CHAPTER 3 #2
Just like the inside of Adrian’s heart tree back in Seattle, the inside of the tree was incredibly thick.
Heaven’s white light vanished in seconds, blocked out by a wall of shaggy fir needles and thick limbs covered in dark, scaly bark.
Bex’s hands were instantly covered in sticky sap, but that just helped her hold on tighter as she leaped from branch to branch like a squirrel.
The fir was so tall at this point it felt like she was scaling a mountain, but even when the needles got so thick that no light at all could sneak through, Bex didn’t slow down.
She just kept climbing, using her fire to blast them higher and higher through the pine-scented dark.
She was wondering if the tree would keep going up forever when Boston’s claws suddenly dug through her T-shirt into the skin of her shoulder.
“Over there!”
Bex whirled around, smothering her flames so she could see past her own glare only to discover she needn’t have bothered.
Boston was pointing at a light that was even brighter than her fire.
It shimmered like a star that had gotten caught in the fir tree’s thick branches, but it wasn’t until she got closer that Bex realized it was a house.
Not just any house. It was balanced in the branches like a birdhouse, but Bex would know that well-built log cabin anywhere.
Its tall roof, open skylights, fieldstone fireplace, and roomy front porch with steps that were perfect for sitting on were as near and dear to Bex as her own RV.
That was Adrian’s house lit up like a lantern in the dark, and standing in the doorway like she’d been waiting for them to arrive was his mother.
“Hello, Boston,” the Witch of the Present said, giving the cat a dazzling smile.
“Lady Agatha!” Boston cried, coiling his body to leap off Bex’s shoulder into the Old Wife’s arms, but he never got the chance.
Before he could even finish his crouch, Bex had landed on Adrian’s front porch like a flaming comet, her hands already shooting out to grab the smiling witch by the collar of her perfectly stitched black linen dress.
“Where is he?”
“There’s no need for that,” the Witch of the Present chided, sliding out of Bex’s grip with surprising deftness to point through the open cabin door. “Adrian’s right over—”
Bex blew past her in a burst of fire only to stop again the moment she got inside.
The interior of the cabin looked exactly like she remembered.
The carefully organized jars of ingredients on the built-in shelves, the greenhouse full of plants through the back door, the bundles of herbs drying in the kitchen, the fire crackling under the giant cauldron in the fieldstone hearth, they were all right where they should be.
There were even still mugs of half-drunk tea left out on the table, like Adrian had simply forgotten to put them away.
It was all perfect, like she’d stepped back in time, but the one element Bex didn’t see was Adrian himself.
She was about to go out and check the greenhouse, since that was where Adrian always stuck her when she was injured, when Boston galloped past her toward the big iron cauldron hanging above the fire.
He clambered up the rocky fireplace like a pro and trotted out onto the wooden mantel, where he could see down into the bubbling pot.
It wasn’t until Bex followed him to see what could possibly be so important that it could distract him from finding Adrian that she realized what was happening.
Adrian was in the cauldron. His body was lying at the bottom of the giant pot like a dumpling, curled up in a fetal position under a boiling version of the same herbal soup that he always dunked Bex in when she was injured.
That should’ve been an enormous relief, but the cauldron was so hot that even she couldn’t touch it.
It looked like he was being boiled alive, but when Bex turned desperately to his mother for an explanation, the Old Wife of the Flesh was smiling just like her son did when he’d pulled off something especially clever.
“Don’t worry,” she said as she joined Bex beside the cauldron. “He can take the heat. You could even say he needs it. Adrian poured out every drop of his blood making an entrance for us. If we hadn’t treated him immediately and aggressively, his body would not have survived.”
She grinned at Bex, clearly expecting her to be grateful, and she was.
Bex was so grateful that Adrian wasn’t dead, it was physically painful, but she also couldn’t ignore how perfect his mother’s timing was.
How she must have been waiting in this cabin with the water already boiling for the moment Adrian reached out.
“You knew.”
“Of course I knew,” Agatha said. “My little sister sees the future.”
