Chapter 36 A Hard Homecoming
A Father's Fright
Wixim’s wings flared out, and his golden eyes homed on the lightning dome atop the tower.
“Wixim!” Tam hollered, approaching the golden dragon warily. “We have a bit of a situation.”
The dragon seemed annoyed and didn’t appear interested in listening to Tam what with the display of powerful magic above them; however, Kraken chose that moment to saunter over.
Rearing back on his hind legs, Wixim let out a snarl.
Kraken chirped.
While Tam didn’t technically know what Kraken said, from personal experience, he assumed it was probably a winning combination of insulting and threatening.
Tam wanted to continue to watch the exchange between the dragon and the familiar, but he couldn’t help but become distracted by the clamor of fighting high above, where his father seemed to be battling the coven of Wittica members.
With a wince, he wondered if he should attempt to travel through the void to the top of the tower.
The problem was that he wasn’t entirely certain he could move through his father’s shield.
He might just bounce right off and fall, which would be a waste of power.
“Uncle Tam?”
Antony’s hesitant voice broke through Tam’s thoughts.
He turned back to the children. Asher stood at Antony’s side; behind them, Charlie clasped Aster’s hand. Meanwhile, the witch that Henrietta had transformed into a pretty white hen was hopping up the stairs toward her, clucking loudly.
“Can we go home now?” Antony asked, his face somber.
Tam smiled. “Of course you can. With your grandfather here, I don’t even have to be creative about getting us off the island. I’m relatively certain it’s your grandpa’s ship at the dock. Though I might have to help him wrap things up with—”
Wixim let out a screeching roar that pierced the air and made Tam jolt, his hand snapping up toward the hilt of his sword on instinct. Because of this, he noted the flutter of a black coat out of the corner of his eye.
The witch he’d thrown off the balcony had returned. With friends.
It would seem he was an air witch.
Three other witches were now a part of the excitement, one of whom had her hair literally aflame and her eyes aglow.
“Boys, stay behind me,” Tam ordered while rounding on the new attackers.
He debated taking his nephews and Aster into the void, but moving all of them would most likely drain more of his power than he could risk with this fight.
So he once again reached for his sword, and it was a very good thing he did.
The instant he gripped the leather handle, he was forced to draw it in a blur as a thin, nearly imperceptible missile launched itself at his face.
He was barely able to block it with the flat of his blade; it bounced off the steel with a sharp ping.
Tam didn’t have a chance to see what exactly he’d just blocked, because hundreds of small spikes just like the first one floated out of a brunette woman’s hair and shot at him in a cloud.
He couldn’t dodge all the needle-like missiles, and he couldn’t move into his void because the boys were behind him. So he turned his back and took the attack there.
Luckily, his light armor prevented him from feeling anything.
“WATCH OUT!” Antony screamed.
Tam barely had time to register the fact that the fire witch was launching a streak of blue flames in his direction. He and the boys hit the ground, but the intensity of the flames sent heat wavering in a haze through the air.
There was no time to recover from this attack, however, because Tam’s body suddenly became light… Much lighter than it should’ve been.
He was floating. And he realized he was drifting up toward the cloud of flames that had gathered in the air above him.
After quickly looking over his shoulder to see that the boys hadn’t been affected—he was impressed to see that Aster Fuks had his arms around the younger children protectively—Tam pushed himself into the void.
When he reappeared behind the line of witches, he crouched so they wouldn’t see him immediately.
He dragged his palm across the trouser cuffs belonging to the black-haired air witch, as well as the dress hems of the fire witch and the witch capable of creating missiles.
With a push of magical power, he sent them all into the void.
As Tam stood up, he watched the witch whom he thought had made him float. She spun around, seeming to realize that her allies had disappeared.
“What did you do to them?” she spluttered, backing up a step.
“I didn’t hurt them, and I can bring them back, but there are children present. We aren’t going to continue this fight here today.”
The witch glanced over her shoulder at the boys, who were still in a protective huddle. Tam watched her pause as, just beyond his nephews, Kraken and Wixim still appeared to be in a heated discussion.
Kraken was in the middle of swiping at Wixim’s snout.
Regardless of this, when she turned back to Tam, he could see the distrust in her eyes. “You’re the devil. I’m not trusting anything you say.”
He pointed at his nephews and Aster and didn’t hide his sarcasm. “You don’t trust that there are children? You can’t see them standing right there?” She pressed her lips together. “What is happening with the house witch?”
The witch scowled at him. “That is none of your concern. Leave.”
“I’d love to. But I was hoping to get a ride back to the mainland with him.”
She held up her hand. “I said leave.”
Tam rubbed his eye wearily. “Do you want to disappear like your coven members? No? Good. If I were to guess, I’d say the house witch is here because his grandsons are here.
” Judging by the way the witch was speaking to him, Tam presumed that she hadn’t a clue who he was in relation to Finlay Ashowan.
The witch didn’t say anything, but Tam felt himself once again go weightless. So with a sigh and a flick of his wrist, he sent her into the void with the others.
He fell back to the ground heavily. Rolling his shoulders in an attempt to get used to his weight fluctuations, he made his way back to his nephews and Aster.
“Alright boys, things should be safe here. I’ll have to go up and see what your grandfather is—” Tam’s words were cut off when he noticed the blue lightning overhead turning white.
His father was reaching the end of his magical stores.
Panic gripped Tam, sharpening his senses in an instant.
“Kraken! Henrietta!” he barked. “Watch the boys.”
Wixim’s great head swung around, his eyes narrowed.
