Chapter 35
In the aftermath, the silence was as loud as all the chaos it followed. Mallachtan’s body, sprawled motionless on the grass, seemed to have absorbed every bit of sound until my ears began to hum.
He wasn’t the first Dwimmer I’d seen killed – hell, we’d seen Fable kill that Switch only the night before – but Mallachtan was the first that had been killed . . . for me.
My emotions were a mess of contradictions.
Relief that Mallachtan was no longer a threat, shock at seeing him killed, and something else entirely as I glanced at Typhon striding toward me.
His eyes were locked on mine, and something shifted inside me, tightening in my chest. He might be a monster, a Draw.
But he was my monster.
The raw fury that’d been etched into his features softened as he touched my face, feather light along my cheek. I swallowed, my throat suddenly tight, eyes prickling.
There were no words to express what I was feeling, not ‘thank you,’ not even ‘you belong to me.’ Just a deep understanding that flowed between us – in a bond that shouldn’t have existed anymore – that he would always be there.
That he’d always been there, waiting, my shadow, my monster, ready to defend me.
And that I would do the same for him.
“Harlow, it is time.” Thalienne stepped forward, her voice snapping through the moment, making me startle.
Her eyes were sympathetic. “We need to hurry. The Senate won’t let this go unanswered.”
I nodded, deliberately moving away from Typhon so I could think clearly. “What are you going to do?”
“We’re sealing the school off completely – it can no longer be the Heathermoor that we have known. It can no longer be a school. It is the only way.”
Thalienne’s voice was firm and sure, but there was grief buried beneath the veneer of calm, an ache that hung on her words. Everything she’d worked for. Everything she stood for . . . all gone because of some stupid Dwimmers and their unreasonable hatred toward the Fae.
“Wait . . .” Ellie shook her head. “What about the students? Dwimmers will still need training.”
Bryony gently put a hand on her shoulder. “The previously decommissioned school, Ankarana Academy, will be raised. Two of our teachers are already on their way to resurrect its halls and disperse its current residents. Many of the younger students will follow once it’s . . . ready.”
“Without Senate authorization, I assume?” Fable asked.
Thalienne nodded. “No one who sides with the Senate will get in – the gates will kill any with intentions of harm. We’ll give you time to leave, assuming you can make it quick, but no one will be allowed to pass through these gates – in or out – for the next moon cycle.”
Twenty-eight days. Opie could not wait that long.
The others let out a series of low gasps but, with my brain exhausted from days of trauma, and even with Ellie’s healing, it took me a second to catch up.
I stared, shock and adrenaline rippling through me. “You’re not surrendering. You’re declaring war, aren’t you?”
Her eyes glittered. “I am. The parents who don’t believe in me and my mission already took their children home earlier this evening.
The others will take their younger children to Ankarana when it is ready.
The rest – mostly older students and their families – are still here and are with me, ready to fight for change.
No longer will these wooden men with hollow minds and hollow hearts determine the fate of magic. ”
Behind her, the other Fae women I recognized from Bryony’s ‘book club’ trickled in from the direction of the school. She must’ve gathered them when she knew she’d be making her stand against the Senate.
Bryony moved closer and took Thalienne’s hand, lifting her head proudly as the Sage continued.
“No longer do we here at Heathermoor accept them as the masters of our destiny. We will fight until our voices are heard and until we are free to embrace magic in all forms.”
“For fire and iron, we defend,” someone called from the crowd.
The words weren’t shouted. They were thrown like a gauntlet.
I turned as students began to cross the heather-dotted ground toward us. Not running. Walking. Shoulders squared, expressions set with the kind of resolve that came from knowing what might be asked of them and coming anyway.
“Holy hells,” Zeed breathed. “It’s the entire school.”
House Kelpish stepped forward next.
“We will call to the deep,” one of them said, voice steady. “And we will answer when it calls back.”
“We will dare all,” House Felinita followed, fists raised, students and families standing shoulder to shoulder. No cheering. Just acceptance.
Ellie moved ahead of me, her eyes bright but her jaw tight as she gave the cry of her adopted house.
“We will overcome.”
Gary faced his new house, his cousins, who closed ranks beside him without a word.
“We will be brave,” he said. “And we will endure.”
