Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
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In the end, Sadie found it easier to convince Nicholas to go along with her plan than she had expected. Yes, she would have to play bait, but at this point every moment she spent in the manor was a risk. Trapping the demon as quickly as possible was the safest option.
The only part of the plan that he wouldn’t budge on was his refusal to go to the spring ahead of her to wait.
Nicholas would remain ahead of Sadie and the demon, but only by enough to stay out of sight without going out of range of Sadie’s telepathy.
Which meant he was waiting in the billiards room when Sadie entered the lavender sitting room in search of Abigail.
All the guests but Helen had gathered there after the doctor left. Madeleine and Beatrice watched over everyone without letting on that they suspected a demon was in their midst.
“Sadie!” Jane greeted her a little too loudly. She blushed as everyone turned to look at her and dropped her voice to a near whisper. “Sit by me?”
Sadie touched her sapphire ring and concentrated on her power. She sensed the edges of the demon’s thoughts, but it wasn’t possessing Jane. She moved to join the other witch. She’d be able to lay her trap for the demon naturally from a conversation with Jane, she was sure.
Because she had already scanned the other woman’s thoughts, she wasn’t taken off guard by Jane’s first question. “Where did you find the potions you gave to Helen?”
Madeleine and Beatrice already knew she was a water-witch. Nicholas knew she was a telepath. The month was almost over. Sadie took a deep breath and admitted the truth. “I brewed them.”
“I knew it.” Jane’s voice rose again, but it was excitement rather than betrayal that had her struggling to control her reactions. “You always knew so much; I knew you couldn’t be finding all the information in those grimoires.”
Jane had never once suspected that Sadie was a witch, but she allowed her the satisfaction of claiming she had recognized the signs. “You were right. A lot of what I shared I already knew, though I found some things in the grimoires.”
“You’re a witch? What’s your power?” Abigail—or perhaps the demon—demanded from the other side of the room.
Well, at least she was paying attention to the conversation, even if that wasn’t the part of the conversation Sadie wanted her to listen in on. “I’m a water-witch.”
“But what is your power?”
Madeleine tsked. “A lady is entitled to a few secrets, don’t you think, Abigail?”
The pointed look the dowager gave the younger woman was enough to have her backing down before her own secret was spilled.
Sadie wondered how quickly Madeleine had figured out that Abigail was pregnant. Probably in much less time than she, Pippa, and Nicholas had taken.
Jane, at least, didn’t seem to care what Sadie’s power was beyond her affinity for water. “Could you show me how to brew that healing potion? From what Helen said, yours is much more potent than anything I’ve ever made.”
“Of course.” Sadie looked at the clock on the mantle. “But not today. I’m due to meet Nicholas by the spring in a quarter of an hour. He said he had something he wanted to ask me.”
Sadie bit her lip and did her best to look both excited and nervous. Her act convinced Jane, who squealed. “Oh, I bet he’s going to propose! We all know you’re his choice. This is so exciting!”
Jane’s genuine joy surprised Sadie. She had thought the witch was suffering from enough of a crush on Nicholas that she’d be devastated to hear he might propose to another woman.
Abigail’s reaction, on the other hand, was exactly what she had expected. No! He can’t propose to her! He has to marry me! Me! You promised. We have to do something. Now.
The demon’s reply was an evil hiss. Kill.
Yes. We’ll follow her to the spring and drown her before Nicholas gets there. Then I can comfort him.
Yes, kill.
It took everything Sadie had learned over the years to not betray her reaction to these thoughts.
Abigail was insane. Maybe the demon had poisoned her thoughts; they seemed worse than Sadie remembered from early in the month, but the jealous and rather delusional seed the demon had worked on had been there all along.
Sadie stood up and fluffed her skirts. “I should head out now. I don’t want to be late.” Nicholas, they took the bait. Get moving, I’m leaving now.
Be. Careful.
I will. I promise.
Sadie only made it two steps toward the door before Madeleine beckoned her over.
She stood and took both of Sadie’s hands in hers and smiled.
“I am so happy for you, dear.” Still holding Sadie’s hands, Madeleine leaned in close, as if she were placing a kiss on Sadie’s cheek. “Do I need to distract Abigail?”
“Thank you.” Sadie said loud enough for everyone to hear. Then quietly, “Please don’t. We need her to follow me.”
