26. Linden
Linden
The world went to absolute shit in about three seconds flat.
One moment, Elder Thaddeus was about to deliver what I desperately hoped would be good news, and the next, the entire Elder Council chamber was engulfed in chaos.
The doors exploding inward probably wasn’t a good sign.
But the black smoke that poured through the openings proved to me that this wasn’t some accident or natural disaster.
This was an attack. And the figures that emerged from that smoke, masked, armed, and moving with the coordinated precision of an actual military force, told me that this wasn’t just a random attack, but an attempt to wipe out the Elder Council completely.
And there was only one group brave enough or stupid enough to try.
The Purity Front.
I grabbed Cass and yanked him behind me, my body moving on pure instinct even as my mind struggled to catch up with what was happening.
My magic flared to life without conscious thought, golden light erupting across my skin like a beacon.
I could feel the dryad magic responding to the threat, ancient and protective in a way that made my entire frame vibrate with power.
“What the fuck—” Cass started, but I cut him off by wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him deeper into the chamber, away from the nearest group of attackers that were already converging on Elder Voss.
I stood there, watching in horror, as she was cut down before she even understood what was going on.
Blood splattered across the gold and silver floors, pooling in the cracks.
This was just like the attack at Widdershins a couple of months ago.
It made me wonder if that had been a trial run.
I didn’t have much time to wonder though as one of the masked figures locked eyes with me and was heading my direction with a battle wand that crackled with fiery red magic.
I’d never been in a real fight before. Never had to use my magic as a weapon in any serious capacity.
That just wasn’t in my nature. The closest I’d come was watching Cass call down lightning on those bulldozers, and that had been about protecting my home, not defending myself in active combat.
But something in my blood must’ve known what to do.
Something ancient and territorial that went back generations through my family line was summoned up inside me, bringing forth a beast I didn’t recognize.
The figure raised the wand, and I felt the magic building behind it. I responded by slapping my hands onto the chamber floor. The silver and gold inlay cracked and split, and vines erupted from the fissures like serpents, wrapping around the figure’s legs and yanking them off their feet.
“Run!” I shouted at Cass, but he was already moving, his own magic crackling to life around him. The air temperature dropped ten degrees in an instant, and I heard the distinctive sound of ice snapping and forming above us.
Around the chamber, the Elder Council members were fighting back against the attackers.
Elder Thaddeus, still in his dragon form, was laying waste to anything that came within reach of his claws.
Elder Brina had conjured some kind of protective barrier around herself and a fiery-eyed witch I didn’t recognize.
But there were so many attackers, too many for the Council to handle on their own.
And then I saw him.
Jackson Rose stood at the far end of the chamber, his black suit somehow pristine despite the absolute carnage surrounding him.
He wasn’t fighting. He was watching. Observing.
And when our eyes met across the chaos, I saw confirmation of everything that Elder Briar Hall had accused him of.
For one brief moment, I thought he would come after me, that this attack was all some grand plan to take me down and take my land.
But then, in a burst of fire, he was on the ground, his body smoldering and dead.
Elder Thaddeus stood a few feet away, his mouth still glowing from the fireball he’d expelled.
He looked to me, gave me a quick nod, and headed back into the fray where the other Elders were struggling to stay ahead of their attackers.
Another masked figure broke away from the crowd, running toward us at full speed. I didn’t have time to summon up more vines as he raised his wand. However, Cass stepped in front of me, electricity crackling around him as his eyes went dark once more.
“Get the fuck away from my boyfriend!” he shouted, lifting a hand to the chamber ceiling.
I expected lightning. That’s what Cass was good at.
But instead, the icy storm forming above us did something else.
With a swing of his arm, a translucent icy spear shot out of the clouds, hurtling toward the attacker at a blinding speed.
He didn’t even have time to lift his wand before it ran him completely through, pinning him to the marble floor.
He cried out, wrapping a hand around the spear to try to pull it free from his chest, but he was done for.
