Chapter Eighteen
Twobble clutched my waist as Skonk hopped on Stella's broom. The night air felt like ice against my skin as the broom carried me higher in the sky towards the blanket of twinkling stars. Stonewick Village looked so tiny with the buildings and glowing street lamps so far beneath us.
And to think, somewhere below, Keegan was tracing my daughters’ footsteps as orcs, goblins, and shifters canvassed the land below together. My only hope was that the Priestess had no idea what unity looked like, or that we would be arriving at her doorstep.
It was hard to believe I'd been to the Priestess' compound before in the pursuit of helping Gideon, and now I was flying in to save my mom and daughter from the Priestess' thirst for power.
“How much further?” Twobble asked.
“Not too long,”
He was sitting behind me with his knobby knees digging into my kidneys.
Even though we hadn't reached Shadowick’s borders and the compound sat far beyond, broomstick transportation seemed to be much quicker than most methods.
As my hands held the broomstick handle tightly, I glanced over my shoulder to see a large group of midlife witches ready to take on the world.
It was enough to steal my breath, even if the wind had already done a remarkable job of trying to shove it back down my throat.
Lady Limora glided at the left flank with Vivian, Mara, and Opal behind her, all of them looking as if they’d been born in the night sky and simply tolerated the ground for social reasons.
Stella flew nearby, with one hand on her broom and the other clutching the front of her shawl, which fluttered dramatically around her shoulders. But Skonk sat behind her with his eyes squeezed shut and a hand held to his chest like he was in a state of constant sorcery…or fear.
“I regret everything,” Skonk shouted.
Twobble’s grip tightened around my waist. “For the record, I also regret several things, but I’m saving my full list for after we survive.”
“Wonderful,” I muttered. “Something to look forward to.”
Below us, the land moved in dark waves. The outer edges of Stonewick slipped away first, with the last warm glimmers of the village vanishing behind us.
It felt almost wrong to leave it. The tea shop.
The Academy. The cottage. The Wards that had held us together through more than any place should be asked to endure.
The farther we flew, the colder the air became.
The moon hung high above us, and it felt watchful, with every star sharper than it had looked from the ground.
But the broom knew the way.
Knowing that should have comforted me, but I’d learned that when magical objects made decisions on my behalf, I had very little control.
As we kept flying, the trees below thickened into the Wilds, crowding together until the moonlight barely reached the ground.
From this vantage point, the branches looked too tangled, too pointed, like the woods had grown claws and forgotten how to soften them.
Somewhere below, a howl rose and faded, answered by another from farther east.
It sounded like Caleb.
The shifters were moving.
They were down there, running through the underbrush and along the ridges, while the orcs held the lower passes and goblins threaded through every route that might possibly matter. The sky was ours, the ground was theirs, and for once, Stonewick wasn’t stumbling after the Priestess.
But the most important thing was that we were moving as one.
The thought should have lit something inside me, but it sharpened the fear because Celeste and my mom were somewhere ahead.
And the Priestess had already proven she knew exactly where to cut to make me bleed.
A faint dark line appeared below us, cutting through the Wilds like an old wound that never healed, and my stomach clenched.
Shadows glowed faintly beneath the trees, almost invisible except for the way my magic recoiled from it. There was a black vein in the land, pulsing and watching.
Twobble leaned around my side just enough to look down, then immediately regretted the decision and tucked his face against my coat.
The broom dipped slightly, following the curve of the path below, and the witches behind me adjusted course. A few startled gasps drifted through the air as they spotted the darkness.
“I’ll take care of it,” Nova called.
Witches flanked my sides as Twobble clung to me, and I felt a burning ache.
They trusted me, and I desperately hoped I deserved it.
The horizon darkened ahead in a way that had nothing to do with night.
The land itself seemed to change color as we crossed the invisible line.
The trees below lost their shape first, their branches bending wrong, trunks twisted as though they had been grown in soil that whispered terrible things.
Leaves clung in ragged patches, dull and bruised-looking, and bare limbs reached upward like gnarled fingers trying to pull us from the sky.
We’d entered Shadowick, and the air shifted so quickly my lungs tightened as the heaviness clung to each breath I took.
My birthmark prickled, but the scar remained numb. Hopefully, the Priestess still could not track me.
Thank you, Grandma Elira…or the pendant…or Twobble’s moonstone.
At this point, I was willing to thank jewelry, ancestors, and possibly the broom if it didn’t kill me.
The village of Shadowick came into view below, and every witch behind me seemed to quiet without anyone speaking.
Low, dark buildings crouched along crooked streets, their roofs slanted and sagging as if the sky had been leaning on them for years.
Chimneys released thin strands of smoke that didn’t rise so much as twist sideways, curling along rooftops before thinning into the black air.
Everything about the village felt wrong and dark, and it had always felt that way since I first encountered it. I couldn't help but wonder if the citizens of Shadowick liked it that way, or what stopped them from rebelling.
