Chapter 12: Ameline

It was hard to sleep, but I managed, though when a soft knock and a touch of power came at dawn I was already awake, thinking. I welcomed my visitor as Ameline entered, closing my door softly behind her. The new light of morning caught her pale blue eyes as she crossed to me, a few pink sparkles from the chandelier overhead glinting on her jet black hair as she climbed into the bed beside me and snuggled me against her, cheek pressed to mine.

I hugged her fiercely, sad and yet happy all at the same time, feeling so confused by the previous day I couldn't muster words.

Not that I needed them. She always seemed very in tune with me, for some reason. I knew Ameline had an odd past, but we'd never talked about it or why some of the coven treated her like she was going to attack them at any moment. There was nothing frightening about the beautiful woman with the icy eyes, at least that I'd ever seen or felt.

It was only then I realized Sassafras had gone at some point and I missed his company, glad she was there as she spoke.

"Are you all right?" Her lovely voice reached me through our contact, making my skin vibrate.

"Aside from being an absolute idiot most of my life," I said, relying on sarcasm still, it seemed, while mentally hugging Sass as if he could be with me always. Which he could, of course. Silly me.

Ameline laughed, deep and low, reminding me a great deal of Nanna. Made sense. She was a Hayle, after all. We seemed to share a lot of things, we Hayle witches.

"We've all been idiots, my very dear," she said, stroking my hair with one soft hand. She sighed then, body relaxing while the slowly rising sun cast beams through the dancing motes of dust, mesmerizing in their choreography. Magical, really, as much as that was a cliché. "But it seems we've hung on a razor's edge for so many years, waiting for the disaster Ethpeal has anticipated. An attack on the coven, a threat to you, to all of us. And for the actions and evolution she's feared within you."

I turned my head a little, unable to stop the frown pulling at my face. Ameline didn't release her hold on me, though, soothing magic hugging me as much as her arms did.

"I don't get it," I said.

She nodded, the whisper of her hair against mine loud in my ear. "Do you know what it's like to believe something is true because you've been told it is over and over again? Only to discover perhaps the truth was nothing but fear held over from the past?"

Not really, but I didn't argue.

"It's not that we all expected you to suddenly become some sort of evil monster." Ameline laughed again, as if to soften the blow of her words, and I took her truthful honesty as she intended it instead of losing my temper like I would have if it had been Mom or Sassafras who said that to me. Evil monster, was it? "But the expectation that we needed to protect and guide you to ensure you became the witch we knew you could be has only led us here. To this moment. To you being at risk when you should have been allowed to grow. Taking stupid chances," nice of her to say it, "and doing foolish things with witches beneath you when the opportunities for learning and expression have been out there all along."

"Hayle witches are weirdos," I said.

She nodded, hands falling to her lap, back propped up on one of my pillows as she stared into the empty air. "We are indeed," she said.

"Let me get this straight." I shifted around, wide awake now and more than a little irritated. "They've all been waiting for me to turn into something I'm not while keeping me trapped here

so nothing bad happens to me." Ack. "Meanwhile, all's quiet everywhere and I've done everything I could to be a good little witch," well, at least in public-they didn't need to know any details about the other fights, did they?-"making them even more nervous and my life miserable?"

Ameline's smile didn't waver. Nice one of us thought this was funny.

"And when I do break the rules," I went on, huffing now, throat aching from wanting to scream while I kept my voice down despite myself, "all of a sudden everything is hunky, I'm going to be all right and maybe there isn't a threat lurking around every corner?"

The second of the Hayle coven shrugged her narrow shoulders, hands rising and falling in her lap, expression never changing.

Well then. How about them poisoned apples.

"I broke the law." I hunkered down, arms crossed over my chest, seething while my demon blood boiled. I should have felt guilty about it. Instead, I couldn't get past angry.

"Something you'll have to answer for," Ameline said, but with a smile. "And honestly, I've always seen rules against dueling as more guidelines than actual laws."

"You used to do it, too, didn't you?" Of course she did.

"We're not talking about me." Sudden primness from her meant she was guilty, I'd learned as much over the years. So did the twinkle in her eyes. "It's not like you killed anyone," she said. "We were all young once." Sorrow in her voice, collar bone stark under her skin as she shifted and drew a deep breath. "And have made our own mistakes, some more massive and unforgiveable than others." Now she really wasn't talking about me. I wanted to ask, but she went on, shaking off the melancholy in her voice. "But whatever the consequences, your little fight seems to have broken the shell of immobility around this family. The one that's held us all in what now feels like stasis for so many years."

