The mont my magic slipped past Claire’s defenses, past the wards she threw up weakly around her mind, the world inverted.
There was no gentle transition. No warning. One second I was before her, hand pressed to her forehead, feeling her panic skitter uselessly beneath my palm—and the next, I was no longer in my body at all.
I was inside her.
But her mind did not open like a door, as Adam’s. It fractured like glass.
mory rushed at in jagged shards, unfiltered, dragging forward whether I wanted to go or not. I braced instinctively, grounding myself, and then—
Fire.
Not destruction. Not chaos.
A small, perfect sphere of fla hovered above a child’s hands, spinning lazily, obedient and warm. Little Claire sat perched on a chair too large for her, feet swinging as she laughed, eyes bright with delight as the fire obeyed her every thought.
The room was quiet. Private. Sealed away from the rest of the world. It seed like a room inside another, a secret base or sothing like that.
Her mother stood before her, watching with unmistakable pride, lips curved into a soft smile. There was no fear in her posture, no concern that her daughter had magic at such an age, despite being a werewolf. Only admiration.
"Why do I have magic?" little Claire asked, tilting her head. The fla wobbled but did not falter.
Her mother stepped closer, cupping Claire’s small hands carefully, reverently. "It’s a gift," she said. "From the Goddess herself."
The words settled into the child like truth carved in stone. I felt it take root.
The mory shuddered.
The sa room reassembled around again, but the air was heavier now, darker. Claire was older—fifteen, perhaps—her shoulders rigid with anger, magic coiled tight beneath her skin.
Her mother stood across from her, no smile in sight, hands clenched as if bracing for impact.
They were arguing.
I knew why before the mory finished forming. The fire incident.
The blaze that had killed more than two werewolves. The one the council had dismissed as an unfortunate act of nature. Faulty kitchen tools. A tragic accident.
It hadn’t been any of that, as I could see. It had been Claire.
An untrained, unchecked, powerful witch, whose powers seed to have been amplified because of her werewolf nature. A hybrid of sorts.
"Tell who he is," Claire demanded, her voice shaking with restrained fury. "Who is my real father?"
Her mother raised her hand and slapped her. "Don’t you talk to like that, girl!"
The sound cracked through the room, but Claire didn’t cry.
Her eyes went rather cold.
With a flick of her fingers, she lifted her mother off the ground. Invisible force crushed around the woman’s throat, hoisting her into the air as her feet kicked uselessly.
"I asked you a question," Claire said quietly.
Her mother gagged, clawing at nothing, terror etched into her face. The confession spilled out in broken gasps. She didn’t know who the man was. She’d been drunk at one of the inter-community gatherings. She’d slept with soone—one of them.
Claire’s magic tightened. "Who," she pressed.
Her mother sobbed, voice breaking. A security guard. A nobody. A single night. aningless.
Claire flung her across the room.
The woman hit the wall and slid to the floor, crumpling like discarded cloth.
And Claire walked out without looking back.
The mory tore itself apart.
I was dragged into another.
A classroom. My classroom, back at the pack.
Claire at sixteen, seated at her desk, chin resting in her palm. And there—across the room—I saw myself.
Maya.
I saw through Claire’s eyes. Quiet. Withdrawn. Existing on the margins, because just a day ago I had been declared wolfless.
And I felt it.
Envy.
Hot, corrosive, festering beneath her ribs.
She had overheard a group of boys as it seed. The boys, laughing by the windows, arguing back and forth, trying to choose the most beautiful girl in class.
My na had popped up, despite the boys adding that it was sad I had no wolf.
The resentnt ignited instantly. I watched it sharpen, watched it twist into sothing sinister. I saw Claire lean toward the others, whispering, planting seeds.
I felt her think of pulling the triplets into it, feeding them just enough cruelty to make it stick.
The bullying began there.
I left that mory quickly. So wounds didn’t need reopening.
I reached deeper, pushing past resistance, toward the night everything had broken.
The hall blood into existence. Music. Laughter. Light.
I watched through Claire’s eyes as I walked in with Adam. Saw the way her breath hitched, the way envy curdled into hatred, into sothing poisonous and obsessive.
She left the hall.
I followed.
She went straight to where the jewelry was kept. Took it. Hid it carefully. Then she stood alone and began to chant, voice low, words dark and unfamiliar.
She plucked a hair from her head.
When she threw it to the floor, it beca a little girl.
My chest tightened. I rembered her. The child who had called out of the hall. The child who had Claire’s eyes.
The pointer has always been there then, I just had been too naive to point it out, or rather it hadn’t made much sense then.
I watched Claire crouch, speaking softly, giving instructions. Watched the girl nod and run. Then Claire cloaked herself in magic and slipped back inside. Effortlessly invisible.
She placed the jewelry into my bag with practiced precision.
The mory twisted again.
Claire stood outside the holding cells.
She repeated the incantation.
This ti, she tangled her hair with another strand—black, familiar.
Adam’s.
She threw it on the floor while chanting... And suddenly, there was an Adam standing beside her.
My breath caught painfully. Black magic.
I didn’t need to see the rest. Those mories already lived inside . Claire had been behind my near death. It was obvious she had created a Noah and Daniel too.
Which ant she had been behind the second too. The sa thod. The sa manipulation.
But who had taught her?
Before I could search further, El shoved forward.
Another mory snapped into place.
A room. Dimly lit. Quiet.
I recognized the attire Claire wore, recognized that it was the dress she wore on the night I died as Dora.
Then I saw the Queen...
Oh my goddess...
The Queen stood there, composed and regal, speaking softly to Claire. She handed her a small vial, fingers lingering just long enough to convey approval, instruction, and alliance.
The truth slamd into like a physical blow.
My balance faltered. The mories fractured violently imdiately, ejecting from Claire’s mind in a rush of noise and light.
I stumbled back into my body, breath tearing from my lungs, heart pounding.
Suddenly, everything made sense. Too much sense.
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