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“I am not bait.” I took a deep breath, and looked at the members of the Congress. None of them, save Illana, looked particularly intimidating. “And this is the last time you’ll use any of us like that.” Someone had to stand up. Someone had to put this to an end.
They’d brought us here, hoping we’d draw out their warlock. Hoping that maybe, just maybe, the warlock would take care of the Moonset problem for them. And if not, well, we could both be painted with the same brush. The whispers once again picked up around the table, from smug whispers of “how inappropriate” to more scandalized “of course it was them.” Everyone around the table had an opinion, it seemed. That’s when I knew for certain.
The Invisible Congress. Made up of the leaders of the Great Covens and a few token
Solitaires. They pulled at our strings and toyed with our lives. I looked down at Jenna, who was looking back up at me like we’d never seen each other before.
“Young man, should you choose to interrupt me again, I will have you bound and gagged,”
Quinn’s grandfather said, taking to his feet. We stood across the table from each other. I swallowed. “We’re all well aware of your need for dramatics,” he said, waving his hand in a way that included the two of us. “And I won’t tolerate it this evening. You lost your rights the moment you consorted with the Abyss.”
“Calm yourself, Robert,” Illana said, placing her hand on his arm. “Remember, we’re not at war any longer.”
The rotund, sweating man seated on the other side of Robert cleared his throat. “Are we sure that both of them are involved with the Denton boy? Their files indicate the girl is a risk, but hardly the boy.”
Robert looked to his left, pitching his voice for his grandson. “Bring the girl in.”
I followed Quinn with my eyes until he went to the door, and then I turned to watch as he disappeared across the hall. A few moments later he returned with Ash following behind.
There was soot covering her face. I could see rips in her shirt underneath the too-large jacket she was wearing, and her hair was a mess, but she looked otherwise unhurt.
“You can stand with Quinn,” Illana said, not altogether unkindly to her. But Ash didn’t move.
Jenna’s fingernails clawed into my wrist all of a sudden. I jumped, trying to pull my arm away, but she held fast. Her attention never left Robert. Her point was obvious— stare at your girlfriend later.
“The evidence is clear,” Robert continued. “The Moonset children may not have initiated the influx of dark magic into our world these last few months, but their involvement cannot be denied. If Ashen Farrer hadn’t invoked the spellform that saved their lives, who knows what would have happened?”
I glanced at Ash, who was still standing near the door, her eyes uncertainly moving around the table. She realizes there’s more to this, too.
“How did she learn a spellform at such a young age?” one of the ladies across the table asked, leaning forward in her seat. “There have been no applications on file with her name on them.”
Ash opened her mouth, but as it turned out, no one really cared to hear what she had to say.
The sweating man shifted in his seat, his hands steepled in front of him. “I could not presume,” he said loftily. “My boys would never violate the law like that.”
“You handle the training of spellforms,” the woman accused the sweating man. “How else would she have learned if not from one of your trainers?”
“Ash didn’t invoke that spell,” I interjected. “At least not by herself. I was the one who finished it. Not her.” In that moment, our eyes met, and Ash took a step forward. A step towards Jenna and I.
“You weren’t brought here to speak,” Robert said, coming to his feet again. “And I will not tolerate it any longer.”
“Point of order,” Quinn interjected, stepping forward again. “But the law states that Coven leaders have the right to speak before the Congress.”
“Oh, you can’t mean,” Robert sputtered. “That’s preposterous.”
“It’s well documented that the children are bound into a coven,” Illana murmured. “Although they are still Moonset’s offspring.” Her lips twisted in distaste.
“They are infants,” Robert argued. “Neophytes.”
“The law is the law,” I said slowly. It was something that I’d believed in wholly before tonight, and the one thing our parents had never believed. To them, the world demanded revolution. “I am a coven leader, the same as many of you. And if we’re to be charged with aiding a warlock, then I lay the same charge.”
The room erupted into loud chatter, but I raised my voice and pointed. “At Robert Cooper.”
Thirty
“There was something disturbing about the five of them. They would look at you with these eyes … like they knew what we’d done.
And then there were the spells. Simple magics went haywire around them. Miranda
Abbot suggested euthanasia, and was struck down by some sort of seizure. Those babies … those children of Moonset … they’re a threat.”
Nicholas Stone (C: Eventide) Official Report
This meeting, or trial, or whatever it was, was a farce. Cooper wanted us out of the way—and he’d break the law to do it. But thanks to all the reading I’d done for Quinn, I knew that a charge of invoking the black arts couldn’t be ignored. So long as it was made by a coven leader. Now all those papers make sense. He wanted me to be prepared.