“We will not yield,” House Kirinash answered, the words rippling through them like a vow rather than a chant.
And then it was my turn.
I shine, not burn.
The words had always felt like a promise. Now they felt like a question.
I thought of my father, of what it meant to burn too hot, to let the power take control. I thought of Thalienne, and the shadows she’d learned to cast without being consumed by them. There was more to this than light or fire. There always had been.
I raised my arm and traced a quick rune in the air, one of my own. An ethereal flame bloomed in my palm, pale and fierce, like something that refused to be extinguished.
“I will shine a light on the darkness,” I said.
Not because it would save us.
But because it would show us where we stood.
I wondered if Neverthorn had ever been like this. A camaraderie so intense that they were willing to stand against odds that should have terrified them?
It almost made me wish I could stay. Almost.
Thalienne laid a gentle hand on my shoulder as we watched the students, not cheering and clapping, but standing stoic.
Ready to defend their home.
She gave me a sad smile as she spoke loud enough for only Bryony and I to hear.
“Understand that this means once you leave, you will not be able to return until the war is done. I’d hoped we could fight side by side, but your destiny lies elsewhere for now, Harlow Daygon, and comrades of House Phoenix.
I pray to Hecate and the Horned King we will meet again, when we’ve made this world of ours a better place.
We’re sisters now, bound by blood and ritual.
Wherever your path leads, know that we are with you in spirit. ”
“Sister,” Bryony echoed, leaning in.
“Sister,” I whispered back, my throat aching.
Thalienne straightened, her smile hardening as she tipped her head in a curt nod. “You have twenty minutes. After that, the wards go up.”
She turned, Bryony and the students following closely behind as they moved toward the other part-Fae women. Magic swirled round them as they prepared for whatever spell they were planning to use to seal off Heathermoor from the rest of the world. To stand against the Senate together.
I turned toward House Phoenix as they finished saying their goodbyes to their housemates, pushing aside everything else and focusing on the task at hand.
Opie.
Beyond the gate, the Runecoats were still alive but exhausted from their efforts of trying to stand. We might get past them alright, but what then? We’d still have the Runecoats waiting on the other side of the loch.
“How do we know if the Nessies took care of all the others?” Zeed muttered.
“They didn’t get them all,” Gary said, his eyes going glassy for a moment, as if listening to a voice only he could hear. “They’re still coming in waves. We’d be locked in a battle and might not get off the island in time.”
Ross shifted nervously. “What about Cat’s compelling Quirk? Maybe she can convince them to –”
“No!” Fable shouted, making Ross flinch.
“No more compelling,” she added, softening when she caught sight of Cat’s stricken face.
“Sorry, Cat, but we can’t risk it. It wasn’t your fault .
. . what happened to Fake Phyllis. It was mine, but I’m not sure we should be using untested Quirks that might have . . . unintended consequences.”
Cat wrapped her arms around her waist and nodded. “Okay.” Her voice was thick with unshed tears. “I . . . I couldn’t do it again anyway even if I wanted to. Not after that.”
Ross threw up his arms. “Got it,” he muttered. “No compelling.”
“Then we’re stuck,” Cat cut in, voice flat. “Unless someone has a better idea.”
They all looked at me. This new connection to my magic whispered that the impossible perhaps wasn’t so impossible.
What would I do to get to Opie? What would I risk?
The answer was simple.
Everything. I gave them a tight smile.
“We’re going to spirit directly into Neverthorn.”
The words were out of my mouth before I fully realized what I was saying. Silence fell as my friends stared at me like I’d grown an extra head.
“Harlow, you know better than anyone that Neverthorn’s protections make that impossible,” Typhon said. “You tried to get away how many times that way when you were young?”
Hell, it shouldn’t even be possible to spirit us out of Heathermoor, never mind getting us into Neverthorn itself – both schools had anti-spiriting wards set on them. But even though logic was against me . . . my unlocked magic whispered otherwise.
“I can do this. My magic changed with the ritual. I can sense it right under my skin and it feels . . .” I didn’t fully know how to describe it.
Lively, snapping, moving . . . wanting to be used.
Typhon stared at me hard. “Even if you feel stronger, Harlow, spiriting that many people into a place warded as heavily as Neverthorn is not only a drain on your magic, but also dangerous for you and everyone with you.”
