Dorathea and Sloane left the crime scene, walking down the hill, past the gravestones and police cars. Onyx was parked in the lot at the base of the hill. “We need to go back to Old Main,” Sloane said nervously, opening the passenger-side door. “Lore had a covenstead in her apartment. The RCMP investigators—”
“The Weardas have already disappeared Lore’s magical possessions. They also repaired the damage your battle caused inside the store.”
“All right. Good. That’s good. Did you see it? Did Rose and Quinn?”
“They did see the wreckage, but the Weardas will clear their memory of it.”
“But not until we destroy the Demon, right? Isn’t that what the GC agreed to?”
Dorathea waved her hand over Sloane’s leg, and a bandage appeared.
“Ow. Shit. That hurts worse.”
“Do try to be brave.” Dorathea drove Onyx out of the church’s parking lot. Her posture was erect, her carriage graceful. “The Grand Coven said they would allow us to retain our knowledge of the others until we’ve overcome the Demon.”
“But Rose and Quinn can help us.”
“Do you really want to put Rose in harm’s way, pet?”
Sloane fell silent. Her cousin was right. She didn’t want to put Rose in danger. But she also needed Rose to know the truth about her. She stared at Dorathea, her strong jawline and serene eyes. She’d heard and seen enough clues to know why her cousin had remained in Denwick, had never had a daughter to take over her position, and had relinquished her seat on the Grand Coven.
“Is that why you won’t allow Freya to live with you at the hobbit house? To keep her safe?”
Dorathea’s reaction was faint and fleeting. The same look of loss Sloane had seen in her cousin’s eyes earlier. It was the loss of a life she wanted but couldn’t have.
“Freya and I have been together long enough to know being apart matters not.” She frowned. “But I would much rather we lived together.”
“I’m sorry about that.” Sloane looked out the passenger-side window, wondering how much of Dorathea’s situation was Jane’s doing and now hers.
“Do you want to tell me what happened in the crypt?” Dorothea asked.
Sloane turned back, unable to meet her cousin’s gaze. “How about when we get back to the cottage?”
When they arrived, Dorathea waved the front doors open and helped Sloane inside. For the first time, the Wests’ home felt familiar and comfortable. The roaring fire in the hearth warmed Sloane’s face. She breathed in soothing scents of pine and cinnamon. “Did you start the fire?”
“Yes, when we left the cemetery.”
“You can do that?”
“Of course.”
“It’s nice. Thanks.” Sloane limped into the living room. “I was almost hoping I had a house spirit I didn’t know about.”
“That can be arranged.”
“No, no. That was a joke.” Her smile faded when she saw the top of the sofa. Elvina wasn’t there, curled up, basking in the fire’s warmth, only a folded blanket.
“She is still alive in Tagridore with her mother,” Dorathea said gently.
“Jesus Christ. Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?”
“Quite right. I apologize.”
“Is she going to be okay?”
“Her existence is not of life and death. Whether or not she continues in her current form has yet to be determined. We can only hope she is back with us again in some manner.”
“When will we know?” Sloane sat in an armchair and groaned, unaware of the extent of her injuries until that moment.
“I am not sure.” Dorathea kneeled next to Sloane. “May I heal your deepest wound?”
“You can heal?”
“Injuries and torn sweaters.”
“Are you kidding me?” Sloane poked her fingers through the holes in her cardigan. “All right.”
Dorathea snapped her fingers, and Sloane’s sweater was repaired instantly. She removed Sloane’s jeans, the bandages on her leg, and slowly moved her hand over a deep gash. Sloane watched the torn skin mend as if Dorathea’s hand was pulling a zipper. “That’s amazing.”
“I think it best to leave your less severe wounds until you have debriefed with Lieutenant Sharma.” Dorathea flicked her wrist. “Why don’t we enjoy a hot cuppa?” As the tea service appeared, the doorbell rang. Sloane started to get up, but Dorathea laid her hand on Sloane’s shoulder. “Stay here. I will handle it.”
She returned with Rose Keane and Quinn Reed.
