Chapter 38
Something went wrong with the spell.
Nigel couldn’t say what exactly. He was quite certain he’d spoken the words correctly, even more certain he’d traced the sigil as needed. He knew he’d performed the energy-exchange, sourcing directly from inside himself, as he wasn’t going to need his body or its lifeforce any longer.
And it had been working. He was sure of it.
He’d felt the collapse of his physical frame moments before his soul rose and twined with Jastira’s.
She’d fought him, resisted him, screeching and lashing in dark slashes of malice.
But he’d latched hold of her, joining with her just as she’d always said he would.
Maybe she was right in that respect. Maybe their fate was written long ago.
And now they could live out that fate forever. In hell.
Only . . .
Only apparently, that hadn’t happened.
Because he wasn’t in hell. He was in his body again. Somehow. Impossibly. The fleshly form he’d thought he’d left behind forever seemed to be encasing his soul, and he didn’t even know how.
He cast his mind back, trying to remember.
It was difficult, making his mind work through the limitations of brain matter and firing synapses when it had, momentarily at least, been a thing of pure spirit-stuff, far more expansive and terrible.
He felt heavy and slow, sluggish. But there seemed to be some sort of memory in there.
A memory of . . . greenness. Huge, profound, pulsating greenness.
Garden?
Yes, maybe.
But more than Garden.
Luna?
Luna . . . Luna. Lifegiving Luna. Beautiful, perfect, precious and adored Luna.
Wait a second.
Wait just one damned second.
Had he saved her?
Had the trowel-spell worked?
A surge of desperation shot through him, a need to know for certain.
His mind, his body, his soul, all jolted with the compulsion to come awake, to find a way back to consciousness.
To know that his Luna was still whole, to know that the point of that rusty old trowel had not, in fact, pierced her flesh and punctured her beating heart, even as it had seemed to.
That it wasn’t her blood which had gushed over his hand.
While moments ago he’d been a bit resentful to find himself back in a flesh-form, concerned about the apparent failure of that Infernus spell, Nigel pushed his way now through layers of fog and fatigue, and .
. . yes. Severmist. There was still severmist in here with him, angry at the sudden Dire-transference he’d performed.
He’d disastrously depleted his own lifeforce as well, but even that wasn’t as bad as he would have thought.
Because in all the places where lifeforce was drained, he found more of that pulsing greenness.
What was it his father used to say? Everyone had a bit of Green Magic in them, if they could just be bothered to notice it.
Perhaps he had more than a bit. Perhaps, after all this time he’d spent working in Garden, he actually had quite a lot.
“Nigel?”
Her voice! His very soul quickened at the sound of it.
It was her, his Luna! Calling to him! Why did she sound so desperate, so tear-clogged?
Oh no. Did she think he was dead? His body was probably very still and pale and gray after that lifeforce transference.
He most likely looked quite dead. He definitely should be dead—there shouldn’t have been any surviving that spell.
He hadn’t cast it with the intention of surviving it.
But he had. He was here, he was present, and he didn’t want her to be sad or afraid. He must get back to her.
“Nigel, darling, please. Please, answer me. Please, just give me a sign.”
Did she just call him darling?
She’d done it once before. While pretending to be his wife, back at the Moat House Café. And oh, he’d liked it then! He liked it even better now, because she didn’t have to pretend anymore. She was his wife. And this fact alone . . . why, it was worth living for. Even if he hadn’t meant to.
His awareness rose faster now, pushing its way through layer after layer of darkness and fog. The greenness surrounded him, a lovely, soft-filtered glow, and then—white light. Piercing his eyelids. Heavy eyelids, but real, physical ones that belonged to him and which he had the power to open.
So open them he did. And gazed up into the face of an angel.
Dark eyes, framed by limp strands of magical wind-blown hair.
Delicate freckles dusting a nose with a slight bump in the middle, pale skin sun-kissed from so much time spent out foraging for teas in Garden’s grounds.
That delightfully kissable mouth with that charming little mole in the lower lefthand corner.
Those sweet brows, puckered in concern, and those priceless tears trickling down her not-yet-full-enough cheeks.
Oh, how could she be so exquisite? Surely the gods themselves must have wept at the moment of her creation.
