Moonset (18 page)

“I’m not the Congress,” Quinn said, in the same way he’d have said “I’m not your enemy.”

But I believed one as little as I would have believed the other.

“Your grandparents
are
the Congress,” I pointed out. Illana Bryer, the war hero of Fallingbrook, and Robert Cooper of Eventide. There hadn’t been a more celebrated match in history. “And blood is thicker than water.”

Quinn leaned against the countertop. “There
is
a warlock in Carrow Mill,” he confirmed. “But you’re under a better guard than you seem to think.”

I crossed my arms in front of me. “If there are so many Witchers around, how is he still walking around? Why haven’t you caught him yet?”

“Because we can’t find him, obviously,” Quinn said, and the fact that he actually
told me
rather than left it unsaid caught me off guard. My irritation and anger faltered. “Whoever he is, he’s flying just enough under the radar that we can’t figure out what he’s doing or what he wants.”

“Except us.”

“Except you,” he agreed.

“But there’s only so many witches in town. It can’t be that hard to keep track of what they’re all doing.”

“You’d think that,” Quinn said, “but can you even say with certainty where Jenna is at any given moment? If a witch wants to disappear, they disappear. And people who know they’re being watched don’t tend to do things that are
illegal.”

“He killed that man yesterday, didn’t he? The Harbinger?”

“Or the Maleficia did,” Quinn said. “Sometimes, they’re one in the same, and sometimes one acts independently of the other.”

“How is that possible?” I asked. Everything we were taught told us that Maleficia was a force—like the stuff that made a bomb a bomb. “I thought the warlock opened a conduit to the Abyss, and the Maleficia came out and destroyed everything it came into contact with.”

“If only it was that easy,” Quinn muttered. “Maleficia
wants
to destroy—it’s like the base desire for destruction. But how it gets expressed depends on the environment. It can adapt to cause the most damage it can, almost like a cancer.”

“So it’s not just a source of power?”

He hesitated. “Yes and no. Some people will tell you that magic is a living force—that’s why we can’t control who gets bound into a coven; because there’s something greater at work. But you can’t reason with magic. Maleficia is the same—it’s corrosive, but not exactly alive. Most of the time, it’s a symbiote. It latches onto a host, and it becomes as smart as that person is or isn’t.”

Most of the time. What was that supposed to mean?
He was leaving something out. “But?” I said, prompting him to keep going.

“But that isn’t the sum total of what lives in the Abyss. Some people believe that the Abyss is just a cauldron, brewing up dark magic. There is that, but there’s also more. But we can only guess at what it’s really like. There are stories of creatures …
things
that live there. Things like the Princes.”

“Hell has Princes?” I sounded as skeptical as Jenna. It wasn’t that I was trying to mock him, but Quinn sounded so
serious.
The idea that there was some kind of infernal monarchy was crazy.

He sighed. “Children’s stories meant to keep bad kids in line. They say that if you travel down deep enough, you come to the court of the Princes of the Abyss.”

“And those are?”

Things in the house had suddenly gotten too quiet. It was like all the clocks had stopped ticking, the wind had died down, and the pipes and floorboards had gone deaf. Even my question was hushed.

“Once upon a time, there was a war between the forces of the Abyss and the forces of Chaos. Demons and Faeries. Only the Faeries aren’t like the kind in any Disney movie. They fed on souls and wore the skin of humans like it was an accessory. When the Faeries lost, the Abyss set a price—they would feed it a soul every seven years. If they failed, a Faerie would take its place.”

“And these souls become the Princes?”

“No,” he said softly. “Every so often, the Fae can’t pull themselves away from their pleasures, and they are taken.Drafted, you could say, against their will. And just like the Maleficia taints those who summon it, the Abyss tainted those Fae. Broke them and reshaped them into something different. We call them Abyssal Princes. No one knows how many there are, or what they want, but even one of them is the kind of monster that the world hasn’t seen in five or six hundred years, back when magic was plentiful. And Maleficia makes them even more powerful. Because that’s what Maleficia is: power and destruction.”

