Chapter 40
the summoning
Out of another healing bath, Isabel was sprawled on her bed, running a list in her head like a rosary.
Curated with her choices for weeks, she was about to make it real.
Each text was short. Sharp.
Time. Place. One item. One other name to stitch to their circle.
But every message ended the same way. A reminder. A spell and a summons dressed in ancient purpose.
We are the Nine. We protect the Vanguard.
She sent each one without a flourish as if tapping the phrase through glass were the most natural thing in the world, like saying grace before a storm.
The Nine weren’t a coven. Nor a team. They were a final thread pulled tight.
The line between collapse and something worse.
Miren was erasing a blackboard when Isabel’s text tone chirped. Her students were still packing up from class, ready to leave for the day. Some sat frozen, already checked out. The final bell dragged its heels, then sounded as Miren picked up her phone.
Tomorrow. Sundown. Warded. Northwest access. Bring iron. Tamsin is confirmed. We are the Nine. We protect the Vanguard.
“Damn you, woman,” Miren whispered, almost smiling. “You’re really doing this.”
Miren liked Isabel. More than she should. Not in the candlelit way, the slow-burning novel way. They’d worked together twice. Shared a flask in a graveyard after a fight with a group of Dark practitioners. Then, they shared a kiss. But Isabel had always been half turned towards the next crisis. Miren liked the association but knew not to ask for more.
The bouquet was nearly done, with yellow ranunculus, dusty lavender, and two pale blue thistles tucked into the arrangement like secrets waiting to poke someone. Beauty with bite.
Briony tied the ribbon carefully, humming along to the shop radio when her phone blinked on the countertop.
She checked it, expecting a delivery confirmation. Tomorrow. Sundown. Warded. County Road 18. Bring speed and stealth. Karla is on the path. We are the Nine. We protect the Vanguard.
Her fingers froze mid-knot. She read it again, then again.
Karla?
Briony’s mouth pulled tight. Karla had been out of the loop for a couple of years. She’d blown off one call the year before that. Picking up the phone, Briony typed a response:
When did Karla get back on the path?
Her lips twitched, then she deleted it. Isabel didn’t send things she didn’t mean. Karla never warmed up to Briony or anyone else, really. But when the power was summoned, she showed up. That counted for something.
Tamsin’s text: Tomorrow. Sundown. Warded. Southeast treeline. Bring coin and gauze. Miren will be there. We are the Nine. We protect the Vanguard.
The ER hadn’t quieted in hours. Tamsin was changing bandages on a fractured wrist when her phone buzzed against her hip. She checked it in between steps, eyes narrowing as she read the cryptic words. A brow arched at the end. A name she only had a passing familiarity with. And now, a concern.
Isabel had included a young witch, untested, barely trained. A moment passed, then a soft smile. Tamsin knew Isabel from way back. The stories, the drive to become a shadow. If Isabel had made such an outlandish choice, there had to be a good reason.
She tightened the wrap and hooked the steel teeth to hold it securely in place. Patting the patient’s hand, she left the room and then went straight to the staff lounge, where she opened her personal locker. Inside sat her untouched lunch, and behind it, an envelope.
Isabel’s message contained the words "coin" and "gauze." Another call would need to be made before she left the hospital, and a timeline would need to be established.
The coin was for a necessary transaction, a price to be paid. Isabel knew how precise her magic was, especially when provoked.
But gauze, Tamsin stared at it. That was literal for injuries or worse.
Tamsin leaned her head against the cool steel of her locker. “We’re going to bleed.”
The other names, each with its own power and request, were sent. One remained.
Isabel’s thumb hovered over the last name of the witches she’d hand-picked to accompany Jess and Callie to the monastery. She knew there would be repercussions in the event of an injury or worse.
But this girl had spark. Hidden behind a mask of piercings and black hair, but there was something else that had spoken for the young sorceress, something she maybe wasn’t able to say on her own. Not yet.
If Isabel dared admit it, it was like looking in a mirror twenty years earlier. And that was the problem.
But under the dark eyes and glower of this nearly-grown woman, who had yet to turn angry, the response Isabel felt upon meeting her resonated deeply. Yes, she could teach the girl so much about the magic world, but it had become brutally apparent during the battle training, Isabel had already been taught something about herself.
“Your time has come,” she texted, “Will you stand with us? Are you ready to show your power?”
Tomorrow. Sundown. Warded.
Your time has come…”
She hit send, quietly hoping her new, and largely untrained, protégé could set aside her real-world duties and join the battle circle.
Isabel’s phone chirped. She was startled by the immediate response, but not surprised.
Yes.
Isabel smiled, envisioning the defiant gleam in the girl’s eyes. Ready to take on the world, but just needed a little encouragement.
Will send coordinates shortly. Godspeed, love.
With her messages sent and coordinates locked, Isabel finally leaned back into her pillows. Sore and cold, her breath catching against the weight of what she had just placed in motion.
Eight witches, each one chosen with precision. Not for their power alone, but for their differences. Age. Discipline. Origin. Fire and healing, faith and fury. Some seasoned, some unpredictable.
Eight witches, each one chosen with precision. Not for their power alone, but for their differences—the kind that keep a circle alive.
Together with Isabel, they formed the Nine.
And as they stepped into the circle, Callie would see them. Not as weapons, but as a reflection of what her new world truly was.
Not a single path. But a constellation. A riot of styles, temperaments, and beliefs. The breadth and beauty of what she’d stepped into.
While Callie had come to magic through love, she would stay for wonder. For as frightened as Callie was, Isabel could feel the truth waiting just under Callie’s skin.
And then, there was the youngest. The one who had answered the call faster than anyone else. The one with the spiral glow. With her, Callie wouldn’t just see the present.
She would see the future and maybe…recognize that her role wasn’t just to fight beside Jess.
But to lead the next ones forward.
That is, if any of them lived.
Isabel closed her eyes and let the weight of that settle. There were no guarantees. No promises. Just the honest, bitter gravity of the war to come.