But could a few dozen people of mixed magickal abilities worked a spell to remove magick from one person?
I had absolutely no idea.
“Let’s go downstairs.” I needed to think. I needed space.
Nobody argued, but Ethan reached over and squeeze my hand as we took the flight of stairs down to the second level and then the foyer. Somehow, the gesture only made things worse. He was trying to make me feel better, which had to mean he believed that I’d lost my powers.
We passed a few different people on their way down, some asked questions, most waited for instructions. And not one of them seemed to be freaking out at the loss of their magick despite the fact that for the first time in a long time, my world was devoid of auras and magickally induced colors.
It was me.
“Any news from outside?” I asked no one in particular, not ready to face any bigger questions.
“They’re still out there,” Tilly confirmed, meeting us at the bottom of the stairs.
“No word from Cooper,” Taya added. “But that’s to be expected. I’m not hearing any voices from his end of the line, but I’m not sure if that means anything. The call is still active, but the phone is probably in his back pocket.”
Mathias cleared his throat, pulling the attention of everyone nearby straight back to him. “If they’re not moving, we can assume that whatever they did to Melanie was their big move. Now we need to figure out why? Is anyone else having issues with their magick?”
I knew it was terrible, but I stood there, all eyes on me, hoping I wasn’t alone.
Nobody spoke up.
Not wanting to draw anymore attention to myself, I focused on shifting my scent. There were wolves all around me. Any one of them should have been able to sense the moment when I stopped smelling like myself and started smelling like cherry pie. It was the first thing that came to my mind, and I put all of my mental and physical energy into radiating the smell as far as possible.
There was no reaction, and my worst fears were confirmed.
With my last ounce of hope, I reached into my pocket and grabbed my phone. The metal was cool and heavy in my fingers, but otherwise lifeless. There was no spark of energy, no connection.
My magick was gone, and everything inside of me was cringing in protest.
“It’s just me then. They’ve taken my powers.”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Ethan argued. “Taking Melanie’s powers makes a statement, sure, but what does it actually accomplish?”
Any other time, I would have loved that Ethan’s first reaction was to try to work the problem. But the pressure in my head and the tingling beneath my skin was growing in intensity, making it hard to focus on anything else. At first, I’d thought everything I was feeling was just shock, a physical reaction to a magickal assault.
This was something more.
Somewhere between turning my head to find a friendly face and opening my mouth to ask for help, my body gave up on me completely.
My vision blurred as my body fell toward the floor.
Hands reached out to grab me.
Pain shot through my skull as my head hit the floor.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
And then from nothing came pain.
“Melanie?”
Everything hurt and waking up again felt like a terrible idea. But the voice was getting harder to ignore.
"Melanie, you have to open your eyes now. We need you."
That was all well and good, but not opening my eyes also seemed like a pretty good idea. At least until I realized that keeping my eyes squeezed shut wasn't doing any good toward shutting out the gnawing pressure in my bones.
It turned out that my body had been doing me a very real favor by passing out when it had, but my good luck could only get me so far.
"I'm up," I groaned. Willing my eyes open, I flinched as my body finished coming to.
Several faces hovered over me but it was Ethan's I focused on rather than the residual embarrassment that came along with passing out cold in a moment of crisis.
Ethan offered me a hand and pulled me to my feet. "How do you feel?"
When I made it back on my feet, I noticed far fewer people nearby. Whatever had happened to me, it looked to have cleared the room somewhat. "Not great. How long was I out for?"
"Just a few minutes. Someone knocked on the front door a few seconds ago, but you were starting to come to, so we figured we might as well wait and see if we knew what had happened to you before taking any other steps."
Ethan watched me expectantly. So this was probably where I was supposed to jump in with what had happened to me. It was a good question. "I'm not totally sure," I admitted. "I've been feeling strange ever since I lost my powers. A side effect, I guess. There's this pressure building up inside me, and it's starting to feel like it’s burning through my insides. All kinds of not fun."
"That works with my theory," a woman said, stepping toward me though still keeping her distance. She might have been a witch, fae, a vampire. I had absolutely no idea, which was almost as horrifying as how I was feeling.
Almost.
"A theory?" I perked up a little. "That sounds promising. Do you think you know what they did to strip me of my magick?"
"Perhaps. My name is Angelica Owens and I'm a..." I'll admit, I zoned out slightly here. At any other time, I'm sure I would have been riveted by the information, but I could only concentrate so much before my mind started to swim again and I was more interested in what her theory was than who she was or how she came to her conclusion. "You're no longer the only person who has had their magick removed, although I'm not sure that's quite the right word for it either. There could be—"
"Let's get to the point quickly, shall we, Angelica?" Mathias asked. I'd have loved to shoot him a thankful look but didn't quite have it in me.