“Hey. We’re sorry for dropping by unannounced,” Rose said to Sloane. “Quinn and I were walking back to Old Main talking about what just happened. And we realized our families share more things in common than we thought. Things we think you should know about.”
“Please, sit down,” Dorathea said. “I will get two more cups.”
Rose sat in an armchair next to Sloane. Quinn perched on the sofa.
“I’m so sorry,” Quinn said to Sloane, wringing his hands. “I should have known what my sister was doing.”
“You can’t think like that,” Sloane said. “Lore was responsible for her crimes.”
“You don’t understand.” His voice broke, and he looked down. “I could’ve prevented what happened today. Maybe even Harold and Charles’s deaths if I had paid more attention to her.”
Dorathea glided back in, filled all four teacups by hand, handed them out, and sat on the sofa next to Quinn.
Sloane pointed to the case board in the middle of the room. “Do you see those photos? Those are my suspects for the murders. Even I didn’t seriously consider Lore. And it’s my job. You couldn’t have done anything. Trust me.”
“But I knew more than you, and I didn’t tell you. Lore returned from New York angry, obsessing about how you were just like Jane. If she were anyone else, I wouldn’t have been concerned. But she’s different. I’ve spent most of my life trying to avoid her. She’s…was calculating. Ruthless. Especially if she thought you had done her wrong…And today, you witnessed her do things—”
“Unbelievable things, by the looks of it,” Rose said.
“Exactly. And, well, we don’t want to upset you any more than you are already.” Quinn glanced at Rose and back at Dorathea and Sloane. “But we need to tell you how she did what she did.”
“And we need you to know we, our two families, are like her. Like she was,” Rose said.
Dorathea lifted an eyebrow.
“Not like her,” Quinn said, rubbing his hands on his pants. “Not murderers.”
Rose shook her head. “Right. Of course, my family would never hurt anyone.”
“My dad and I wouldn’t either. What we mean is, we’re not entirely who you think we are.” Quinn hesitated. “We are—I mean—I am…”
Rose blurted out, “West, the Reed family are shape-shifters, and the Keanes are vampires. I’m a vampire. Well, technically, a Dhampyre. Dad is a Dhampyre. My mother is a vampire.”
“Our families have lived here since Denwick’s beginning. We are defenders for our kind against evil. No one can know who we are,” Rose said. Dorathea looked at her with a hint of remorse. “We’re so sorry we’ve kept the truth from you when it could have helped.”
Rose and Quinn stared at Dorathea and Sloane, wide-eyed.
“As hard as it was for the two of you to say that it was much more painful for us to hear it,” Dorathea said. She snapped her fingers, and a tray of pastries appeared.
“Jesus Murphy, Dorothea. You’re a witch.” Rose’s voice rose. “I always knew it.” She laughed and turned to Sloane. “Are you?”
“Yeah.” Guilt made her voice falter. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
Rose frowned. “You weren’t supposed to. You’re a defender, right?”
“Yes. The West Coven is. We’re called Protectors.”
“So Jane and Natty and Mary were all Protectors?” Quinn asked Dorathea.
“And many generations before them, yes, dear.” She sipped her tea. “You realize we have all just broken many Interspecies laws.”
“And it’s about damn time,” Quinn said.
“All this hiding. From our own kind. From other defenders. It’s caused more harm than good. I grew up feeling different and alone. When all along, I lived around others like me. What a fucking waste.” Rose’s painful sincerity left them silent.
The late afternoon sun had dipped below the soaring Douglas firs in the front yard. The burning logs crackled and bathed the room in a warm glow.
Quinn finally broke the silence. “I knew Lore was troubled. That she was obsessed with you, Sloane. I tried to keep an eye on her. I followed her.”
“You were the owl?” Sloane asked.
He nodded. “Dad told us there weren’t others like us Ġewende left. He said we couldn’t let Nogicals know about our gift. My mother said she knew about my father and didn’t care. She thought his ability to become an eagle and protect others was noble. I just don’t understand why Lore was so angry. Why she wanted to kill the three of you.”
