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The witches that I had spoken to at Miss Brodeur’s burial gave me directions as to how to find the cave they told me to meet them at.
Did I remember those directions, though? Kind of.
I knew somewhat where it was, but I wasn’t totally positive that I had the exact directions down pat. I knew that I should’ve listened more closely or even written them down as soon as I could - Jade lectured me pretty much the entire way to the cave about it. My memory was awful anyway, especially awful when trying to remember directions, but the only thing that really mattered was that we eventually found the place and that we didn’t get caught wandering around town cluelessly.
The others (“others” meaning mostly those that went by the name of Jade Porter) felt several types of ways about the whole cave thing and they weren’t scared to let me know about those opinions either. I really don’t know what they wanted me to do about it, but I guess it was fine.
The cave was decently sized and had stalactites everywhere. There was one cluster hanging in the center of the cave that looked almost identical to the chandelier in the coven meeting hall. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of it falling on us, but the other witches didn’t seem worried at all, so I decided to just keep my mouth shut.
“Priamos speaks first,” one of the female witches decided as she watched us all enter. I recognized her as the first witch that I spoke to at the cemetery. I still didn’t know her name, though.
Priamos nodded a little and made his way to the front of the cave and began to speak. Tempest remained close to the rest of us, especially me. I could feel him shaking and hear his breath starting to quicken as we went through the list of people that were supposed to speak.
I did what I could to keep him calm, but I was no Priamos Livingston. I didn’t know the ins and outs of how Tempest ticked. I don’t think anyone did except for Priamos.
Our speeches went as perfect as any of us could hope for, that didn’t stop the other witches from turning and looking at Tempest when his turn came, though. I was starting to get the feeling that they only wanted Tempest to speak so that they could have an excuse to decide to not try to take down Serena. I was just hoping that I was wrong.
“He looks like he’s going to be sick,” Jade commented in a hushed tone, looming over my shoulder as she watched him slowly make his way up to the front of the cave.
I knew for certain that Tempest had at least some feelings for Jade, but... was it possible that Jade was developing feelings for him? Maybe she was just worried about him.
That aside, though, I was genuinely worried about Tempest, too. He looked terrified and I’d never seen him like this. At least, not to this degree. I looked over at Priamos.
“Is this normal for him?” I whispered. I didn’t think it was, but there was no harm in asking the Tempest Livingston expert just in case.
Priamos shook his head solemnly, “No, he’s never been this bad. I think he’s worked himself up way too much,” he whispered back.
“Oh, great... that’s comforting...” I mumbled.
“He’ll be fine... hopefully,” Nadia replied softly.
I watched Tempest, listening to his speech. I wanted Nadia to be right, but she wasn’t. He was far from fine. He was stumbling over his words, stuttering almost every word that he didn’t stumble over, and he had to be asked to speak up more times than I could’ve been bothered counting.
When he was finally done, Tempest took off out of the cave and I watched as Jade and Nadia ran after him with Priamos going to follow suit. I wanted to go, too but was stopped by one of the witches as they called Priamos and me back.
“You’ve got it,” the witch told us with a nod.
I raised my eyebrow, “Got what, exactly?”
I thought I knew the answer, but I learned a long time ago that it was better not to assume things.
“You’ve got our support. We’ll help you take Serena down,” the witch clarified, “For now, you should probably go get your friend, but we’ll reach out to you all later so you can tell us what you want us to do.”
Well, then. That went better than I expected.
Not that I was complaining.