Chapter Thirty-Seven
Walker
T ime stretched and bent me to its will. I screamed, but I couldn’t hear myself over the cacophony of howling wind, pelting rain, and roaring flames. I searched for Cady and Freya, but all I found was a swirl of colors, shadows, light, and darkness. I couldn’t even recognize my own body, much less feel it. I was being stretched and shrunken and tossed and held.
After an ungodly, immeasurable stretch of seconds or minutes or hours, it was over.
I landed on rough stone with an oomph.
My whole body ached, but the pain in my nose was sharp. Hot blood poured from it, but I couldn’t find the energy to raise my head. It dripped down my face in warm, sticky rivulets. I closed my eyes and succumbed to the pain.
Eventually, alertness trickled back into my body. Scuffles and labored breaths caught my attention, and the how of it all rushed back to me.
Oh God, I thought. Cady, Freya—
“Walker?” a small, familiar voice asked.
Cady.
“I’m here,” I said and cleared my throat, which scratched like I had swallowed a handful of sand.
Copper coated my tongue, and I spat out blood. I sat up and blinked rapidly to try to adjust to the dim light. It didn’t take me long, however, to notice the metal bars pressing in on me on three sides. Still on the ground, I whirled and found a windowless, gray stone wall.
Cells, I realized. We’re in some kind of cells.
Next to me but separated by the thick, metal bars, Ryder struggled to rise to his feet. Beyond him, Cady stared in my direction without meeting my gaze. Worry marred her features. I twisted and found Freya lying on her side with her back to me. I searched the cell beside her, but Arion was nowhere in to be seen.
Maybe he didn’t get pulled in, I thought, but I doubted it was possible.
The vacuum of power that had yanked us into the ripple had been hopeless to retreat from. Since I couldn’t help the demon cat, I crawled toward Freya.
I always forgot how small she was, but laying on the ground like a ragdoll, she appeared impossibly fragile. Her red hair had pulled free of its braid and spread around her like a halo. Mingled in its lovely red shades was crimson blood.
“Freya,” I rasped.
“Frey?” Ryder said. Fear shook his voice. “Is she—is she breathing?”
I tried to recognize if her body moved with breath, but everything moved. No, it was me— I was shaking.
My voice wobbled. “I can’t tell. She’s bleeding—she’s bleeding from her head, and it’s not stopping.”
I reached through the bars to try to turn her over, but I couldn’t reach. She was too far away.
Footsteps echoed.
I snapped to attention and noticed the stark absence of my magic. No heat melted through my veins or invigorated my body. As a young witch walked down the narrow hall of the dungeons, I did something I never thought I would do.
I longed for my power.
Though it was pointless, I crawled as close as I could to Freya’s side. The witch stopped in front of my cell. I studied her prim expression and out-of-date clothes. A leather corset stretched under her fluffy white blouse, and her midnight blue cloak touched the floor. She was pretty in the way all witches were, but her green eyes were predatory.
“Good,” she said and studied each of us. “You’re here and alive.”
The witch’s gaze lingered on Freya. “Mostly.”
At least she’s alive.
“Who are you?” I asked. “Where is here?”
Part of me knew the answer, but I wanted to hear her say it.
“You haven’t figured it out?” She grinned and revealed wickedly sharp teeth. “You’re in High Witch Cordelia’s court, of course.”
The strange witch chuckled. “More accurately, you’re in her dungeons.”
I reexamined her cloak and swallowed.
This witch was a Handmaiden.
Ryder growled and lurched to the front of his cell. His clawed hands gripped the bars, but he hissed and pulled back. Smoke rose from his palms.
“I wouldn’t touch those,” the witch advised. “They’re infused with silver.”
Ryder glowered. “Where is Elle,” he demanded.
“Who?” the witch asked blandly.
Ryder threw himself at the bars but only ended up sprawled on the ground.
“Don’t be dramatic,” the witch ordered. “You’ll see the chimera soon enough.”
“If you’re so condescendingly wise,” Cady snapped, and I cringed. “Why don’t you just tell us in plain terms what’s going on? You seem to think we’re defeated anyway.”
The witch studied my sister then promptly turned on her heel, back in the direction from which she had come. Cells stretched as far as I could see, lit only by sparse torches. As the witch walked farther away, panic gnawed at me.
“Wait,” I said. The witch paused. “You brought us here for a reason. You didn’t just kill us outright, which means you need us for something—you need Freya. She’s hurt badly. She needs help.”
The witch did not face me but whistled sharply. Though I couldn’t hear it, a door opened and shut. Heavy footsteps echoed down the hall, and a man in a crisp, blue uniform emerged. Golden lapels glimmered on his narrow shoulders. He bowed to the witch before him.
“Watch them,” she instructed. “If the Redfern witch’s wounds do not stop bleeding within the hour, alert me. Make sure her chest rises and falls.”