A second or two went by before he went limp, blood pooling around him.
I felt something snap inside me at that moment.
Like a coiled spring finally finding release.
Cass had just killed someone. My Sparks.
My gentle, grumpy, sarcastic boyfriend had just run an icicle through a man’s chest like it was nothing to protect me.
And instead of horror, all I felt was a fierce, primal pride and a whole lot of love.
“Thank you,” I breathed, pulling him back against me as more attackers surged toward us.
But we couldn’t stay there. Not in the center of the massacre.
The chamber was a war zone now, bodies littering the floor, magic crackling through the air in every direction.
I could feel the ancient magic in my blood screaming at me to fight, to protect, to destroy anything that threatened what was mine.
But my mind was clearer than that. We needed to get out. We needed to survive.
“Linden!” Elder Briar Hall’s voice cut through the chaos. I spotted him near one of the side exits, his fae form fully manifested now, his green eyes blazing with power as he fought off three attackers at once. “Leave through here! Now!”
I didn’t hesitate. I grabbed Cass’s hand and started moving toward the exit, using my magic to create a barrier of thick vines and thorns between us and the nearest group of Purity Front soldiers.
They screamed as the thorns raked across exposed skin, but I didn’t stop.
Couldn’t stop. My survival instincts were in full overdrive.
We were halfway to the door when I felt a blast of magic hit me from behind.
It wasn’t lethal, but it was strong enough to send me sprawling forward.
I hit the marble floor hard, the breath knocked from my lungs.
Cass immediately spun around, his hands already moving to summon more ice, but I grabbed his ankle.
“Keep going!” I shouted, pushing myself back up. “Get to the door!”
“Not without you!” he yelled back, his eyes still dark as he unleashed another wave of freezing magic at our pursuers.
Elias appeared out of nowhere, his quiet demeanor replaced by something far more lethal.
He was moving through the attackers methodically, his movements precise and deadly, like he’d been training for this his entire life.
I didn’t know where he’d learned it, and I was a little afraid to ask as I watched him tear through one attacker after the other without missing a beat.
“Go,” he said, not even looking at us as he disarmed an attacker with a casual flick of his wrist. “I’ll cover your retreat.”
Elder Briar Hall was already at the door, gesturing frantically for us to hurry. I grabbed Cass one more time, and we ran, my longer legs eating up the distance even as my magic continued to lash out defensively, buying us precious seconds.
We burst through the doorway into a dark room and stopped short, not sure where to go next. A moment later, Elias appeared behind us, pausing in the doorway.
“Come on,” he called to Elder Briar Hall. “We need to get out of here!”
“Get them to safety,” the elder replied, grabbing Elias by the front of his shirt and kissing him hard. “I have to stay here and help.”
“I can’t lose you, Wild—”
“You won’t!” Elder Briar Hall gave him a shove into the room. “Now go!”
Elder Briar Hall slammed the door shut, his fae magic sealing it with thorny vines that erupted from the frame itself. Elias banged on the door, swearing loudly.
“We should go back for him,” I said, my voice cracking as I stared at the sealed door. My magic was still boiling beneath my skin, desperate to fight, to protect, to do something other than stand here uselessly while the Elder Council faced down an entire army of Purity Front soldiers alone.
“We can’t,” Elias said, his usual reserved demeanor completely shattered. His hands were shaking as he pulled away from the door, forcing himself to back up. “If we go back, we’ll all die. That’s not what Wild wants. That’s not what we’ve been training for.”
“I don’t care what he wants!” I heard myself shout. The sound echoed off the stone walls of what appeared to be some kind of underground tunnel. “He’s in there fighting for us and we’re just running like cowards—”
“Like survivors,” Elias corrected, his brown eyes hard as flint.
“Wild is a High Fae from one of the oldest families in the Seelie Court. He can handle himself far better than you can. What he needs is for you two to get to safety so he doesn’t have to worry about protecting you while he’s fighting. ”
The logic of it made me want to scream. He was right, and I hated it.
