Page 6 of To Hunt a Demon King

Mama was waiting for me when I returned to the cottage. She was dressed in her cloak, even though I knew she would be traveling directly into the Covenstead via her mirror. Meetings were always held in the Covenstead, but Mama always went in her cloak, wearing it like armor.

Most witches used mirrors, carved with specific symbols and activated with an incantation, to travel long distances. It was fairly simple magic as long as a witch had a clear destination in mind when she stepped through the mirror. Witches could travel between any mirrors in the Witchdom, but it was wisest to stick to known mirrors. Vera had told me once of a witch who had gotten so impossibly stuck inside a hand mirror, not realizing it’s size, that she had lived there the rest of her days. I had no idea if that was true, but it was a fair cautionary tale.

“I’ll go and get this over with,” Mama said as she prepared to leave, giving my shoulder a squeeze as she strode toward the floor length mirror in her bedroom. Its wooden frame was worn and cracked, the witch signs around its frame faded until they were almost unrecognizable, but it worked just fine. She had repeatedly refused to let my grandmother replace it, arguing that there was no point in placing a gilded mirror in our modest cottage.

Mama spoke the words of the spell to travel, shooting me one last smile before stepping through the glass, which had turned to a silvery liquid for traveling.

I sighed, watching her disappear. I had only traveled by mirror once, when my powers first emerged and my grandmother had insisted Mama bring me to see her. I don’t think Mama would have taken me if my grandmother hadn’t threatened to come here instead.

Grandmother had scared me even more at the age of ten than she had at four. She was at least three hundred years old, but she didn’t look her age, resembling instead a mortal woman in her mid forties. Both times I had met her, she had worn a dress that covered her up to the neck, adorned with some overly ornate brocade. I remembered ten-year-old me had firmly believed her feathery hat would fly right off her head.

“Circe,” she had said stiffly, nodding to Mama. She turned to me, her frown deepening as her pale blue eyes took my measure, possibly looking for some flaw. “Elara.”

“Hello, Grandmother,” I said, dropping into a quick curtsy as was expected for the Crone of the Coven. Mama hadn’t said anything as she dropped into a curtsy next to me. As friendly and loving as she was with everyone, she was like ice around my grandmother. I knew they disagreed about a great many things, but I suspected that something else had happened between them to make their relationship so strained.

“Show me your magic, child,” my grandmother had said, looking down her long nose at me as if she was a displeased headmistress. I had shown her some small magic that I had newly mastered, clutching a crystal in my tiny, pudgy hand. She had nodded, a gleam of something close to approval in her icy gaze. She had beckoned us to follow her as she started making plans for my education and discussing how she would remodel a guest room for me at her manor and instruct me in the ways of the Coven herself.

“No,” Mama had said, resting a tight hand on my shoulder to stop me from following. My grandmother had turned and raised a perfect brow at her.

“No?” she repeated, taking a step closer to us. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“I mean,” Mama had said through gritted teeth, “that Elara will be staying with me, and I will be overseeing her education.”

The fight they’d had was deafening, and while young me didn’t understand most of it, I did learn two things that night. The first was that my grandmother could be very frightening if she wanted to be, and the second was that Mama absolutely hated her.

The sound of knocking at my door startled me. I went to open it, wondering if Vera’s mother needed our mirror. To my surprise, I found Vera waiting for me.

“I have had a brilliant idea,” she cried, pushing her way into our kitchen and producing a bright red cloak. I rolled my eyes, looking at her with suspicion. Vera’s ideas were usually reckless and poorly thought out, so I doubted this one would be brilliant.

“Finally have time for me then?” I asked, still irritated about the morning.

“Yes,” said Vera, as if she didn’t register my annoyance. “And I have a brilliant idea!” I sighed.

“What?” I asked resignedly. She grinned.

“Has your mother left already?” she asked, looking around the house as if someone might jump out at her.

“Yes, or she definitely would have heard you,” I said. “Why aren’t you at the meeting already? You’re going to miss your invocation.”

“That’s just it,” Vera said excitedly, thrusting the cloak at me and waving at me to put it on. She strode through the house as I shuffled after her, heading toward Mama’s bedroom.

“What’s it?” I asked, grabbing her hand to stop her. She grinned again.

“You’re coming with me!” she said excitedly. “I can sneak you in!”

“This does not sound like a well-thought out plan,” I said, frowning at Vera. I plucked at the red cloak. “Is this supposed to be a disguise?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling proudly. “You never wear red. It clashes with your hair.”

“This is going to backfire,” I said darkly, trying to ignore the bubble of excitement that had grown in my chest. It would be reckless and stupid. I’d almost certainly be caught. But…

“No it won’t,” Vera said, practically buzzing with anticipation. “I asked my mother if I could arrive separately, you know, my first real Coven meeting, and she agreed. We’ll sit in the back and no one will see you.”

I pursed my lips, trying to think of how this could go wrong. So very many things came to mind. Mama would be horrified if she found me there, and who knew what my grandmother would do. Still, I was almost the age of maturity.

“Okay,” I said, letting excitement overpower common sense. “But we cannot be seen!”

“Obviously,” said Vera, casting the spell to open the mirror. She grabbed my hand and pulled me behind her. “That’s why I brought the cloak! Come on.”

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