Chapter 14 My Very First Spell
My Very First Spell
Holly
We’ve dressed warmly, and we’ve stuffed all the blankets we can find into two rucksacks. We’re at the bottom of the stairs when Josh slips out of the library, Grimlet perched on his shoulder. Grimlet is wearing a scarf made out of scarlet tinsel—he must have pinched it off the tree.
“It worked?” Josh asks.
I nod.
He searches my face. “Are you okay?”
He’s such a sweet kid. “Not really. But maybe I will be if…” I don’t finish. We all know what’s at stake here.
“It will be all right,” he says, and there’s a calm certainty in his voice.
I wish I felt as sure. But I’m not. I’m riddled with doubt. I need time to come to terms with all the stuff swirling in my head—like maybe a hundred years or so. But, hey, I’m immortal. If I survive the night, then a hundred years is nothing.
But right now, I have no time. I just have to hope that it all makes sense when I need it.
“Come on,” Zayne says, “let’s get this done.”
I cast him a quick sideways glance, and my breath catches. He’s so beautiful. And he loves me. He hasn’t said it yet, but I know. He must feel my stare because he turns, smiles, and offers his hand. I take it, and Josh high-fives.
“Yay. I knew you two would get together.”
“Grimlet didn’t.” The gargoyle gives me a narrow-eyed glare. I have my work cut out there. If we survive this, I’ll give him the biggest box of chocolates ever for Christmas.
“Brown phoned while you were…” Josh waves a hand up the stairs, and I feel the heat flush my cheeks.
“What did he say?” Zayne asks.
“That he looked into this Khazim. And Zayne—he’s Khronus’s father.”
“Who’s Khronus?” I ask.
“He’s the king, the dead one, who killed all the witches. Shit. Wow.”
But wasn’t Khazim around, like, six thousand years ago? Oh, right—they’re immortal. Or rather, we’re immortal. That will take some getting used to. But maybe I won’t have to…
“Come on, we’d better go,” Zayne says.
“Just a moment.” I run into the library. There’s a pile of chocolate on one of the side tables, and I stuff it into the top of my rucksack. The children might be hungry if—when—we find them.
Zayne grabs my hand again, and we head to the front door, Josh and Grimlet close behind us. Outside, the night is crisp and clear. Everything feels different.
There’s a tingle in the air, but also a heavy feeling of…
waiting. I can hear the faint sound of Christmas carols carried from the village.
There’s a service around the Christmas tree in the village square.
It was going to be canceled, but Dad persuaded them to continue.
He said the singing would guide the children home. Wishful thinking at its finest.
I also realize my hearing must be way more acute than before if I can hear singing all the way from the village.
“Do you want to fly?” Zayne asks. “I can carry us all.”
One day, I would love to fly on Zayne’s basilisk, but tonight… “Is it okay if we walk? I just need a little time.”
“Of course.”
He keeps hold of my hand as we set out for Silvergate for the second time that day. I’ve always hated Christmas because so many bad things seem to happen around the season of goodwill. But the singing has lifted my spirits a little.
“How does magic work?” I ask Zayne.
“I have no fucking clue.”
Very helpful. Josh comes up on my other side. “Amber told me that it was different for everyone. That you just have to sort of embrace it, accept it.”
“But how do you actually do spells?”
“You make them up. The words don’t matter, at least not until they’re out in the world. Then they’re sort of imbued with your power. You just have to think clearly about what you want and then make up the spell. She said it’s best if they rhyme, though.”
Zayne snorts. “Feeling poetic, princess?”
“No.”
I can sense the panic rising inside me again. I believe now, but all my life my automatic reaction to any mention of magic has been—rubbish. Now I’m suffering from mental whiplash.
What if I can’t do this?
What if it’s all a mistake and I’m not what they think I am? What if I let Zayne down? Again.
Zayne squeezes my hand. “Hey, stop thinking so hard.”
“I can’t. I’m scared I’m going to let you all down.”
I hear the flap of wings from behind me, and Grimlet lands on my shoulder. I bite back a yelp as he wraps his little claw-like hand around my plait and tugs. “Pretty hair. Silver like the snow.”
“Er, thank you.”
“Pretty witch, shouldn’t be scared. She has the power to open the mirror. Grimlet senses the magic inside you.”
For some reason, his words settle me. I reach into my pocket and pull out a truffle, handing it to the gargoyle. He takes it delicately, unwraps it, and pops it in his mouth. “Maybe pretty witch isn’t so stupid after all.”
I laugh. “Thank you.”
We’re silent after that, and as we approach Silvergate, the heaviness increases until it presses down on me.
“Why do you think he took the children?” I ask to take my mind off things.
I intercept a look between Zayne and Josh. I’m guessing they’ve discussed this and come up with a theory that they think I’m not going to like. “Come on, spit it out,” I say.
