Page 14 of Redhaven
This conversation feels too dangerous to have. Lachlan isn’t registered anywhere as Harper’s father, but the clues are in both their faces. If that connection is made, the Moot is going to start asking questions about her too, because the chances of our child not being magical suddenly plummet. Not to mention that not long ago I practically packed her sandwiches and waved her off to be with her dad. I don’t want to lie to Naomi. I must measure out my truth as carefully as potion ingredients.
‘I encountered Lachlan Frey years ago,’ I tell her. ‘Our paths crossed when I was doing my Wandering and he was intrigued to meet a Fenn. He came to Sanctuary to find me, because I had something he wanted to see.’
Our daughter. I don’t allow myself even to think it. I’m about to sayOur Starcrosswhen I remember I told Naomi I don’t have one of those either.
‘There are some texts that have been in my family a long time,’ I offer. ‘He’s a scholar – at least that’s what he told me.’
Naomi nods. ‘Figures. Restricted areas of the Moot archives are among those he was given access to after his binding. There’s a lot Frey has read that would be extremely dangerous if he was still in possession of his powers. But you never saw him perform magic?’
‘No.’
It’s only the truth.
‘I have to go,’ I tell her. ‘But please keep in touch. Okoye and your boss are going to realise pretty soon that they’re handling this wrong. I’m ready to help when they do.’
Yamakawa sets her hand to the door. ‘Take care, Sarah. I and plenty of others here appreciate you coming today. TheFenns are still a name to be reckoned with in our community.’
A name to be reckoned with.Back home that night, I sit in the kitchen in my rocking chair, Aira pooled softly in my lap. My fingers curl around the armrests like I’m trying to hold Pierre’s hands – or the ghost of them. I run through the names and dates of Determination of all the bygone Fenns in the front of our Starcross. It doesn’t matter that Harper has the grimoire; I know them as well as I know my own name.
Redhaven was supposedly destroyed the year after the Civil War ended, in 1866. There were two magical Fenns of my direct family line alive at the time: Elora, Determined in 1804, and her granddaughter Susanna, Determined in 1847. If each was in her early teens when their rituals were performed, then at the time Redhaven disappeared Elora would have been in her mid seventies, and Susanna her early-to-mid thirties. Either could have been Redhaven’s founder, though Elora is the most likely.
I search my memory for anything I know of her, but it’s not much. I’ve no pictures of either Elora or Susanna – witches aren’t a fan of photography generally, even when not running illegal covens on a remote homestead. We know about the power of likenesses. It’s one more reason Registration is so sinister. Every witch in the country is now captured through blood, through fingerprint, and through photos from every angle.
Aira yowls in complaint as I smack the chair with frustration. Why am I wasting my time with this? Am I looking for distraction, to keep me from realising how alone I am? No Harper. No Pierre. No Bridget. No memories that aren’t too painful to sit with. Contrite, I pet my familiar with hands that would otherwise throw things and smash things.
What else can I find for them to do?
16
MAGGIE
I haven’t seen Luka Ortiz since that night in the woods four months ago, when bullets from my gun took him down in the shoulder and leg. My palms still sweat thinking about it. Sure, I’ve spent hours in the shooting range. Earned my certificates. Even won a few medals in our cop fraternity competitions. But that night I had to save a life – Bea Garcia, hanging from a tree, her blood dripping into a silver bowl – by putting out of action the boy who’d done it to her, without endangeringhislife. A few inches either way and I could have gotten Ortiz’s carotid artery in his neck, or nicked the femoral artery in his thigh, and we’d be in a whole different world where I was the one in the dock.
But my aim was true, and today it’s him in the pen. He’s been under house arrest at his mom’s main residence in a swanky Harrisburg suburb since bail was granted, tagged and forbidden to leave the grounds. He finished up his second semester at Cawden remotely. Today is the first day of his pretrial hearing and as the arresting officer, I’m required to be present in case the lawyers have any questions for me.
Ortiz was a good-looking kid. Still is, though he looks a little less preppy than in the beforetimes. There are shadows beneath his eyes, and his hair has grown out longer. His looks have already earned him quite a fan club on socialmedia, thanks to those early snatched pictures when he was in hospital recovering from my bullets. The fact it’s another witchcraft case only adds glamour. Luka is watching the judge earnestly while his lawyers and the prosecution debate the technicalities of scheduling and jury selection.
Even now, I don’t know if he’s victim or perpetrator, and that makes me itchy under my skin. I’m certain it was his hand that cut Bea Garcia and hoisted her high. And I know DI Theo has been building the forensic evidence linking Luka to the previous two Bittershore crimes. But what of the case his mom’s advancing that he was under some kind of magical control? Can witchcraft do that – manipulate people like puppets? I think of Naomi Yamakawa and her creepy little doll. The one she simply rubbed and made my back-ache go away. That was benign. But the idea that witches can simply …work on youlike that, without any physical contact, without words or visible spells or sigils. Yeah, it’s unnerving. Is that what happened to Luka? Someone fucked with his magic –usedhim – to damage his mom?
Which is when I realise Sandra Ortiz isn’t here. That’s strange. Sure, she’s been busy lately with her heartless legislation. But to not be here for her son? Is she that concerned about her own image?
‘Has your client anything he’d like to add before we conclude?’ the judge asks Luka’s attorney.
And even as she replies, ‘No’, Ortiz is rising with an, ‘If I may, Your Honour?’
His lawyer frowns, but everyone else in the courtroom perks up. There’s been little so far for the journalists packing the press box to report on.
‘I would like to say …’ His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows nervously, and Luka’s cuffed hands must move together to sweep his floppy hair from his face, but the young manholds his chin high. ‘I am no longer ashamed to be magical. I am innocent of the crimes of which I’m accused, because another witch used me. I’m no more guilty than a gun in a perpetrator’s hand. But if there wasn’t such fear and resentment of witches, whipped up by those who persecute them, I could have explored my magical heritage without shame and not fallen victim like this.’
The judge looks as startled as I feel. And the press box? The press box goesnuts.
Because we all know who’s doing the mostwhipping up of fear and resentment of witches.
Luka’s mom – Sandra Ortiz.
17
REDDIT – r/lukaortiz