The man bowed once again, and the witch left the dungeons as swiftly as she had entered them. The man walked through the hall and turned to face us. I wondered if he was really as pale as he appeared or if the torchlight played tricks on my eyes. When he caught my stare, he grinned and revealed a toothy, blood-stained smile.
Ryder growled. “Since when do bloodsuckers work for witches?”
“Says the dog in the crate,” the vampire shot back.
“This is what they send to guard us?” Cady scoffed. “I’m offended.”
The vampire leered at my sister, and I didn’t need magic for my blood to boil.
“Such young, powerful blood,” the vampire purred. “You’d taste exquisite.”
Though every muscle in my body protested, I rushed to my feet and put every ounce of hatred, rage, and fear into my stare.
“Shut the fuck up,” I commanded and pressed my face against the bars, “and stay away from my sister.”
“It’s fine, big brother,” Cady promised. Her smile was chilling. “I conquered a Master, remember? This plebian would be nothing for me.”
The vampire gulped and fell silent.
Minutes stretched by, and exhaustion forced me off my feet, then eventually to lying on the ground. I stared and stared at Freya, as if I could will her to heal. Her blood quickly clotted, and without panic making me shake, I recognized the breaths that expanded her ribs.
I fell asleep watching that tiny movement.
???
Someone punched me in the face, was my first waking thought, followed shortly by, who is yelling at me to wake up?
“Walker,” Freya hissed.
When I recognized her voice, memories flooded back to me, and I snapped to attention. Dark spots danced in my vision, and pain laced my head, but I ignored it and studied the witch in front of me.
Blood crusted above her temple, but Freya’s gaze was clear and filled with concern.
“Arion isn’t here,” she said tightly. As she studied me, worry rounded her eyes. “Walker, your nose.”
Like an idiot, I touched it and hissed. It hurt like a mother, and it was splayed across the side of my face.
“I think it’s broken,” I said. Some of my hoarseness had faded and revealed just how nasally I sounded.
I glanced over at my sister, but she and Ryder were fast asleep.
“You think?” she demanded and sighed. “We need to reset it. Then-then I’ll find Arion.”
“Maybe he didn’t get sucked into the ripple,” I said, but it was half-hearted even to my ears. I cleared my throat. “Maybe he’s already free in the court, wreaking havoc.”
Freya smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Probably.” She took a deep breath. “Wherever he is, I won’t do him any good sitting here worrying. We need to figure out how to get out of here, but first, we need to fix your nose.”
I grimaced, which only made my face hurt worse. I studied her wound.
“Shouldn’t we be healing?” I asked.
She pointed out the carvings etched into the bars of our cells.
“Our magic is on complete lockdown,” Freya said with disgust. “You’re back to healing on human time, cowboy, until we figure out how to get out of here. We can’t let your nose heal like that in the meantime.”
I snorted and winced at the pain it caused. “Worried about my pretty face?”
Freya rolled her eyes. “I thought I was the one with the head wound. Seriously, come closer. I’ll fix it.”
“No touching,” the vampire guard warned.
I jolted, but Freya cocked an eyebrow.
“What are you going to do about it?” she taunted. “Come in here and stop us?”
The vampire twitched, as if caught in the middle of a tough decision.
“You’d have to disrupt the wards that are binding our magic to do that,” Freya continued.
I shot him my own bloodthirsty smile. “And I haven’t forgotten what you said about my sister, leech.”
He muttered something about not getting paid enough for this and wandered off to find a blood bag. As soon as he was out of sight, Freya gestured for me to move closer, and I did.
“Dracula told me where we are,” she said and tenderly gripped my nose. “I don’t know what the High Witch is waiting for. Any clue how long we’ve been here?”
Before I could answer, she jerked my nose to the left, and fiery pain erupted on my face. Stars burst across my vision, and curses flew off my tongue.
“Thanks for the warning,” I muttered and clutched my now-bleeding nose.
“A warning would’ve only made it worse,” she said, and I wasn’t sure I believed her. “I’m disappointed the vamp is such a coward. I was hoping I could goad him into coming in here.”
Though I understood what she meant, only Freya would be disappointed about not getting to tousle with a vampire.
“Why do you think we’re here?” I said. “Why wouldn’t she just kill us? Even if she didn’t know our plan to save Elle, I imagine it’s a big no-no to come here uninvited.”
“It’s unheard of,” Freya agreed. She chewed on her lower lip. “Do you feel even a tingle of your magic?”
I checked. “Nope. I’ve got nothing.”
“Okay,” she said, “okay.”
Freya studied the floor, as if it held the answers to getting out of here. Her copper eyes snapped back to mine.
“How would you get out of here?” she asked. “You lived without magic for years. Any ideas?”