Sensing that the dragon’s wrath could prove to be an issue if he chose to follow him up the tower, Tam spared a moment to ensure that did not happen.
“Wixim, if my da uses up all his magic, he’ll make a curse here on this island.
I’m just going to get him and the boys, then leave.
For the safety of the children, will you agree to let us go? ”
Kraken meowed, and he must have said something irritating because Wixim snapped his teeth at him. But when he looked back at Tam, he gave a slow nod of his head.
Tam returned the gesture in appreciation, then he set his sights at the top of the dome. If he could vanish overhead, there might be a chance he could access the interior of the shield by moving through his void. He’d just need to be able to see where to reappear while falling.
“I thought Uncle Tam didn’t have magic?”
Asher’s question was the last thing Tam heard before he allowed himself to be swept up into the void, and then back out, falling over the dome of lightning that had turned entirely white.
As he fell through the air above the Isle of Wittica, he only had the span of a breath to determine where he should reappear.
So, without being able to assess just how many witches his father was fighting against, Tam focused on a clear spot on the stones through the shield and returned to the void, hoping that this idea would work. The cost of failure would be too high.
★ ★ ★
Fin knew he wouldn’t be able to hold on for much longer.
He knew his shield was white.
But he also knew exactly what he would be cursing all of Daxaria and Troivack with.
If he was going to die, then he was going to make it damn well worth it.
None of the witches trapped inside his shield could use their abilities, and if they attempted to approach him, a streak of lightning would deter them.
He wished he could’ve seen Annika again.
Or his children.
Or grandchildren.
He had known he couldn’t keep fighting so many powerful witches for long.
It wasn’t in his nature. Though he had at least hoped he’d be able to locate his grandchildren during the altercation.
Fin closed his eyes as sweat rolled down his spine, and he gritted his teeth as he heard the shouts of concern from the five witches around him when they realized the color of his shield had changed.
Most of the council members he had first met with continued to battle him, though many more had come to run interference.
Fin had blasted a good number of them off the island and into the Alcide Sea.
He knew his magic would stop them from hurting themselves upon landing, and there would undoubtedly be an air or water witch to help the others return.
“You can stop now, Da. I’d rather I didn’t have to carry you out of here.”
Fin’s eyes snapped open, and the shock of seeing his son resulted in his shield dissolving in an instant.
Wait.
How had Tam gotten inside?
Exhaustion hit Fin’s body at the sudden disconnect from the curse he had been slowly weaving, but he forced himself to stay upright. He gaped at his son, whom he hadn’t seen in months. Tam was changed. Completely. Fin could see it in his eyes, in his posture… he was stunned.
Tam stood tall, a sword in hand. His black hair had grown to his shoulders, but he wore it half tied back. His dark eyes, which used to dart away from others and wide spaces, surveyed the witches around them atop the tower coolly.
“My father and I will be leaving this island with my nephews, my friends, and Lord Aster Fuks. No one is going to stop us. Your dragon has agreed to this, and my father’s familiar is on this island.”
Two of the coven members whispered frantically to each other.
Fin watched Tam’s gaze snap to them and was taken aback by the darkness in his son’s face.
“Where is the door to the stairs?”
“They aren’t just going to let us leave, Tam,” Fin began while drawing himself free from his stupor. “They made that perfectly clear.”
Tam raised an eyebrow in Fin’s direction, and Fin found himself resisting the urge to frown. Just what the hell had happened to Tam while he’d been in Zinfera?
“Well, they can try to stop us, but that would make for a pretty empty island.”
Fin paused. What was Tam implying?
Oddly enough, the coven members seemed to know exactly what Tam meant, as the majority turned to Racine with their hands in the air. Racine approached Tam, his countenance grim.
Fin shoved his hands in his pockets as he tried not to show how out of breath he was. Every moment he forced himself to stay awake was a battle.
“Lord Tam, we will happily allow you all to leave, but in exchange we want Louise Riddel and the other witches who went missing weeks ago returned to us.”
Fin rounded on Tam in alarm.
“My informing you that we were leaving was not a negotiation. It was a warning.” Tam’s voice was hard as granite. “Louise Riddel attacked my ship with my children aboard, as well as several other innocent—”
“I’m sorry, your what?” Fin cut in, the fight completely eradicated from his mind.
Tam closed his mouth and darted a tense glance at his father out of the corner of his eye. “We can talk about that later.”
“You said children. Plural. As in more than one,” Fin persisted.
“Da, just… One…” Tam fumbled for words, made an aggravated noise, then returned his attention to the coven members. “We’re leaving, and that’s all there is to it.”
Fin was gathering up another breath to start rattling off a thousand more questions when the largest feline creature he had ever seen dropped from the sky at Tam’s side. It had wings. It issued a roaring snarl at the coven members.
“Tam!” Fin started forward, his hand outstretched in preparation to draw upon whatever power he could to protect Tam from the beast, consequences be damned, when Tam put his hand on the animal’s shoulder.
Fin dropped his arm. He then received another shock as he watched the creature shudder and shift… into Eli.
Or at least Fin thought it was Eli. Tam was blocking the smaller woman from view as he addressed the coven once more.
Fin couldn’t quite make out whatever was being said. The sounds around him started to turn fuzzy, and the wind that gusted against his face threatened to blow him over. He blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, Tam was at his side and had his arm thrown over his shoulder.
“Let’s get back to Xava, Da,” Tam murmured.
Despite the smothering blackness of sleep creeping into his vision, Fin still managed to say, “You… and I… are having a very long talk when I wake up.”