Dorathea sighed. “She murdered more than Harold and Charlie, dear. Lore killed Nathaniel, Mary, and Jane, too.”
Quinn’s mouth dropped open.
“Oh my God,” Rose whispered. “Why?”
Sloane’s clients had asked the same question many times, but she had never distilled such a complicated response into three words. “Lore wanted revenge,” she said.
Rose wrinkled her brow. “For what? A failed relationship with Charlie?”
“No. Not Charles. Lore’s anger grew from generations of anger and lies,” Sloane answered. “My ancestors, the West Coven, were sent to Denwick to banish two magical families, the Emleys and the Ilievs. They had conspired with an ancient source of evil, a Demon. Both families were imprisoned in Drusnirwd, the prison in Tagridore, a city in the magical world. They were your mother’s ancestors, Quinn.” Sloane stopped talking, observing his reaction.
“A magical world?” Quinn looked at them, eyebrows pulled together. “Ancestors? They couldn’t be. My mother wasn’t a Magical.”
“Alice lied, dear,” Dorathea said. “She was the great-granddaughter of those two banished families. She could never appear in our magical world for fear of imprisonment. That is why your parents kept it from you.”
“Dorathea’s right. The connection has always been there. In your mother’s maiden name. Emley—Em and Iliev—ilie, Emilie. She was raised in this world to do one thing—enact revenge for them.”
“Oh my God,” Rose whispered.
Quinn’s hand trembled, and tea sloshed in his cup as he set it on the coffee table. “This is too much.”
“But why Alice? Why wait for generations?” Rose asked Sloane.
“I don’t know. I can only speculate. Maybe because by Alice’s time, no one in Denwick would recognize in her a resemblance to either the Emleys or Ilievs.”
Dorathea looked at Rose. “Except for your family, dear. The Keanes would always be a threat. You are immortal.”
“Technically, only Fiona is. I can die,” Rose said.
Sloane looked at Dorathea. “Theoretically. But why would any Keane generation leave retirement and return to Denwick? And because of the Interspecies Statutes, the Keanes would not have known either James or Alice was magical.”
Quinn sat forward with his hands on his knees. “Alice wasn’t even from here. She told us she grew up in Alberta. She met Dad at uni.”
“Alice lied to you. Her mom raised her here, on the Island. But your parents did meet at school. It was part of the plan.” Sloane held his eyes. “Alice’s obligation was to keep what had become Emilie blood pure from other magical blood. She needed to marry James Reed to hide the certainty that her children would be shifters while she masqueraded as a Nogical. Ultimately, as James’s wife, she could get closer to the West family and kill them. So she had an affair with Harold Huxham, conceived Lore and married James. Your father knew Lore wasn’t his child.”
“Fuck me. Are you saying Harold is Lore’s father?” Quinn lowered his head into his hands.
“He was, indeed,” Dorathea answered. Dorathea waved her hand, and the teapot floated to each cup. “But the affair with Harold changed your mother’s life. I was there and witnessed her transformation. With him she felt a bond of love she had never felt. I believe it was the love she experienced in Denwick that helped her cast off the evil that had held her and her ancestors for so long.”
“Then why did Lore do this?” Rose asked. “The plan should’ve ended with Alice, right?”
“Exactly,” Quinn said. “Why didn’t it?”
“Because Lore discovered Jane was a Magical, and the deceit enraged her. It wasn’t hard for her to realize your parents were lying to you both. That other Ġewende and Magicals did exist. Little by little, she uncovered the truth. She taught herself wiċċedōn with a book she stole from Jane. She became suspicious and mistrustful when Harold reacted so negatively to her relationship with Charles. She shape-shifted into a rat and stole into the Huxham offices, eavesdropping on them. That’s when she found out Harold was her father. After learning the truth, it was simple for her to deduce Alice was a Magical. It was the only explanation for why she wasn’t a Predator Ġewende like you and James.