I balked. “Are you actually asking for my opinion?”
“Don’t look so shocked,” she chided. “Am I really that self-obsessed?”
I merely smiled, but my amusement quickly died.
“I don’t know what to do,” I answered honestly.
“That’s okay,” she said in a high, tight voice. It was not okay—none of this was—and we both knew it. “Think it over. Worse comes to worse, they’ll have to let us out sometime. As soon as the wards are open, we strike.”
I nodded. “There was a witch who came by when we first got here. She said the High Witch would be glad we finally arrived. Cordelia wants us for something.”
Freya’s face fell. “This was all a trap. And we don’t even have my coven or Ryder’s pack to back us.”
I grabbed her hand through the bars. “We have each other.”
She nodded halfheartedly.
“We survived Josephine,” I reminded her. “We’ll survive this.”
“I just wish I knew what this is,” Freya said. “I feel like we have half the pieces of a huge puzzle.”
“Maybe we have all the pieces,” I suggested. “Or, at least most of them. Maybe we just need to figure out how they all fit together.”
Freya nodded, this time with more exuberance.
“The High Witch wanted the chimera,” Freya said. “Apparently, all the Leaders do.”
“Elle’s power is on lockdown,” I added, “to help her hide and to keep her from being influenced by the sorceress.”
“Yes.” Freya gasped. “I think I saw her—in the dream I shared with Cadence. I thought it was Elle, but…not.”
“A doppelganger,” Cady suggested. She ran her fingers through her bedhead hair and sat up.
“Hmm,” Freya mused. “I thought they’d been outlawed, but apparently warlocks are something that exists, so anything’s on the table.”
“Wait,” I said, “isn’t a doppelganger a twin?”
“Kind of,” Cady answered. “We just read about them in Fantastical Creatures of the Sixteenth Century. They’re reincarnations of powerful beings.”
As we spoke across his cell, Ryder stirred and rubbed his eyes.
“Some creatures possess such great magic,” Freya added, “that their power lives on even when that creature dies, so they’re reborn.”
“Like, if it has kids?” I asked.
Cady shook her head. “No. They can crop up in any family. No one knows how their new existence is chosen. It’s why they’re so dangerous.”
“They never really die,” Freya said. “When one falls, another is born.”
“So,” I said, “Elle could be a doppelganger.”
“It fits with the limited information we have,” Freya agreed.
“Elle’s not just a doppelganger,” Ryder argued. “She’s a wolf.”
“She’s a chimera,” Freya argued, “and she’s the only one of her kind, yet Marie and Madame LaLaurie spoke of the chimera as a problem that has plagued the High Witch for far longer than the past few years.”
"Right," I said. "Madame Creepy told you the chimera has been a problem for longer than you could comprehend."
“Surely if Elle's power was that of a doppleganger's,” Cady argued, “no spell would be able to contain it.”
“None of this even matters,” Ryder grumbled. “What matters is getting out of here. Why don’t we talk about that?”
“It matters what she is,” Freya said. “It matters what we unleash upon the world—”
“Great,” Ryder snarled. “We’ve had a hiccup in the plan, and you’re ready to ditch my mate again. You’re a shitty friend, Freya—”
“Hiccup?” Freya sneered. “We are confined in the dungeon of the most powerful witch on earth! All because we wanted to do the right thing and help your goddessdamned mate! How dare you call me self—”
“Hey,” I said, but neither of them listened to me.
“Classic Freya,” Ryder continued. “Always ready to bail at the drop of a hat—”
“Classic Ryder,” Freya argued. “Always ready to jump headfirst into foolish, poorly thought-out plans, and point fingers as soon as those plans fail—”
“Thank the gods you aren’t my mate.”
Freya scoffed. “Well, your mate and I have something in common—neither of us can stand you!”
Cadence studied Freya with interest greater than the kind invested in the redhead’s affinity for slinging insults. I wanted to know what idea had just struck her, but Freya and Ryder continued their verbal combat.
“Freya,” Cady said, but Ryder spoke over her.
“She would’ve had time to come around to me if you hadn’t gotten her kidnapped!”
My temper flared. “Enough!”
Both of them stopped and stared at me.
“Now is not the time to bicker and argue,” I snapped. “Cady sounds like she might have something to say that can help us get us out of here.”
Freya crossed her arms, and Ryder rolled his eyes, but both shifted in mild embarrassment for their actions.
Cady cleared her throat. “Freya, check your head wound.”
Freya sighed. “I didn’t argue aggressively enough to further hurt myself.”
“Just check it,” Cady insisted.
Freya touched the bloody spot on her head and realized the same thing I did—it was no longer swollen or bleeding.
“The wound,” she said, “it’s completely healed over.”
Cady nodded. “And Walker isn’t talking like he has the world’s worst sinus infection either.”