“It’s a power that Moonset tapped into,” I said. “So why isn’t it destroying more?”

“Because … ” Then he stopped. “We’re not really sure,” Quinn admitted. “If the warlock wanted to just blow a hole in the side of the world, he could. That would make sense. After a while, that’s all they want anyway. But this one is different. All his attacks are small. Weak. It’s like he’s playing with us.”

I got the impression that he wasn’t supposed to be telling me all this. There was a difference between admitting the truth about the Congress’s plans, and then there was admitting the places where the Congress was weak.

A car door slammed outside. Jenna and the others were home, finally.

“I won’t ask you not to say anything,” Quinn said as he pushed himself off the counter. “But just be careful what you say. You
are
under guard, Justin. Whatever the actual intent was to bring you here, I can promise you that you’re safe.”

I wanted to believe him. I nodded, let him walk away as I waited at the table for the inevitable crowing that would come with Jenna’s arrival.

Safe.
From what, I had to wonder. The warlock? Maybe. But was he really the biggest threat to us? What about the Congress? What would they do if it came down to a fight? Would they save us, or would they wait until the warlock was done and then swoop in to save the day?

Their track record spoke almost as loudly as Jenna’s did.

Nineteen

“Now is the time for sacrifice. There is
blood in the water. And it isn’t ours.”

Sherrod Daggett
From a speech to his disciples

It wasn’t Jenna who came inside, though. Malcolm came in like the head of a parade. Cole was right behind him, and behind
them
were the boys from magic class, Kevin and Luca. It had barely been an hour since I’d seen them, but I was still caught off guard. Unfamiliar people in our
house.
We never invited people back to the house.

Luca. Seeing him and Malcolm in the same room was even more disorienting than seeing him at school. Mrs. Crawford had been right, they had the same
look.
The same eyes, the same hair color, but Luca was much shorter—only a little taller than Cole. My eyes flashed to Mal. “You … he … ”

“Yeah, we figured that part out already,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder, but I saw the way his eyes skidded over Luca’s head. There was a strange pit in my stomach that lightened when I saw the stiff lines of Malcolm’s shoulders. Knowing he was tense and uncomfortable made me feel better. Part of me didn’t want to admit it, but knowing Mal had blood relatives freaked me out. We were only a family because we had no other options. Mal, who always had one foot out the door anyway, now
had
options. So to find out that the reunion wasn’t a thing of instant harmony relaxed me.

“They look like brothers,” Cole chimed in, ever helpful. “Even more than we do.”

“That’s because they’re actually related,” Kevin said, hands tucked into his jacket. It didn’t sound like he was trying to be mean, just stating a fact. Kevin seemed like kind of a dick, but at least he was really polite about it. “Sort of.”

“Whatever,” Luca said, scuffing his feet. “I don’t even know why we’re here.” He wouldn’t actually look at any of us, instead focusing his attention on the decorations sparsely spread around the room, as if they were absolutely more fascinating than any of the people. I eyed him, still mulling over what he’d said to me in the office.

“We wanted to see how you were doing,” Kevin said, turning towards me. “Everything got totally out of control in there. Even Maddy felt a little bad about it afterwards.”

Maddy felt bad? She hadn’t bothered to hide the fact that she didn’t like me very much. “Really?”

Kevin’s lips quirked. “I said a little,” he admitted. “There’s a much bigger part that’s happy that she basically won the debate and proved you were a danger to the rest of us.”

“I thought you were going to deck me for a minute,” I admitted.

“I was,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, what Mrs. C did was messed up, and Maddy didn’t help matters any, but I thought you were going to hurt someone. You were all red-faced and spitting. You looked insane.”

“I wasn’t insane,” I said.

“You looked like it,” Kevin said. Luca made a noise of agreement. “And if it came down to defending the crazy guy or the people I’ve known all my life, well … you know how it was going to end.”