"Stasis?" Like a spell? "Should I be worried?"

"Less of outside influence," she said. "I think there's been so much conflict and loss in this family your mother and great grandmother have spent the last nine years of your life ensuring the coven is as safe as they can make it. Focused all that power and will inward once the obvious outward threats were gone." Her fingers stroked the back of my hand in absent touches as she continued, tone distant. "Can you imagine what it was like for Syd, Ethie? Going from the massive pressure of saving Creation only to return here, home and the coven, with nothing left to

fight except fear itself?" She seemed to shift out of her thoughts, hand grasping and squeezing mine before falling away. "And that's created even more trouble than she and Ethpeal tried to shield us from."

I couldn't imagine, and despite knowing it had to have been hard for Mom, for some reason the anger clung to me like an old wound. "Including making me stay here, a sheltered little princess." I blamed my demon side for the continuing snark. Of all the stupid, short sighted, ridiculous and utterly Hayle things to do to me. Seriously.

Ameline let me simmer a moment before reaching out to hug me again. I let her, but I didn't soften just yet. I think I'd earned a bit of crank.

"You've shattered their fears." She kissed the top of my head. "Cracked the uncrackable Hayle stubbornness with your humanity. And jolted them out of the fear cycle that's kept all of them here, tied to this place that used to be a refuge." Now a prison. Wait, for all of us? Not for Gabriel, but he was the Gateway. How could the most powerful witches-and whatever you called Mom-on the plane turn their territory into a guarded fortress when they could do anything? It floored me, made me sad, too. Just how much hurt had Mom and GreatGram endured while my childhood darkened me against them?

Ameline must have seen me processing, watched it travel over my face, because she held quiet until I finally sighed and shook my head at myself. "I just wish I'd realized where we were heading a long time ago."

Like this was her fault. Still. "Me, too." Wait, she'd referred to the family as "them" instead of us. "You mean all of you."

She didn't comment about that. "Did you want to talk about what happened?"

I shook my head, back to grumpy mode. "No," I said. "I know it was stupid to fight another witch. And I totally overreacted. I never meant to hurt him. But he was such a dick."

Ameline snorted a giggle. "Boys," she said in that tone of voice that always made me smile. Yes, even now.

"I've only ever wanted to make them proud of me." Impossible to mistake "them" as our previous topic of the male side of the species instead of Mom and GreatGram despite the veer off verbal course back into suffering. I didn't try to meet her eyes, not wanting her to see my mercurial shift to sad. So many emotions, so little time. And no way I'd let anyone blame it on teen hormones. I knew better.

"We are," Ameline said, voice cracking. Cleared her throat, spoke again. "I just wish you weren't so hard on yourself. You have nothing to be ashamed of and so much to give this coven."

"Do you think they'll ever let me go?" Maybe I'd broken the little web of anxiety Mom built, but that didn't mean I was free just yet. And I'd screwed up, hadn't I, choosing to break the rules the way I did out of stupidity and boredom. I'd spent my whole life being confined, feeling frustrated because GreatGram didn't allow me to stretch my magic and study outside Wilding Springs. Would that ever change?

"I do," she said. "If they could forgive me and welcome me, they can move past anything."

Um, what? I did push back then and looked at her. She still smiled but a small, pained expression, old hurt lingered. "You're second," I said, feeling stupid suddenly.

"I wasn't always." I knew that, but the mess she was part of ended a long time ago, didn't it? She reached out as if to touch me but hesitated and let her hands drop again and that pause made me sad. For her and for me. "But that doesn't matter now. What matters are your next steps." I wanted to quiz her, to find out what she wasn't telling me, dig it out of the dark depths she hid behind those blue eyes and that lovely smile. But she continued speaking and I didn't interrupt as she spun sideways and gracefully got out of bed, heading for the door. "We care so much," she said, hand on the knob. "It's a family curse."

"Ameline," I said. "What did GreatGram's mother do?" I fumbled for more words, then settled on the obvious. "Who was Mahalia?"

She frowned a little, shook her head. "I have no idea," she said. "But I think it's time you found out."

Ameline left me then with a kiss of power that warmed me even as the sunbeam invading my room did. I just wished it could reach the cold, worried place in my gut that told me I wasn't going to like the answers to my questions.

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