Page 56 of Unbound

I stare at her in disbelief. All this time, we were desperate to find the mystery witch who did this to us, who bound us against our will. Never in a million years would I have guessed that the spell was cast by his own mother. “Why?” is all I can ask.

“That’s where the clairvoyance comes in, child. I was invited to the Firenze court to help seal the Bargain, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

She smirks at me. “Sarcastic one, aren’t you? Anyway, I was needed because I was the most skilled practitioner of blood magic in the world. I went, and I met with them all. The other witches, the heads of the vampire families. The Vecchissime. They were all there, but they were not all as they were pretending to be. The witches ... their hearts were pure; they were there for the best of reasons. But the others? All of them out for what they could get. It was a deal to protect humans, yes, but it was also a power grab. The Coscas knew they would become the very top of the food chain. The Capelli man, Alberto, knew it would legitimize the Vecchissime role in the world, heighten their importance. I saw it all, clear as day, when I tasted their blood.”

“You did what now?” I ask, my eyes going wide. Holy shit. Is she a vampire too?

“No, I am not,” she replies, without me having said a word out loud. “But this was a huge spell. The biggest that had ever been cast. The document needed to be signed in blood by all parties. My task was to gather that precious ink. A quick slice on the palm for each of us, a few drops in a glass. Then away with me, the whole thing mixed while I spelled it to bind the agreement. But first, I tasted it, as you would any recipe.”

She says this as though she is licking cookie dough from a spoon. “And what did you taste?”

“Greed. Ambition. Corruption. And a little hint of rosemary and thyme from one of the witches. This was the day before the ceremony, and that night, I had the most vivid and detailed vision of my entire life. I saw it all. I saw the rise of the Coscas, their spread across the world. I saw the Vecchissime, struggling, brought to their knees by the foul heart of one man. I saw Vincenzo and the Capelli son working together, before they destroyed the whole world. Fire, death, destruction. The humans becoming nothing but slaves, farmed like animals. The vampires killing each other, the other supernaturals caught in the crossfire, forced to choose sides. You and your whole generation … used. Abused. Cast aside. More than all of that, I saw a way out. I saw the only hope—my precious son and a young Seer who hadn’t even been born. Together, you could defeat that evil. Together, and only together, you could change that future. You had to find each other.”

Her whole tale is astonishing, and I’m struggling to wrap my head around it. It would be easy to dismiss it, to write it off as madness. But I’ve been on the receiving end of that blood spell of hers, and it’s not to be messed with. Absurd as it all sounds, I know it’s true, because this is the world I live in. I’m sitting talking to my vampire-witch-hybrid boyfriend’s dead mom about a vision she had centuries ago.

“Okay. I don’t understand any of that, but I have to accept it. I feel its truth. But why was Luca taken? Why was your village burned? That is what I can smell, isn’t it?”

She nods, her gaze drifting sadly down into the valley. “Yes, it is. Well, when I had that vision, I initially intended to refuse to carry out the spell. I planned to tell the other witches, to ask them to use their power to end it. I would not be involved in sealing the deal that could result in such pain and chaos, such a loss of balance. That was my first idea. It did not work out well.”

There is deep pain and regret in her voice. I have an idea of what might be coming next.

“That’s when they came here, Rosa. That’s when they came, and they killed Valentino, and they slaughtered everybody else. This had been the d’Argento home for hundreds of years, and they burned it to the ground. My husband and Luca were here without me, unprotected. Luca’s papà was powerful in his own way, but he was no fighter … he didn’t stand a chance. I don’t know how they knew my intentions. Perhaps a witch of their own was spying on me, because as I’m sure you’ve figured out, not all of us are beyond corruption. I often wish they had simply killed me instead, but then I would have been no use to them.”

She shudders, looks both furious and devastated at the same time. “They brought Luca back to the Firenze court. That monster Giulia and her brother. My angel. My sweet, gentle soul. He was fourteen at the time. Just beginning his life. Already he showed signs of greatness—his father’s compassion and tenderness, combined with my more aggressive style of magic. He would have been the most powerful d’Argento witch yet. They used him to control me, to force me to work with them, to go on as though everything was normal. And I did it, despite knowing how it might all end, I did it … Often I have wondered, was that a mistake? A selfish misstep? Was his life worth the lives of all those I knew?”

She looks at me with tears in her luminous brown eyes, as though she is actually searching for answers. “I don’t know, Caterina. If you’d refused, if you’d told the other witches what you’d seen, then two things would have happened. The Bargain would not have been sealed, and from what I know, that also would have ended badly for humanity.”

She nods. “That is true, girl. The vampires did need to be reined in. What is the other thing?”

“If you hadn’t cooperated, then Luca would be dead. And yes, his life was worth it all. I cannot imagine a world without Luca, and that’s even without your blood spell.”

She laughs, an incongruous sound as we sit here overlooking a burning village, discussing such evil. The tears spill down her cheeks, but she smiles.

“You are right, Rosa. Even I hadn’t foreseen the way you two would … fall in love, I suppose? The greatest magic of all, no spell required. I felt it when the bind broke. Like I said, I knew my death was coming. I prepared. I hid away this small part of me, a splinter of my soul tucked away in time. Forever here, forever watching this tragedy. Always waiting for the day that I knew would come—when you and Luca would come to me.”

She has told me a lot more than I knew before, but not everything. There is so much more I need to ask.

“Why can’t he remember any of this?” I ask. “The day he was turned, he forgot it all.”

“I know. Again, that was my doing. I had a suspicion that they would not simply give me back my child, let us live. Allow us to stroll away into the sunset. Their nature was too cruel for that, and they also knew we would be powerful enemies. They let me see him, one more time. He was terrified, weeping, covered in dirt and soot and blood from where he’d fought. Traumatized by everything he had been forced to watch. I kissed him, told him I loved him. Looked deep into his eyes and cast another spell. He would forget me, forget all of it. Why would I wish for my child to live with that fear, that terror, his whole life blighted?”

I know what my grandfather would have done in that position. He would give a speech about doing anything “for the sake of the family” and expect me to live the rest of my life seeking revenge. My happiness would not come into the equation. That is not what Caterina did. She sacrificed those memories, her whole existence, in the hope that he would have a chance to forget, to live through it unscarred.

“They killed you,” I say quietly. “And they transformed him.”

She nods, her eyes looking again at the settlement below us. The smoke is stronger now, and the screams of the villagers assault my ears. They are innocents. They are being slaughtered. Every instinct I have tells me to run to them, to help. To try and save them.

“There is nothing we can do,” she tells me, her voice heavy with emotion. “It is already over. This is just an echo in time. Now, you need to go, Rosa. Go back to him. That terrible future I saw? It is not over.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, fear gripping me. “Vincenzo is dead!”

“Is your grandfather—the child of the Capelli Seer whose blood I tasted?”

I shake my head, grit my teeth. “Not yet. But he will be.”

“I believe you. But until that happens, nobody is safe. The whole world could still burn, just like Santa Lucia burned. My son has enemies. He needs you. Go to him.”