Page 57 of Midnight Witch

The corners of Mrs. Son-Ha’s eyes tightened. “Why, you got a problem with carrots?”

“No,” Cortes denied.

He waited until she’d turned her back before stabbing a piece of the offensive vegetable with his fork and passing it to Popo. The parrot brightened up.

“Why does Popo look down?” Mae asked.

Cortes passed another carrot to the bird. “The meeting with my coven was…tense.”

“Picky eaters have short lives, you know,” Alicia drawled as he fed a third piece to his familiar.

The Columbian ignored the Reaper Queen. He appraised Mae, Nikolai, and Vlad with a narrow-eyed stare. “So, what happened to you?”

They got him up to speed while he ate.

Cortes’s shoulders tensed when Mae mentioned Barquiel. “The demon turned up?”

He’d seen Barquiel for the first time in Prague.

“Yeah.” Mae’s expression grew pinched. “He made Valentina Flores use a spell to try and seal my powers. From what Barquiel revealed, it appears Vedran wants to get his hands on the magic treasure trove inside my head.” She grimaced at Jared. “Oh, and he mentioned Dietrich.”

The Immortal lowered his brows. Dietrich Farago was currently the Immortal Societies’ number one most wanted person.

“My father also wants to make me forget about Mae,” Nikolai said darkly. “Oscar intended to use mirage magic to get me to join their side.”

Hope brightened Mae’s eyes.

“What about you?” she asked Cortes. “Did your coven provide you with any names?”

A strange expression danced across Cortes’s face. “They’re working on it.”

“What is it?” Mae said curiously.

Cortes shot a glance at Mrs. Son-Ha. “I…spoke to my family, like she suggested.”

The old lady beamed.

“How’d it go?” Vlad asked warily.

Cortes studied his interlocked fingers.

“They confirmed what we spoke about,” he said in a stilted voice. “That they were not in their right mind when Raya attacked me.” Lines wrinkled his brow. “They said it felt like waking up from a horrible nightmare afterward.”

“Yeah,” Jared mumbled.

Mae chewed her lip. “Does that mean you’ll reconcile with them?”

Cortes hesitated.

Vlad patted his shoulder. “Family is important in our world, Enrique. Why don’t you kiss and make up?”

Cortes grunted. “Do you have to make everything sound dirty?”

Vlad grinned.

Nikolai studied Violet and Miles. “You didn’t tell us what you found in Boston.”

The cousins exchanged a troubled glance.

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