Maria had no intention of stopping and went on as if nothing had happened when the mention of my grandmother echoed in my mind. I couldn't understand which of the two she meant, but I was ready to swear that neither of my grandmothers—on my father's side nor on my mother's—could ever have been called the High Priestess of any coven in the past. Sweet old ladies, who had cared for me more than my own mother ever had, were always kind and smiling, not the cartoonish witches with hooked noses reaching the ceiling, as the fairy tales claimed. I didn't want to believe it or even allow the thought that my family's history was even more complicated than it already seemed. Everything that was happening had long since crossed the boundaries of normal—and certainly the boundaries of my understanding.
"During Beltane, our parents called a gathering, timing it with the sabbath to announce a new peace treaty under which werewolves and witches would be equal, and past disagreements would be forgotten like a bad dream, for a way had finally been found to sever wolves from the natural magic they absorbed without giving anything back to the source in return. That was the official version."
As much as I wanted to deny the obvious, Maria's story easily matched what Kostya had shown me in the kennels: I had seen with my own eyes what my grandfather's attempts to reject the wolf spirit had led to. I had also seen that my father had inherited lycanthropy from Svetozar. Which meant only one thing: my grandmother, my beloved sweet grandmother who baked the most delicious pies on holidays and loved to gather guests under her roof, had once been the powerful High Priestess of a witch coven. Even realizing that the puzzle pieces fit perfectly together, I could not bring myself to believe it. Her image, like our entire life in Rostov, turned out to have a double bottom—a false cover meant to hide her true nature not only from outsiders, but from me as well. That thought hollowed me out, piece by piece stealing away fragments of warm memories I no longer knew how to trust.
"However, the High Priestess's retinue knew the truth about what was being prepared, as did the simple novices like me who carried out the small tasks: cleansing the surrounding areas, gathering and arranging rowan branches for the spell. The ritual performed that day was indeed meant to destroy the wolves' bond with the source of magic—Mother Nature herself. But, like any magic, no spell can exist without an anchor. Cut it loose, and you deprive the boat of its means of salvation—leaving it to drift endlessly in the open sea. Your grandmother understood that she could lure the wolves to their doom and restore the balance of the source, which had been growing weaker, causing more frequent fires, droughts, and typhoons around the world. She was powerful, but not all-powerful. And she had a heart."
"God, you explain everything so slowly," Kostya interrupted, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. "Long story short, your grandma ended up making a deal with your grandpa, and they tricked the guests into lending their power, just so they themselves wouldn't die of exhaustion while trying to perform a ritual strong enough to re-anchor the werewolves. To our ancestral spirits, as you already know."
"Why do you butt into what you don't understand? When did you become a warlock?"
Kostya snorted and gripped the steering wheel more tightly.
"Never was one, and don't intend to be. And stop filling your daughter's head with fluff. Say it plain, as it is."
"Or what? You could've told her yourself ages ago, if you're so smart."
"I have told her! Slowly, in small doses, so she could process it. Right now, you see, it's not about your merry Beltane past with dancing and feasts. She needs to deal with what she's become—thanks to you."
"Thanks to me?" Maria jabbed herself in the chest in outrage. "I don't recall having mutts in my family tree."
"Mom!" I shouted, unable to believe my ears.
"Asya, I'm sorry. Your mother," Kostya softened his tone, turning back to me, "she doesn't want to call your new condition by any name. It's just old habit—throwing barbs at me. Right, Maria?"
The car stopped at a red light.
"Right. That's not what I meant, okay? We all thought we were doing the right thing for you. We even signed up to risk our lives, and in the end, what? My mother lost her magic and died without the honors and unity with the source she deserved, and your father lost his mind entirely and sank to the level of a primitive creature."
"Now I understand why we never got a dog," was all I could manage to say.
My mood sank below average. More than anything, I wanted silence—to think through the events and shocks of this terribly long and complicated day, which had left me sick at heart, yet somehow was putting everything in its place.
"They paid the price so your father and I could be together. We were happy."
"For the most part," Kostya added.
"But not as long as we would have liked. The coven couldn't accept my choice, even after the official reason to blame wolves for all mortal sins was taken away. They found a new reason to hate us, blaming the loss of the High Priestess's power on me. In the witches' hierarchy, you can't just take the place of the leader—you have to be born great. Your grandmother lost her power before her time, before a successor had emerged. Nothing unites people like the search for a common enemy. The warlocks and witches I had grown up with banded together against me and cast me out for my bond with Kostya."
"The wolves weren't doing great either. Losing our bond with magic meant losing our immortality—and we found out the hard way, through trial and error. Protecting the city from the weak-bloods was still our job. People in the pack started valuing their lives more, fighting less, putting themselves before the whole. They stopped shifting, rejecting the spirit within—and he doesn't forgive mistakes. And you've seen for yourself where that decision led them, back in the kennels. Because of our dwindling numbers, I lost almost all my friends when the vampires learned about the Kserton pack's weakness and began sending the newly turned and blood-maddened weak-bloods to their deaths with twice the force. If it had gone on like that, the city would have drowned in the blood of innocents. Neither I nor the others who still fought could let that happen."
"And you all would have died heroes if they hadn't come back to Kserton," Maria picked up Kostya's story, "Vladimir and Olga."
"They took the city under their protection from other vampire clans. Even creatures like them have a sort of code. At least, according to Vladimir. Because his wife came from one of the city's founding families, the ancient clans abandoned their plans to claim Kserton for themselves. As long as she or a direct descendant lived, no one would dare set foot here—except maybe a few lost souls drawn by hunger to a small city that promised easy prey. The remaining wolves could handle those."
"When the long-awaited peace came and the danger was, for the most part, gone, your father and I moved on—we lived together, started planning our future. And soon, we were going to have you."
"It was almost like a fairy tale. With a beautiful ending."
The memory made Maria smile, but even through her lowered lashes, there was a trace of sadness in her eyes.
"And they lived happily ever after—but apart," she added, and a heavy silence settled in the car, thick with unspoken words.
"I started having dreams at night. Unusually vivid, strange dreams. They frightened me every time with how they ended. In them, I saw a young, beautiful girl with eyes just like mine. She smiled at me and kept repeating that everything would be fine. And then…"
"What happened then?" I prompted, afraid my mother would skip over it, as she often did.