Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Hallowind House has become our anchor in life, and especially so for Asher.
From the first night he arrived here, he and the house have had a bond that even I don’t fully understand.
It goes well beyond the house’s need for an outlet, they share an unshakable love for me and my sisters and would do anything to keep us happy and healthy.
So, it’s not that surprising that his ‘return home’ portal journey is the easiest trip he can make.
And I’d guess the power of the Hallowind standing stones is a clarion call that makes it even easier for him to hit his mark.
Well, however it works… it works.
We materialize in the front foyer, and I marvel while the tingle of his energy signature dissipates. “Wow, that was so cool.”
He smiles and his expression lights up. “Right?”
“And I feel Birdie’s energy signature in your power.”
He chuckles. “Well, yeah. She is the Big Kahuna who gave me my mojo.”
“Your magic mojo, yeah, but you’ve always had mojo.”
He waggles his sandy blond-brows at me. “You know it, babe.”
I give his hand a squeeze, and he leads the way toward the back of the house. Violet and Lily are in the living room, locked in a tense and awkward staring contest with a man I recognize from the Order of the Arcane infirmary.
He might be a healer, but I saw him with Garrison assessing the situation of the recovered witches.
Tall and graying at the temples, he has the steady gaze of a man who’s spent decades delivering difficult news to frightened people. He’s sitting in Asher’s favorite armchair, and my sisters are sitting on the couch opposite him.
Violet is perched at the edge of the cushion, practically vibrating with anxious energy, and Lily has her feet pulled up and her sketchbook closed on her lap like armor.
Yeah, okay, no wonder Asher couldn’t take the pressure of waiting until I got home. He’s not good with awkward pauses.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.” I stride straight through the opening between the kitchen and living room and hold out my hand.
The man rises from the chair and accepts my welcome. "Miss Hallowind-Forrester. I'm Caldwell Marsh, senior healer and liaison for the Order of the Arcane Magical Recovery Division."
“And what can I do for you, Mr. Marsh?”
“Yeah, that’s what we’d all like to know,” Violet snaps. “You’d think that since we were the ones recovered, he could talk to us, but no, he had to interrupt your date and hold out for the oldest Hallowind sister.”
Alrighty, then. Asher settles into the space just behind my shoulder as I meet the man’s gaze and wait for him to tell me why we’re all here.
“As you are likely aware, we've been monitoring all forty-seven of the affected young witches since their rescue.”
I nod. “The healers come regularly to check on the well-being of my sisters. Is that what this is? Have they noticed something they’re concerned about?”
“Not with your sisters specifically, no. We’ve been most concerned with maintaining the stability of those taken as their powers rebuild and their affinities come back online. I was told you had to deal with a similar situation yourself.”
“I dealt with sort of the opposite problem. I wasn’t siphoned, my powers were blocked for five years and built up to dangerous levels that needed to be released.”
He glances briefly toward Violet and Lily before returning his attention to me. “And, if you remember, remaining in Emberwood wasn’t possible. For your safety as well as the nocana population, and our need to keep magical issues undetected, you were sent to the Arcana Academy.”
Violet makes a noise at the back of her throat and presses both hands flat against her knees. “You want to send us away? We just got home.”
“I’m not going,” Lily snaps, her gaze wild as she looks at me. “They can’t make us go, can they, Poppy?”
They can, and they do. I had no choice in the matter, but there’s no way I’ll tell that to my sisters while they’re looking at me like they are. I know what it feels like to have no choice in a life that’s been taken over and decided for you.
I hated every moment of it.
“You’re talking about the rescued witches as a whole. My sisters are more than the sum of the victims. They are individuals and, according to the Order healers, are doing really well.”
Caldwell doesn’t seem moved by my logic.
“The fact remains, if your sisters want the blocks placed on them at the time of their rescue to be removed so they can develop their powers and affinities, they will be required to spend time at Arcana until we feel they are ready to return to their lives here.”
