“Fine,” I replied, rubbing my arms. The gashes from the ritual had almost faded—all that was left were two pale pink lines—but it was more nervous energy that forced me to rub than any pain.
Mairead didn’t look convinced.
“Do you want to go inside?” I asked. “My nipples feel like they’ll get frostbite and drop off. Anyway, I promised I’d look at your drawings and help you figure out shit. I kinda got waylaid the other night.”
“You had an excuse.” She glanced at my arm, worried Boone’s weird tongue magic was going to reverse itself, and I would bleed out on the spot.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’m not going to explode, you know.”
“You’re not worried about it,” she argued. “You’re not angry, or sad, or anythin’. You’re just…meh.”
I shrugged. I kinda was, but wallowing got no one anywhere. Man, when did I start growing up? I was being all wise and shit. Maybe Boone was rubbing off on me. Not in the literal sense, because we rubbed off on one another all the time, but in the philosophical kind of way.
Thinking about Lucy and the Nightshade witches, the ritual that was supposed to kill me and let Carman back into Ireland, the mass burning of the family I’d never met, the hatred toward my coven for standing up to Carman a thousand years ago, how they were ostracized for closing the doorways to the fae realm to stop a war from breaking out, and all the other injustices that had led to the Crescents calling me home, I scowled. I suppose I was angry. Real angry.
“But—”
“Life has to go on, Mairead,” I interrupted. “We’re fine, but we still have to do our duty by Derrydun. Boone and I… We can’t take a day off from that. We’ve just gotta deal and get on with it.”
“Not even after…” Her bottom lip trembled.
“Not even after near-death experiences. The bad guys won’t take time off for a weekend at the seaside, so neither can we. They’ll keep trying, and we have to be there to keep stopping them.”
“It’s not fair.”
I smiled and wrapped my arm around her shoulder. “It never is.”
Crescent Legacy is out now!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
The Crescent Witch Chronicles
About the Author
Newsletter
Crescent Legacy
