Page 28 of Rites of Passage

“I—no.” The witch frowned. “It was dark and kinda oily. And it caused the most excruciating burning when it hit my bloodstream.” Agnes’s knuckles whitened on the sheets. “I know this is gonna sound weird, but it felt…alive.”

She looked blindly at them, her eyes full of the pain she’d lived through.

The hairs rose on the back of Mae’s neck.Alive?

“I’m sorry I made you remember that,” she told Agnes apologetically. “Second question. This key.” Mae lifted the skeleton key. “Do you know what it opens? Were there any clues you might have picked up from the Dark Council members who were in that cave?”

Regret darkened Agnes’s gaze. “I’m afraid not.”

Mae bit back a sigh. Gregory stirred in his chair, his expression uncomfortable. She could tell he was concerned about her line of questioning and its impact on his sister’s fragile state.

“Last question. I want you to think very carefully about this. The people who were successfully possessed by ghouls. The ones that didn’t die in that white room. Were they all magic users, like you?”

The coven healers in the room sucked in air.

“Oh,” Alicia murmured, her face clearing.

“What?” Schuman said suspiciously.

Jared looked equally puzzled.

The color drained from Agnes’s face. She clamped a hand to her mouth.

Gregory straightened in his chair. “Agnes?”

“You’re right,” Agnes mumbled shakily, her gaze never leaving Mae. “I didn’t realize it until now! They were all sorcerers and witches!”

Mae scowled.Bingo.

“I have a final request. Can I have a sample of your blood?”

CHAPTER15

“Are you sure?”Bryony said, her voice strained.

Mae drummed her fingers on the armrest of her chair, her unease unabated. “That’s what she said.”

Nikolai and Vlad looked similarly troubled where they sat in the meeting chambers at the top of the New York coven headquarters. Bone crunched as Hellreaver and Tarang chomped into their steak where they lay beside Brimstone.

Mae observed Vlad from under her lashes. The incubus still hadn’t told her why he’d come to her place last night. Judging from the guarded looks he kept flashing her way when he thought she wasn’t looking, she knew he was hiding something.

They’d left Jared negotiating with Schuman at the army facility on Staten Island, the Immortal doing his best to pacify the irate U.S. Special Affairs Bureau representative. Alicia had stayed back to support him.

Mae could comprehend Schuman’s dissatisfaction to an extent.

So far, the U.S. government’s involvement with the covens didn’t appear to have benefited them in any significant way. Not as much as their alliance with the Immortals had, from the information Jared had let slip. The technology and science the Immortals had contributed to human society over the millennia had gone mostly undetected by ordinary folks. It was only recently that the governments of the world had begun to realize how much they owed the descendants of Uriel for humankind’s advancements.

What was more intangible were the atrocities the covens had protected normal humans from ever since the Sorcerer King defeated Azazel and started to exert his influence over the world several millennia ago. There were no monuments to the thousands of sorcerers and witches who had died while protecting mankind from black magic. No national holidays to celebrate their lives and their sacrifices. No concrete proof any of it ever happened.

That fact upset Mae. That the world had carried on spinning while remaining oblivious to what Azazel, Ran Soyun, and their descendants had done for them didn’t sit well with her.

Now that I’m here, things are going to change. I will not have the world overlook the contributions magic users make to keep it safe from those who wish to destroy it.

Na Ri’s voice shivered through her mind, her past-self echoing this conviction. Mae recalled the anger and determination that had flooded her mind and body upon her awakening. Feelings that had belonged to Na Ri and were now hers. She clenched her hands.

She was beginning to understand Na Ri’s outrage.

Bryony’s brittle voice distracted her from her dark thoughts.

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