“We think he’s looking for a mirror mage.”
“Me? He was looking for me? But why now? Why not other years?”
“Things changed this year,” Josh says. “When Amber went through the Eternal Mirror, it sent a ripple of magic through all the worlds.” Sometimes it amazes me how grown-up Josh sounds.
“We think maybe it weakened his prison even more. And for the first time, he could sense you. And the one thing he really wants is a mirror mage to open the mirror so he can really get out.”
“But that still doesn’t explain why he took the children.”
“While he could sense you, because of the spell, your magic was…muted. Witches usually come into their power when they're around twelve to fourteen. So maybe to him, you felt like a child. So he called them all to him.”
“Oh my god, he took them all, thinking one of them might be me.” This really is my fault.
“It’s not your fault,” Zayne says as though he can read my mind. “This guy’s a fucking asshole. You’re not responsible for what he does.”
He’s right, but all the same, I feel the pressure building again.
My feet slow. Silvergate is up ahead, and I don’t want to get there. But I have to. This isn’t something I can put off. And what if I do manage to somehow open the mirror? What if this Khazim guy isn’t happy to see us? He kills people. For fun. “I don’t suppose anyone brought a gun?”
Zayne snorts. “Nope.”
“Me neither,” Josh says. “But Grim’s very good at throwing rocks.”
“Super,” I mutter, and he pulls my braid again. “Ouch.”
But we’re here now. As we step into the clearing, snow starts to fall, drifting down in the still air.
Prickles run over my skin. Inside me, the magic awakens.
How could I have missed this?
The place is steeped in magic.
Dark magic. There’s a deep, rotten core to it, as if something foul is seeping out of the very rocks and trees.
Together we walk toward the far side, coming to a halt at the spot we stood at earlier. I pull free of Zayne. This is something I need to face alone. And I can feel it in front of me, the mirror pulsing with magic.
I search my mind, and in the end, it isn't hard at all. The words flow through me. As I speak, they burn on my tongue, sharper than I expected.
“No more secrets, no more lies—
Show me the truth that Silvergate hides.”
The clearing goes still. Not quiet—still. Even the snow hangs mid-fall. My breath frosts and won’t leave. For a heartbeat, I wonder if I’ve broken something—ended the world with one stupid rhyme.
Then the ground shudders. Rocks split and groan like they’ve been waiting centuries.
A low hum builds until my teeth ache. The air ripples—then it’s there.
Not glass. Ice. A flawless sheet rising from nothing, twisting the weak winter light into a thousand fractured worlds.
Beneath the cold shine, something darker stirs. Shapes moving. Eyes glinting.
My skin shudders. The air tastes metallic, sharp with magic.
Behind me, Zayne curses under his breath, his hand reaching for me, clamping around mine. His heat grounds me even as the mirror pulls at me, like it knows me. Like it’s been waiting.
There’s one more step. But before I can speak again, Josh steps forward.
“What—”
He reaches out a hand, and it disappears inside the mirror. He pulls it back.
“I was thinking,” he says. “It has to be open this way for the children to get through. And others have disappeared over the centuries. It was designed to keep Khazim in, not everyone else out.”
“We need it open both ways,” Zayne says. “Otherwise, we might get stuck on the other side.”
He’s right. If we go through and I can’t open it, then we’re stuck.
I search deep inside myself, and the words come freely…
“Gate that takes, now give as well—
Outbound road, obey my spell.”
A ripple runs through the mirror, then stills.
I frown. “Do you think it worked?”
Grimlet dives off my shoulder and flies straight through the mirror. I hold my breath, but a few seconds later, he’s back. “Mirror worked. Clever witch.”
Wow, I can do this. I reach out and squeeze Zayne’s hand. “Are you ready?”
“Fuck, no.”
But we both straighten our shoulders, and together we step through.
And come to an abrupt halt.
This new world punches the breath right out of me.
I blink, but it doesn’t help. Everything here is too bright, too sharp, like I’ve stumbled into the inside of a diamond. Ice spires spear the sky, each one taller than the church steeple back home, their surfaces rippling with warped reflections. Some of them are me. Some of them…aren’t.
The air slices through my lungs like knives. It smells of nothing, tastes of nothing, but it’s so cold it makes my teeth ache. My boots crunch on a ground that looks like glass but feels like stone, and every sound echoes, bouncing back too loud, too close.
And then there are the mirrors. Dozens of them, freestanding, half-buried in snow, hanging in the air like someone forgot to attach them to a wall. Each one shimmers faintly, showing flashes of faces that vanish the second I look too long.
I hug myself tighter. This isn’t just cold—it’s wrong. The whole place feels hollow, like the world itself is holding its breath. And on the horizon, a figure stands perfectly still, waiting.
Khazim.
The Hunter.