She laughed as she said that, smiling like this whole situation was just another clever move, and Bex’s hands curled into fists.
“You did this to him on purpose,” she snarled, whirling on Adrian’s mother with all the pent-up rage and fear she’d been swallowing since she’d first realized Adrian was gone. “You knew that Gilgamesh would steal him. Knew that all of this would happen!”
When the witch didn’t deny it, Bex’s fire spread over her body with a whoosh. “You used us!” she roared. “Used me and my demons, used your own son to strike back at Gilgamesh!”
“Naturally,” Agatha replied, her voice no longer motherly or laughing but as hard and sharp as the pain of the present.
“Using what’s around you is the foundation of all witchcraft.
The moment I saw Adrian grow his first seedling as a child, I knew I’d finally found the thing Gilgamesh desired most. The fact that Adrian also wanted to become a witch made things easier, but I don’t deny what I did.
I used Adrian the same way as I’ve used every son I’ve had with Gilgamesh: as a weapon to preserve the Blackwood and a step toward his eventual demise. ”
She said all of this openly and honestly, but the fact that she didn’t seem the least bit remorseful sent Bex’s fire roaring up to Adrian’s beautifully carved rafters.
“How could you?” she demanded. “He was your son, your child, and you turned him into a weapon!”
“I could say the same about you,” Agatha replied, staring into Bex’s flames with blue eyes that were as calm as a frozen lake. “You’ve been a child nearly two hundred times now, and every one of those little girls was forged into a Blade of Ishtar.”
“That’s different,” Bex insisted. “I chose to fight!”
The witch shook her head. “Duty isn’t the same as choice.
This isn’t the first time our paths have crossed, Bex of the Bonfire.
I’ve met many of your lives over the years, and in every one of them, you were fighting for your people because there was no one else who could.
That makes you noble, but it does not make you free. ”
She stepped closer to the bubbling cauldron.
“We’ve all done what was necessary to save the things we care about, and our sacrifices were not in vain.
You were absolutely right when you accused me of setting this up, but you and Adrian were still the ones making the decisions.
You fought the battles you chose to fight.
All Muriel and I did was nudge you toward the choices that had the best outcomes. ”
“Best outcome for who?” Bex snarled.
“All of us,” the witch replied, her ageless face lighting up with a lovely smile.
“You especially should rejoice at our foresight. If my baby sister hadn’t known this day was coming two hundred years ago, we would not have started working on the spell Adrian just brought to fruition.
Had things been even a hair out of place, my son, your beloved, would not have survived. ”
Bex supposed she had to give her that one.
She’d seen how much blood Adrian had spilled on the ground.
If his coven hadn’t been ready to catch him, he definitely would have died today.
That didn’t excuse the way his family had used him his entire life, but knowing he would live calmed Bex’s anger enough that she could finally pay attention to other things.
“What do you mean you’ve been planning this day for two hundred years?”
“Exactly what it sounds like,” Agatha replied, waving her hand at the cabin windows that looked as dark as midnight thanks to the pitch-black interior of the fir tree.
“Do you really think one prince’s worth of quintessence was enough to do all of this?
Absolutely not. My sisters and I started growing these trees centuries ago in preparation for the day Heaven’s defenses cracked. ”
She nodded at the pot her son was still stewing in.
“One of the reasons I hid Adrian from Gilgamesh as long as I did was to make sure the forest was well rooted in his heart before his father took him. I’m sure Gilgamesh saw the risk the moment Adrian showed him his forest, but by that point it was already too late.
Gilgamesh has always been a greedy, egotistical king.
If he sees something he wants, he always tries to take it.
That said, he’s also a bit of a coward. He never makes a move unless he’s certain he has an overwhelming advantage, which is why we went to Adrian’s forest to stop him even though we knew perfectly well it was already too late.
We had to make sure Gilgamesh believed he was stealing Adrian away from us. ”
“I get it,” Bex said, leaning against the fire-warmed hearthstones. “You played him.”