Agatha
My face still ached when I shifted the veil higher across my bruises. The mirror had not been kind that morning. It had shown me the purple swellings around my eyes, the cut on my lip, the puffed flesh that no ointment could soften fast enough. The humiliation was worse than the pain. Me… Agatha, daughter of lineage, darling of the Elders, chosen of the coven and Josiah's Luna, reduced to hiding like a thief behind cloth. I had not left my rooms since the twins’ outburst. Not until today.
But Sooj had come running. Breathless, his thin body hunched like a shadow, eyes wide as though he had carried contraband across the borders of hell itself. He had whispered the words I could not ignore:
“She is at the tombs. And Josiah went to her.”
I had risen then, ignoring the ache, ignorin
