Chapter 43 #2
“Yes,” I breathe. My chest is still leaden with pain that might be mine or it might be Memnon’s, but there is another part of me, the part that is present right here, right now, that is rising—rising in this moment.
“Alright,” Cordelia says as the last of the agreements trickle in. “Good. One of our sisters needs our power and our blessing tonight.” Her eyes touch on mine for a moment. “And we have all gathered here to give that to her.”
Several shouts of agreement ring out, and my heart clenches at the sentiment.
“With that, let’s begin.”
There is hardly any light to see by, but I just manage to make out Olga’s form as she lays the house’s grimoire open on the floor before returning to her spot in the circle. I don’t have time to wonder about what spell it’s open to before Cordelia says, “Now, sisters, please clasp hands.”
All around the room, we do so. The moment the circle is complete, power starts to trickle from one palm to another.
Sybil is the one who begins to speak. “Though many we are in number, in magic we are one. Through power we share our blessings, our highest good be done.”
We repeat the incantation. If before power dripped from one hand into the next, now it readily flows, moving into my palm, through my limbs, and exiting my other palm, the magic passing clockwise around the circle. Faster and faster it flows, growing with every circuit around the ring of witches.
It fills my veins with a bubbly, effervescent feeling. Had I been worried before? I cannot fathom that fear when I have so much power moving through me.
With a whoosh, the dozens of candles around us alight, throwing the darkened room into light.
Someone cackles. Then another witch joins in. I’m quickly getting drunk on the sound and the power coursing through me. I tilt my head back and laugh.
From the laughter, a voice speaks out: “Maiden, Mother, Crone, Goddess who art holy, bless this water and will it to protect me.”
Magic is now flooding my system, roaring, raging, faster and faster, up one limb, down another, filling me, filling me. All of me. I have many legs, many arms and eyes. Many hearts that beat as one. Many minds that think as one. As one.
The room seems to crackle with energy, and the air above us shimmers—now filled with color, now soft glowing light. It floats down, then settles onto the bottles of water.
And still the power races through us, so fast that I cannot tell where one of us ends and another begins. We are one.
Another cackle, then someone breaks away from the circle. The magic feels like it’s still flowing round and round inside me, light yet potent.
I don’t remember releasing my own hands, but I must because suddenly I’m touching my hair, my face. I feel incandescent. I roll my neck, laugh at this euphoric exuberance.
I don’t intend to leave the Ritual Room. I simply follow the flow of the magic, the flow of my sisters. Our power fills our veins, intoxicating us. We are laughing and dancing. My problems still tug at me, but I’m swept onward by this addicting connection I share.
We spill out of Ravensmeade, out into the dark night, where the moon lies shadowed behind a cloud.
“Hiding your secrets again, Mother!” one of my sisters shouts at that hidden moon. “We’ll find them out anyway!”
We laugh as one, and I understand now why normal folk always assumed witches were a touch mad. Drunk on our power, we talk to the moon and laugh at the unseen.
Sybil grabs my hands and spins us around. Once more the power moves between us, from palm to arm, circulating through us before moving on, faster and faster, hot like flame, heady like wine.
A coven sister shrieks, the sound splitting the air, and the giddy, exhilarating moment is shattered. My hand drops from Sybil’s as I turn my attention to the shrieking witch.
She stares at the clouds with those moon-touched eyes, seeing but unseeing.
Finally, the scream cuts off. “THE SCROLLS WILL BE BURNED. THE BARRIER WILL BE NO MORE. THE DEMONS HAVE SET UPON YOU. YOU WILL BE BETRAYED.” Her wild, unfocused eyes fall to mine. “RUN! RUN!” she shrieks.
“What?” Her words don’t immediately percolate, not when magic overpowers my senses. I press a hand to my temple.
“RUN!”
I back up a few paces, forcing away the cloying hold my sisters’ magic has on me.
Once I’m able to reclaim my mind, it’s like being doused in cold water, and I hear my sister’s words all over again.
The scrolls will be burned. The barrier will be no more.
Eislyn’s move to take her throne must be happening tonight. Right now.
Around me, the ecstatic frenzy that had overtaken the group has morphed into shrieking and hair pulling. They act almost as one, and I have to fight the urge to twist my hands through my own hair and wail.
Where is Nero? I cast my eyes about the chaos when I see him sitting under the oak tree he used to climb up and down to get into my room. His eyes glint in the darkness.
Amidst the writhing, wailing bodies, Cordelia shouts, “Sisters, grab any brooms you can find and as many water bottles as you can hold. We’re going to save our sister.”
