Page 85 of Dark Flame
Jasper. I wait for the name to spark a memory, but like Carina, nothing comes.
“I don’t remember him,” I admit.
With an affectionate smile out the window, she replies, “I anticipate my daughter is at Jasper’s with news of your arrival. You’ll see him later. Your parents didn’t hang around long after that particular ceremony. No one really saw them leave, and feeling it was unlike them, I stopped by on my way home.” Her jaw moves back and forth before her whisper slips out, one so full of grief it slices across the table and into my own heart. “What I found—they were dead. And you…you were gone.” Her eyes flash away from the window. “I’m so sorry, Harlow, for not doing more. For not checking five minutes sooner. For doingnothing.”
My chest constricts. Is it possible to grieve people I don’t remember? To grieve what was? What should have been? The couple who lived in the house nearby, never able to grow old together or see me grow up.
“Violet and Arthur turned away from Light like the rest of their coven. Seems they were only here on orders, but they hid that part of themselves well. To this day, I don’t know what their exact commands were, which coven they came from, or the reasoning behind their actions, but we suspect it had something to do with you, because you were what they took. We went after you, of course, following your signature.”
“Signature?” She mentioned that before but never explained its meaning.
“Every witch’s magick leaves a trace typically only their coven’s High Priestess can recognize. As a Sinclair and the creator behind the coven, yours has the strongest signature compared to, say, mine. Your signature was still active, so we knew you were alive, and never stopped searching. Two days later, my mother stopped feeling you. That same night, the human police called about a car accident and traced the last registered address of the licence plate to us. Three bodies, no survivors. Two adults—a woman and a man—and a…a female child, Harlow.You. The girl had red hair. She was your size. Your magick disappeared. Everything lined up. We had every reason to believe you were dead and had no choice but to give up.”
My back falls against the chair, unsure how to process this. Violet and Arthur murdered my parents, kidnapped me, and then faked my death. Seems like a lot of work if they were following orders, especially considering I never met another coven growing up.
Unless those memories were stolen as well.
“They murdered innocents,” I realize with a strike to my heart. “You said there were bodies, but it obviously wasn’t us three.” Who was in the car, then, if not me and the Hartmans? Who did they use in their cruel games?
Whowerethese people? The people I called Mom and Dad? The people Iloved. The people I nearly died for, whom I wept and grieved for fuckingmonthsover.
They were a lie.
They might have fed me, clothed me, taken care of me. Were there through every life stage, cheered me on and held me during bouts of sadness. Taught me enchantments and to control my powers.
But did they love me?
They were strangers who stole me from my family, my coven, and kept me for themselves. They killed my parents, deceived the coven, and murdered innocents in a cover-up.
“That’s why you assumed I was dead.”
“We mourned you all, Harlow. Held memorials. Your parents’ bodies got buried. The coven wasn’t the same after the betrayal. Years passed, and whomever’s orders they were following, no one else ever came. It was like a nightmare that never really happened. Until mere hours ago.” She huffs in partial amusement. “I was convinced I was imagining it, but for the first time in years, Ifeltyour magick. The signature, the heat…it’s the same. I thought there’s no way, it’s a trick of the mind, buthadto check. Followed the trace until finding you wandering the side of the road. And now, here you are. Home.”
Home. This still seems like a fever dream.
“If their orders were to kidnap and fake my death, to what end? I don’t recall meeting any other witch as a kid.”
She shrugs, pursing her lips. “You’re one of the four most powerful bloodlines to exist, Harlow. You’re also the holder of the cure to vampirism, and vampires are our enemies. You have a lot of value, and perhaps they wished to capitalize on that.”
“Maybe…” I replay what she just said. “Wait—one of the four?”
Morgan leans back in her chair, her lips curling in disgust. “Don’t tell me they didn’t even give you a proper education?”
“I’m guessing not.”
“Hecate, give me strength,” she mumbles, rubbing a hand over her face. “Seems we have a lot to catch up on, but for now, to answer your question, the hierarchy goes as follows.” She lifts her hand, gesturing with each name she lists, moving it down the invisible column. “Hecate, the Goddess of Magick, Witchcraft, and Earth; Freya, the First Witch as Her representation on Earth, and then the covens made up of witches and warlocks. Amongst them, we’re all descended from one of four bloodlines. Four humans that were given the gift of elemental magick, becoming the first group of witches answering to Freya as their High Priestess. The Brooks, the Deverauxs, the Yarrows, and the Sinclairs. Freya led them through all the teachings of witchcraft, elements, nature—all things Light—while identifying who revealed a stronger connection to which element. Your descendant was gifted fire.”
Damn.I stare at my palms, where centuries of fire magick course through my veins. Descended from one of the first witches is…wow.
“What were Violet and Arthur’s magick? I only ever saw them use fire.”
“Earth. Had you been raised here, we would have trained you on the basics of the other elements. They obviously had enough knowledge of fire to fake it.”
That’d explain Mom’s enjoyment of gardening, though it’s strange she never decorated with plants.
“Did I learn this history before? I mean, before I was taken?”
She offers a small smile of empathy. “The history of the witches is something you would have been taught when you were about twelve.”