“Nigel?” she said, sucking in a little breath as she caught his eyes. “Nigel, can you hear me?”
“I . . . I can hear you . . . my dear,” he murmured.
With a little, “Oh!” she bent over him, wrapping her arms around him and weeping into his chest. Summoning up all the strength in his body, Nigel somehow managed to get his arms around her, holding her close.
Apparently, she’d not bled out from a trowel-inflicted wound.
Which meant that spell of his had held. But then, what did he expect?
He was the Greatest Sorcerer of the Age, wasn’t he? He didn’t practice sloppy magic.
Blinking a bit stupidly, he looked over his wife’s quaking shoulders to the other faces hovering overhead. Auntie Arabella was there, openly sobbing with delight, even as she said over and over again, “See, Rory? I knew how it would be. My chamomile said it would all turn out!”
Auntie Aurora stood behind her sister, her stern mouth creased in just the slightest of smiles. “The Green Mother’s will ripens in its own season. The faithful need only tend the garden,” she said.
“Never mind!” Debbie concurred, perched on Aurora’s shoulder. She flapped her wings and blinked an ominous eye, beak clacking.
Another figure moved into Nigel’s line of sight. He felt his heart tighten, and his arms closed a little more protectively around his weeping wife. But Fabian offered a strained sort of grin, and said, “Good show, brother. You really . . . you really are something of a sorcerer, you know?”
It was a huge concession, coming from Fabian.
Their dynamic had always been riddled with jealousy and spite, but Nigel heard the sincerity in his praise, and he accepted it with a short nod.
Maybe things would never be easy between the two of them.
But Fabian had come through when it counted, opening Garden’s door so that Nigel could get through.
He must have performed some degree of impressive sorcery to locate Tealeaf Cottage and get the door all the way out there without alerting the Brotherhood to his doings.
Someday, when Nigel had a bit more capacity for it, he should probably compliment his brother on that remarkable feat. But not just now.
Just now, he had other concerns.
“Jastira!” he choked out suddenly, his heart lurching.
Luna drew back from him, gazing down into his face, her brow puckered.
“Where is she?” Nigel demanded. A thread of panic snaked through him. “She’s . . . she’s not in you, is she?” He reached up to touch her soft cheek, half afraid the vision of her would vanish, replaced by Jastira’s beautiful glamour.
But Luna breathed out a sigh and pressed her hand against Nigel’s, holding his palm against her face. “No, darling,” she assured him. “She isn’t.”
“Is she . . . did she . . .” Sudden terror twisted his heart, and Nigel found he couldn’t ask the question.
If Jastira was in hell, then his soul was still compromised.
He might, somehow, have returned to his body for the time being, but the nature of Infernus Magic remained, a terrible blight on his life and any life with whom he might dare associate.
Luna shook her head, however, her eyes blazing with confidence. “She’s not in hell, Nigel, if that is what’s worrying you.”
“Where then?” he demanded.
She bit her lip. “Now, don’t get angry . . .”
“Why would I get angry?” Nigel blinked, frowning. He couldn’t imagine ever truly being angry with Luna—the idea was both laughable and vaguely horrifying. But those simple words of hers filled him with a great deal of anxiety.
He sat upright, waited a moment for the wild dizziness to pass, then took a look around.
He lay not far from his father’s uprooted gravestone and the collapsed forms of the ten sorcerers and one sorceress surrounding it.
Were they dead? He couldn’t say for sure, not from this angle.
Part of him hoped so—the evil, Dark Sorcerer part of him.
Most likely, however, they were still alive.
Though they would probably wish to be dead upon waking.
He’d watched Jastira drain their magic, one after the other.
No doubt they offered it up to her in the expectation that, once fully restored to power, she would give it back again.
Ha! How little they knew and understood the woman on whom they bestowed their loyalty and worship.
When they awakened, they would be Dark Sorcerers no more.
Just a bunch of pathetic, power-hungry, but impotent men, and one sad, broken woman.
Nigel found he had no sympathy to spare for them.
Looking around at the devastation within the valley was bad enough, but this place had been devasted for years now.
When he looked beyond, however, to the places where Garden’s lush greenness had so recently thrived, his heart threatened to break with sorrow.