spilling a pool of purple across her floorboards.

Imogen yelped and grabbed both my wrists. I pushed against her, my hatred of her ringing in my head like a battle cry. Heat rose in my face, and some animalistic part of me wanted to scream at her, wanted to hurt her, wanted to let her know how I loathed her for all she’d done and hadn’t done for me these many years.

But I wasn’t like her.

I pulled out of her grasp, staggering to my feet. The longer I looked at her, the more anger boiled within me.

With a flick of her hand, she cast the shards of glass into a nearby dustbin. Her brown eyes were cold and sad. “Clara,”she said, her voice firm and, I supposed, motherly. “All I mean to say is that you can use your magic to do great things. Things beyond what the Council allows—”

“I cannot use my magic at all,” I spat.

Her face went lily white. Seeing her so horrified gave me the strangest sort of thrill. “What?”

Anger was heady and addictive. I wanted to blame her for everything. To use my own pain as a weapon against her.

“That’s right,” I said. “Your daughter can never be a witch because she gave her power away.”

She held a hand to her forehead, like the very thought of this was making her ill. “You gave it away? To whom?!”

“You’ve kept your secrets from me. I’ll keep their name secret, too.”

The witch shook her head vehemently. “No, no—I don’t care who has it.” She averted her gaze, running a hand through her curls. “When you were a child, I blessed your magic so that it would grow strong, like a weed.”

Like a weed.All of Xavier’s theories about me, that my magic was different, disobedient, too powerful—he’d been right.

“You cursed me?”

“No, Iblessedyou.”

A blessing required intention, and strength, and most importantly,love.This startled me, unsettled me—but the fear in her eyes, even more so.

Sweat glistened along her hairline. “Listen to me. I alsoblessed your magic in this way: if someone took that power from you, it would be so wild that it would kill them.”

My heart plummeted into my toes. I gripped the shelf for support. “What?!”

“I did it to protect you,” she said, her voice low and steady, like I was a wild horse.

And I felt like one, then. I strode to her, grabbing the front of her blouse, looking at her eye-to-eye, tears rising.

“You have to stop it,” I hissed.

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