What a summer.
Mom spent the next two weeks going from house to house, connecting and reconnecting with every single member of our coven. Including, it turned out, those who were willing to betray her. Imagine. I would have kicked their sorry asses out and let them join the Dumonts, but Mom had a longer fuse than I did and, clearly, some other agenda I didn't know about.
Turned out I was right about Celeste being a Purity member. James too. They and a handful of others were the only ones who survived the battle, adopted into the Hayle family when the Dumonts refused to take them in.
When Naudia committed herself, losing her family magic to Gram, it didn't just drive my grandmother crazy. It killed most of her followers. A massacre of the woman's own making. I couldn't imagine committing that much power to hate, enough to destroy those who looked to me for leadership.
No wonder Gram went crazy. All those people's dying energy? I'd have gone around the bend and never come back.