Page 110 of The Witch and The Blood Oath

“What are you going to do when you find it?” Mara asked me.

I swallowed.

“I’m going to wrestle the chimera from Cordelia's grasp,” I said, “and I’m going to expose her mistreatment of innocents.”

Mara sighed and took a sip of her martini. “How painfully disappointing.”

I grinded my teeth in frustration.

“What would you have me do?” I asked her. “Steal her crown?”

“You’re not asking the right questions,” Mara said.

"Here's a good question, then," I snapped, "how have you evaded Cordelia's wrath? Surely, she knows of your ill-fated rebellion."

"I possess a weapon from which even the great and powerful High Witch balks," Mara purred.

"What?" Ryder asked quietly.

"The truth." With her dark eyes on mine, Mara leaned closer. “Why does Cordelia want the chimera? Why didyourmother spare the creature?”

As my suspicions were confirmed, hope and dread warred inside me. If my mother had spared the chimera, saving Elle was the right thing to do. If I failed to undo my actions, however, I would be failing to follow through on one of my mother’s few acts against the High Witch.

Or were there more I didn’t know of?

She had never spoken of the chimera or of warlocks, yet she had played a hand in Elle's fate before, and it had been the ancient languageshe’dtaught me etched into the Warlock Cave.

I had always taken comfort in being the vault of her secrets, but there were things about my mother I did not know. There were things she had kept from me.

I bit the inside of my lip to distract myself from the pang in my chest.

“Elle,” I said, “the chimera, didn’t think the High Witch was necessarily after her, but rather using her to go after something—someone—worse. Someone who spoke to her as a child.”

“What?” Walker said, and I cringed. I had forgotten to share that tidbit in the last day’s chaos.

“So, you have learnedsomethings,” Mara conceded. “What are you going to do about them?”

“Something,” I snapped. “I’m going to dosomething,which is far more than anyone else is doing! I’m going to take the thing the High Witch wants most—the chimera. Isn’t that enough for you?”

Mara studied me, gulped down the rest of her martini, popped an olive into her mouth, and swallowed.

“It will have to be enough for now,” she said. “The ripple is concealed on the doorsteps of these lands’ overseers.”

“No way,” Cady said, “the ripple is on our property?”

Mara smiled at her. “Indeed.”

“I think I would’ve noticed if I lived on a magical ripple in time and space,” Walker argued.

“You didn’t notice your neighbors are witches, wolves, and vamps,” I reminded him, though I was skeptical.

Hol Creek was rich with magic, but it was hard to believe I had grown up near a ripple without ever knowing.

“How do we use it to get to the court?” Ryder asked.

Mara checked her glimmering black nails, which were filed into talons.

“Unfortunately,” she drawled, “only Clyde Reid knows that.”

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