“Your sister’s anger grew and intensified for three decades while she plotted her revenge.” Sloane paused and carefully chose her next words. “To put her plan in motion, while everyone thought she was caring for Alice’s Alzheimer’s, Lore poisoned her and invaded her mind. I don’t think she knew about the Emilie plan to end our coven until she slowly extracted the details from your mother’s mind. The knowledge gave her life real purpose. And she killed your mother to take her place.”
Quinn sat stunned, horrified, eyes locked on Sloane. He got to his feet and paced between the sofa and front windows, holding a closed fist to his mouth.
Rose was speechless.
“Because Lore couldn’t have penetrated my family’s protection charms alone, we know she conspired with the same demonic presence that turned the Emley and Iliev ancestors from good to evil. Her next step was to spy on the Wests in their art gallery until she found out where Jane lived. A few months ago, my mother wrote to her parents and told them about me.
“Lore panicked. A coven of five would be all but impossible to kill. So she waited until Nathaniel and Mary left for New York and forced their taxi off the road. Then she organized for the same thing to be done to Jane. A sanitation truck blew through a stop sign and T-boned her car. But death curses actually caused their deaths. A few weeks later, Harold found me and decided to visit in person. Charles told Lore, and the opportunity was too perfect. She could order a hit on both of us, exacting revenge on the real father who had denied her all her life as well as another West. But, of course, Liam Morris failed.
“His failure worked in Lore’s favor at first. Instead of killing Charles for keeping Harold’s secret, she decided to set him up for Harold’s murder. Lore told me Charles had drinking and gambling problems to make sure I considered him my prime suspect. What she didn’t know was that Charles was in recovery. And his uncle had helped him settle his debt with Gannon Ferris. So when she learned he had come clean to Harold, and I would discover he was innocent, she stabbed him with the letter opener. Then she tried to make it look like Gannon killed him for my Degas. But Gannon couldn’t have stolen the painting because Dorathea placed a protection charm on it. Only a wiċċan could have.”
Rose and Quinn followed Sloane’s and Dorathea’s gazes to the Degas, now hanging safely above the mantle.
“Mother of God,” Quinn whispered. He sat in an exhausted heap.
“But why murder Harold and Charles?” Rose asked. “Are they…like us?”
“No. They were Nogicals. But the secrets they kept about Lore’s paternity deepened her pain and anger. She was an abandoned child and a ditched lover.”
“Emley. Iliev. Em-i-lie,” Quinn mumbled. “I’m so, so sorry.” He struggled to hold his head up, to look any of them in the eyes.
“You are not responsible for your half-sister’s actions, dear,” Dorathea said.
“Is the plan over? Are you and Dorathea safe now that she’s dead?” Rose asked.
Sloane hesitated. “Lore insinuated others were involved. She said she was part of something bigger than ending the West Coven.”
“Do you believe she was telling you the truth?” Dorathea asked.
“I know Morris was a Magical and willing to kill for her, giving her the perfect alibi. Maybe there are more like them out there. Maybe there are Demons, and they are helping each other.”
“What does that mean for us? For Denwick?” Rose asked.
“It means no more lies, dear.” Dorathea’s answer was unequivocal. “We must work together to keep our families safe.”
“What’s left of them.” Quinn got to his feet. “I need to close the clinic for a few days. I have to get my head around all this, be with my dad.”
Rose stood. “I better go talk to my parents. I’m sure they’ve heard their share of gossip by now.”
“Good idea, indeed. Our families must address the Interspecies Council as soon as possible. Rose, dear. Have Kenneth arrange a time tomorrow for us to meet privately at the pub.”
Quinn turned to Dorathea. “Will you help me talk to James in the morning, say eight a.m.?”
“Yes, dear. I will be there.”
Sloane got to her feet and walked them to the front door. Rose held Sloane’s hands, pulling her close. “Let me know if you need me later.” She kissed Sloane’s cheek.
“All right.” Sloane rested against the door where Rose’s woodsy scent lingered.
“Do you feel like an early dinner?” Dorathea called out.
She pushed off the door and walked back to the living room. “No, I feel like a double.”