Save?
I don’t have long to linger on that thought before Sybil gasps, pointing to my abdomen.
I glance down and notice then the ribbon of indigo magic that leads directly to me. With my eyes, I trace the line of it to the Everwoods. Likely to Last Rites Cemetery.
Little witch, I sense you are close, Memnon says, suddenly, starkly in my mind. You didn’t listen to me. You really should have.
All the hairs on my arms stand on end. I haven’t heard this ominous, terrifying version of Memnon since before he framed me for murder.
Run, he told me. Run, my coven sister shrieked.
A rush of saliva coats the inside of my mouth, and I have to swallow it down.
Unfortunately, there’s no place left to run.
I turn back to the oak tree. “Nero?”
My panther watches me silently for a moment before prowling forward.
Heart hammering, I kneel and draw in a shuddering breath. “I think things are about to get bad,” I confess to him, “and I—I’m about to do something unwise.”
He growls, as though he objects to this decision.
“You don’t have to stay by my side,” I say, my eyes beginning to sting. “In fact, you should stay far, far away from me.”
Now Nero’s lips peel back from his teeth. I’ve definitely pissed him off.
Despite the show of aggression, I lean forward and press a kiss to his nose. “No matter what happens,” I say softly, “know this: I love you. In this life and every life. You’re the best familiar any witch has ever had.”
I press my forehead to Nero’s, and for a moment, I stay just like that, embracing the panther who I first saw in the Roman gladiatorial arena. Who has stayed by me until the bitter end.
Across our bond, I sense Memnon getting closer.
I release my familiar and stand, my eyes lifting to the tree line.
“Stay high up in the trees,” I tell Nero. “Keep yourself hidden. I will call to you when I need you.”
A lie. I will not be calling on my panther when I don’t know what I’m up against. I cannot risk anything happening to him.
“Hey, wench!” Sybil calls out to me, and her voice trembles only a little. “I got you a broom,” she says, holding up one of the two she has in her hands.
I make my way over to her as Nero slinks into the shadows.
“Hopefully this time you have a better spell than the last time we did this together,” she says, handing it over.
I want to tell her we’re not doing anything together, that she can’t put her life on the line for me. But I know saying so will only make her commit harder to protecting me.
So instead I lean in close when I grasp the broom handle. “Your dad thinks I do,” I say, recommitting to the old bit between us.
She shoves me playfully. “Fuck you, Selene.”
“Funny, that’s also what your dad—”
She shuts me up by reeling me back in for a hug. “Whatever happens tonight, you better not get hurt, or you’ll be directly answerable to me.”
“A terrifying prospect.”
“I know.”
I hold her tightly for a brief moment longer, then release her.
Sybil’s eyes widen. “Wait, I almost forgot.” From her coat pocket she pulls out one of the miniature water bottles from the coven.
She hands it to me. “Cordelia wanted me to tell you to hydrate.”
My brows draw together, but I take the water anyway. Untwisting the cap, I take several deep gulps before recapping it.
“Good?”
She lifts a shoulder. “I don’t know. I assume so.”
There’s no place on me to tuck away an entire water bottle, so I hand it back to Sybil.
I draw in a deep breath. Backing up, I grab a single strand of my wavy hair and give it a swift yank, wincing when it comes out. “By the plucking of my hair, lift this broom into the air.”
The strand of hair I hold smokes and curls as magic burns it away. And then the broom rises.
I hop onto it, and slowly I start to ascend into the sky.
I rise above the tree line, above Ravensmeade, higher and higher.
As I do so, the ribbon of deep blue magic connected to my chest changes its angle.
I can’t follow it entirely with my eyes as it slopes into the darkness somewhere in the Everwoods.
Memnon is close. I think about flying in the opposite direction, just to give him a little more chase, but then I remember Nero, who can’t ride a broom and whom I won’t leave behind.
The same goes for my coven sisters, who have gathered here because Cordelia foresaw something concerning about my fate tonight. I won’t leave them behind either.
So instead, I angle my broom toward the ribbon of Memnon’s magic, determined to follow it back to him.
The forest speeds by beneath me. Eventually, I’ll have to figure out how to land between the tightly packed evergreens—
BOOM!
My body jerks as pain explodes across my right shoulder.
Goddess on high. I choke on my own cry as my broom and I begin to fall.
There’s pain and pain and more endless pain. I scream as the wind hits my injured flesh, the agony of it causing me to gag. Warm blood pours from the wound as I spiral toward the trees.
Beneath my screams I swear I hear an echoed roar—
BOOM!