“Be careful, dear. I don’t want to lose a daughter-in-law before I even have one.”
It surprised Sadie that the dowager hadn’t figured out that the implied proposal was only a ruse to draw Abigail and the demon out. But now wasn’t the time to explain. Sadie squeezed Madeleine’s hands and left the room.
???
How far are you now?
Nicholas slowed his pace, terrified the demon would attack Sadie well before they reached the spring. He hated that he had to remain out of sight, where he couldn’t throw a ward around her. It didn’t matter that the demon itself couldn’t harm a human; Abigail would gladly do its dirty work.
I’m at the bend in the path, and Abigail is staying far enough behind that she won’t reach me before I’m at the spring.
Despite the fact that Nicholas had asked the same question essentially every thirty seconds since Sadie made it out of the manor, she still didn’t sound annoyed when she answered. If anything, he’d call her mental voice indulgent.
Coming up to the spring now. Are you hidden?
Yes. Much as he hated it, they needed the demon to get close to the portal before it realized this was a trap, and that meant staying out of sight.
But Nicholas had used his time carefully while he waited for Sadie to get to him.
He had layered invisible wards everywhere.
There would be no accidents resulting in someone drowning in the spring.
He had covered the surface with a physical ward.
Any sticks or rocks that looked like reasonable weapons were similarly locked behind his magic.
The only place free of wards was the area around the portal, the tear between the realms ready to absorb the demon.
From his hiding spot, Nicholas saw Sadie come into view. She stopped a pace away from the spring, presenting the perfect target for the demon. He threw another ward up behind her so she wouldn’t even trip if Abigail attempted to push her into the water.
A few minutes later he heard the crunch of dry leaves and twigs. Sadie played her part perfectly, smiling brightly. “Nick—” she cut herself off as Abigail came into view. “Abigail? What are you doing here?”
“We need to have a talk, Sadie.”
Nicholas threw up a physical ward—invisible—and Abigail walked directly into it.
“What—?” She patted along the edges of the ward, quickly discovering she was trapped in a bubble of his magic.
He made his way out of the underbrush and stepped next to Sadie. “We know you are working with a demon, Abigail.”
Her face contorted into an unnatural grimace. “Your wall won’t stop me,” the creature hissed in Abigail’s voice.
No, it wouldn’t. Nicholas hadn’t added the anti-demon ward on purpose. They needed the demon react to being physically trapped and to jump out of Abigail.
Now! Sadie’s voice shouted in his mind. He threw up two wards simultaneously, protecting himself and Sadie from the demon’s possession.
Then he added a third, preventing it from returning to Abigail, and hoped he had gotten the timing right.
With no one and nothing to possess, the demon should be sucked through the portal back to its realm.
Inside the cage of his magic, Abigail shrieked, and he added an inverted aural ward, blocking the sounds she made before the distraction proved deadly.
Next to him, Sadie flinched, but it wasn’t in response to the ear-splitting sound he had just cut off. “You can’t possess me, demon,” she said through gritted teeth.
Nicholas stared in horror as she mentally fought the creature.
He must have been too slow erecting his ward—he hadn’t wanted to put it up early and risk the demon sensing it, and now Sadie was paying the price.
His hands balled into fists, but there was nothing he could do except drop the ward so the demon wouldn’t be trapped inside her.
“That’s right,” Sadie panted. “I am a telepath. And you will not take over my mind.”
She sagged suddenly, and Nicholas went to support her.
He hadn’t even gotten a hand under her elbow before the protective glyph he had carved for himself warmed in his pocket.
He had given up on carving a general demon-detecting glyph, and this charm would only be reacting if the demon was actively targeting him.
The minor rune couldn’t block a demon, but that was why Nicholas had the ward.
Laughter filled his mind. Your walls only work if you stay inside them.
The demon shared an image from Sadie’s point of view, and Nicholas saw himself reach out to steady her. His arm passed directly through the invisible ward he had cast to protect himself from possession.
Exactly. Now, we bargain.
Nicholas instinctively felt the difference between the demon’s possession and Sadie’s telepathy. The demon’s thoughts creeped and crawled through him. While it offered a bargain, it raked deeper into Nicholas’s mind looking for weakness.
Nicholas wasn’t a telepath, but he had drunk a dose of the mental fortitude potion right before Sadie entered the sitting room to lure the demon out. He had the strength of will to push back at the demon.