The Coven

Willow knows that Gray brings out the worst in her, but she also turns to him when she is hurt. She gets up from his bed to leave, finding him fresh from the shower. She asks why the Covenant ended pair bonds between witches and Vessels, and he says that these bonds created addictions and clandestine relationships; a Vessel who feeds on only one witch will acquire some of her powers. He admits that he was the Vessel who fed on her during the Reaping, and he says that he can now feel her magic within him. He claims that he has “known exactly what [she is] for quite some time” (229).

This claim knocks the air from Willow’s lungs. He insists that she would be dead already if that’s what he wanted, and the “affection of the moment while he [holds her] pinned to the door [is] too much” (230), overwhelming her sense of doom. He pushes her onto the bed, asking what she planned to do once she obtained Loralei’s bones. She admits that she was going to unmake all Vessels. He looks devastated and insists that she loves him. By the time he removes their clothing, Willow is deeply aroused, and Gray knows it. When he penetrates her, he realizes that this is her first sexual encounter and immediately pulls out. He stares between her thighs with “reverence on his face” (233) and explains the magic of blood and sex, stating that the blood of a woman’s first time creates obsession for the Vessel. Gray moves slowly inside her and bites her neck, creating waves of pleasure. Afterward, she falls into a blissful sleep.

Gray looks out his window to the courtyard, where Willow is dripping blood onto the dying plants. They had sex multiple times after she awoke. Now that Willow knows that he fed on her at the Reaping, he wants everyone to know that she is his. He knows that she doesn’t understand the consequences of giving him her virginity.

Willow sees Gray step away from the window and grateful for the solitude. She thinks of the school, and how it houses corruption (in the form of the Covenant) as well as goodness (in the young witches). Susannah approaches her, having realized how much Willow resembles Loralei. Because Willow is the last of Loralei’s bloodline, Susannah implores Willow to run and save herself. She says that Gray has Loralei’s bones and is shocked to learn that Gray already knows what Willow is. However, she says that Willow doesn’t know who Gray is, and those who do are sworn to secrecy. Susannah allows the plants to drag her into the earth. Just before she goes under, she warns Willow, and Willow realizes that whatever is coming is so dire that even Susannah doesn’t want to face it.

Willow runs into the forest. The trees help her, but she cannot outrun the beasts. One of the monsters slashes her face, and another knocks her down. Suddenly, Gray appears, tearing the animals apart.

Gray fights off the wolves, but he is appalled when Willow acts as though he is the monster. He explains that Charlotte Hecate created the creatures by mistake after making her deal with the devil. He demands to know why Willow fled the school.

Gray catches Willow trying to sneak out of his room, and “the guarded mask of humanity that he so carefully wore [flees], revealing the brutal monster waiting beneath his skin” (256). He asks her what Susannah said, and Willow says that Susannah told her to run. Kairos tells Gray that no one can find Susannah, and Gray orders him to search the garden.

When Kairos leaves, Gray removes Loralei’s bones from a safe behind Lucifer’s portrait, but Willow doesn’t want the bones. Though he pities her, Gray says that he has waited a long time for Willow, and she now has no choice. The bones move on their own, forming a necklace around Willow’s neck. He tells Willow that she will be the last of the Hecate line, and the magic of the bones will die with her.

Willow’s earth magic feels like spring and life, but the bones feel like nature’s death and decay. When Kairos reenters the room, he is paralyzed by Willow’s touch. Gray tells her to release him, but instead, she allows her magic to spread, and Kairos dissolves into mud. She reaches for Gray, who explains that he has had so much of her blood that Loralei’s bones now regard him as part of Willow. He tells another Vessel to bring Susannah to the Tribunal room. Willow thinks that she has ruined Gray’s plans, and he expresses regret for the hate that she will soon bear him. George is shocked to see her wearing the bones, and the Vessel brings Susannah’s broken skeleton. The Vessel puts a heart, liver, and the bone mirror on the floor.

Gray places the organs atop the mirror. He slits the throat of another young witch and tells Juliet to retrieve the brain. He murders another, smiling “cruelly” at Willow as he kills the witches. Juliet harvests their organs. Gray says that he cut Loralei’s throat to prevent her from unmaking him and to prevent the Covenant from learning of Samuel’s existence; this way, Samuel could survive to father Willow. Now, Gray commands Willow to destroy the Covenant, and when she refuses, he calls out; Samuel enters, holding a knife to Ash’s throat. When Willow vows to kill Samuel, Gray tells her that if she complies with his commands, he will let her kill Samuel. Gray covers her hand with his own, gesturing to the Covenant. Their bodies fill out, then fade, and finally burst into dust. When Willow turns, Gray pushes a blade into her stomach, then reaches inside her, pulling a single rib bone from her body. Then he shoves his wrist against her mouth, forcing her to drink his blood. Her wound heals. When a vortex forms above the bone mirror, he tosses the rib in. A beautiful woman appears, standing on the mirror’s surface, and greets Willow by name.

Willow realizes that the woman is Charlotte, and that Charlotte is furious with Samuel. Samuel releases Ash, who runs to Willow, and Charlotte opens a hole in the floor, throwing Samuel in and burying him alive. Charlotte tells Willow that it is not safe for Ash here until Willow fulfills her destiny. Juliet leads him gently away. Charlotte calls herself a gift from Willow’s husband, gesturing to the devil’s eye mark on Willow’s back. Gray says that he put the mark there on the night Willow was born. Charlotte says that Willow, not the Vessels, was the price of her bargain with the devil. The devil gave Charlotte his magic, and she promised him a witch of two bloodlines, who would then open the seal. Charlotte created the Vessels to limit the demons’ destructiveness. Now, she presses Willow’s hand to the mirror, and the glass shatters. One by one, archdemons emerge from the pits of Hell through a cavern in the floor, and two carry a cot bearing Lucifer’s lifeless body. When Willow asks Charlotte why Lucifer doesn’t move, Charlotte explains that his soul is already here.

Gray brushes his hand against the devil’s eye on Willow’s back. He asks if she is ready to learn his true name and calls her his “wife.” Charlotte tells Willow that it is time to let go of the magic now. Charlotte begins to fade, and Gray helps Willow to pull her hands from the seal. She vows never to forgive him, and he tells her that she will realize how small human life is when she ceases to be human. He tells her to put him back where he belongs, saying that he cannot love her in “this form” as he can in his own. She places one hand on Gray and the other on Lucifer; Gray crumples to the floor, and Lucifer opens his eyes.