You got this, Harlow. My voice, or my mom’s?
“I can do it,” I insisted, meeting their dubious gazes one by one. “I’ll guide everyone. Just hold onto me and . . . trust me.”
The Fae ritual had unlocked something in me. I was more certain of it now more than ever.
“For Opie,” I said.
“For Opie,” Ellie echoed.
“I’m in,” Marina added, her calm, clear voice filled with a trust that made my throat tighten. She stepped forward, gripping my hand. “We trust you, Harlow.”
Zeed nodded. “If you say you’ve got this, then you’ve got this.”
Typhon’s voice was in my ear. “If anyone can do the impossible, Harlow, it’s you.”
One by one, they gathered around me, Typhon’s hand settled against my back, Caterina’s grip on my shoulder, Fable, Marina, Ross, Ellie, Zeed, and Gary crowding close.
My friends.
My family.
I just had to believe that I wasn’t about to get us all killed. No . . . I had this in the bag.
I sucked in a deep breath, turning my thoughts inward to center myself. I shaped my fingers into the spiriting rune I’d learned all those years ago, but it felt awkward, like trying to use someone else’s hand to write.
Not just runes, then.
I let my hand fall, let my fingers dance on their own at my side, as I fixated on the magic itself. Fae magic didn’t need runes, as Bryony and Thalienne had proven. As I was learning.
I closed my eyes, calling the magic up from deep within my chest and willing it to flow through my veins themselves.
It surged forward without hesitation, intuitive and wild, nothing like the precise control that Dwimmer magic had always demanded.
It was chaos in its purest form . . . it seemed to recognize Thalienne’s warding over Heathermoor – but there was something holding us back.
The pendant around my neck that Liam had given me felt incredibly heavy, as if it were weighting me down, in this place. I pulled it off and flipped it to the side. “Pendants off.”
My friends pulled themselves free and for the first time in days, I saw the faces I knew and loved. “Now we can go.”
I worked the rune and Fae magic together and wove my way through Heathermoor’s anti-spiriting ward in no time. Like working my way through Thalienne’s other wards, only this was faster.
“Hell yeah,” Zeed whispered.
Grinning, my eyes still closed, I projected the magic – my magic – outward with a casting rune I blended with my ‘finders keepers’ rune, stretching the magic all the way to Neverthorn in the blink of an eye.
I swallowed a curse as my spell smacked into Tarquinius’s wards and bounced right off.
The crushing weight of the barrier felt like it was pressing on my chest, impossibly thick and sturdy, almost impenetrable.
His ward physically pushed me back and it was only my friends’ hands keeping me upright.
“You got this.” Ross’s voice rumbled to me from a distance.
“Keep trying,” Caterina urged.
Panic flared, but I pushed it down and leaned into the magic even more. I couldn’t give up. Not with what was at stake. But again, the barrier didn’t budge, and the magic slid off like water over ice. There was not even a hairline crack that I could drive into.
Just a wall of strength, mocking my efforts to get through.
I paused, tamping down my frustration as Bryony’s words from before the ritual drifted back to me.
Don’t fight the tide. Let it carry you.
Maybe brute force wasn’t the answer. Like breaking Mallachtan’s curse or slipping through the wards that Thalienne had placed on the basement. What did Tarquinius expect?
For someone to hammer their way through a single spot. Because it’s what he would do.
Feel, I needed to feel my way through.
I spread my magic out wider, morphing it into something fluid .
. . formless. Then I pressed on the barrier again, trying to enter it through multiple areas at once.
The barrier was woven tight, but it was far from impenetrable now that I laid my magic across it.
There were tiny imperfections and pores that pockmarked the surface.
Far too small for Dwimmer magic, but I wasn’t only a Dwimmer.
I was part-Fae, too, and that magic could be anything I needed it to be.
My newfound connection to this deeper magic helped me slide right through those openings, and the barrier became less an obstacle and more a puzzle, something I could work with instead of something to fight against. I couldn’t help but grin at how natural it felt, as if my magic had always been meant for this.
One final push, and . . .
Our bodies dissolved at Heathermoor as I dragged us across the world, back to Neverthorn.
Hecate, please help me not kill my friends.