Page 8 of A Trial By Blood

“Of course.” I’d planned to return anyway. “Why don’t you ask me now?”

She shook her head, the movement barely noticeable, but I noticed everything she did. “Later.”

Then she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

And I took my seat by the bed once more.

CHAPTER 2

Rose

“You wanna watch a movie later?” Magnolia asked as she held a glass of water to my lips.

I dutifully took a sip, even as my stomach protested. “I’d love that.”

I swallowed several times. The water wasn’t going to stay down long. Fierce hunger hacked and sliced at my stomach. My mouth so dry, it felt raw. The feeling was my constant, never satisfied, never easing. Up until the last week or so, I was able to take small amounts of food and liquids. I wasn’t sure that was the case anymore. The pastry Ronan had given me had rebelled as soon as it hit my stomach. I’d hoped to hold it down until he left, but nope. My dignity was well and truly out the window.

Now I couldn’t even hold down water. I didn’t think I had much longer left, but another day of this, another hour, god, every minute was torture.

This needed to be over, for all our sakes.

I coughed and wretched, and Mags grabbed the bowl and held it below my chin as the tiny sip of water I’d had came back up.

Mags had not long ago turned twenty-one. She was three years younger than me, but my baby sister was the one looking after me. I hated that she had to do it and loved her for it at the same time.

“It’s okay,” she said, rubbing my back with a shaky hand. “It’s going to be okay.”

It wasn’t, and we all knew it. Magnolia and my entire family were suffering. They were suffering more than me, and I needed their pain to stop. I couldn’t be the cause of it anymore. But that wasn’t the only reason, and I hoped Ronan agreed to help me. Time had run out, and tonight I’d ask him what I’d been building up the courage to ask for a while now.

She rushed to the bathroom with the bowl and came back with a cloth. She wiped my mouth and chin, a forced smile on her face that looked as agonized as I knew she was feeling.

I collapsed back against the pillows, and Mags started messaging someone on her phone. Mom, no doubt. Updating her on her daughter’s decline.

“How’s the h-harvest going?” I forced past my raw throat.

Since a witch’s magic never fully left them—not even when we died—our bones continued to pump magic into the earth, which meant our family cemetery was a place of immense power and plentiful resources. Every blade of grass, pebble, and plant held magic absorbed from the bones decaying beneath them.

The uses of the resources there were limitless. Mom and Arthur spent hours every day in our cemetery, making sure everything was thriving and that Else and Mags had what they needed to make the elixirs, potions, and medicinals they sold in Willow’s store, The Cauldron.

If a coven had an old cemetery like ours, they were considered powerful and not to be messed with. No other coven had a burial ground more impressive than ours. Which was why it was heavily warded. Only people we wanted to pass through the cemetery gates could.

“Yeah, good. We should be set for the winter. And Art planted new bulbs before the first snowfall, so we’re set for spring.”

Art was Mom’s familiar, an owl shifter who preferred his human form. He was middle-aged with dark brown skin, neatly cropped hair, and the kindest brown eyes I’d ever seen. And a year ago, he and Mom had finally admitted their feelings for each other. Seeing them so happy together, seeing Mom so happy, was all we’d ever wanted for her.

“That’s good, right?”

She nodded, but the worry in her eyes had not diminished.

“How’s Bram?” I asked. “I haven’t seen him in a few days.” I needed my sister to focus on anything but me.

Her amber eyes lifted, and the pain didn’t lessen. Bram was her best friend and familiar. The crow shifter usually never left her side. He was extremely protective of her. He was also completely and utterly in love with her. Mags either wasn’t aware of this or chose to pretend she wasn’t. She’d been through some things that had altered her in ways even we didn’t know the full extent of, though, and Bram had been taking the brunt of it. Her mood swings had been extreme and often fell to him to manage. The highest of highs, and some serious lows. Through it all, Bram had been there. Steadfast. But I’d noticed his absence lately, even from up here in my bedroom.

If Mags didn’t want to talk about something, she didn’t. And I kind of expected her to tell me she didn’t want to go there. Instead, she pulled up her knees, lifted her feet to the chair, and rested her chin on her arms. “He’s busy a lot with his new job,” she said, her voice filled with something that hurt me to hear it.

“What’s going on?”

She shook her head, her thick, wavy black hair falling over her shoulder. “Honestly, I don’t know. He’s…he’s pulling away from me, Roe.”