Perzys Āeterña | Hope Mikaelson

Chapter 21

No one knew what to make of it.

"So this 'Watcher' person," said Lizzie once they were back, having listened as they explained everything they'd encountered in the last month. "They're a vampire?"

"That's the running theory," explained Rhysaenya. "But because of the way the eyeball was spelled, we're also considering it also might be a witch, or a pair of them working together."

MG frowned. "But what witch would have a problem with Hope?"

Hope sighed, rubbing her head. "That's what we don't know. There's a bunch of witches who might have a problem with me. Rhysaenya and I were looking into the people Ryan Clarke told us about, those who had something against my dad and would reasonably want me dead. One of them was associated with Triad, and when I showed their picture to my aunts and uncle, they told me a new piece of information. Um..." she looked around the group, "Rhysaenya knows this story in more detail, but there was a woman, Aurora de Martel, that was involved in the Fall of the Mikaelsons. She's my Aunt Rebekah's first sireling and my family kept her under a Sleeping Spell after they initially kidnapped her because she had ingested a substance that would turn her into a creature too powerful to kill.

"Despite the substance being removed, my family didn't kill her. I'm not sure why. When my aunts and uncle came rushing here after I turned and defeated Malivore, the house was left unguarded. Someone broke her out and my Aunt Freya felt the spell be lifted. The person in this photograph..." she pushed forth the image of a woman, "is a witch that worked for Triad and was caught on a security camera outside my home the same day Aurora de Martel was taken. This may somehow be about Malivore, but we're not sure why."

Rhysaenya chimed in, "Ryan is doing some research to help us find out the identities of the people who created Malivore to trace their bloodlines and anyone else involved now that we're sure Triad is part of this. If we can find this witch, we can find Aurora de Martel. Given that each is one of the species we suspect involved in the message sent, and knowing that Aurora has a problem with the Mikaelsons, we can't rule out that these two are working together to try and kill Hope."

"It would be her last big 'fuck you' to my dad," muttered Hope. "The witch, Clarke didn't recognize, but since we know there was a cult that worshiped Malivore, we expect she formed part of it somehow. A lot of this is just... theory." She shoved the picture aside angrily. "We don't know for sure what anyone stands to gain from it, but we should assume that these are the people we need to be on the lookout for."

"Woah," said Kaleb, looking at a small notebook that Hope had been passing around. "This Aurora chick is over a thousand years old and her brother ran The Strix? I heard about that cult."

"Yeah, well, my Uncle Elijah created it," mentioned Hope. "Not initially a cult. All the original members are dead. Anyone who joined isn't from his sire line and answers to Marcel, so we don't need to be worried about them."

"Let's let them look into this notebook a bit longer," said Rhysaenya, sensing Hope was getting aggravated. "We haven't had anything to eat since we've been traveling all morning, so we should go and grab a bite."

Hope grabbed more than a bite. She finished three entire blood bags and still had room for a bucket of ice cream, which she literally chewed on angrily while looking out the window.

"How did they know what they said?" whispered Hope when she felt Rhysaenya watching. "How did they know what they wrote with her blood, how did they..."

"I don't think we've ever encountered an enemy who wasn't well-informed of our movements. This whole thing could have been a set up. Making that post knowing we'd leave to do something about it, letting Ryan and Sofya hear those whispers so you'd inevitably find out. It could be a trap."