Of how horrible it had once seemed.
“Goodnight, Miss Madizza,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets as if he didn’t know what to do with them.
I swallowed, clamping my mouth shut as I nodded. “Goodnight, Gray,” I murmured, the words soft enough that a human wouldn’t have heard them. My cheeks warmed as I chewed on the inside of my lip.
Thorne froze, his head tilting to the side slightly as he held my gaze for a moment. He nodded once, pressing a hand to Iban’s shoulders as he stood looking between us as if he was dumbfounded.
Thorne—Gray, I forced myself to correct even my thoughts—nodded once.
Then they were both gone.
12
GRAY
My nights were always restless.
I wandered the halls of Hollow’s Grove, choosing to forgo the offer of nighttime companionship from one of the female Vessels who had warmed my bed in the past. Gemma had done nothing to deserve the angry response she’d gotten when she made herself available tonight, but that hadn’t stopped me from flinching away from her touch.
Even hours later, my reaction infuriated me. The girl was nothing. Just another witch who would soon be groomed into whatever the Coven wanted her to be, with a heart filled with nothing but hatred for my kind. The witches made me feel nothing but gratitude for the fact that I did not possess a mass of beating flesh within my chest.
Better to not have one at all, then to have one that rotted beneath my skin.
But it had been decades since someone arrived in Crystal Hollow, looked the Covenant in the face, and defied them at every turn. She was obstinate and difficult, rude and ill-tempered.
But as I stared at the trellis where her magic had brought the courtyard back to life, there was no doubting one truth.
The witchling had gotten under my skin.
Life had spread from those vines, rippling across the courtyard in the hours since I’d delivered her to her bed. The rose bushes pulsed with life, fresh buds appearing from the vivid, green leaves and sharp, pointed thorns. Where before everything had been nothing but the ghost of a reminder of what had once been, now the courtyard thrummed with life. With vibrancy that had been missing from the Coven for a very, very long time.
My hands clenched at my sides as I turned away from the sight of what she had given. The Coven didn’t deserve the sacrifice she was willing to make to bring the land they’d used and abused back to life. Susannah and George had led the witches away from everything that had once motivated them, sinking further and further into the selfishness that drove the politics within the families.
The good of witchkind didn’t matter to them any longer, when it had been all the original families cared about in the beginning. We’d built this town, sheltered it from the fearful humans of Salem in order to protect the magic Lucifer had granted to the witches for their agreement to serve him.
The doors to the Tribunal rooms glowed with golden light as I turned my back on them, heading for the stairs to the student dormitories. It wouldn’t be long before the first Reaping would be upon us, and I would move through the dormitories along with the other Vessels, taking my pick of witches for the night.
I took the stairs quickly, luxuriating in the empty halls. It was so rare that this school was not bustling with activity, where staff and students alike didn’t mingle and get to know one another while they prepared for the coming school year. With classes beginning the next day, at this late hour, they’d all retired to their rooms to rest.
I pulled my copy of the key to Willow’s room from my pocket, turning it in the lock quietly and stepping into the darkened room. The moon and stars shone in the sole window at the other end of the common room, the massive circle off-center thanks to the fireplace that lingered in the corner opposite to Willow’s door.
The knob to her door turned easily as I pushed it open, stepping into the darkened room. She hadn’t bothered to pull the curtains closed before she lay down on top of the bedding. In her exhaustion, she hadn’t even changed her clothing into the set of sleep shorts and tank top I’d arranged for Juliet to bring to her room as soon as we’d arrived.
Her sweater was tossed over the end of the bed, leaving her in nothing but a tank top and a pair of jeans that looked horribly uncomfortable to sleep in. I strode to her side, where she slumbered peacefully in the center of the bed. Her head was tipped slightly to the side where I stood, giving me time to study the soft lines of her face.
The edge of her personality was gone in her rest, her sharp thorny words and scathing looks missing. It made her look younger somehow, less hardened by a life in hiding. I didn’t understand why I’d come to her room, having never violated the privacy of a student’s dorm in the past. While I didn’t need to be invited into any place within the school, given my name was one of those on the documents of legal ownership, handling the school was a delicate dance of balance.
My alliance with the witches could tolerate barbed comments and passive hatred. Sneaking into their rooms at night would be a different story.
Yet here I stood, at the bedside of the granddaughter of Susannah Madizza, of all people. I lowered myself to the bed, perching on the edge carefully. Willow didn’t stir, her breathing and heartbeat remaining steady and slow.
Reaching out with a single hand, I brushed a line across her cheek that was marred by the faintest trail of her dried blood. The scent of it was a distraction I didn’t need, a temptation driving me to do things I hadn’t intended when I’d come here.
I didn’t know what I’d intended by coming here.
The old evidence of what remained on her arms and hands was the only indication that she’d used the forbidden magics, that she was aware of the innate power of witch’s blood. Her mother hadn’t practiced the old ways when she’d lived in Crystal Hollow. Flora had been raised by her mother with Susannah’s constant input and interference until her mother died. It was on that night that she’d faked her own death, escaping the possibility of having Susannah as her sole guardian even though she’d been a teenager.
I hadn’t known her well. Hadn’t known any of the fledgling witches at the time, with Hollow’s Grove already having closed down after the massacre six years prior. My interactions with them had been as limited as possible to begin with, and she hadn’t even come of age when she’d left.