Lily gasps. “You’re seriously going to hold our powers hostage if we don’t do what you say? How does that make you any better than Laurel and her energy-sucking assholes? You’re still manipulating us and our magic.”
The man’s expression doesn’t rise to the insult. “I assure you, Miss Hallowind, the intention of what we’re suggesting makes us very different. This will be in your best interest and to keep those around you safe.”
Violet looks stricken. “How long would we have to be gone?”
He lifts a shoulder. “This situation has no precedent—you were stripped of developing magic, siphoned, and held in stasis for years.
We can't tell you with certainty how each of you will respond once the magic returns. You may sink into your affinity immediately, or it may take time. But, however long it takes, you’ll be as safe as possible. "
“I won’t develop my affinity for years,” Lily says, looking panicked. “You can’t possibly think I’m staying there…”
“Of course not.” Caldwell shakes his head. “In your case, we’ll work to align your powers back to where they should be naturally for your age and hopefully, your affinity will present itself in a few years as it was meant to.”
Hopefully?
“Wow, you really need to work on your pep talks, dude.”
Right? I glance over my shoulder at Asher and smile at my bestie.
Violet exhales sharply. "Okay, so assuming we succumb to your blackmailing tactics—and holding our magic hostage is a dick move, by the way—then when would this move to Arcana Academy happen?”
"Tonight," Caldwell says.
Violet blinks, and she turns to Lily.
Lily looks like she’s either going to take a swing at this guy or burst out crying. “Screw that. And screw you, too, actually.”
And with that, my youngest sister flips Mr. Marsh a middle-fingered salute and stomps to the pantry to return with a box of Vachon Jos Louis.
Violet and I both move to grab one and get a chocolate fix when a knock sounds on the glass doors at the back of the house.
Three sharp raps.
It’s weird that Wylder wouldn’t come in the front, but…
I turn back to the sliding glass doors and squeal…
Racing to open the door, I survey her long, teal and blue hair pulled back in a messy knot…
same steel-gray eyes. She’s got more than a couple burn marks on her arms in varying degrees of healing, but other than that, I don’t see any signs of injury or that she’s been suffering in any way and I breathe the first full, deep breath in three weeks.
I yank Mica inside for a hug. “Ohmygod, I was so worried. When we couldn’t get to you… and the whole building disappeared… Are you all right?”
Mica squeezes me and then steps back, chuckling. "Hey, Hallowind. I take it you missed me?"
I escort her inside, and Asher wraps his arms around her and lifts her off her feet. She goes rigid for half a second, then her free arm comes up, and she thumps him twice between the shoulder blades. "Okay, okay. I'm not dead. Try to contain yourself."
"We didn't know where you were." I take her duffel bag and set it on the floor. "I've been—there was no way to contact you. We didn't know if the forge had kidnapped you or… well, we didn’t know what happened."
"Magical forges can be dramatic. This one especially." She glances past my shoulder into the kitchen. "Oh, sorry. You have company."
I totally forgot. I turn back to the Order liaison and see the curious looks on my sister’s faces. “Right, you left before we rescued my sisters. Come. I want you to meet them.”
I tug her over and introduce her. “Violet and Lily, this is Mica.”
Mica looks from my sisters to me and back again. “Wow, you found them. That’s amazing.”
“And now we’re being dragged away again,” Lily snaps. “You’d think we’d been through enough, and they’d leave us alone. But nooo.”
My youngest sister is in her ‘sixteen and dripping in sarcasm’ phase.
I send Mr. Marsh a look of apology. “With what you’ve been through, I agree giving you a moment to catch your breath would’ve been nice, but magical overload and the safety of yourself and others are important, too. The Order is right to be concerned.”
Lily glares at me like I’ve just rammed a dagger into her heart.
Wow, was I this pissy at sixteen? Honestly, no. Asher and I were more concerned with eating and surviving than getting our way.
