Chapter Two

Reunited

Gran leads the Hidden Folk through the kitchen and out of the back door, without asking a single question. I find that quite amazing; if I told my mother to do something, I would be hounded with a thousand follow-up demands, and then I’d be told not to give orders.

No one in the family questions Opal when it comes to the weird or witchy.

When Gran returns to the hall, I cannot stand it anymore. I run to the front door and fling it open
once again.

Three witches and my cousin Marley stand at the gate to the house.

Aunt Leanna. A healer who can make plants and flowers bloom.

Cassandra, my mum. Hard, tough, and capable of setting this entire house ablaze.

Then, Aunt Opal. Who can do anything.

I don’t look at them for long; I turn to my cousin. We’re the same age but that is probably all we have in common. Right at this moment, he looks dazed and a little afraid.

Which worries me.

“What’s happened?” I fire the words at them.

Leanna and Mum exchange a glance and there is hidden communication there. I can see through Glamour but I cannot read minds, and it needles me when the three of them have their secret conversations.

“Sirens. Portia.”

My gaze jerks to Marley. He was the one who said the words, clearly going against the wishes of his mum and mine.

“She’s here?” I ask. “In Scotland?”

“In Edinburgh,” Leanna says quietly. “We’ve been planning—I mean we always said if she came, we would have to leave.”

“But we’re just regrouping here, right?” I say, stepping back to let the four of them enter. “We’re going back to fight!”

All four adults turn to stare at me. Leanna looks worried, Gran and Mum look as if they are about to reprimand me and Opal’s face, as ever, is unreadable.

“I don’t know, Ramya,” Marley says. “She’s scary. Different.”

“I know, I’ve met her,” I snap. I feel instantly guilty when he flinches at my tone.

But I have met her.

I met her so many years ago. A party in our house, when I was small. She could put all the adults in the room under some strange sort of spell with her voice, even Mum and Dad.

But not me. I saw through her. Even if I couldn’t quite say what I was seeing.

*

We’re all sitting around the table. Marley is behaving himself and eating his stew. I can barely touch mine.

“We are going to stop her, right?”

I ask the question loudly, enough to startle Aunt Leanna out of a trance. Mum exhales and glances at me. “Don’t be silly.”

“What do you mean?” I look at all of them; none of them will look back. “Who knows what she’s going to do to—”

“There’s no point being hysterical or jumping to imaginary conclusions,” Mum interrupts me. “Best to just lay low.”

Gran gets up to leave the kitchen, but I’m too stunned at Mum’s words to take much notice. “Lay low? Because that worked so well last time. Letting Ren waltz in and almost kill—”

“Enough.”

I stare at Opal, who was the one who spoke the word softly but with great intention. “It’s true.”

“You don’t have to speak every opinion that you have, Ramya. Not everything is black and white.”

None of us have ever really spoken about what happened on Inchkeith Island. Aunt Leanna’s partner, and Marley’s would-be stepfather, was secretly a Siren. A magical creature that looked, sounded, and behaved like any other human. Except a Siren’s voice holds extreme power. They are deeply persuasive and influential and, if they are strong enough, they can make people do things that they do not want to do.

Ren abducted Marley and lured me to the island, and he probably would have killed me if Aunt Opal hadn’t arrived. She used her witchery to turn Ren
to stone.

Now, no one speaks of it. Even though it changed everything.

That was the night I discovered the true nature of my own magic. It was so much more than being able to see through Glamour. It was an affinity with water. The ability to move things without touching them.

Flying.

Opal says I’m not allowed to even attempt flying without her present. The whole thing is frustrating. I’m special. I’m different. I should be allowed to celebrate and bask in that glow, but the whole family wants me to be quiet and cautious.

And Hidden. Just like other magical creatures.

I don’t want to be hidden.

The phone in the kitchen rings shrilly, causing the adults to jump and start in their chairs. I get up and grab the old receiver and let out and exhale.

“Hello?” I say, grumpily.

“Hey, kid!”

I smile, despite the bad mood I’m determined to be in. “Hey, Dad. How’s London?”

“Oh, it’s…it’s fine. Listen, bub, your mum isn’t answering the landline at home, I was wondering—”

“Yeah, she’s here. So is Aunt Leanna.”

I hear him exhale in relief, while Mum gets to her feet and holds out her hand for the phone. I clutch it more tightly and shake my head at her. “And—”

“Can you put Mum on, Ramya? I need to tell her—”

“About Portia? Yeah, we know. She’s in Edinburgh.”

I can hear Dad’s shocked silence on the other end of the line and Mum starts clicking her fingers at me, which she knows I find enraging.

“Dad, they’re saying we all have to lay low. It’s not fair, I want—”

The phone suddenly flies out of my hands, and I spin around to watch it soar into Mum’s hands. I still have to get used to the fact that she is also a witch. She kept it from me for so long.

Her affinity is fire.

The opposite of mine.

“Hi,” she says stiffly into the receiver, fixing me with a cold look. “She’s fine, just overexcited.”

Aunt Leanna pulls me into her lap and gives me a squeeze. I don’t know if it’s her particular brand of witchcraft but some of the anger and tension releases out of me. She jiggles me until I roll my eyes and smile slightly. I look over at Marley and my smile slips as I see he is staring into space, completely expressionless.

“Marley?”

He glances at me. “Yeah?”

“Did you… did you see her?”

He doesn’t answer because he does not have to. His face tells it all. I don’t even need him to answer or explain.

I remember what it is that he’s feeling. It was years ago, when I saw her for the first and only time. I still remember it.

Mum finishes her conversation with Dad and hands the phone back to me. I get up from Leanna’s knee and take it. “Dad?”

“Hey, kid. Listen. Go easy on everyone, all right? I know you want to help—”

“I’m the only one immune to her,” I say fiercely. I catch Opal’s eye. “Well, one of two people immune to her.”

“I know. But you’re not grown. And Opal is still teaching you to control everything. So you’re where you need to be right now.”

I swallow the unfairness. It would also be unfair to tell Dad that, as he has no magic, he has no business telling me what to do with mine. I’m the one who is special. I’m the one this is all about. Therefore, I am the one who has to go out there and stop her.

“I’ll see you before Christmas,” he says.

“Fine,” I reply. “Bye for now.”

I hang up the phone before he does.

“I think,” Mum says loftily, holding open the kitchen door, “someone is overtired.”

“All right,” I say innocently. “You’d better get some rest then, Mum.”

She glares at me. I glare back. The fire in the hall crackles, we all hear it. The tea in Aunt Leanna’s cup vibrates and pulses, causing her to clutch the china.

Then the phone interrupts us all once again.

“He must have forgotten something,” Marley says.

I pick it up once more. “Hey, Dad. Did you—”

“Hello, sweetheart.”

My throat closes and my entire body chills. It’s not Dad’s voice. It’s a woman’s voice. A powerful voice. A voice full of ancient magic and cruelty. A voice that I last heard when I was really small and my grandfather was still alive.

“Portia.”