I straightened in my chair, trying to figure out how to make my point. “Maybe once the powers are stolen from a blood heir, they’re even easier for another witch, one less powerful, to steal? Because that witch was not a true charmling. And the more they’re stolen, the less powerful the witch has to be. Like, the magics become diluted. If the witch who stole the powers wasn’t terribly powerful to begin with—”
“Oh, but she would’ve been,” Serinda said. “In order to pull off something like that, she would’ve been very powerful.”
“Probably more powerful than either of us are,” Gigi agreed.
I had my doubts about that. My own mother had tried to steal my powers when I was three. She had to have gotten her powers from somewhere. Then again, I’d killed her. According to Gigi, I’d somehow known what she was doing, and I defended myself. In the process, I’d killed my own mother. That knowledge was still new. Raw. Abrasive. Thankfully, that was not a specific memory I had access to.
“In any case,” Gigi said, lifting her chin majestically, “we are your coven and you, whether you want to be or not, are of royal blood. You are sarru, and we are prepared to lay down our lives to protect you.”
I held up a hand to stop her. “I’m sorry, what?”
She drew in a deep breath. “Defiance—”
“No.” I stood and walked to the island to look through the offerings for something to do. An excuse to buy a few moments to absorb what they were saying. After deciding two sandwiches had been plenty, I turned back to them. “That is not acceptable. I didn’t sign up for anything like that.”
“I can see why you didn’t tell her,” Serinda said. “Sarru—”
“Dee. Fy. Ance.” Though I stressed each syllable, I said it softly. Lovingly. These amazing women were willing to give up their lives for me. As far as we knew, my grandmother may have done that very thing.
What if her death was all a ruse to find out my identity? Gigi had kept me hidden for over forty years. She’d somehow suppressed my powers to the point that even I didn’t know about them. Didn’t remember them. And no one else, witch or warlock, could use them to find me. The fact that she had the power to do something like that proved how strong she was. How powerful.
Serinda held her ground. “Sarru,” she said, with a soft bow of her head, “you are a charmling. You simply must get used to the idea. And you, like all charmlings, are vulnerable to the most wretched of our kind.”
I sat back down and only then realized Minerva had awakened. Her breathing wasn’t deep anymore. I spared her a quick glance. Her eyes were barely open, watching me from behind a mass of long dark hair, her brows drawn in concern. As a member of the inner circle, she had to have at least a trace amount of power herself, and I wondered exactly what she was capable of.
I turned back to the two elder women. “Odd how those who are supposed to be the most powerful witches are the most vulnerable.”
“The bigger the target,” Gigi said.
But the words that Serinda said percolated inside my brain—of royal blood—and I remembered what the beauty in my Mesopotamian vision, her ebony skin decorated with bright, iridescent paints, had drawn on the air when we met. The symbol she’d christened me with: of royal blood.
What the actual hell?
Annette rifled through her notebook. “I don’t think they always were. Targets. Then a warlock in the… oh… maybe the 1600s, figured out how to force another witch—a witch he controlled—to siphon a charmling’s magics, subsequently killing her. There’s a book…” She tore through her notebook faster as she got closer to her goal. She stopped and pointed. “Yes. An ancient text that talks about charmlings, only the author doesn’t call them that specifically. The text was translated many times, however. It could be a bad interpretation. Add to that the fact that the author wrote in riddles for fear of being labeled a heretic, and you can see the conundrum.”
Both Gigi and Serinda eased closer as Annette read from her notes.
“A book?” Gigi asked, struggling for a look at the notes. “What book?”
“Oh, let me find the title.” She thumbed back through several pages as Minerva gave up the charade and craned her neck for a peek as well. “It’s… here… somewhere. Oh, here. It’s from one of several books called Centuries by Nostradamus.”
“Nostradamus?” Serinda said, stunned.
All three women—Gigi, Serinda, and Minerva—dove in for a better look, almost knocking their heads together.
Annette frowned and eased the book closer to read. “Okay, according to this Nosferatu guy, who wrote in these really cryptic quatrains, three daughters born on the sands of the Tigris will know great adversity and the victories of man. No clue about the victories, but I figure he could be talking about the original charmlings.” She glanced at me. “They were Mesopotamian in your vision, right, Deph?”
I nodded and couldn’t help but lean in for a better look.
“The Tigris. It fits perfectly.” She read some more. “Okay, next he says, no true sorrow will touch their breasts, until the beasts descend and sup on spirit and flesh. So, ew. But the beasts descending?”
“The warlocks,” Gigi said.
“My thoughts exactly. From what I can tell, that refers to the original change of the power dynamics. But the second quatrain starts with the real clue: For five thousand years, the daughters of the crescent will wait.” She tapped the notebook. “Mesopotamian civilization was dominated very much by the Sumerians in the early Bronze Age. The first written history begins almost exactly five thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, which sat in what is called the Fertile Crescent.”
I shook my head. “Annette, how did you find all of this?”
“Oh, but wait. There’s more.” She turned the page. “The concealed queen rises first, seized by fire.” She looked up at me. “It’s you, Deph. Your powers were concealed, and then you caught fire—”
“I didn’t actually catch—”
“Then Roane put you in the shower and, you know, quenched it.” Four women sighed dreamily. Five if one counted me.
Annette snapped out of it first. “But get this. Her sisters of half-blood follow, of taint and of time. Again, no idea what taint and time means. But it has to be metaphorical for your sister charmlings.”
“Maybe,” Serinda said. “But the other charmlings are not true blood heirs.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “They’re faux charmlings.”
Annette waved a dismissive hand. “Again, this guy was super cryptic. There’s just no telling. But the last line of these two quatrains states that When eternal sands divide and all sisters unite, the final beast will fall.” When she gazed at us expectantly and no one said anything, she added, “Don’t you get it? The final beast. The last warlock. And it says when all sisters unite. Not just the three. I think all of the witches will have to unite to bring this guy down. The covens will play a part.”
“This is all so fascinating,” Gigi said. “How did you even find it?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Google. The next quatrain goes into kings and swords. He was super into that sort of thing. These were the only two quatrains I could find that I feel pertains to the charmlings.”