The Coven (Coven of Bones, #1)(22)

“You have no idea,” I said, raising my brows at him. If he knew, he’d encourage the Covenant to kill me and be done with it. Last of the Madizza line or not.

The doors to the Tribunal rooms parted, iron spreading wide as we approached. He guided me through. The dark of the hallways seemed to penetrate everything, surrounding me completely. Only in that courtyard did the moon seem to shine, illuminating the dying ivy and rose bushes attempting to scale the building, even though they were nothing but withered husks of something that had once been beautiful.

“What happened to the plants?” I asked, stopping beside one of the open windows.

The air outside was cool, the night air of Massachusetts in September drifting through. There were no windowpanes on this side of the corridor, and I could smell the damp earth of the soil from which the plants should have grown. While the Madizza line might have fizzled out for a few decades, the Brays should have been more than enough to maintain the balance of nature.

It shouldn’t have required much effort at all, as the earth was fully capable of thriving without us in all other parts of the world.

“No one knows. The magic here isn’t as potent as it used to be,” Iban answered, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. He frowned at the dying plants in the courtyard as I paused my steps. He kept walking a few paces, his arm slipping off the small of my back. Without our audience, I allowed the touch to fade away without encouragement.

He’d served his purpose for the moment.

Turning fully toward the courtyard, I sat on the window ledge and swung my legs over. Sliding across the stone beneath the arched window, I dropped into the courtyard itself.

“Your room is this way,” Iban said.

I didn’t look at him as I strolled toward the trellis and the ivy there.

“It will still be there in a few moments,” I called.

Even the trellis itself was aging, uncared for and neglected. I wondered if it had to do with the closing of the school, if they’d stopped caring for the grounds during the fifty years since students had roamed these halls.

I reached up a single hand, running my finger over a single dried, dead leaf of ivy. It crumbled to pieces, falling from the vine and dropping to the ground at my feet in bits. My brow furrowed as the vine swayed toward me, as if it was starving for life of any kind. I allowed it to wrap around my finger, squeezing as if it could drink my magic down.

“When was the last time someone made an offering?” I asked, my finger slipping through the vine as I knelt before it. My hands touched the dry, infertile earth, watching as it sifted through my fingers. New England soil was fertile; it was potent for growth and sustaining life.

This was anything but natural.

“Offerings are forbidden by the Coven,” Iban answered, crossing his arms over his chest as I stood.

I gaped at him, my mouth opening and closing as I shook my head in disbelief.

“Forbidden,” I repeated, hurrying through the motions as I shrugged my sweater off.

My arms were bare beneath it, the crisp air cool against my skin. Iban ran a muscled hand through his well-groomed and tousled sandy brown hair, his jaw clenching beneath the short beard that framed his oval face. He sank his teeth into his bottom lip as his green eyes widened, staring at the tattoos that covered my right forearm. The black outline of flowers with some delicate white shading within curved up to my elbow where there was a gap before the dahlia flower covered my shoulder and biceps, curving up to the side of my neck and reaching down beneath the fabric of my tank top to cover the side of my breast.

I reached up with my bare hands, touching both of them to the brittle vines that hungered for replenishment. It wasn’t about needing magic to keep them alive. It was about them needing to receive back a portion of what had been taken from them.

The vines wrapped around my fingers, creaking as they extended to cover my hands. There was a caution within the movement that horrified me, as if the plant itself was struck in disbelief that anyone could want to give rather than take.

“Accipere,” I murmured, pressing my hand more firmly and encouraging the vines to take what they needed.

They slowly stretched farther up my arms, wrapping around my skin and twining around the tattoo of flowers. They stopped when they reached my elbow, shifting their energy from spreading to squeezing.

I gasped as they tightened painfully, my skin bulging around the spots where the vines touched.

“Willow,” Iban said, stepping toward me.

“Don’t,” I said when the vines retracted slightly.

He didn’t touch me as I let my eyes drift closed. My skin broke in the places the plant touched me, blood seeping out along the edges as tiny barbs sank into me. The moment the vines drew blood, the tang of magic filled the air. It was metallic and earthy, with the scent of flowers and pine needles lingering. The vines shuddered with each drink, with each pull as they fed what they had been denied.

What was theirs to begin with.

“Blood magic is forbidden. If the Covenant discovers what you’re doing—” Iban protested.

My eyes fly open.

“What are they going to do? Expel me?” I asked with a harsh laugh.

All of us knew I would willingly leave if given the choice, but that choice had been taken from me before I’d even been born. There was only one purpose to my birth, to my existence.

The Covenant was too stupid to recognize the viper waiting in the flowers, prepared to strike at this first opportunity.