Page 13 of Rejected By the Winter Wolf

“I’m not sure why I’m here. I didn’t come by choice.”

Her brow rises. I cannot, for the life of me, pinpoint an age to her. Somewhere between thirty and ageless. I’ve met a few witches like that. Sometimes, magic erases time’s wear on a body—or at least slows it. Others have the misfortune of being eaten alive by their magic.

My mother always warned me of casting outside of my abilities, with a worried frown sent in the direction of my hands. She said I’d run myself into an early grave if I wasn’t careful. I didn’t want to end up skeletal before I turned twenty, so I listened.

Just another message to heed from the powerful Seer.

“Curious.” She glances over her shoulder to the doorway. “Come here, Sybil.”

Another witch enters the room quickly. Her speed makes her seem eager, while the girl who retrieved me lags. The new arrival’s age is easier to guess. Her hair is completely white, lying smooth down her shoulders and back. It almost reaches her elbows. Her skin is almost as pale, with a few weathered wrinkles around her eyes. And those are bright blue—the most colorful thing about her.

She comes right to me and leans in.

It takes everything I have to not react or flinch back.

She inhales, her nose almost touching my hair.

“Yes,” she murmurs. “You’re familiar to me. Your name?”

I press my lips together, thinking of the teen’s earlier words: that names have power. Something I never really had to worry about, between the sheltered life with my mother and the witches who visited us, and then my short time in the city, outside of magic.

“Perhaps a show of faith.” She gives me a knowing smile.

She’s amused?

“I’m Sybil. This is Dorthea, our coven leader. And the girl who retrieved you is Amy. She’s our newest witch, just fifteen years old. She has a smart mouth, which you no doubt encountered, but we like to stoke that flame instead of extinguish it.”

Interesting. I commit their names to memory and give them my own.

“Astra Somnium.”

Sybil takes the seat beside me. There’s a wide collection of chairs in this room, belying just how many witches probably fill these seats at coven meetings. They may all be here, even, lingering upstairs or in hidden hallways. Listening.

She reaches for my hand and clasps it without warning. Her gaze shifts, and she stares into nothing.

Dorthea sighs but otherwise remains silent. I resist the urge to pull away.

When Sybil dials back in, her pupils are blown wide. She refocuses on me and releases my hand. “Dream.”

“What?” Amy asks.

“Somnium is Latin for dream,” Sybil says with a frown. “I’ve only known one Dream in my lifetime.”

My breath catches.

I don’t realize I’ve gripped the arms of the chair I’m in until my nails bite into the wood. It seems I don’t know anything anymore.

“Lenora Dreamstone was one of the most powerful Seers in the country.” Sybil watches me closely. “I knew her when she was a child. She predicted…”

Dreamstone?

“I’ve never heard the name Dreamstone,” I interrupt.

Is that my mother’s first name? Yes. But Sybil said she was—not is. She’s alive.

“I didn’t choose to come here,” I whisper. “Regardless of who you think I am or who some ancestor of mine was. A demon attacked us. My mother sent me away so I wouldn’t…”

Sybil stares at me. Pieces seem to click into place. “Your mother is Lenora.”