Chapter 30: The Mayhew Coven

Talori had known of Zale's plan for over a century but he didn't want her to get her hands dirty. Her only role was to stay as far out of people's notice as possible so she would be safe.

Like that had done her any good. Her attempts to seem undesirable had nearly gotten her banished to a horrible place. The place she was in now wasn't horrible but she couldn't deny she missed her brother already.

She was having a good time learning new things but she wished she was able to tell them to Zale in real time. That would be nice.

"Harmony, do you think it is possible to create a magic item that allows communication between my kingdom and the surface?" Talori asked curiously.

The witch's eyes glowed with excitement as she thought it over. "Ooh, I don't know! It would be hard to get a signal that far underwater but it would be interesting to try. Unfortunately, I have a ridiculously long project list already and I would need to be able to test it. I don't think I would be able to even get started on such a thing until you were back home since it isn't like I could pass it through the liaison to your brother safely right now."

Harmony had a point. She supposed she wouldn't be able to talk to Zale anytime soon after all.

Talori was disappointed but shouldn't have been. She had already known from the start of this venture that she wouldn't be able to be in contact with him for however long she was gone.

Though such a device would be useful to keep in contact with the witches and Brennan. They would need to be able to meet up more reliably once they began working together.

"That makes sense," she said, trying to swallow her disappointment.

Brennan looked over at her in concern. "Are you missing Zale already?"

"Yes. We have never been apart this long before. But do not worry about me; I will be fine. There is so much to learn up here! I have to take advantage of it properly while I have the chance."

"That's the spirit!" Harmony encouraged right before something blew up in her face, making her hair stand on end.

Brennan seemed completely unfazed by this, as if he had seen it countless times before, but Talori jumped back and ended up hitting the wall of her container. The witch didn't seem to be hurt though, which was a relief.

"Darn. I thought I almost had it. Guess I need to try something else."

"Does this happen often?" Talori asked Brennan in a whisper.

He nodded. "Oh yeah. There's usually at least one explosion every few days somewhere in this building. That's what happens when you push the boundaries of magic."

She was fascinated. Her magic was limited to moving water around and using a glamour. Brennan's was limited to creating bubbles and using a glamour. It seemed that witches did not have limits as long as they had their wands on them as far as she had seen.

"Do witches have limitations on their magic?" Talori asked curiously.

"Oh, sure," Harmony said as she worked on cleaning up her failed experiment. "We might be able to practice more types of magic than most fae but we can't do everything. Some things are innate and only available to certain races, like blood magic with vampires or transformation magic with werewolves."

"Is a glamour not transformation magic?"

"Nah, that's illusion magic. Totally different! Our fae traits are hidden, not replaced. Werewolves actually turn into full-on wolves but maintain their sense of reason in the process."

Right. Talori remembered previously hearing about how glamours didn't work on mirrors or cameras. That made sense if it wasn't a true transformation. There was so much more to magic than she would have thought.

"Why can werewolves transform when no one else can?"

Harmony laughed. "Why are any of us the way we are? Nobody knows how fae came to be. We've kind of just accepted the way things are and learned to roll with it. Besides, it's not like they can transform at will. It only happens on full moons.

"The rest of the time they're humanoid with wolf ears, tails, claws, and fangs. Nobody knows why or how that ended up happening. It's just a thing they have to deal with. It's only one night a month though. The rest of the time they can glamour themselves to look human perfectly fine."

Talori wanted to know more about werewolves. She had already heard as much as Brennan knew about them from limited interactions over the centuries but she wondered if Harmony knew more.

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They ended up discussing werewolves for quite some time before moving onto vampires then elves. Harmony knew quite a lot about the latter because the witches and elves worked together so often but she had some experience with vampires too because her original coven had covered the service area for two different vampire ones.

"…and it's the strangest thing. Vampires are practically indestructible so a whole coven of them disappearing at once could only mean that other vampires were involved. They're the hardiest of the fae races, you see. They're strong and fast and can't be killed unless their cores are destroyed.

"Lucky shots from vampire hunters do happen but are rare. It couldn't have possibly happened to an entire coven. My mom was speculating about who could have done it the other day and her money was on the Cromwells because they've had a feud with the Mayhews since before they came to this country.

"I think she's right. The sad part is that there's nothing to be done about it. Fae don't technically exist in human registries so no one aside from the witches would have ever noticed they were gone.

"My aunt was the one who originally figured it out when they didn't answer any of her calls or show up at her coven for a while. They were in regular contact because the Mayhews' business was information. She thought it was a real shame," Harmony finished with a sigh.

Brennan frowned. "You didn't tell me this."

"When would I have had the chance? I only found out about it while you were gone."

"Ah."

"She's right. It is a real shame. I've met most of the Mayhews at some point or other because of how closely tied they were to my coven. They had a baby too. Only seventeen years old."

Talori was horrified. "These other vampires killed a baby? No one kills babies! Babies are precious!"

"Exactly. Dorian Cromwell is ruthless from what I've heard. I never interacted with him directly but word gets around. He rules his coven with an iron fist. Honestly, I'm kind of glad to be down here away from that drama. I don't know how I would be able to interact with any of the Cromwells after this.

"Not that they visit the Redwood Coven for anything but blood pills and the occasional magic item but still. They always made me uncomfortable in a way the Mayhews didn't. Those poor vampires deserved better."

"Vampire politics sound messy," Brennan said with a deeper frown than before. "I haven't run into vampires much because I haven't lived near them but I think I understand why Nyx wanted to avoid coven life now after hearing all this."

"Ah yes. That loner you told me about a while back," Harmony mused.

"That's the one."

Brennan had told Talori about that vampire before. How it was unusual for one to wander around in southern areas that got a lot of sunshine and not be part of a coven. Vampires and witches were the only fae that had official covens but they were set up differently.

You wouldn't find a covenless witch because if they got restless they could just move to another one. Vampires were more traditional and tended to stay with a coven permanently.

At least that was what Harmony said. No other fae races had covens though there were werewolf packs. Elves and fairies tended to stick together with others of their kind but there weren't any officially established groups. Simply little pockets here and there.

Talori was suffering slightly from information overload but she still wanted to learn as much as she could. She kept the questions coming as quickly as she could think of them. She wanted to fit into this world she found herself a part of.

All of this would be useful information to help her kind once she made it back home. Knowing how fae society worked on the surface would allow her to be a better liaison when the time came.

That was only an excuse though. She really wanted to know because of her own curiosity.

She was killing two birds with one stone by asking questions. She had learned that phrase from Brennan. They didn't have any sayings like that in Mermish to her knowledge.

Then again, she didn't interact with other merfolk much. It was entirely possible that commoners had such sayings. She only interacted with nobles and her own servants and even that didn't happen terribly often.

The nobles all looked down on her so they weren't exactly inclined to chat. And the servants treated her with deference as a princess so they weren't inclined to chat either.

It wouldn't be like that when she went home. She would be able to go out and about more once it was safe to do so and she might actually be able to make some friends if she was lucky.. Having more than Zale for company would be nice.

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