Page 27 of Endless Terrors
“If not now, then when, Your Majesty?” she asked. Her voice lowered. “I know the truth. You’re afraid to use the bond between you. You’re afraid you’ll hate yourself for it.”
Slowly, I lifted my head.
So this was why Finn and Gil had moved away—to give Lyari a chance to talk about Gwyn. All of them had been trying to convince me to contact the huntress for weeks. She was ancient, and if anyone knew the devil’s weaknesses, it would be her. And if she didn’t willingly provide the information, it would be easy enough to force it out of her. After all, Gwyn was still under my control.
A control I’d been waiting for Gwyn to challenge. So far, her side of the bond was quiet. I felt her testing our connection sometimes. Toying with it. Once in a while, it almost felt like she … caressed it.
Without fail, I thought of the promise she’d made. Her voice sounded in my mind as though I’d spoken to her only yesterday. Someday you will know what it is to choose between love and power. Someday you will be just like me.
“You’re wrong.” I met Lyari’s gaze, unflinching. “I’m afraid I’ll enjoy it.”
This time, she was the one who didn’t answer. With an abrupt movement, I set the book aside and pushed myself up. I followed Finn into the kitchen, where he was leaning against the counter and eating a bowl of yogurt. I shot him a half-hearted glare for participating in the Gwyn intervention. The werewolf’s bright eyes dropped, and he became wholly focused on stirring his precious little parfait. Coward.
“Would you like any coffee?” I called over my shoulder, glancing at Lyari.
“No. I don’t understand the humans’ obsession with it,” she said as I poured, her tone disdainful. “I’ve never had cat pee, but I suspect it would taste like coffee.”
I made a noncommittal sound, then took an obnoxiously loud sip, making Lyari cringe. I waited for her to glare at me, or make a barbed comment. That was our dynamic, and the foundation our friendship had been built upon. But Lyari just lowered her head and turned the page. I felt my eyes narrow.
Something is wrong, instinct whispered.
I suspected something had been wrong for a long time, not just since the night I’d killed Logan Boon and Lyari hadn’t come. The fact we still hadn’t talked about it wasn’t lost on me. She was avoiding it, which was just further proof that my instincts were right.
Before I could bring it up, Gil came back. He reeked of cigarette smoke and his fingers were still twitching. Ignoring the gentle nudge of concern I sent over our bond, he took another book from the stack and swung onto the loveseat, his long legs dangling off the armrest. Every time he shifted, the smoke clinging to his clothes gave off a faint scent. By that time, Finn had finished eating and returned to his spot, too. He kept making pointed huffing sounds, his nostrils flattening. I ignored them and kept reading.
The writer’s name was Goody Baldwin, and she was a witch.
In 1902, Goody was twenty years old. Amongst glittering New York society, it was expected that she marry soon, or be doomed to suffer every woman’s worst nightmare—singledom. To her father’s consternation, Goody had no interest in finding a husband, mostly because she was bad at talking to people. She was shy, and her interest in botany set her apart from others. Even the witches who ran in her social circles didn’t share her enthusiasm. They found Goody as strange as the humans did.
Chastity Baldwin was Goody’s only friend. She was Goody’s mother, and a powerful witch in her own right. She was the one to teach Goody about horticulture and give her a journal. If it had been up to the daughter, they would’ve spent every waking hour in their family’s greenhouse, performing magic and writing spells together, for the rest of time.
But there was a downside to their abilities, like with most creatures of power. While vampires battled bloodlust, and werewolves suffered agonizing pain with every shift, the Baldwin line was plagued by visions.
Mother is sick, diary, Goody wrote one day with a trembling hand. The visions have taken their toll. They come too often.
She was frantic to help, to ease her mother’s suffering, so she turned to magic once again. When she wasn’t at Chastity’s bedside, Goody was in their greenhouse. Tinkering, searching, reading. The Baldwin women were meticulous record-keepers and Chastity had collected generations’ worth of spellbooks.
But not even their knowledge could save her.
Chastity Baldwin died on August 6th, 1902. She was thirty-seven years old.
Goody’s loneliness consumed her. She began to dream of speaking to her mother again. Such bright, vivid dreams that Goody developed an obsession. Even her handwriting became more frantic. What if these dreams are a message from the beyond? What if there’s a way to see Mother again?
She had been taught, by her stern father, that every Fallen creature went to Hell after they died. Our ancestors committed the ultimate treason, he told her again and again. We can never go back to God’s world. Goody had heard it so often the lectures began to roll off her.
She decided that in order to speak to Chastity again, she needed to visit Hell.
Goody got to work in the greenhouse. She had a talent for creating spells, and often utilized her knowledge of growing things to enhance her magic. This particular conjuration evaded her, though. Goody had underestimated the complexity of such magic. After several months and countless failed attempts, she began to despair that she would ever be successful.
Then Goody discovered an old spellbook on her doorstep.
She assumed it was one of the other witches who’d left it there, someone who had guessed what she was trying to do. Perhaps I do have another friend, diary, she mused. There were components inside the grimoire that did assist Goody with her efforts. In a matter of days, she’d written a new spell.
And on the night she attempted it for the first time, it worked.
She opened a window, of sorts, between our worlds. The water was the most important part. Goody gazed into a porcelain bowl and prayed to see Chastity.
But it wasn’t her mother who appeared in the water’s reflection.