Dorathea turned away in a flurry of cloak. “Come with me. I insist we eat.”
Sloane followed her cousin outside to sit at the patio table. The cherry blossoms had fallen, leaving the trees in frondescence.
Dorathea summoned two dinner plates.
“Mmm. Comfort food. Nice choice,” Sloane said. “My mom made chicken and dumplings once or twice when I was a kid.”
Her cousin smiled. “Your grandmother cooked it often. It was your mum’s favorite. This is Mary’s recipe. But I am sure it tastes nothing like hers did. I am a novice at cooking. Freya is trying to teach me.”
Sloane chuckled and watched a couple of crows land on the railing. They hopped back and forth, their black feathers a dark iridescent purple under the patio lights.
“How do we know they aren’t Ġewende?”
“It is not our right to know.”
“I think that’s bullshit.”
“Yes, I know you do. And I agree. We will address the spying with the Interspecies Council.”
They ate in silence. The taste of thyme, rosemary, and sage took Sloane back. She remembered when she and her mother watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade on the street in the freezing cold. After Santa Claus showed up in his sleigh, they would walk home to a warm house with the smell of turkey dinner baking, watch football and the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Her mother’s friends would arrive and stay until late, eating and drinking.
“My mother was a lot like you,” she said.
“Was she?” Dorathea’s voice was gentle.
Sloane nodded and wiped the last bit of gravy from her plate with a warm yeast roll. “Did she have an affectionate name for you?”
Dorathea got a faraway look in her eyes, and then she smiled. “Your mum called me ‘your majesty.’”
Sloane laughed out loud. “I can hear that.” She set her knife and fork on her plate and sat back. “I guess I need a name for you, too. How about boss? Or ‘my priestess’?”
“Do not be ridiculous.”
“I’m only kidding. How about Denham? Last names are my thing.”
Dorathea waved their empty plates away. “For those you care about? Like dear Rose?”
A crystal bottle with a smokey black label and two old-fashioned glasses appeared on the table. Sloane read its swirly pewter-colored label—Fulsmécte .
Dorathea poured two whiskey neats by hand and gave one to Sloane. “A gift to you. Our world’s finest whiskey.”
Sloane tipped her glass at her cousin.
“You saved us today.” Dorathea sipped her drink. “You are a rare Protector, indeed.”
“Five innocent people are dead, Denham. I think they’d disagree.” She took a long drink.
“You could not protect them at the time. But with very little training, you stopped Lore. If you continue our work, you could prevent countless deaths.”
“I understand what you’re saying. But I need to get home.”
“Is this not your home?” Dorathea set her glass down. “Your family is here. And you have made a friend who cares for you. And if I am not mistaken, you are fond of her, too.”
“Oh, I am? What makes you say that?”
She glanced at Sloane’s right hand. “You’ve taken off the past.”
Sloane stared at the indentation on her right-hand ring finger. “I did. But not for Keane. It was just time.”
“Wise decision. When it comes to love, we have many springtimes.”
Sloane understood Dorathea’s metaphor and stared into the garden, breathing in the sea air. Her grandparents’ flowerbeds blended into the darkening light. The colors of purple crocus, yellow daffodils, and a wave of blue hyacinths created a scene worthy of Morisot. She turned back to her cousin. “I am worried Lore was a part of a bigger movement. Remember when she said they weren’t hiding or lying any longer? What the hell do you think she meant by that?”
“Her connection with the Magical in New York concerns me, indeed. Who was Liam Morris?”
“And what about the other original families of Denwick? The ones in the crypt. The Smalldons, Tindalls, and Gildeys. Could they be involved?” Sloane asked. She thought about the file on Isobel Gildey that she found in Charles’s office. “And we still don’t know the identity of the man who was watching us.”
“All good reasons you might consider staying to sort this out.”
“Yeah. I guess.” Sloane downed the last of her drink. “And I also want to find the man my mother was seeing in Vancouver.”
“Do you think he is your father?”
“He could be.”
“Then you will stay and discover the truth?”
Sloane held out her old-fashioned. “Pour me another.”