The sky is overcast, a low blanket of gray covering the Witchery. I can barely make out the shore before the water is swallowed by the clouds, and if this were any other day, it would put me at ease not to see the mainland in the distance, to pretend it’s just us here, safe to practice magic however we want.
Just us. Just us and this island and our magic.
But I can’t enjoy it. An ache has settled deep in my belly, or maybe the ache is blooming from the excess magic that’s killing me.
I’m not sure.
Rocky beaches encircle the island, but dense woods and overgrown fields make up the interior—evergreens so tall they fade into the clouds, thousands of green giants watching over us. They sway in the breeze as if they have their own magic, and the thought makes me smile. If flowers and herbs, trees and fields, oceans and mountains aren’t magic, I don’t know what is.
The salty air feels good in my lungs. Healing. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe that if I just breathed in long enough, I’d be okay.
By the time I get to the western edge of the Witchery, I’m no longer worried about running into anyone. All of our shops and homes are on the eastern edge, leaving this side of the island wild. The founders of the new coven made the choice to build up the Witchery on the east coast—they thought we would be more motivated to maintain the new order of magic if we felt the mainlanders were always watching.
And even though the mainland is far enough away that details are impossible to see, it’s always there in the distance. Always reminding us of the power that lies on the other side of the Passage.
But the western side is free from mainlanders. Here the grass is long and the shrubs are dense. There are no manicured gardens or carefully placed cobblestones, no pastel doors or sparkling streetlamps.
Everything is wild.
The wind is getting stronger, and it blows my hair and nips at my skin. The sound of the waves rolling onto the shore follows me as I cut through the trees and toward the field where I met Wolfe. It makes sense to start here, but my footsteps slow as the reality of what I’m doing sets in.
Part of giving up dark magic meant relieving the mainland of the notion that we were powerful enough to change the course of things. If that sort of magic existed, there would always be someone who wanted to use it for their own gain. No one is meant to have that kind of power, so we got rid of it entirely.
Or rather, we thought we did. If what Wolfe Hawthorne said is true, there is still one coven left practicing it.
It hurts to imagine telling my mother what I’ve learned, that we’ve all been tricked into believing the old coven is present only in our history lessons and myths, that they live right here on this island, poisoning it with their magic. But that will come later.
Long blades of grass poke at my skin as I walk through the field where I first encountered Wolfe. I brush them out of the way and move toward the place where we collided, finding it easily enough—the grass is bent toward the earth where we fell, and the single white moonflower is still on the ground, wilted.
“You,” a voice behind me says.
I jump and turn around. Wolfe Hawthorne stands several feet away from me, an annoyed expression on his face, as if he owns this field and I am nothing but a trespasser.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
“I could ask the same of you.”
“I came back for the moonflower. If people knew it was on the island, there would be a lot of panic.”
“Understandably. They haven’t grown on the Witchery in decades.”
“Is that what they told you?” he asks, an edge creeping into his voice.
Coming here was a bad idea.
“I told you why I’m here. Now it’s your turn,” he says.
I pause, unsure whether I should answer or get far away from him. I know what I should do, but I want his help. I stay where I am and look at him. His jaw is sharp and his eyebrows are pinched together, and I wonder if he always has such an unpleasant expression or if it’s somehow related to me.
I swallow hard and force myself to meet his eyes. My heart beats wildly, but I don’t let him see how scared I am. “I need your help,” I finally say.
He cocks his head to the side. “My help?”
“Yes. If you are who you say you are.”
He laughs, but it sounds mean. “Implying I’m a liar while asking for my help is an interesting approach to take.”
I sigh. “Can you practice dark magic or not?”
“High magic,” he says.
“What?”
“Tell me, Mortana, what kind of magic do you practice?”