Page 57 of The Witch and The Blood Oath

How in the Goddess’s name is she still this powerful in death?

The powercouldn’tbe hers. There was no other explanation.

“You want me to ask how you’ve been kept out of Summerland all these years?” I asked and crossed my arms. “I assume it has something to do with the High Witch’s punishment.”

Madame LaLaurie’s expression hardened, and the temperature dropped. I shivered.

“What do you know of that?” she purred.

“After this place nearly burned down, and your cruelty was exposed to humans,” I recalled, “the High Witch Cordeliachased you all the way to Paris, where she put you and your daughters down like dogs and erased the manner of your deaths from human history so as not to draw anymore attention to witchkind thanyouhad already garnered.”

I hadn’t known Cordelia also tethered their souls to this mansion, but I didn’t admit my ignorance to the madame. I wondered if the High Witch had trapped this dark magic in the mansion to rot alongside the souls of these witches.

“Staying hereispart of our sentence,” Madame LaLaurie answered and shrugged. She gestured to the revelry that surrounded us. “But I don’t see how Summerland could be any better resting place.”

The ghostly witch’s smile became feral. Her daughters remained quiet and watchful.

“Besides,” Madame LaLaurie continued, “we wouldn’t have been able to hold onto our magic if our spirits had moved into a new realm.”

As Madame LaLaurie loosened her grip on her magic, and a terrible screech echoed off the mansion’s walls, terror washed over me like a cold sheet of rain. Ghosts didn’t possess magic, yet how else could I explain the demonstration of power?

I had experienced Cordelia’s magic. This oil slick, suffocating darkness did not belong to the High Witch.

I didn’t care how it was possible for a ghost to possess magic. I only cared that Madame LaLaurie and her four daughters blocked my exit.

“While this has been fun,” I said in a rush, “I really must be going.”

With her daughters hot on her heels, Madame LaLaurie crept closer.

“I met your mother once,” the devious witch said. “Did you know that, Freya Redfern?”

I did not. Though the information piqued my curiosity, it failed to overshadow my need to escape. Impatience and fear poisoned my tongue. “I suppose you weren’t remarkable enough for her to comment on.”

“Oh,” Madame LaLaurie purred and crept even closer. The cold that wafted from her fogged my breath. “Don’t play coy. We both know you’ve heard the bedtime stories about the infamous Witch of the South.”

You have faced dark witches and vampires,I reminded myself.You were not afraid then, and you will not be afraid now.

I crossed my arms. “Congratulations, you and the Boogie Man kept me up many nights.”

Black swallowed the witch’s irises. “Careful, little girl.”

Magic—slick as oil and cloying as death—froze me in place. I struggled against the magic’s hold, but I was trapped. Madame LaLaurie had slipped past all my defense spells.

The ghostly witch grinned.

Of course,I thought,because all my spells are designed to protect me from theliving.

I let my own magic boom in my voice. “Let. Me. Go.”

“Not yet,” Madame LaLaurie countered. “Show me how you did it.”

“Did what?” I asked.

Madame LaLaurie scoffed. “Ifeltit. Your human boy’s transition into greatness. All my life, that’s what I wanted. I burned at the stake for it, yet here you stand…”

“You tortured dozens to death,” I accused. “When it was time to pay for what you’d done, you fled like a coward. We arenotthe same.”

“I wanted them toascend,”Madame LaLaurie hissed. “I wanted them to be greater than the lives fate had condemned them to! I was adreamer.”

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