Chapter 10
Lioness barely registered the silence after the trap snapped shut. Her world had narrowed to Cal’s breathing. Shallow. Uneven. But still there.
She knelt beside him on the torn grass, one hand pressed flat to his chest, the other gripping his shoulder as if she could physically anchor him to existence through sheer stubbornness.
“Stay with me,” she murmured. “You don’t get to check out now. That would be incredibly rude.”
Cal’s eyes fluttered open. Pain clouded them, but awareness flickered through. He managed the barest curve of a smile. “Sorry,” he rasped. “I hate to be impolite.”
Relief hit her so hard her vision blurred. Humor meant…What? That he was okay? Certainly, better than dead. But was he pretending he was better than he was, for her sake?
Footsteps pounded behind her.
Magda had burst out of the mansion at a dead run, hair loose, shirt askew, clutching a small vial that glowed a warm amber despite everything else being chaos.
“I’ve got something for you!” Magda announced, already dropping to her knees.
Cal squinted at the vial. “What is it?”
Magda uncorked it deftly. “White willow bark, comfrey essence, stabilized iron essence, salts, and…” She paused. Blinked at Lioness. “Well… other things.”
Cal frowned. “Other things?”
“They’re not important,” Magda said firmly, tipping the vial toward his lips. “Drink. Slowly.”
He hesitated just long enough to glance at Lioness. “Do you trust Magda’s medicine?”
Lioness considered this seriously. She took in Magda’s earnest face, the glow of the potion, the fact that Magda had once brewed something that accidentally made her L.A.W. sisters stick together—literally.
She shrugged. “Um… Yes?”
“That’s not comforting,” Cal muttered.
“Less pain, faster healing…” Magda said cheerfully. “Your choice.”
“Gimme.” He drank.
Almost immediately, the tight edge of his breathing eased. The grimace etched into his face softened into something survivable instead of catastrophic.
“Oh,” he said, surprised. “Yeah. That helps.”
Lioness let out a deeply held breath. Her forehead dropped briefly against his. “Good. Because hospitals frown on screaming.”
Behind them, Sahara’s voice cut in, crisp and professional. “Sirens. Two blocks.”
Rayna didn’t hesitate. “We’re jumping. Now.”
Lioness looked up at Magda. “I’m going with him.”
Magda nodded at once. No argument. No questions. “Of course you are. He’s your fated—” She didn’t finish the sentence. She just smiled.
“Take the mansion and the ancient menace back to Long Island,” Lioness said. “You’ll be fine without me.”
Magda squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll keep the kettle warm.” She sprang to her feet and bolted back to the house. The other witches followed, power solidifying, quiet and controlled.
The mansion didn’t shudder or announce its intention. It simply vanished. One moment it was there. The next, there was only torn earth, broken roots, and a disaster that looked mundane enough to explain what happened with paperwork and lies.
Lioness barely noticed. She was already brushing hair off Cal’s damp forehead as EMTs rushed over, voices brisk and blessedly ordinary.
“What happened?” someone asked.
“Wall collapse,” Lioness said smoothly. She subtly drew a pile of rubble in the air. The glamour appeared behind them.
They nodded, then loaded Cal onto the stretcher. As they did, his fingers tightened weakly around her sleeve.
“I’m apt to be an invalid after this. You staying with me?” he asked.
She leaned in close and smiled despite everything. “Try getting rid of me.”
“You can find him at Mount Sinai Hospital,” the EMT said. The ambulance doors slammed. Sirens wailed.
As they pulled away, Lioness glanced once at the space where the mansion had been, felt the echo of it moving home without her. She’d find him at the hospital, then wait for him, however long his surgery might take.
For now, she was choosing the human road.
And she was oddly okay with that.
The entrance hall had been cleared with efficiency.
The oriental rug had vanished with the witches’ help, leaving behind bare marble etched with a pentacle, precise and glowing.
The front doors loomed at one end, massive and sealed, as if the house itself had decided this conversation was not leaving the foyer.
Without being able to reach a new body, the prisoner appeared as he must have centuries ago, in his corporeal form.
Rayna stood at the edge of the circle. “Bring in the truth chair.” Crystal and Brianna dragged it in together, legs scraping loudly across the floor.