“All right. You two go upstairs and pack a suitcase. If those who know what’s going on think you need to be in Arcana, we’ll respect that for now. We’ll see how the next few days play out and we’ll reevaluate.”
Violet nods. “All right. If it means we get to access our magic, I won’t fight it. But being there will be very temporary, because I want my life back.”
“Agreed. I want that for all of us.”
As my sisters head out of the kitchen and Lily stomps up the stairs, I turn to Mr. Marsh. “Sorry about that.”
He waves my apology away and pulls out his phone. “I’m going to step out to the back porch to make a call while they ready to leave.”
The front door opens, and Somebuddy and Nobuddy launch into the eight-legged scramble of racing nails on hardwood to get to the front foyer.
“Excuse me a moment,” Caldwell says, heading toward the sliding glass doors at the back of the house.
Wylder comes down the hall and takes in the scene. The disappointment that I’ve obviously not taken care of the issue in the half hour it took him to drive back here is replaced the moment he sees Mica standing beside Asher.
His gaze widens, and he breaks out in a bright, broad smile. “Welcome home, stranger.”
Mica meets him with a hug.
“Are you good? Survived your adventure unscathed?”
"Mostly." She glances down at her forearms, where a network of faint scorch lines climbs toward her elbows. "Give or take a few rite of passage moments.”
“But check out her guns.” Asher waggles his brows, pointing at Mica’s upper arms. “Kapow, chickie.”
Mica chuckles. “Forging for three months straight will do that to you.”
"Three months?" I shake my head and meet Asher’s confusion with my own. "Mica, you've been gone three weeks."
She opens her mouth, pauses, and then we all look to Wylder.
"The forge is incredibly powerful and hides itself in pocket dimensions.” Wylder pulls a stool out from under the breakfast bar at the island and sits. "They run on their own temporal current, separate from this plane entirely.”
I blink at him, finding his cranial speak both baffling and incredibly sexy.
He arches a dark brow as if he can hear my thoughts and continues. “It’s like how Arcana isn’t synced up to time here.”
Mica steps back and props her butt against the back of the couch. “Well, there was no way I was ready to come back after three weeks, so I guess that works. Hell, I’d barely begun the trials."
"What trials?" I move to the armchair across from her.
She's quiet for a moment, looking at her hands. The scorch lines, the calluses, the way her knuckles have the roughness of someone who's been working with fire and metal at close range for months.
“To become the Guardian of the Cinderheart Crucible. The forge chose me, and I chose it back, but then I had to prove myself.”
Okay, so there’s a lot to unpack in that statement.
“Where is the forge now?” Wylder asks, obviously able to process this stuff faster than me.
“I tethered it into Arcana Academy's pocket dimension.”
“Is that safe? After all the weeks we took tracking it down, how do you know it won’t vanish again, or worse, get taken by someone else trying to find it?”
Mica pegs me with a patient smile. “It's stable, it's safe, and no one can get near it without killing me first, so as long as I’m breathing, no one is accessing the forge.”
Asher blinks. “That’s badass.”
It is. Although I don’t like her being dead to be the limiting factor in keeping the forge from falling into the wrong hands.
But that isn’t really my call.
“What about the cat?” Asher asks. “How are things going with Grumpy Puss?”
Mica winces and gestures toward the duffel sitting on the floor at her feet. “He’s sleeping. And it would be best for everyone if we don’t wake him.”
Asher stares at the bag as if Mica’s words were a challenge and not a warning.
“Asher. No.”
He shrugs and rolls his eyes at me. "I'm not going to open it."
Uh-huh. Sure. I start to respond, but then a wave of magical pressure blows through the room, and I reach to steady myself against the arm of the chair. The hair on my arms stands on end, and my magic surges to the fore.
“What the hell was that?” Asher frowns, looking around.
The sound of an explosion rumbles overhead like thunder rolling during the coming of a storm.
It’s not overtly loud—I think distance swallowed most of it—but I feel it through the floorboards, through the walls, and in the base of my chest.
“Well, that can’t be good.”