Two months; two months and still, it hurt. Two months since that morning, that life changing, terrifying, morning.
Two months since I'd had to tell Mathias a monster had ripped out the throat of the woman he loved. Two months since the morning I'd witnessed the brutal murder of a wonderful human being.
At night, I could still hear Mathias call out her name, pain ingrained in every letter.
Just thinking about her made the hole in my heart ache with loss.
"Nina?" Arabella's soft voice broke my train of thought. I turned to look at her, and I almost didn't recognise her. Her hair had been dyed a soft chestnut brown, her face was void of cosmetic products and, and she had removed all her piercings, bar a single pair in her earlobes.
"Nina, I think we should talk. Should we go out for a coffee?"
With an absent mind, I nodded.
"Or we could stay here."
"No, Nina. You've been staring at that one spot for two months; you need to breath fresh air and feel the sun on your skin."
"I never noticed the tattoo before, I mean from previous lives. How long have you had it?" Arabella held out her arm at the question, a bemused smile on her face.
"All witches are born with the mark, Nina, it's not a tattoo." She looked down and ran her hand over it absently. "Each witch's mark is in a different place; my mother's, for example, was behind her ear but in her hairline, and her father's was on the back of his neck. And it can be concealed at any time." For a moment we walked in silence.
"Nadia didn't have one." I don't know why I said it. The loss of Nadia was still fresh, for all of us.
"Sometimes the witch gene misses a generation, especially if only one parent is a witch. My son, the twins great grandfather, kept the gene, and did his firstborn. But there hasn't been a witch, or warlock, in my bloodline until now. When Nadia died, Noah's mark bloomed on his chest, over his heart."
I remembered. Of course I did, I didn't know how I'd ever forget it; Mathias had just finished disposing Arron's body when Noah and Esther arrived.
They say that twins feeling one another's pain is a myth, but it seemed that witch twins genuinely carried a sliver of one another's souls. So, when Noah and Esther turned up, just hours after Nadia's death, it was no surprise that Noah's neck was bruised and purple. He had felt his sister's death.
As they sat with Rogan and I, a red glow had shone through Noah's white tee, in the shape of a pentagram, and when he removed his top, there it was, as clear as day ; a pulsating, blueish purple, pentagram. Seconds later he had fallen from the sofa, on to his knees, his hands clasped over his ears, and pain etched into every line of his face.
"Twins are rare in magic bloodlines, with a part of each soul belonging to the other, they're never completely whole, and so neither twin receives the gene." Arabella's voice was soft, and her tone was sad. "If one dies, the other appropriates that little bit of their soul, causing the magic to flow through their veins. The part of Noah that Nadia had, was more than just his magic; it also held his hearing. Now he is whole."
Again the image of Noah, scrunched up, with his hands clasped over his ears, crying out in agony, blinded me.
"It's my fault. Had your descendants never met me, Nadia would be alive. If I wasn't what I am..." I trailed off, Arabella's hand resting on my shoulder.
"Nina, if you weren't what you are, Nadia and Noah would never have been born." There was another moment of silence. She was right; of course she was.