All conversation died. Every pair of eyes in the room was locked onto me, and not a single one of them was anything less than dumbfounded. Especially not my target.
“This is preposterous,” he sputtered. “We don’t have to listen to this.”
“Yes, you do.” I realized what they must see when they looked at me—the spitting image of
Sherrod Daggett, calling them to account. “You brought us here, hoping that a myth named
Cullen Bridger would come after us. He came close to catching us once. I made the same mistake you did—I assumed Bridger was the warlock here, but it was just a kid that no one cared about.”
Robert’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you, to make such baseless accusations?”
I didn’t back down. I raised my chin, and met his glare with one of my own. “I am the son of
Sherrod Daggett.” Gasps around the table.
Over a dozen faces were staring up at me, most of them in fear. The room had grown so quiet I could almost hear a bead of sweat dripping down the sweating man’s temple. I looked to
Quinn, but his dark eyes were impassive. Even Illana’s face gave away nothing.
“But I am not my father. We are not our parents.”
The sentence hung in the air, and no one wanted to hear it. One by one they looked away from me, stopped meeting my eyes.
“You can’t keep punishing us for the things our parents did. And you can’t keep manipulating us in hopes that we’ll commit a crime more to your liking. In America, that’s called entrapment.”
“What does this have to do with your charge against Eventide?” one of the woman asked.
“I will not continue to be slandered like this,” Robert spat from the other side of the table.
“We will not humor your outbursts any further.”
“I think we will, darling,” Illana said coolly from his side. She turned and addressed the sweating man. “Alexander?”
“I, for one, would like to hear what the boy has to say,” Alexander said. “And I want to know where they learned the spellform they used tonight.”
Ash sank down in her seat a bit. I had a feeling that no matter what happened tonight, they weren’t just going to forget that she knew spells that she hadn’t been legally authorized to know.
“I … ” And then I faltered. This wasn’t like trying to convince a principal not to expel us. This was worse. “We can’t be held accountable for something we didn’t do, unless you hold him accountable for the things he did.”
“And what is that?” Alexander asked.
“He kept the children in their last home and waited until a wraith attacked before he pulled them out. He’s shown a consistent disregard for their lives and health, and each one of you already know it. My grandfather spearheaded the campaign to bring the children here, all under the excuse of seeing what the warlock would do,” Quinn said, both his hands behind his back.
“That’s a violation of the law.”
“Bringing us here set into motion whatever Luca was planning,” I added. “The Harbinger that died did so because of the Maleficia. Isn’t he responsible if he makes choices that cost others their lives?”
Quinn didn’t volunteer anything else, and everyone stared at me, waiting.
“Is that everything?” Alexander asked, his fingers steepled in front of him.
I swallowed. “I know that you’ve been lying. All of you. Moonset stopped one of the Abyssals here once, and you covered it up. It’s name was Kore, and everything that Luca did was because the other Abyssals wanted revenge. Which they might have gotten since you brought my family and me here.”
The earlier silence exploded outward, as a dozen of the most powerful witches left in the world were united in a growing din of questions, condemnations, and dismissals. What was most telling, however, was that not one of them was silent.
“ENOUGH!” Robert’s thundering voice boomed across the table, and cut through the commentary like a knife. “Enough,” he repeated, his voice growing quiet but still just as firm. His eyes beaded up from across the table, his earlier contempt replaced with a newly stoked rage.
“You know nothing,” he spat.
Illana stood up, her back like a steel spike. “The Prince led Moonset down the path to darkness,” she said stiffly.
“Then why does everyone say Robert Cooper and Eventide were the ones to kill her?” Ash demanded.
“Who told you all this?” Robert trumpeted in a moment of quiet. He looked strangely smug all of a sudden.
“Luca,” I replied automatically, my guard up. “Before he died.”
“Convenient,” he replied, dragging out the word. “Although the boy hasn’t died,” he said, clapping his hands together. There was an implicit “yet” at the end of his words.
“What? But you said—”
“We said that your family and the girl were unharmed,” Illana provided. “But Luca Denton’s condition is a bit more … contentious.”
“Another tragedy for that poor family,” one of the women near Illana said under her breath, pressing a handkerchief against her lips.
“I think we’ve heard enough,” Illana said. “It’s clear what must be done, for the safety of our families.”
“Finally, you come to your senses,” Robert muttered. I don’t think he meant for anyone else to hear him, but we all did. “Once we move past the boy’s baseless accusation, we can decide how to proceed with their sentencing.”
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