Hiding
A war right now will be deadly if it can’t be stopped, and yet somehow, if one side takes the twins, everything will fall. Willow knows she would give herself up to stop that happening and keep the twins where they belong, but they don’t want her for some reason.
Maybe it’s because while she is more powerful, she will refuse to hurt either side for greed. The witches would use her to wipe out the vampires and the werewolves, and she knows they would. The werewolves as well. They’d use her to destroy the vampires and the witches, and the vampires? Even if it weren’t the Monventla who took her but the Ceprimora instead, they would want the witches and werewolves dead. She knows the Ceprimora’s goal would be to try to win over the Monventla and prove they can rule.
Why the twins, though? They are far too young to be used, at least until they are taught properly. And this mystery person who sees the twins and reveals their secret to the world, who is it? What exactly do they see? She can’t see it yet, not entirely. There is still so much that Serliciaus is hiding from her. Maybe it’s not as simple as seeing a spell or something. Maybe the person who sees them can just feel it.
Everyone keeps saying it. They have a bond. We can feel the magic, how it changes. They aren’t lying. She noticed it herself, even at such a young age – the twins’ magic is different. She has seen it. The magic flows freely, one twin giving all their magic to the other but then taking it back with ease.
When she felt it shift, felt their magic connect and entwine together between them, it was almost like a power standing on its own and yet still controlled by them.
If this mystery person feels that, then they have to be a witch, surely? Maybe it’s a werewolf who can just feel some of the magic but realise they’re werewolves as well. Right now, it’s hard to recognise that they’re vampires. The power of the magic seems to dull the intensity of it, but who really knows?
That’s the issue here. No one knows. It has been three weeks, yet looking at the twins, it feels far longer. They’re sitting up, and Zander is convinced they have already aged to eight months.
Alaric’s theory is that they’re ageing like werewolves, only quicker. Werewolves usually age quickly until around their ninth birthday, an age when shifting becomes far easier. Sure, they could shift now, but Alaric mentioned something about a curse – the Pygmy Curse, he called it.
Shifting too much too young can stop the werewolf from growing over a certain height, but typically, it only happens because, at such a young age, the werewolves can struggle to shift back to humans. The emotions, the power, the connection to other werewolves becomes too much for them to understand.
Gwenael’s theory is that they’ll stop ageing so quickly around nine and start ageing at the average speed. He also thinks that if they shift they won’t see the curse happen, that the curse is for pure werewolves, which the twins aren’t.
Everyone who knows has their own theory. The local witches know about Willow and the twins, just like the werewolves do. All were told it was a silent reality. No one should speak about it, think about it, or feel it when around others. To everyone, for now, at least, Willow and the twins don’t exist. No one knows what has become of Willow.
They need to plan to get things in motion. The biggest thing, though, is ensuring Willow is ready. While she can feel the werewolf curse within her, she still denies it. Something about shifting and becoming a werewolf scares her.
She has watched Alaric, and he makes it look so straightforward. Cayson transforming is a thing of beauty, elegant and flowing. Gwenael has made it known, though, that for those few seconds during the transformation itself, the body feels like it’s burning from the inside out. That scares her, the fact that even those who can do it so freely feel such pain for those few seconds.
How bad is it at the start when it sometimes takes minutes to shift? She refuses to dwell on it for too long. She had wanted Alaric to be her teacher but they’d refused, Gwenael taking the position instead – and now she knows about the pain, she understands why.
Whenever she talks to Alaric about it, or he asks her questions, she panics. She becomes too focused on making sure everything is right and that she doesn’t mess up. Willow is so set on not letting Alaric down or disappointing him that her magic begins to come free. Alaric also seems distant – as if he has stepped back again – which doesn’t help at all.
These past weeks have passed by quickly, and training here is hard, which has led to the decision to move to the witches’ house. It’s safer there; the witches can put up a spell to stop just anyone walking in. That is where Cayson is today, helping to get everything sorted.
In just one week, this house will be empty. There will be no privacy, and Willow knows that means there will never be time alone. Not that there is now – and even when there is, C hides from her. She’s managed to go out twice by using a spell to mask how she looks. That way, if anyone from the wedding just happens to be visiting, they won’t recognise her.
They had agreed that it was wrong, keeping her and the twins hiding inside for months, so she just goes to the shop with them, just to get some air.
