The Coven (Coven of Bones, #1)(45)

As if it meant a fucking thing to me. I’d burn it to ash before I allowed her to continue to corrupt the witches of Crystal Hollow.

“George, will you give me a moment alone with my granddaughter?” she asked.

The other member of the Covenant nodded, slipping through the doors to their private space within the school.

“You’re missing a few greats before that granddaughter,” I said, my lips twisting with disgust. There was no remorse upon her face, not even a hint of an apology for what she’d done to that witch.

For what she’d taken from her.

“It hardly matters when you and I are all that remain. We are not as distant as most in our circumstance would be,” she said, clasping her hands in front of her as she studied me.

“I am glad of that distance. It shames me to have any relation to you at all. What you’re doing—”

“Is for the good of the Coven,” she said, tipping her head to the side. It was eerie how her bones could convey so much emotion. If she had skin, I could just imagine her upper lip curling in disgust. “Something I would not expect someone your age to understand.”

“How could this be for the good of the Coven? The earth is dying around you, and you’re too stupid to see it! If that is happening to the earth, imagine what is happening to the crystals? To the stars and the air around us? All of those things need offerings. They need our bodies to be returned to them when we die. You’re weakening the very people Charlotte Hecate tasked you with protecting at all costs,” I said, snapping as my eyes burned with unshed tears.

As much as I hated to cry when I was sad, the rage cries were the absolute worst. They hinted at what I assumed some perceived as weakness, when all I wanted was to commit murder.

Her chest sagged as she took a step toward me. One of those boned hands raised, touching the side of my face and cupping my cheek in a moment of appalling affection.

“You are so young. You don’t understand the ways of the world yet, Willow. Let me guide you.”

I laughed, taking a step back. “I will never be like you. I won’t turn my back on the way magic is meant to be used the way you have.”

She let her hand drop, clasping it in front of her once again. “Without the Hecate line, the Vessels have far more power than they should. We have no way to kill them, while the witches of the Coven are very mortal. They live and they die, and as we saw with the young witch last night, they’re very capable of being murdered.”

“But what does that have to do with starving the source? What can you possibly hope to achieve by making the witches weaker?” I asked, my frustration rising as I stared at her.

“As we weaken, so do they. They feed on us. The source sustains their vessels, but they can’t access it directly. They can only touch the magic through our blood, Willow. If we no longer have that magic in our blood, then there is nothing to keep them alive,” she said, and her bones clacked together as she shifted her hands. Her jaw spread in what I thought was meant to be a smile.

“But we’ll no longer have magic,” I whispered, stumbling back a step as her words reached me, as they penetrated the haze of my anger.

“Some of us will. Vessels are forbidden from feeding on the Tribunal. They practice the old ways in secret, to keep the masses from accessing the source so efficiently. The Tribunal remains strong because they must, and when the time comes, we will bring in a new era of witches. We will make a new bargain if we must. One that does not involve those parasites who survive off our suffering,” she said, a note of wonder in her voice.

“And what happens to the rest of us when you strike that new bargain? We lose our magic?” I asked, throwing my hand to the side to gesture back to the main part of the school.

“You’ll be fine, Willow. You are part of this Tribunal even if you are not yet finished with your schooling. You, or your child, will be a part of the new age of witches,” she said, stepping forward to take my hands in hers. Her bones were rough from centuries of use, of being unprotected against the elements.

“This is why you’ve allowed your line to dwindle. All this time, you’ve known it doesn’t matter. One is enough for you, because it’s all you plan to take into your new world,” I said, the breath catching in my lungs.

“And you will continue in that tradition, giving birth to a single daughter so that you never have to know the pain of losing a child,” she said, pressing our hands forward. I shook out of her grip, flinching back when she touched the fabric of my shirt where it covered my stomach.

“I won’t have any part of this,” I whispered, taking a step away from her. “You’re going to kill them, aren’t you? Every last one of them. What is the point in educating them at all? Why bother?”

“Our people do not know these plans. If they were to discover them, all we would achieve is panic and rebellion. This school remains simply because it must,” she explained, turning and pacing around the circle. She walked around me, her stride slow and relaxed as she shifted her hands to her spine and rested them on the curve of her pelvis.

“You made a mistake telling me,” I explained, scoffing at her certainty that I wouldn’t tell everyone what I knew.

That I wouldn’t tell Gray.

We might have had a common goal in eliminating the Vessels, but I would never sacrifice an entire Coven to do it.