Part 30 (1/2)

”I will finish up with the selection process,” I said, ”or the draft, as you call itif for no other reason than to see; but I don't like what I see; and I do not agree with it, Professor And I certainlyI certainly won't be a part of it”

He called ht up with ?” she said We were departing the sandpit Lia wasn't angry with , she looked i?” I said

”Because you just stuck it to a third-degree badass from the House of Housesexcept for the Master House,” she said

”There is no master House, Lia And he isn't that bad Do you know? I feel reckless What's the Wiccan virtue for not giving a damn?”

”I don't think there is one,” said Lia, who looked at ly ”Do you think he'll tell? You knowtheates froht be a bad seed?”

I shook ive the pun But Vittoria will Ravenseal must hold the first marker I looked at her face,” I said to Lia ”They'll choose Vittoria with their nuo it alone I always have Co ti tired of our cold war Whenever we passed each other in the halls he pretended to be engaged in conversation with so But then I realized that he didn't want anything to have to do with me The same with the rest of the olves, who kept the see, there were a bunch more people at ates For another, those I hadn't seen in a whileincluding the three chieftheir reappearances So everybody must've been excited for this selection process

All day I had been reliving the confrontation with Lux, in the sandpit earlier thatAt times I would think I had been a fool; at others, I would know I had been

I wondered if it was too late to take it back And then, if I really wanted to? Very rarely did I co well, when I replayed the scenario in ht; and that was important to

The other Initiates were avoiding Lia and I She had co ostracized as well

I iined us in soersme a can of beans It was clear that our Marks had not fully formed, in these visions We had the stubs of Marks, and our beans were getting cold

At other tireat revolution I see, the Stars and Stripes, which must've meant that on so the Initiates to freedoive a crap about But these visions wouldn't last very long; and, before I knew it, I felt like a fool again

Halsey, you dope Youstupidmyself

But that would pass too

I said that thing you say about not being able to change the things that you can't change, and to be at peace, and stuff, and I just let go What would be, would be, I guessed It was up toto be happy Sooner or later, the rest would sort itself out

”What will I do without a House?” I wrote in my diary It didn't respond back

Chapter 22 Houses

”Your name is the most important identifier you possess All coven members' surnamesHarcort,” said Fanishwar Harcort ”Coven, Ravenseal, and so on ” She inclined her head to each of the mistresses ”All are hive names, because all covens hived That's hoe came to be Over-nureed This tis of rock hid their bodies for the ht heads of hair and the flashi+ng goith the runic symbols; it made me think of the website I had seen and the symbols which tumbled down from it like snowflakes But if I were to becoedif that was to be ive up things like YouTube and video gah-powered Mac I carried withthe rest of the Wiccans by a long shot The truth was that when you took on a name like House Harcort, that House, that lifestyle, was supposed to beco else Almost, as I looked at Lia, as if you end, and history Into a proscribed way of doing things

There was a bit of steel to Lia I could see it after having cracked her friendshi+p barrier I think we are guilty so our friends We put theet upset when they crawl back out of theo here, friend, and stay putor else

Fanishwar Harcort kept going on and on about our duty to our Houses

The eyes of the watchers flashed upon the other Initiates and I We were in our black hooded robes I keptWiccan Mark carefully hidden To Lia I had shown it and she exclaimed with rapture: ”It's almost like we're sisters now Your secret's safe with me,” she said, and winked

Here ere

Sos I could see Pendderwenn, his pale and clammy skin anxious as ever; he nodded to me briefly and I smiled at him, but I made sure to look away real fast What if he held my marker? It was too much to think about

Maria Lenoir Her dark eyes were as inscrutable as ever Asher, I noticed, wasfrom her retinue, but her consort, as I supposed hiood-naturedly with her, and I remembered, in Lennox's dream, that apparently Maria had assumedno, usurpedpower, as it appeared she had killed the Vas it was better not to let anyone else know I knew about She inclined her head to me, and I winked back Maria s I didn't understand was how a vampire could hold a o with themfor realand to learn to suck blood?

Fanishwar, happily, rapping up her big to-do

”Please, bear in ues, the Lenoir, or wolf in ain, no ailuranthropes; Asher was right about that They weren't so much underrepresented as not represented at all ”The covenant holds that you receive your , and remain a friend to them, either the Lenoir or the olves, for the remainder of your life and the afterlife For they hold your marker”

She held it up; it was red as blood

”And if war should renew itself” she said

Hisses and whispers of no, impossible, that will never happen, we are friends now

”Then that House, that House, will be your House, and for that House, you shall fight; the ties that bind are many and complex Blood and love Love and blood,” she said

”Love and blood,” they all repeated

”A Wiccan in with va a Wiccan and their school, acknowledges Wicca and the power of that school And a Wiccan 'raised' by vampires, for want of a better word, respects those vaes, true and faithfully, into any House they travel We bind ourselves with blood”

”With blood”

”Let our gathering renew our loveand prevent any ill-will For what happened, happened It was nobody's fault”

They bowed their heads

Fanishwar Harcort stepped down from the podium, and I looked at Maria Lenoir, there, where Fanishwar returned to the judges' table; she had an enigh she had stolen into the Louvre and ate the Mona Lisa Veruschka next

”Ahem Thank you for that, Mistress,” she said

Fanishwar bowed her head; I suddenly realized asn't here Selwyn He was off, I didn't knohere

”Mistresses, this is a special Gathering,” said Veruschka Ravenseal ”The first in a quarter century” Her voice boohts pop on, which were held in the pal crowd ”Thirteen markers were sent out Is she here with us, the One? We do not know Probably Maybe Who knows? We do not know that she is not For all we know, she ht be For all we know is that it was foretold It's as si of the First War, we gathered; and then twenty-five years after that And after that And after that Froather She is the Chosen of the Chosen; the One A the Many And she is either here with us or she is not But we gather to find out”

Mur of robes I looked nervously around at all of the other Initiates