There were no warm lanterns glowing in windows, cheerful signs swinging above shops, or bursts of laughter spilling from doorways.
Stonewick always sounded alive, even in its quieter hours. Teacups and footsteps. Bells and murmurs. The occasional goblin complaint echoing from somewhere it shouldn’t.
We skimmed higher above the first row of buildings, and I spotted faces looking up from below. I spotted pale shapes in windows, and figures in long coats.
But no Celeste.
A crooked square opened in the center of the village, dominated by a jagged black monument jutting from the stone like something forced up from underground. The shape made my eyes water if I looked at it too long, and the broom shifted beneath me as if it didn’t care for the sight either.
“Get going a little quicker,” I whispered.
The broom obeyed.
For once.
Behind me, the witches tightened formation. Lady Limora drifted closer to my left, her gaze fixed below, expression unreadable. Stella came up on my right, and even she had stopped making comments. That alone was enough to worry me.
Twobble’s voice came softer this time. “It’s worse than I thought.”
“It feels different, doesn’t it?”
The path below curved around the village, refusing to go through the square, and my broom followed it.
The land beyond Shadowick rose into low hills, gray and uneven beneath the moonlight.
Scraggly growth clung to the slopes in patches, stubborn little things that looked like they’d lost the will to be green.
Exposed rock glistened here and there with a slick, dark sheen, and faint residual spells glowed in the ground like old ink stains no one could scrub away.
“Maeve,” Stella called over the wind, her voice carrying strangely well. “Do you feel that?”
I nodded, though I didn’t know if she could see me.
The magic ahead moved in pulses, irregular and unsettling, like something beneath the hills had flipped a switch.
Nova flew a little ahead, her broom unnervingly steady. Her dark braid whipped behind her, and the crystal at the top of her staff glowed where she’d strapped it across her back.
She looked over her shoulder at me.
Even from here, I saw the warning in her eyes.
Coming from her, that was never ideal.
The moon slipped behind a cloud, and for a moment, the world dimmed while the hills ahead seemed to grow taller in the dark.
When the cloud moved, I saw it.
Her compound looked like part of the hillside, a shadow among shadows, tucked into the slope as if it had grown there out of spite, just as I remembered with its dark stones and jagged edges.
The Priestess’ compound sat ahead, low and severe, part fortress and part manor, with old walls spreading out in uneven arms along the ridge.
Iron gates curled around the front, high and black and intricate, their spikes catching the moonlight like teeth.
Beyond them, a courtyard stretched wide and empty, except for the dark shapes of statues standing too still along the path to the door.
The last time I’d come here, I’d been chasing Gideon’s thread through fear and urgency.
Now, it almost felt like the place was waiting for me, like it had called me here.
That was worse.
The broom slowed beneath me, as if even it understood that charging directly into the teeth of the thing was no longer charming.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and my entire body jolted.
I almost fumbled the broomstick, which would have been a terrible time to discover whether phones or midlife witches bounced.
Twobble made a strangled sound. “Please don’t answer texts while flying.”
“It’s Keegan,” I said.
“That is the only acceptable exception, and I hate that too.”
I pulled the phone out with one hand and glanced at the screen as the broom hovered in a slow, cautious arc.
Found a mark scratched into a stone from Celeste. Her initials.
A sob caught in my throat before I could stop it.
Celeste was leaving signs.
My girl was scared, probably terrified, but she was thinking.
She was fighting in the ways she could.
Stella drifted closer, her gaze flicking to my phone and then to my face. “News?”
“She’s probably already in the compound,” I said, my voice thick.
I shoved the phone back into my pocket and lifted my gaze to the compound.
No guards moved along the walls. No shadows swam through the skies. Nothing stirred except the faint silver sway of dead weeds along the outer fence.
That bothered me more than an army would have.
“She knows we’re coming,” I said.
Nova slowed near us. “Possibly.”
“Nova.”
“She knows something is coming,” she corrected.
The compound lights flickered.
One window on the upper floor glowed faintly, followed by another and yet another.
The narrow windows lit one by one with a cold, bluish flame that made the entire hill look like it had opened its eyes.
The witches behind me drew closer as someone whispered a spell.
Twobble’s fingers clamped around my waist again.
“Maeve,” he said quietly. “I would like it known that I was brave for at least several minutes.”
“You’re still being brave.”
“I know, but I wanted witnesses.”
I glanced behind me, taking in the brooms hovering in the moonlit sky, the determined faces, the fear everyone carried and refused to let lead.
Below, far beyond the ridge, I heard the first howl.
Caleb.
Another answered from the west.
A deep horn sounded from the ground, low and rough, unmistakably orc.
The ground teams were in position, and I couldn't fathom how they got there as fast as we did.
The sky held as the compound waited.
For one fragile second, hope and terror stood so close together inside me that I couldn’t tell which one was keeping me upright.
The pendant at my throat warmed, and my broom dipped slightly toward the ridge.
It was now or never.