He shrugged me off, rounding on me with his face twisted into a scowl. “Why not? Why won’t you tell me where you’re going?”
My eyes fell closed, knowing that the secrecy my mother had sworn me to was for his own protection. I just wished I could make him understand, that he could see just how little I cared for the duty they’d given me.
If I’d had it my way, destiny could kiss my ass.
“I’ll tell you when you’re older. I promise,” I explained, heading for the stairwell.
I placed my hand on the old, walnut railing and glanced up toward my bedroom as I took the first step. The urge to bury myself beneath the blankets was all-consuming, wanting to hide away from the world; from the responsibilities and the expectations pressing down on me.
“You’ve been saying that for years! When?”
I ran my hands over my face, moving down from the step and squatting in front of Ash. “When you’re sixteen, I’ll tell you everything. I promise.”
“Why not now?” he asked, his bottom lip trembling.
Our mother had never meant to have another child, not after the reality of what I was and what that would mean for those closest to me. The least we could do was protect him with everything we had—even if it meant abandoning him to people he barely knew in the process.
Living with his father’s family was far better than dying alongside me in this stupid, foolish duty that I couldn’t seem to escape.
“I wouldn’t leave you if I had a choice. Please believe that,” I said, taking his hands in mine. I squeezed them tightly, and I knew from the tears pooling in his eyes that he did. All his life, he’d been my entire world. He’d been the one my mother used to motivate me to practice the magic that felt so distant at first.
The promise of protecting him was all I needed to know to believe that it was worth it.
“So come with me,” he said, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip. “My dad will take care of you until you find a new job. You know he will.”
He would. Ash’s father wasn’t like mine. He was good and patient, loving and warm. He was everything a father should have been, and it was only due to our mother’s need for secrecy that he hadn’t been able to spend more time with his son.
But he couldn’t protect me against what was coming, and worse yet, he couldn’t protect Ash from the danger of being at my side when it did.
“It isn’t that easy, Bug,” I said, the term of endearment I hadn’t used in months rolling off my tongue. It was the name Mom called him, but her illness had taken her ability to speak in the end.
Using it without her had seemed wrong.
Mom’s coat seemed to sway on the rack as if a phantom breeze passed through the house, sending a chill up my spine. A reminder of how impossible it would be for me to go with him.
“It could be. Just promise me. Promise me that no matter where we go, we’ll go together,” he said, burrowing further into my chest. I pulled him tighter, swallowing past the burn in my throat and resisting the urge to sniffle.
I did the one thing I’d sworn never to do.
“I promise, Bug,” I said, squeezing him tighter.
I lied.
2
GRAY
I rolled my neck to the side as I entered the Tribunal, casting my gaze around the circle. To either side of the dais where the Covenant waited, six witches sat in their colored ceremonial robes.
“Two summons in as many months. What has made me so fortunate to be deemed worthy of your presence this time, Covenant?” I asked, waving my arm in a mocking flourish as I bent at the waist.
“Careful, Alaric. While we find you entertaining most days, even our patience wears thin,” Susannah warned.
I shrugged, looking at the witches, who watched me in disapproval. “I wasn’t aware you could feel at all.”
Susannah raised a bony hand to touch her face, running it over her skull as she swept back her hood to reveal the worst of her irritation. It was so difficult to determine a being’s moods when they didn’t even have skin.
There were no rolled eyes, no twitches in the cheek or pursed lips. Deciphering the Covenant’s moods had become something of a game for me in the centuries I’d spent trapped in this half-mortal flesh alongside them.
“We have one last student to collect before classes begin in two days’ time,” George said, helpfully navigating away from my enjoyment of tormenting those who would rid the world of me if they could. Fortunately for me, they lacked the power necessary and would be stuck in this eternal misery with me.