She snickered even though I wasn’t trying to be funny. “You are amusing when you are not weird.”
“Thanks.” I pouted.
?
?Do not pout. We are all a little bit weird.”
“Really? Do you talk to ghosts? Or vanish into thin air? Or have a grimoire that likes to play tricks on people or show you horrid images?”
“Horrid images? No,” she said seriously. “My grimoire was more like a cookbook.”
“Wait? You had grimoire?” I stared at her, shocked.
She nodded, taking a seat on the stone railing of the back patio stairs. “To be a Noble Blood vampire, you must be a witch beforehand. And I was a witch.”
“And you did spells and stuff?”
“Yes, Druella, as witches are known to do. I was strong—not the strongest, but strong,” she mocked me. “I loved playing with magic. I often lit a fire with my finger or closed the door with a wave of a hand when I was alone in my home. I just loved the feel of magic though I tried not to do it often. To be a witch is dangerous, but it was perilous in Constantinople. I didn’t want to give up and not practice it at all, so I focused my craft on healing, potions for toothaches and headaches, some to ease birthing pains, others to prevent pregnancy altogether or to abort.”
“They did that back then? How far back was this?”
“I was born on April twenty-second, 1424, and reborn in March of 1453, a few months before the city fell.” She looked up to the sky. “And to answer your earlier question, a lot of things were done back then. Just secretly. The women of the city usually protected each other. One of my biggest selling potions was actually poison.”
“Poison to kill?” I asked.
The corner of her lips turned up. “Some would call it killing, but to me, it was healing, saving. Back then, there was no choice in who we married. It wasn’t all bad. But there were times women were given to men who were not always kind. There was no divorce, no way for a woman to free herself. A husband could beat her until she’d lost all of her teeth and broken every bone, and the elders would tell her, ‘Don’t make your husband so mad. Try to make him happy.’”
She rolled her eyes—hard.
“Is that what they told you?” I frowned. I couldn’t imagine her being in such a situation, but then again, what did any woman in that situation look like? It could be anyone.
“Luckily, no.” She smiled. “My husband was very sickly. He was decent but very dull—very dull. I was grateful at least we could find one thing a day to talk about. He passed naturally, though.”
It occurred to me at that moment if he was sickly, he was human. However, she was a witch who practiced healing? She didn’t save him? No, maybe he was too sick for her to heal. Magic can’t fix everything, right?
“I let him die,” she said bluntly, blowing the previous thought out of my mind. Seeing my face, she shrugged. “I could see you putting the dots together. I could have saved him with magic. However, great magic always costs something. I didn’t want to pay it—not for him. I didn’t want to get married. I was fourteen when my parents arranged everything. I had dreams, things I wanted to do and see. I wanted to be free. I had been Bayezid’s daughter. Then Orhan’s wife for fifteen long years. I just wanted to be Mahidevran. And the only way I would be allowed to be so is if I were a widow, so I let him die.”
“I bet your parents were not happy,” I replied.
“They had died the year before.” The way she said it—like, oh well—was a bit shocking.
She laughed. “Your face says a lot even when you are quiet.”
“Sorry.”
“No, it’s all right. I was one of thirteen children. I was not very close to my parents. They wanted me out as fast as possible. When my husband died, I was a widow with no children, and I had some business. So I was okay.”
“What happened to you?”
“Someone tipped off the local magistrate to my poisons. They stormed into my home and dragged me out, accusing me of witchcraft. But of course, I lied, and of course, they did not believe me, so I was found guilty.” She chuckled.
“Did they put you on trial?”
“Women did not get trials. We were given judgment,” she scoffed, annoyance in her eyes. “They told me they would be lenient if I confessed, but I did not believe them. And I was not going to be judged by them. So, I planned my escape. With a little bit of magic and help from some in my small coven, I managed to get out of the dungeons. I cut my hair and pretended to be a man in order to get on the next ship out of the city, and I almost made it, too. However, when I arrived at the port, I was seized.”
“How did they find you?”
“My coven leader, who helped me escape, told them.”