Page 120 of The Witch and The Blood Oath

“And how could you keep this from me?” I asked. “You knew Walker and I were tasked with searching for the chimera, but you saidnothingabout this?”

Gloria buried her face in her hands.

“Your mother bespelled me with silence,” she explained. “Not only did she magically forbid me from speaking of her dealings with the chimera, but shealsoenchanted all my thoughts and memories of that time to quiet. I didn’t remember any of this until I saw that goddessdamned book.”

My ire lessened a fraction. Though it was childish, I was tired of being the only one left out of my mother’s loop.

“She was gone for weeks,” Gloria continued. “She didn’t even allow Josephine to accompany her, though, your goddessmother clearly learned something from Sybil’s travels.”

The Elders paused, and I leaned forward in my chair.

“Well,” Walker said. “What happened?”

Gloria rolled her eyes at his impatience.

“I’m working through a powerful spell,” she sniped. “Please, excuse my struggling memory.”

“Take your time,” Lyra suggested, patted Gloria’s arm, and glowered at Walker.

“Insolent boy,” Anise chided.

Gloria squeezed her eyes shut in concentration.

“She told me she failed to capture the creature,” Gloria explained, “but I didn’t believe her. Sybil was always a poor liar, and I had never known her to fail, so I hounded her for the truth.”

“Sybil confessed that she had found the chimera.” Sorrow coated Gloria’s words. “But she couldn’t hand it over to the High Witch. The chimera was a mere babe, and Cordelia wanted it dead.”

Though I had harbored my suspicions, hearing the brutal truth aloud made me gasp.

“How long ago was this?” Walker asked.

Gloria swallowed. “Twenty years ago.”

Cordelia wanted it dead.

“She’s going to kill Elle,” I whispered. Tears pricked my eyes, and my heart raced. “The High Witch is going to kill Ryder’s mate.”

“The wolf would know if his mate was already dead,” Maeve promised me. “He would feel it through their soul-binding connection. There is still time to save her.”

“Are we certain weshouldsave her?” Anise argued. “I know the High Witch deserves reprimand after what she did to the young Moonflower witch, but what we’re talking about here is treason, and not to mention, suicide.”

Worry flashed in the crotchety Elder’s honey brown eyes, and I remembered that these women had helped raise me. I was their family as certainly as they were mine.

I took Anise’s hand. “I can do this. I swear it.”

“Gloria,” Lyra said suddenly. “IrememberSybil taking a weeks-long journey two decades ago. She never told me where she went, but I remember she didn’t return with only a book. She returned pregnant.”

“Yes,” Mabel replied. The Elder perched on the edge of her chair. “The coven was so excited about the baby that no one inquired about where Sybil had gone.”

“What about Freya’s dad?” Walker asked.

Gwyneth cocked a dark eyebrow. “What about him?”

“None of you asked who he was?” Walker asked. We stared blankly at him—no one wondered about witches’ sperm donors. Walker shook his head and sighed. “He might know something. Maybe he was involved in Sybil’s journey.”

As if my mother would’ve involved amanin her quest for greatness.

It was more likely she had gotten pregnant specifically to cause a distraction.

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