I touched my nose, and nothing hurt.
“We healed,” I said. “Either we were asleep a really long time, or we healed much faster than people without magic should’ve.”
“Did you do something?” Cady asked. “Anything you hadn’t done earlier when you weren’t healing?”
“We—”
Footsteps echoed down the dungeon hall, and someone slurped on a drink. All of us went silent. As the vampire guard came into view, he sucked on a blood bag through a straw with the kind of enthusiasm I usually reserved for a Slurpee.
“What?” the vampire said and grinned. Blood coated his teeth. “Do I have something in my teeth?”
I grimaced with both disgust for our guard’s diet and fear he had heard our conversation. The vampire kept talking, but my mind raced. Freya and I had touched—that was how we’d healed. I had passed off the heat under my skin as the sting of pain, but it had been magic.
If we could use our bond, we could find a way to get out of this damn cage.
Freya’s face lit in the way it only did when she figured something out. I nodded minutely, but the vampire caught the movement.
“Hey,” he chided. “You really can’t touch your girlfriend anymore. I’ll fetch one of the Handmaidens if you keep causing trouble.”
“Too scared to break them up yourself?” Ryder taunted. “That’s pretty cowardly, even for a leech.”
Ryder sauntered closer to the edge of his cell and shot me a pointed look. It was quick enough that the vampire didn’t catch on, but intentional enough that I caught his drift. Cady did too.
“Truly,” Cady said and crossed her arms. “I guess when they lose a heartbeat, they lose their courage too.”
The vampire bared his teeth but quickly covered his agitation with a smirk. As he prowled closer to Ryder’s cell, I inched closer to Freya.
“Man, today’s a good day,” the vampire said. “It’s not often I get to put a dog in a cage.”
“If these bars weren’t here,” Ryder threatened and stalked closer to the vampire.
“I would still kick your ass,” the vampire said and grinned.
“Yeah?” Ryder said.
Faster than the vampire could anticipate, Ryder shoved his hand through the bars and wrapped it around the vampire’s pale throat. Ryder’s skin smoked and bubbled where it touched the metal bars, but he didn’t let go of the vampire.
“ Where is my mate?” Ryder hissed.
“Walker,” Freya whispered.
I forced myself to look away from the gruesome scene and reached for Freya’s hand. Without the gnawing exhaustion from traveling through the ripple and the pain of breaking my nose, the heat of her touch was impossible to miss. Our magic flared in greeting, and the potency of it stole my breath.
The vampire choked. Flesh sizzled and popped.
“I-I don’t know,” the vampire croaked.
I had lived most of my life without magic, but having it back now was like coming home. Combined with Freya’s, our power buzzed in harmony.
“Send it into the cell walls,” Freya whispered. “Feel the wards and imagine untangling them.”
“Wha-what’s going on over there?” the vampire croaked.
Something clanged, and the vampire yelped in pain.
“Don’t worry about them,” Ryder insisted. “Worry about me.”
I closed my eyes and forced the wild song of magic in my veins into the bars of our cells. As I homed in on the wards, I sensed layer after layer of oppressive magic. The bars were cold and life-sucking, like cuffs on steroids. I sent the heat of my magic and Freya’s magic into them. My teeth chattered, but I didn’t stop. In a low, unearthly voice, Freya weaved a spell in an ancient language.
“She’s in the throne room,” the vampire whispered. “The High Witch is preparing the chimera for the ceremony.”
“What ceremony?” Ryder demanded.
I pulled more magic from the well of power in my chest. I imagined it spreading through my veins, into my fingertips, where my hand clutched Freya’s. From there, I pictured it permeating these forsaken spells and washing them in our power. Though the wards’ magic fought to overwhelm me, I forced my magic to suffocate them. Power swelled, but it wasn’t just a low thrum or a trill. It was a wave of layered harmonies that winked the soul-sucking magic etched into the bars out of existence.
“The Entombment,” the vampire choked.
The dungeon walls shook around us, and cold seeped into my bones. Freya squeezed my hand, and I poured forth even more magic.
The vampire sputtered. “Shit— shit— stop touching her! Stop touching her now!”
I didn’t open my eyes, and I didn’t release Freya. More and more, I sent magic into the cell. My power flowed out of me like lava, and the heat in my body left with it. I shook from the cold, but Freya chanted louder.
“The High Witch should re-evaluate her dungeons’ designs.” Ryder smirked. “She didn’t plan on dealing with warlocks when she built them.”
All at once, the soul-sucking cold stopped, and my magic rushed back into my veins. My ears popped, and power, potent enough I could fly, fueled me. When I opened my eyes, I knew they glowed with magic.
The vampire opened his mouth to call for help, but he was too slow. With one strike of wicked blue lightning, he disintegrated into a pile of ash.