I scrambled up before Celestine could attack again and hurled a blanket of magic at her with all my strength. It slammed tight around her, pinning her arms to her sides and her magic back inside her chest to smolder with her spark. She froze inplace.
Celestine’s gaze smoldered too as I walked up to her. My chest squeezed with my ragged breaths, and not just from theeffort.
I didn’t know if she was telling the truth. But even as my heart ached at the thought that Dad might have orchestrated this scheme, I couldn’t rush ahead blindly. I’d gotten this far, protected myself this much, by waiting and watching until I understood. What if Ididturn her over to him, and he only turned on me? What if I brought her all the way to the Assembly and came home to find him waiting with some other trap I wouldn’t see intime?
I could get my own sort of retribution. And I could make sure Celestine never interfered with my lifeagain.
“These are my conditions,” I said to my stepmother, pressing every ounce of power I had into the words. Pressing those words into her, into her mind, into her will. A blunt hammering, an illegal magicking—but she was the one who’d crossed that linefirst.
“You will gather your things and go within the hour. You will not speak—no, you will not communicate in any way about me or my family to anyone. You will not communicatetoanyone from this household or come within a hundred miles of it or anywhere else my father or I might be, unless I allow it.Do youagree?”
Her eyes narrowed, but I wasn’t giving her a choice. Shenodded.
“Say it,” I demanded. “Show me that you meanit.”
I didn’t need to explain what I wanted more than that. She spoke with a thready voice that carried a hum of magic. As binding as the contract she’dsigned.
“I, Celestine Hallowell, will leave this estate in the next hour. I will not convey any information about you or your family to anyone. I will not communicate with anyone from this household or come within a hundred miles of your properties or where you or your father travel without your permission. Iagree.”
She grimaced. “I wouldn’t want to anyway,” she added in her usual voice. “Not when I know how angry your father is going to be when he finds out what a catastrophe this has turned into. You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if he would have made me swear the same thing and banished me just as quickly. Like father, likedaughter?”
The words were sneering, but her chin wobbled, just for a second. Her eyes twitched when I studied her. And in that second I believed her a little more than I wantedto.
“You’re afraid of him,” I said. “With all yourmagic—”
“There are forces other than magic in this world, Rosalind,” my stepmother said. Her stance had started to deflate, her shoulders sagging. “You’ll find that out soon enough. Now will you release me? My hour ispassing.”
She didn’t look like the powerful, haughty witch I’d always seen her as anymore. She looked like a sad, beatenwoman.
My stomach churned. “Go on,” I said, motioning to dispel the magic holding her. “Don’t forget you’re not allowed to speak to anyone. And I want my phoneback.”
Celestine bowed her head and slunk out the door. I followed her into the hall, watching to make sure she went to her room. She emerged a moment later to give me the prepaid phone she’d taken. Then she ducked back in. A suitcase thumped onto the bed. Clothes hangersclinked.
I’d put everything I had into that last, psychological binding. My spark still danced in my chest, but the roar of its earlier fire had dimmed. I’d needed to be sure that the magic I’d woven with hers to bind her to the oath would last for a long, longtime.
Derek must be out by the garden, waiting. Well, he could stay there until he gave up. I expected he’d wait until well after Celestine left, but even if he saw her, she wouldn’t be able to tell him where she was going or why. Let him wonder if it came tothat.
I’d thought I was going to go back to my bedroom and pretend nothing had happened that involved me. But my feet carried me in the other direction, to the office Dad kept here in themanor.
I stood outside the door for a long moment. Then I flicked my fingers by the knob to release the lock with mymagic.
The office was the same as I remembered it from my childhood: the tall shelves packed with books and charts, the big mahogany desk, the looming leather armchair. The smell of polished wood and black licorice, from the candies Dad liked to chew on when he was thinking an issuethrough.
How many nights had I slipped in here when I was little, before Celestine, before even my boys, to curl up on his lap and beg him away from hiswork?
He’d always come. No matter what else he’d been doing, he’d always come when I’d asked him. He’d always been there for me.My littlelamb.
My fingers dug into my pocket as I approached the desk. Dad had taken his laptop with him on his trip, but the printer sat in its usual station in the corner. I laid the contract on the desk, unfolded it flat, and tugged open the printer’s paperdrawer.
The page I drew out felt exactly the same to my fingertips as the paper the contract was written on. I set it right beside. The ache inside me spread right through myribcage.
The color was the same. The faint texturing of the fibers—Real paper shouldn’t be smooth as plastic, I’d heard him say more than once.It should look like what itis.
The paper didn’t mean anything. Celestine could have stolen it as easily as I’d taken this page rightnow.
But I stood there studying them for long enough that my head started to ache too. And when I left the room, I didn’t have any more answers than I’d come inwith.
Chapter Thirty-Two