“Says a lot about us,” Brianna puffed, “that our most honest artifact is also the heaviest.”
They stood outside the pentacle and used magic to push the truth chair into the center. The prisoner eyed it warily. “What is that?”
“Accountability,” Rayna said pleasantly.
It resisted, of course. The witches gestured as if pushing from all directions, and the pentacle flared. The entity was pulled onto the seat with a low, satisfying plop.
Then it waited.
Sahara stepped forward, her gaze steady. “Before we decide what to do with you,” she said, “we need to be certain of something.”
The prisoner lifted its chin. “And what is that?”
“We suspect you were not the victim.”
“I was unjustly imprisoned.”
Creeeeaak…
“The chair has spoken. Now, how about the truth?” Sahara said.
“It squeaks when you lie,” Magda added.
Sahara nodded. “We didn’t teach it that. It was trained long ago, probably during the Middle Ages, based on its design and materials. But we digress…”
Rayna smiled. “Try again.”
The prisoner’s jaw tightened. “I was feared.”
The chair was silent.
Victoria winced. “Oh, that answer is worse.”
Sahara didn’t blink. “Was the pharaoh protecting his people when he imprisoned you?”
Silence.
The chair did not squeak. No one had spoken a lie…yet.
Joell jammed her hands on her hips. “Answer, or we will assume the worst.”
The prisoner exhaled slowly. “Yes.”
The pentacle’s glow was steady. The house hummed approval.
Sahara’s voice sharpened. “Why were you imprisoned?”
The prisoner hesitated. The chair pulsed. Expectant.
“…Because I demanded worship,” it admitted. “Because belief fed me. Because I would not remain subservient.”
The chair stayed silent.
Joell crossed her arms. “So. Not a victim.”
“No,” the prisoner said. “A God.”
Creeeak! The chair squeaked sharply, as if offended.
“A false God,” Brianna said.
“Did you harm people who doubted your divinity?”
He remained mute. They waited.
Finally, Sahara’s lips thinned into an angry straight line. “We aren’t monsters. We won’t destroy you.”
Hope flickered across the prisoner’s face.
“You won’t walk free, either. We’ll improve the prison,” Sahara finished.
Ezra stepped beside her. “A new obelisk. Your glyphs. Fully sealed.”
“And it goes back to Egypt,” Sahara said. “Where it belongs.”
The prisoner strained against the chair. The pentacle flared brighter. “You cannot cage what remembers freedom,” it hissed.
Rayna tilted her head. “You’re sitting in a chair that squeaks when you lie, and you can’t get up.”
The chair gave a small, smug hum.
“Sit tight,” Rayna added. “We’re remodeling your home.”
The clearing smelled like apples, damp leaves, and woodsmoke. The mansion had settled into the Tennessee mountains with a sigh of relief, stone and timber sinking into familiar ground. It knew this place by heart.
Lanterns glowed softly between the trees, their light catching on strings of dried herbs, copper charms, and ribbons the color of turning leaves.
Magda adjusted the altar cloth, smoothing the deep rust fabric until it lay just right. “I swear,” she muttered, “this thing wrinkles itself out of spite.”
“Blimey. It’s all natural fibers, so we deal with it. Yeah?” Crystal said.
Magda sighed.
Rayna set a bowl of apples at the center of the altar. “It’s Mabon. Everything’s trying to balance. Nature is allowed to be a little temperamental.”
Joell snorted as she stacked candles. “That explains us.”
Crystal stepped back, hands on her hips, surveying the setup. “Something feels… off.”
Brianna followed her gaze around the circle. Then she frowned. “We’re short two people.”
Rayna nodded. “That’s why it feels odd.”
The absence sat there with them, gentle but unmistakable.
“Sahara should be placing the quarter candles right now,” Magda said quietly. “She hates letting anyone else touch them.”
“And Lioness would be arguing with the fire pit,” Joell added. “Insisting it’s ‘too aggressive.’”
Crystal smiled faintly. “And she’d probably be right.”
Brianna tilted her head. “Sahara and Ezra should be in the air by now. Or on a ship. Or wherever one takes an ancient obelisk without alarming customs.”