That I did.

“Maddy doesn’t know we’re here,” Luca put in quickly. “She’d probably be really pissed if she did.”

“I thought she was friends with Jenna,” Cole chimed in, hopping up on the kitchen counter.

“Jenna doesn’t have friends,” I said automatically.

Kevin smirked. “I was going to say the same thing about Maddy.”

“None of us have friends,” Cole said, pulling one of his knees up and resting his chin on it. Oh great, maudlin Cole. It didn’t happen very often, but when it did, Cole was even worse than normal. I glanced at Malcolm, but he was too busy ignoring Luca to pay attention to me.

“We move around a lot,” I explained.

“Well, yeah,” Kevin responded. “Makes a lot of sense. It can’t be easy to keep the Moonset kids under the radar, right? And now you’re here, and … ”

“ … and there’s a warlock already here looking for us,” I interrupted. Malcolm and Luca both stiffened, and again the resemblance was too strong to miss. “Do they tell you guys anything?”

Kevin shook his head. “Not much more than you, I bet. We get a lot of ‘Don’t do dark magic’ PSAs, though. And every time he attacks, we have a curfew for about a week after. Like after last night and then the drawing in the classroom today, they’re not taking any chances.”

“Not that it does any good,” Luca pointed out. “They can’t figure out what he’s doing.”

“What happened last night?” Mal asked, grabbing an apple out of the bowl.

Kevin shrugged, looking to me.

I sighed. “The guy we saw in the diner? The crazy one? He killed himself last night. They think the warlock might have had something to do with it.” There hadn’t been any time to talk to Mal and catch him up with what had happened since yesterday. Suddenly, the tension in his shoulders wasn’t just about his cousin being in my house.

It was hard enough trying to keep everything straight, but harder still to remember what I’d told him or what I’d told Jenna. I’d become too good at holding things back, and every tiny oversight was a huge drama.

“Don’t worry,” Cole said, correctly interpreting the sudden shift in tension, “Justin doesn’t tell me anything, either. He doesn’t tell anyone.”

“Cole,” Mal said, his voice a warning.

“What? It’s true. Everyone lies to us lately.”

“That’s enough!” Mal snapped.

“How long are you out for?” Kevin asked, trying to steer the conversation back to something less personal.

“A few days.” I grabbed one of the apples, too, but instead of devouring it the way Mal was, I tossed it nervously back and forth between my hands. Just to give them something to do. Cole huffed and hopped down off the counter. He crossed the room and headed into the hallway, Luca following after a few moments later.

“He’s not a bad kid.” Kevin watched me as I watched them. “Luca’s got a rough deal. His dad never could cope with what his brother did. I don’t think he ever intended to have kids, either. Luca was an accident.”

So it wasn’t any easier being from the “good” half of the Denton line. Malcolm was watching them, too, but I wondered if he watched for Cole, or for Luca.

“So if you guys are still around in the fall, you should try out for football,” Kevin said to Mal. That started a whole conversation about school sports and college teams, and my head couldn’t take it anymore. There was aspirin in the cupboard by the microwave, and I shook a couple into my hand and dry swallowed them as Kevin’s sports talk got a more energetic tone out of Malcolm than I’d heard in days.

“Who’s having the best day ever?” Jenna announced when she swept in a moment later. “Really, though, Justin. A murder threat?” She laughed, and added in a conspiratorial tone, “It’s much better if they don’t see it coming.”

I sunk down onto the kitchen table. Gloating Jenna wasn’t helping the pounding in my head. “Get it all out now,” I said, dropping my head onto the table’s surface.
Cold,
I thought in relief, the wood like a balm against my head.

“What are the Odd Couple doing here?”

I shrugged, but since my head was currently resting against the table, I imagined the effect was wasted. “Don’t know.”

“So you threaten unholy murder and carnage, and that gets you a visit from the welcome wagon?” Jenna rapped her fingers against the table, knowing full well it would aggravate me. It did. “Maddy really must not be in the running for Miss Congeniality.”

