Rune shook his head. “No, this is what I have to do.”
My boots sank deeperinto the mud with every step, the swamp sucking at me like it wanted to drag me under. The air clung heavy, wet, and rank with decay, carrying the hum of insects and the distant croak of bullfrogs. Shadows twined along the trees at my back, restless and waiting to deliver punishment.
Babette was clever. Too clever to be wandering the swamp without protection. She had to have found someone—another coven, a rogue witch, maybe even a pact with something worse. Nomadic witches weren’t common here. They would stay for a few days before realizing their lives were in danger and the cursed things that lived here had a specific taste for magic.
I crouched low as I listened to the night descending around me. The last place I wanted to be was in a cursed swamp when the sun went down, but I didn’t have any other options at my disposal. The ancestors wanted retribution almost as much as I did. My magic was restless with their insistence.
The air carried an oily, tangy scent that I hadn’t smelled before. It was wrong. It was dark magic. She’d been dealing in more curses, and the land wasn’t particularly fond of it. I pressed my lips into a thin line as my shadows writhed across the ground, leaving me behind. They would lead me the rest of the way. Reluctantly, I followed. My magic had never steered me wrong in the past.
The night pressed in tighter as each insect call went silent. My eyes scanned the tops of the cypress trees around me looking, for anything that would give her away.
The first charm caught my eye. The copper wire sparkled slightly in the setting sun. She knew I was here.
“Babette,” My voice echoed across the trees and the still water. “I know you’re out here. We need to talk.”
Nothing.
My eyes caught on another charm swinging from the branches of a tree up ahead. This one was dripping bright red.
Blood.
“Talk, Rune?” Her voice finally slipped through the trees. “You were never much of a talker, if I remember correctly. You just loved to rip my clothes from my body and have your way with me, or did you forget so easily?”
I closed my eyes as a pang went through my chest. “I should have been better to you.”
“Should have?” She scoffed. Her voice growing closer. “You think words mean anything to me now? Do you think regret can sew together what you tore apart?”
My jaw clenched. I kept my eyes closed for another breath, then opened them to the charm dripping blood at my feet. “I can’t undo what I did to you,” I said evenly. “But I won’t let you drown the coven in your vengeance.”
A low laugh slid through the trees. “Vengeance?” Her tone was mocking, sing-song. “No, Rune. This isn’t vengeance.”
I needed to get her closer. I needed to get her out in the open. There was magic interfering, possibly her charms. My shadows didn’t want to go any farther, or maybe they knew something I didn’t. “This was about more than that, wasn’t it?”
“Why did you come out here alone?”
“Because I needed to make all of this right. It’s all my fault.” Guilt clutched my chest tightly.
“Rune,” she sighed. “You’re such a selfish bastard. You really think all of this is aboutyou. Yes, it started with you when I first threw myself at you, and you hardly blinked in my direction. I realized I wasn’t powerful enough, so I decided it was time for me to take what I always wanted.”
“Which is?”
“Power,” chills erupted over my arms with that one word. “There is unimaginable power in curses. It’s untapped.” She hummed. “When I realized everything I could do, you finally looked my way, and I decided it was time for us to get closer. We wouldsavethe wolves together, you and I. We would bring our coven into a new age. We would show everyone that the New Orleans witches weren’t to be messed with, and our children. Our children would know unimaginable power.”
“Do you know why curses are off limits?” She had to know. She had to know there was a price to be paid.
That was when she stepped from the shadows that my magic couldn’t reach, and a gasp lodged in my throat.
Half of her face was rotted away, white bone gleaming beneath paper-thin skin. Her lips, or what was left of them, peeled into a grin that made my stomach twist.
“This,” she whispered, dragging her fingers across the exposed bone of her cheek, “is the price. And I paid it willingly.”
“There was nothing wrong with you or your magicbefore. You were always a powerful witch, Babette. You have destroyed yourself, and for what?”
“I will create a new coven, we will rise above you and destroy all that your family has built,” she spat. “Voodoo King no more. Do you see now, Rune? Curses don’t takeeverything. They give back more than they steal. Power like this… it bends death itself.” Her voice caught with a terrible kind of reverence, as if she believed her words could sanctify the decay eating her alive.
My chest ached as I took her in—the girl I once knew buried under this grotesque shell. “Babette… you’re killing yourself.”
“I’m becoming what I was always meant to be. The ancestors chose wrong when they blessed you. I’ll show them what true devotion looks like. I’ll show them what sacrifice really means.” Her gaze burned, sharp enough to cut. “And when I’m finished, even death will bow down to me.”
