“I found the secret library a year before she died and I... couldn’t help myself from reading some of them,” she admitted. Her voice was small, like our mother was the one who caught her, and not us. “They were amazing. Such advanced spells and history. I didn’t take any from their library to begin with, but as Mother got sicker, I started to borrow them to read. To learn. To try and stop whatever illness was claiming her life.” She stopped, her throat working as emotions caught her. “I, uh, I wanted to save her.”
I continued. “Well, lucky she did, because pretty much all of our belongings vanished when Mother’s magic did,” I said, turning my eyes back to Bella. A swell of pride filled my chest. “But Bella had created a hidden... pocket in her skirts to hide things, and luckily for all of us it seems, she had a couple of Mother’s books on her when our house and lives were destroyed.”
Bella gripped the book to her chest.
“Yes, these are irreplaceable,” she said.
Tavlor stood up and walked over to Bella. “I agree with you,” he said, his voice gentle. “I haven’t heard of any such history books existing, anywhere. And if we can prove that the High Warlock was once only a member of Council, with no such restrictions as marriage or succession plan... we may have a way for Ava to be accepted as the High Warlock’s heir.” He turned to me, his eyes burning into mine. “That is what you want?”
My stomach twisted. Was that what I wanted?
No. I didn’t think I would be fit to be High Warlock, not when I had Bella as a sister.
“Yes,” I said. I gave Bella an encouraging smile so she understood I wanted this for her. “There’s no going back to a normal life now.”
It’s all or nothing.
They would either accept me as the heir and give me all the rights that went with it, or they would kill me. I couldn’t slip back into the realm as a simple teacher, and I wasn’t hiding in my mother’s realm for the rest of my life. I had to accept who I was now and who I was destined to become.
“And your sisters?” he asked, glancing at Courtney and Bella.
“What about us?” Courtney asked. She sounded defensive, but in a way that suggested she was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Are we going to the Council to ask for their pardons also?”
I shook my head. “No, no, no,” I said, turning to Tavlor. “The Council don’t know about them yet, and I don’t want them to. When the time is right, maybe. I just can’t risk anything happening to them.”
Courtney inhaled sharply as though to object. I knew what she was thinking because I would have been thinking the same thing if I was in her position.
“Not always,” I told her, wanting to reassure her. “I mean, just for now. What if we go to them, ask for a fair trial, and I’m executed on the spot?”
Bella gasped, her hands covering her lips. “Ava!” she exclaimed. “Don’t say that!”
I stifled a sigh. Courtney was generally the dramatic one, but every now and then, Bella did a decent job too. If she was going to start this, I needed to put a handle on it right away. There was a good chance Courtney and Bella’s emotions might feed off each other, and that was the last thing I wanted. Not when we all needed to focus, come together, and figure out what to do next.
“But it’s true.” I gestured to Tavlor. “Tell them.”
Both of my sisters turned to him, and his spine stiffened.
“Ava’s right,” he said. He shifted his weight. He still looked every inch the deadly Fae, but the way his eyes kept flicking between my sisters, made him seem uncertain as to what to expect. “The sentence has been determined. So, if they want to, they have the power to execute Ava the moment she is spotted in the magical realm. Or any realm, for that matter. She’d have to be taken back to the magic realm for them to enact her sentence, but she could be found by any bounty hunter in any realm.”
Courtney sagged against her armchair and Bella looked away as though she was hiding tears.
I rubbed my hands together. The last thing I wanted was them to be worried about me. And yet, I knew they were and they were trying to be strong.
I stood up and addressed my sisters. “I’m not trying to hide you,” I began. I had no idea what I wanted to say. I wished I could reach up and clutch my locket and hear my mother’s voice. For all of her faults, I knew without a doubt, she would know what to say to make everything better. “I’m trying to keep you safe. If I fail... then you can choose when you come into the magic realm and learn from my mistakes. Never tell anyone of your parentage. You think you’ll be safe. You think that might warrant you protection, but it won’t. It just means you’re a threat to everything they stand for and they’ll do anything they can to take you down.”
Bella wiped at her cheeks, I assumed to dispel the tears.
“And if you succeed?” Courtney asked, her voice cracking.
I looked at my sister, her blue eyes so hopeful. I couldn’t tell her that there was a good chance I wasn’t going to win this. But I couldn’t lie to her, either.
Instead, I forced a smile. “Then we will assess how safe it is to bring you into the realm and launch you on the world.”
“Promise?” she asked. Her voice was small, like she didn’t believe me. Like I was Mother. Except instead of slamming the door directly in her face, I was dangling a carrot in front of her.
I nodded. “I promise to do right by you,” I said, looking between my sisters. “Both of you.”
We shared a moment where my heart swelled and the magic of us whirled and gathered and strengthened, as it had done when we were kids. I closed my eyes, trying to memorize this moment, trying to hold onto it.