There were circles under my eyes, and I looked tired despite the sleep. My hair was a mess, and when I used Nick’s brush, it only made it frizz out all the more. I contemplated taking my pain amulet off but decided I might need it if I was summoned out and had to fight, so I let it stay tucked under my shirt. The black camisole had been fresh this morning, and the jeans were probably good for another day. Eventually, though, I’d have to risk going home for a change of clothes and a toothbrush or spend a couple of hours at the mall.

How had I gotten here? Shunned and on the run from the coven, unable to go home for a change of undies. What scared me the most was that the coven didn’t have to work within the law, or at least they felt they didn’t. Maybe I should call Glenn and see if there was a warrant out for my arrest? That would be good news, because if there was, then they couldn’t just pack me quietly away in a closet. Okay, so my kids being demons was a problem, but shouldn’t the entire witch community have a say in whether I should be shoved in a hole or just castrated?

“Thanks, Trent,” I whispered as I cleaned Nick’s brush. Dropping the fistful of his and my hair into the sink, I set it alight with a word of Latin.None of this would have happened if Trent hadn’t told the council what his dad’s tinkering with my mitochondria had done.

I’d been born with a common genetic “defect” that should’ve killed me before I was two. Thousands of witches were. The truth was that Rosewood syndrome was really an ancient elven biological-warfare device that kicked in when a witch able to invoke demon magic was born.

Turns out the elves had cursed the demons first, causing their children to be born stunted in their ability to do magic. Abandoned by demons as inferior, ancient elves called us witches and told us lies, recruiting us for what magic we retained to help them in their war. They couldn’t get rid of the gene that enabled us to invoke demon magic without removing all our ability to do magic, and occasionally it recombined to full strength; hence the little genetic bomb they hooked into our DNA to kill us when the demon enzyme showed.

When Trent’s dad tinkered enough, such that I could survive having the demon enzyme, he’d unknowingly fixed what his species had broken. Trent’s claim that he hadn’t told the coven was crap, especially when the lie that he could control and destroy me followed it.

“Rachel?” came a worried call from the door, and I looked up from the bit of ash that was left of my hair. That and a really nasty stench.