Chapter Text
Blessed, entrusted with magic by Mother Nature herself.” That’s how her mom described their family as they sat one Friday afternoon in their family spellroom. “Magic,” she said, “could bring forth little miracles and unimaginable calamities. Some lost practitioners reduced it to a power, a simple tool to use here and now. But the Claire blood knew better. It was a duty—toward themselves, their community, and their world.”
Witches, in her mother’s mouth, were guardians of the natural order and the first bastion against chaos. “Our gift,” she would say, “when adequately exercised, calls upon us to be healers, warriors, and leaders to our fellows. A call we answer in this life and beyond. It lets us improve our surroundings—to make them better. And through that,” she added, “my little one, it gives us freedom, strength, and wisdom.”
Then she would tell the story of their ancestors—before they were consecrated in New Orleans and after. She would tell her about Circe and her island: how she built a safe haven for women abused by pirates and mariners, and how she punished those men by metamorphosing them into pigs and feasting upon them. She would tell her about Madame Claire and her daughter Marie: how they led their coven to flee religious persecution and the Inquisition, and then brought French blood to the New Orleans soil through tempest and disease. She would tell her about Beau and Letitia Claire, and their work with the underground rally—through cloaking and ingenuity—against their own congregation. And she would tell her about the unnamed Claire martyr who stood against the first wave of vampires in their city, brought by the Old Ones.
She would tell her that and she would tell her more. But her message was always clear: Claire witches stood strong and proud for what they believed was just. And because of that, they were queens among their kin, powerful through their ancestral magic, and respected in their congregation.
Davina adored these stories, and loved imagining herself in the place of her witch ancestors. At the time, when her imagination took her into the past, she felt like an all-powerful witch, capable of bringing down any monster through her magic and her ingenuity. She thought the same of her mother.
Unfortunately, she came to learn, pretty early, that it was not the truth or, in a way, not the whole truth.
She was seven when both of her parents were taken down by a vampire assault. They told her that her parents stood strong against the bloodsuckers and that they took three of the ten assailants with them to the grave. As the last of the main Claire bloodline, she was tasked with presiding over the ritual of their consecration alongside the Vieux Carré congregations.
Among the elder witches, she felt her mother’s gift like a storm, and her father’s like raging fire, impregnating the land. She couldn’t understand how, if they had so much power in them, they could still be killed. She asked. They told her that death was part of natural life, that God had His way, or that the ancestors knew their time had come and called them back, as was their right.
None of it satisfied her, except Sabine.
Sabine was one of the coven’s pillars, her mother’s German cousin. Not exactly close family, but she and her mother had sometimes talked and practiced craft together. She was judged a capable witch and was tasked as Davina’s new guardian.
One night, the gauche question escaped Davina’s lips at the dinner table. The older witch pinned her with a cold stare before answering with a question of her own.
“What do you think magic is, little one?”
“It’s a gift from Mother Nature.”
“It is—or maybe it was, at the beginning. Over time, magic became our own. It’s what makes us witches strong. It lets us carve out our own destinies, and others’. That night, your parents’ magic was not strong enough against incredibly powerful predators. So they died.”
Davina cried and screamed at thatat the table, and later, alone in her room. She hated Sabine for that answer. But somehow, she found more solace in it than in the ones offered before. Not because of some intangible force, not because it was written in the tapestry of the universe. There were two factors: her parents’ magic, and the vampires.
It was with that in mind, and surprising her guardian, that she asked again the next morning.
“You said that my parents died because their power was too weak. If they had been strong enough… could they have lived?”
“They could have. Maybe by killing the attackers, maybe through protection spells, maybe by cheating death itself. Legendary witches have found ways, so, so many ways…”
“But it’s forbidden…” she interrupted. “It’s black magic.”
“It is, isn’t it? But it’s magic nonetheless. And be it black or any other practice… they could have.”
“How can I have magic like that? So I can…”
Sabine cut her off, not wanting a child to voice something that could incriminate them both—or lead to excommunication.
“You train. You learn. You cultivate it. You go beyond what is believed to be permissible, and you never stop challenging yourself. That’s how, girl.”
“Can you… help me?”
At that, Sabine laughed. Could she? She took a moment to answer. She had lived a long life, but she had never been a teacher. Still, the opportunity to groom a child of the Claire line… that could bring her a powerful ally, or at the very least, a well of power. Perhaps even a vessel. Thinking that, she smiled a voracious smile.
“I can. I will. That is why I am to be your guardian, isn’t it?”
“You also said they died because of vampires. Can you train me to kill them?” Davina asked.
Sabine laughed again.
“Little witch, don’t delude yourself. Vampires did kill your parents but they could’ve been killed by anything else: werewolves, hunters, humans, even witches. And if not that: time, or one of Mother Nature’s tantrums. I’ll educate you to vanquish any foe maybe even the unthinkable. But don’t let yourself hate an entire race for the sins of a few. You’ll close some doors to yourself. And personally, I’m quite partial to that race in particular. Do you understand?”
The girl crossed her arms, pouted, but reluctantly nodded.
“Good,” Sabine said, and continued eating.