Jaxon—who doesn’t seem outraged at her assessment, merely resigned—walks over to one of the two porch swings and sits down on it, stretching his long legs out in front of him as he starts to glide back and forth. As he does, he makes sure not to look anyone in the eye, and I feel awful for him.

He’s got a total poker face, but I know this boy, and it is obvious to me how much her baseless accusation actually bothers him. What surprises me is that he hasn’t said a word to defend himself.

The others must feel the same way, because it’s clear they’re torn whether to stay with Jaxon or with me.

In the end, Mekhi and Eden choose to head outside with him, and I know Luca would choose the same thing if he didn’t have to be out of the sun. Macy, Flint, Hudson, Luca, and I stay in the house.

Once that’s decided, the double doors close behind us, and the witch gestures to the two pearl-gray sofas she has in the middle of her living room. “Take a seat. Please.”

Once we do as she “requests,” she walks over to the bloodred chair to the right of the sofas and sits down, looking for all the world like a queen holding court.

Seriously, Nuri and Delilah have nothing on this woman in terms of royal affect, and I can tell by the way that the two princes in the room shift in their seats that they recognize it, too.

“Would you like something to drink?” she asks, her melodic voice ringing like bells through the air now that everything about this situation is arranged exactly as she wants it to be.

I’m actually really thirsty—it was a long flight, and I ran out of water bottles somewhere near Hawaii—but I’m not taking anything this woman has to offer until I can get a better read on her. Because to me, her sweetness seems more saccharin than sugar, and I’m really not enjoying the aftertaste.

95

Love, Hate,

and All the Grace

“Actually, we’re good,” Flint tells her after a few awkward moments. “But thank you.”

“So be it.” She snaps, and a glass of lemonade appears in her hand. She takes a long drink, eyes on us the whole time—whether because she doesn’t trust us or because she’s mocking us for not trusting her, I don’t know. But when she finally lets go of the glass, it hovers next to her in midair.

“So tell me, my darlings. What secret do you come here to uncover?”

“I don’t think it’s so much a secret as a solution.” I shift uncomfortably, trying to gauge whether to jump right in or whether to lay our request out slowly. It’s a lot, and she has no reason to help us other than the goodness of her heart…a goodness that is already quite suspect in my own mind.

But before I can decide what I want to say next, she looks me dead in the eye and trills, “Everything’s a secret, Grace, whether we know it or not.”

Then she takes another sip of her lemonade before once again leaving it to hover right next to her. “You know, I’ve found myself thinking about an old story several times over the last few weeks. I haven’t been able to figure out what brought it to mind or why it’s continued to linger in the forefront of my memory. Normally, stories show up for a little while and then flit away on the morning breeze when they realize I have no one to tell them to, save my flowers. We are a little isolated out here, aren’t we?”

For just a moment, there’s a sharpness to her words, but then it disappears so quickly that I think I must have imagined it, especially when the others have no reaction to it.

“But now you’re here, and I realize the story must have been waiting for you all along.” She locks eyes with each of us in turn. “So I ask that you indulge me in a trip down memory lane, if you don’t mind.”

“We don’t mind at all,” I say and smile. “In fact, I think we’d really like to listen to whatever stories you want to tell us.”

“All that power, and diplomacy, too. Aren’t you a pleasant surprise, Grace?” Her smile is slow and wide, but it definitely doesn’t reach her eyes. Which I guess is fair, considering I’m fairly certain mine doesn’t, either.

Hudson doesn’t like it, though. I can tell from the way he tenses beside me, his body angling toward mine just a little bit, as if preparing to block anything that comes at me—including the Crone.

But she just settles back against her chair with a satisfied smile and begins. “Once, a long time ago, magic sang in the wind that whistled through the trees. It played tag in the waves that kissed the shore and danced in the flames that burned to make the earth grow richer and even more benevolent. It was beautiful and lonely, and it is into this world of unleashed power—so different from the one we now try so desperately to understand—that two children were born.”

Her eyes burn brighter and brighter—she burns brighter and brighter—as she lays the groundwork for the story, until her entire being seems lit from within. “The children were sisters, twins in fact, born of two deities, Zamar and Aciel, who loved each other so much that they wanted to have a child. But the universe requires balance, and so they had two daughters, each a different side of the same coin. Unfortunately, on the night of their birth, Zamar died and became the very light and warmth that every creature on this strange new planet would bask itself in. Aciel was devastated at the loss but vowed to raise the girls with all the care and support that the other deity would have given them.”

She pauses to shove her heavy curtain of hair away from her eyes, and as she does, the early-morning light catches it, and I realize that it isn’t the light brown I assumed it was after all. It’s actually every color—red and blond and brown and black and silver and white all mixed together in a waterfall of color that feels infinite in a way I can’t describe.

She notices me noticing and preens a little, combing her hands through her hair so that the light catches it at the best angle. And I have to fight a grin, because she may be powerful, but she’s also vain as fuck. I make a mental note that this might be able to help us later, then wait patiently for her to continue the story.

“Aciel loved the girls equally and always told them that they were born to bring balance to the universe, that their power was so great that it couldn’t and shouldn’t be contained in one person. ‘Power,’ they were told, ‘always requires a counterbalance. You cannot have strength without weakness, beauty without ugliness, love without hate.’” She takes another sip of her lemonade before adding, “Good without evil.

“And so the sisters were raised in this world they both loved and hated, this world that took Zamar from the girls but also gave them back every day from the moment the sun came up until the time that it went down. They grew under this sun, learning and loving, failing and flourishing, until one day they were old enough.”

She pauses again, lets that sink in as she takes a long, slow sip from her drink. I’ve never heard any part of this story, but I’ve read enough to recognize a creation myth when I hear it, and I’m dying to get to the good part. Dying to know who created what and why and how this fits in with what we’ve come to ask her—or even if it fits in at all.

And I’ve got to say, the Crone knows how to work a room, because we are literally on the edges of our seats, the others with looks of serious interest in what she’s saying on their faces, almost as if parts of this myth aren’t as unfamiliar to them as they are to me. Not that that’s a surprise—the longer I’m in the paranormal world, the more I realize how many things are different from the human world. Is it really such a stretch that their origin myth—their belief system—would be different, too?

Though I am surprised that I’ve been here this long without recognizing that fact. Then again, I basically hibernated through my culture’s most famous holiday last year…

“Old enough for what?” I ask when it becomes obvious that she is stretching the silence out because she wants someone to ask.

“Why, to name themselves, my dear. You see, Aciel couldn’t do it. To bestow a name on someone is a sacred ritual and with the other deity’s passing, the two girls would not be named until they were old enough to perform the rite themselves.

“And so Cassia and Adria were born.”

The sisters’ names go through the room like a lightning strike, fast and bright and all-encompassing. And as the others nod like this part, at least, is old hat, I realize I have heard parts of this story before—in my history class and my magical laws class, though references were always done in passing.

The Crone not only recognizes our own knowledge of the names but she seems to bask in it, her voice growing more and more animated as the story goes on. Her smile even loses its sharpness, becomes warmer and less guarded.