“The teacher went psycho and used magic on me.”

“I heard,” she snorted. “It’s not turning out the way she expected, I’m sure. His grandfather is another big deal. They probably should have warned us that this place was preppy central. Everyone’s got a relative who was some sort of mystical war hero or Moonset veteran.”

Which was something else to worry about. Why now? Why put us in a room with people who had every right to hate us? Moonset had targeted the magical elite, the witches with the most knowledge and political power. “Wait, what do you mean it’s not turning out the way she expected?”

Jenna looked surprise. “Baby brother’s the victim, haven’t you heard?” Her smirk widened into something that would have been a smile on anyone else. Jenna’s smiles were few and far between. “She wanted to make you look unstable, and instead, she made you look sympathetic. People are talking about how poor little Justin was taken advantage by someone he was supposed to trust.”

“They’re saying that?”

She nodded in the direction of Kevin and Mal. “That’s what he told his grandfather, at least. Even Maddy mentioned that it wasn’t entirely your fault. But then, she’s also claiming that you forfeited the debate, so there you go.”

Maybe things were looking up. If we weren’t the scapegoats that everyone always tried to make us out to be. Even Jenna seemed halfway composed today—and we’d already made it through the first few days of school without her setting something on fire or staging a mutiny.

Luca slunk back into the kitchen, one hand stuffed inside his jacket.

“Where’s Cole?” I asked, lifting my head at his approach.

He shrugged, turning until he was facing Kevin. “We should go. I have to be home before my dad comes back,” he said softly. “He won’t be happy if he knows I was here.”

“I told you,” Kevin said, sounding like he’d repeated this several times already, “no one’s going to find out, okay? Besides, it’s not that big of a deal. If he finds out, just tell him we were forced to come by the school.”

Luca shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Whatever,” he sighed. “Can we go now?

“We’re going,” Kevin said, annoyed now.
What was Luca’s problem, anyway?
He’d been fine when he left the room with Cole.

Cole,
I sighed. “He didn’t say anything to piss you off, did he? Cole doesn’t always think before he talks. He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“I’m still here!” a voice shouts from the other room, his irritation audible.

Jenna sighed, standing from the table. “I’ll deal with him. But you should probably get them out of here anyway.” She strode from the room, and I could hear muted voices from the front of the house. Then the front door opened and slammed shut.
Cole storming out.
An audible huff. Then the door opened and closed again.
Jenna went after him.
At least there was that. If anyone could wrangle Cole, it was Jenna. It was just that Jenna usually was wrangling him for nefarious purposes like school riots. Cole’s exuberance only braked for mischief.

“Yeah, we’re going,” Kevin said, grinning. “Think about what I said about the team, man,” he added to Malcolm.

Mal shrugged easily. “We probably won’t be here in the fall, and I’m not much for team sports anyway.”

“Yeah, I get that,” he responded. “Easier to pick up and move when no one else is relying on you.”

“Something like that,” Mal deferred.

“Look, I get that it can’t be easy for you guys. Being here,” Kevin said as the four of us approached the door, Mal and me in the rear. “Especially for you guys. With both of your dads being here and everything. But maybe it’s the smart choice. Where better to start over than where it all started in the first place?”

Luca looked startled, maybe at the reminder that he, too, was related to a terrorist. But I was caught up in thinking about our fathers: Mal’s and mine. Sherrod and Cyrus had reportedly been the best of friends all their lives. We knew they’d grown up here. But no one had really talked to us about them before.

Well, one person had. The old man at the curio shop. He’d taken one look at me and recognized my father. Maybe there was more of an opportunity here than I’d thought. But Kevin’s suggestion also brought up another thought. Why would the warlock want us here, exactly? Why Carrow Mill? Because that was where Moonset had started?

A chill settled in as I wondered. Was he hoping that lightning would strike twice?