A Girl in Black and White (Alyria 2)

“If you look closer,” Agnes added loudly, “the Sisterhood safe houses are marked with an S. They are anonymous so that when you have children, you can take them there without breaking your sworn word to keep your identity a secret. If you have boys, that’s your pledge’s responsibility to deal with his son and what he needs to know, not yours.”

“Why did you say ‘when?’” Magdalena asked.

Agnes’ brows knitted. “What?”

“Why did you say ‘when’ we would have children, not ‘if?’”

Our High Sister sighed. “If you have a problem with it, then maybe you should think about petitioning for High Sistership.”

Magdalena frowned. “No offense, Agnes, but your job looks terrible from my angle.”

“And who’s fault is that?” Agnes asked.

I shut the rest out as I perused the map for a city I already knew didn’t exist. Probably the most irritating part in this whole situation was that Undaley wasn’t real. It was only the Sisterhood code name for these safe houses.

The entire trip to Undaley was based on a lie. And the thing that gave me the urge to laugh out of near lunacy was that Weston hadn’t even blinked once when I told him my destination. He, instead, came out with an imaginary time of travel without even a smile. He was good, I’d give him that—but he was dead if I ever saw him again.

Though, I had always wondered: what was a Titan Prince doing, sitting in a Cameron tavern? I would probably never know.

My grandmother hadn’t even planned for me to make it to her stupid safe house. They were only going to throw off the magic trail, or I’d have much worse after me than one inhuman rider, but once they came to find me, I was nowhere to be found. I was stuck in a place between annoyance that they didn’t have the slightest of confidence in me, and wanting to gloat that I’d proved them wrong.

It wasn’t until six months ago the Sisterhood was alerted of one lone Sister on a southern beach. Gifts were far and few between before this awakening, but we didn’t truly come into our magic before this. Even afterward we weren’t guaranteed any magic; we each had different gifts and levels of power. It was based on our bloodlines and how much magic our families stole through desecrating rituals. It made a lot of the first Sisters lose their sanity, but throughout hundreds of years, each generation built a stronger tolerance to it, until now, only the weakest minds couldn’t handle their Sister magic.

My mother had found me, thinking I was only sunbathing naked on the beach before taking me here. I never told her what happened to me over those months I’d been gone, nor of the four months that were missing from my life completely.

“Now, I wasn’t jesting when I said I want to know your plans for All Sister’s Day before you go to any festival events,” Agnes said sternly. “Sinsara is the only one who has petitioned for High—”

Sinsara shot her closest friend, Carmella, a look. She was the princess of the group—she deserved the title more than I ever had. “You told me you were petitioning too!”

Carmella was the tag along, you know, the girl who followed the leader. But not this time. She didn’t say anything, only widened her blue eyes in unease.

Sinsara gave her a dirty glare, before pushing her chair back from the table, and running from the room.

“Sinsara—” Agnes started.

“I love Trevon!” Carmella cried. “And he’s already gotten my mother’s approval. I don’t want to be a High Sister. No offense, Agnes, but it looks horrible from my angle too!” She jumped from her seat and disappeared out the door.

Agnes let out a big breath, muttering, “Alyria, help me.”

“Agnes,” Greta, a kitchen maid said, sticking her head in the door, “we have a problem in the kitchens with the new cook. He’s trying to cook meat for supper!”

“Thank Alyria,” escaped my lips before I could stop it. Agnes shot me a look, and I coughed. “I mean . . . how . . . bizarre, eating meat. Sick,” I muttered. I might have overdone it with my tone at the end, but I didn’t think Agnes would believe my revulsion either way.

“Have you not told him we do not consume meat, Greta?”

“Yes, miss. But he does not think that is healthy and will not budge. In fact, there is a lamb sitting on the table now.”

The girls’ eyes went wide.

Agnes took a breath. “I’ll be back, ladies. Study the map while I’m gone.”

The Sisterhood had its rules. They were now in touch with the land and animals, and didn’t eat anything they had to kill. I thought they were only trying to make amends for the ugly past of how they’d gotten their magic, leaving burnt trees and land in their wake. But I knew they weren’t righteous witches; no, there was a lot I didn’t know about the Sisterhood, but I suspected we didn’t hold hands and sing.

“Sarai, is that the new gossip rag? Read it, please,” Marlena said. She was the quietest of the group that sometimes I forgot she was even here. Most times she was in the music room, the sound of the organ filtering through the house late at night.

Sarai sighed. “Fine.”

“Skip to see if there are new stories on the Girl in Black,” Magdalena said.