Rayna huffed. “She has Egyptian antiquities contacts. Don’t ask. Plausible deniability is a legitimate coping mechanism.”
Magda placed a small dish of honey on the altar. “She’s doing the right thing. Returning it to its native land. Closing the loop.”
“I know,” Crystal said. “But it still feels strange without her.”
Joell leaned back against a tree, arms crossed. “And Lioness?”
Rayna’s expression softened. “She’s staying with Cal. At least until he can walk, bathe, and make terrible decisions unassisted.”
“Love that for her,” Brianna said fondly. “But their falling in love was fast.”
Magda nodded. “Very fast.”
Joell arched a brow. “We're going to pretend we’re not all thinking it?”
Rayna shrugged. “We can think it. We just don’t interfere.”
“That’s the rule,” Crystal said. “No meddling. Even when it looks like emotional freefall is looming.”
Brianna smiled. “Especially then.”
Magda glanced toward the fire, sparks drifting upward like brief stars. “They’ve saved each other’s lives. That accelerates things.”
“And Lioness doesn’t half-feel anything,” Rayna added. “She never has.”
Joell sighed. “I just hope she knows what she’s doing.”
Crystal looked around at the altar, the offerings, the careful balance of light and shadow. “She does. Or she’ll learn. Same as the rest of us.”
The wind stirred the trees, leaves whispering overhead.
Crystal picked up the bell. “Ready?”
They gathered, brushed hands, then linked. The circle closed easily, familiarly, even with its quiet gaps.
Rayna spoke first. “Mabon. The equinox. Balance.”
Magda followed. “Gratitude for what we’ve harvested.”
Brianna added, “And what we’ve survived.”
Joell smirked. “And for what hasn’t killed us yet, and won’t in the future.”
They laughed softly, the sound carrying into the woods.
Rayna closed her eyes. She thought of Sahara standing in sunlit sand, glyphs etched true at last. And of Lioness, sitting at a bedside, stubborn as gravity.
“May those who walk different paths tonight be protected,” Rayna said. “And may they find their way back to us when the time is right.”
The fire flared in answer. The altar glowed warm and steady.
“Let’s start,” Rayna said. She lit the incense, then walked the circle three times, pointing her wand over all their heads.
“I cast and charge this circle to protect us from all negative and incorrect forces and energies that may come to do us harm. I draw into this circle only the aspects and energies of the universe that are most correct for our ritual intentions. I cast this circle and create sacred space.”
Everyone answered, “So mote it be.”
Joell lit the first candle on the altar. Then she faced North and said, “Hail powers of the North; the power of Earth, wood nymphs, stone mountains, and trees. Hail and welcome.”
All the witches answered, “Hail and welcome!”
Magda lit the next candle and said, “Hail, powers of the East; The powers of air, fairies, birds, and song. Hail and welcome.”
“Hail and welcome!”
Rayna lit the third candle. “Hail, powers of the South; The powers of fire, hot sun, passion, and flames. Hail and welcome.”
“Hail and welcome!”
Finally, Crystal lit the candle representing the West. “Hail, powers of the West. The power of water, emotion, healing, and love. Hail and welcome.”
“Hail and Welcome!”
They took a moment to watch the flames grow steadily, even in the mountain breeze. “All right, everyone,” Rayna said. “Mabon marks the second harvest. Prosperity, balance, release, and gratitude.”
“Who wants to start a spell with their intentions?”
“I think we all want the same thing right now,” Brianna said.
Rayna nodded, but just to be sure, she asked, “You mean safety for our missing witch sisters?”
“Yes, and may the Goddess bring them back to us when they have successfully completed their missions.”
The rest of them nodded or murmured, “Yes,” or “Absolutely.”
“Not that they need luck or anything. We know they’re bad-ass witches who can take care of themselves,” Rayna said.
“Oh, of course,” the rest agreed.
“True, but look after them anyway, Goddess. Won’t you?” Brianna said.
Without needing to add another thing, Rayna said, “So mote it be.”
“So mote it be,” they all said at once. Silent reflection and visualization followed.
Above them, autumn settled in.
And the wheel of the year turned.