Cass grabbed my hand, his fingers ice-cold and trembling. “Come on, Linden. We have to trust him.”
I looked at my Sparks, saw the fear in his green eyes despite the bravado he was trying to project, and felt something in me break. He was right too. And I was wasting precious seconds we probably didn’t have.
“Which way?” I asked Elias, my voice flat and hollow.
“This way,” he said, already moving deeper into the tunnel. “There’s another teleportation circle I can use to take you both back to Widdershins. Come on!”
We ran through the darkness, our footsteps echoing off stone walls that seemed to pulse with ancient magic.
Behind us, I could hear the sounds of battle still raging in the Elder Council chamber.
Explosions. Screams. The distinctive crackle of combat magic that made my stomach twist with guilt and fear in equal measure.
“How did they even get in?” Cass asked as we ran, his breath coming in ragged gasps. “The Council chamber should be protected by every ward known to paranormal law.”
“The Purity Front must’ve been planning this for months,” Elias said, not even sounding winded despite the pace he was setting. “Maybe longer. They had inside help. That much is obvious now. We just don’t know who.”
“Was it Jackson Rose?” Cass offered, breathing hard as he ran.
“No,” Elias replied, taking a tight corner. “He’s not close with the Council. Someone within the Elder Council showed them how to get past the wards. That’s the only explanation.”
I tried to fathom the implications of that sentence.
Someone, an Elder Council member, had betrayed them to the Purity Front.
And now council members were dead. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of repercussions that would have on the entire paranormal world.
And I didn’t have time to think about it either. Not right now.
Suddenly the tunnel opened up into a large room, and I could see what looked like a natural stone platform ahead of us.
The floor was inlaid with silver and gold much like the council chamber, but this was almost an exact replica of the teleportation circle back at Widdershins. This was our way out.
Elias skidded to a halt at the edge of the circle, his breathing finally becoming ragged. He raised his hands, beginning to chant in that same language Elder Briar Hall had used before. The silver and gold inlay started to glow, responding to his magic with pulses of ethereal light.
“Hurry,” he urged, not looking back at us. “I can feel them trying to break through on the other side. They’re almost here!”
Cass and I rushed toward the circle, my hand still gripping his like it was the only thing tethering me to reality.
Behind us, I could hear a distant boom, the sound of something massive rocking the entire place.
Once. Twice. The third time, I heard the crackle of magic shattering into a million pieces.
“Now!” Elias shouted.
We stepped into the circle just as the tunnel behind us erupted in a shower of stone and flame. I caught one last glimpse of masked figures pouring through the breach before the world dissolved into that familiar stomach-lurching feeling of being unmade and remade somewhere else entirely.
When we materialized, we were standing in the greenhouse at Widdershins.
The familiar scent of campus shocked me after all the smoke and blood.
And for a moment I could only stand there, gasping for air, trying to process what had just happened.
The attack. The deaths. The world and everything I knew seemed to change in an instant.
“We need to warn people,” Cass said, his voice hoarse. “The Purity Front is—”
“Already done,” Elias interrupted, his eyes closed as he tipped his head toward the sky. “I just sent a telepathic message to Dean Thornfield. He’ll be mobilizing the school’s security team as we speak.”
I looked around the greenhouse, at the glass panels that Cass had finished repairing just a week ago. It felt like a lifetime had passed since then. Back then we were worried about classes and feelings and not getting caught. But now…
“You two need to go back to your dorm, right now,” Elias said. “Stay together. I’ll be in touch once this is all over.”
“Where are you going?” Cass asked. “Won’t the Dean need help?”
“He’ll be fine,” he said, stepping back into the circle. “I’m going to save my husband.”
With a quick chanted word, he disappeared with a pop, leaving the pair of us standing just outside the stone circle, the iron gates of Widdershins Academy looming over us. Darkness had settled over the academy. Over the world.
Everything was about to change.