"From what we can tell, anyone who has touched you since the ritual began no longer has access to their abilities. We don't truly have an understanding of what that means yet, but there are now four others whose powers have been stripped from them. And it can't be a coincidence that those are the same people you've touched."
I inhaled, knowing that now more than ever I needed to be able to think clearly. What she was telling me was surreal, but the looks on my friends faces seemed to confirm what she was saying.
"The spell I'd cast that caused all that smoke cut out as soon as you came back and pulled me out of the room. And I haven't been able to do a single spell since then."
Ethan was already frowning when I looked over to him. "I can't hear the pack anymore," he said.
What had I done? "Who else?"
A man and a woman, neither of whom I recognized, raised their hands. Both were standing close by, clearly as interested in what was being discussed as I was.
The man started speaking at the same moment as a particularly insistent knock came from the front door. "We'll be with you shortly!" Mathias bellowed. I didn't know if his voice would be loud enough to travel through stone walls, but the knocking stopped.
"We both reached out to grab you when you started falling," the woman, blonde and pretty, said. "Wrong place, wrong time."
I turned back to Angelica. "So what does this mean? Best guess."
"That pressure you're feeling, I think it's magick. Even before all of this started, your body was the vessel for more powers than any person in recorded history. And now somehow they've managed to bind your access to your magick. So not only is that building up inside you, but you're absorbing the magick of every person you come in contact with. I don't know what the end result will be, but they've turned you into something of a supernatural weapon. There's only so much your body will be able to handle."
"And then what happens?"
"It's hard to say..."
"Guess," I ordered. "You know you want to."
"You'll implode. Or explode. The magick will either consume you or become too much to conta
in. Either way, it's not going to be pretty, and there's a good chance the effects will burn bright, affecting everyone around you. I'm not sure if the rest of us will survive. I'm not sure anyone will."
I swallowed. Hard. I was able to think a bit more clearly, but every part of me still hurt. It felt like it was getting worse by the second, but my stress levels weren’t helping. "How long do I have?"
I didn't really expect her to know the answer, but I was looking for anything at all I could hang on to. "Impossible to say. But you'll be the best judge how just how much you can handle. Your body is already feeling the stress, but it's possible that you'll last awhile yet so long as nobody else touches you."
"Should you all get as far away from me as possible then?"
Ethan crossed his arms. "We're not going anywhere." He didn't need to point out that almost everyone else had already decided to give me some serious space.
Mathias nodded. "We still don't know what it is this attack is intended to accomplish. Or if we're remotely on the right track. There's still work to be done, and no one expects you to do it alone. We're staying."
"Then I guess we should see who is at the door."
Chapter 25
If only there had been a way to hit the pause button and take a few minutes to get my head on straight.
Together, Ethan, Mathias, Taya, Tilly, and a few others approached the front door. Nearly everyone kept a few feet between my body and their own.
"I should be the one to answer," I said. "I don't want them to know that whatever they've done is working."
That was likely a long shot, but if nothing else, I didn't want anyone to see just how badly I was hurting already.
"We don't know that this isn't the first move in their attack," Mathias pointed out. "There's less of us here now than there were even ten minutes ago. If they're going for the jugular, this would be the best time to do it. There's a very good chance that whoever opens the door is going to be the first one hit by whatever they've opted to throw at us next."
As far as pep talks went, it was not the best I'd ever heard. "Do I ignore them then?" I asked, not expecting a yes. "If they wanted to burst in and attack, they're not doing great with the element of surprise. Besides, if this is an attack, I'm not about to volunteer someone else to take the blow." Especially if my minutes were numbered anyway.
Nobody answered, because there was no answer to give. "One more quick thought before I do this," I added. "If something has changed with the spell keeping us here, and I'm actually able to open the door, then maybe the spell is down. We should give someone the heads up to try the doors and rabbit holes again. This might be our only chance to get out of here on our own terms." It was a long shot and I knew it, but that one last idea went a long way toward leaving me feeling a little less helpless to my circumstances.
Twisting the doorknob, I pulled the front door open with a little more effort than was strictly necessary.
"Aoife."
I'd expected to find her at the door, and she didn't disappoint. Not far off, I could make out about eight people, still standing in place, hands splayed outward toward the people beside them. Not one of the faces looked familiar. I'd have given anything to have seen Cooper or anyone else who had slipped into Aoife's ranks to help our cause. They had no way of knowing what the ritual they were participating in was accomplishing, any more than we could know what kind of effect having them purposefully halt their participation would have.
"Melanie. I see you've taken up residence in my home. I hope you've found the accommodations to your liking."
My head pounded as I struggled to come up with a witty retort to equal the moment. Except, every second wasted on idle chit chat was only going to get me closer to death by magick, which would probably take my friends along with me.
So instead, I slammed the door, waited ten seconds, then opened it again. "I don't know about you, but we came here to get some work done. To actually make a difference for the lives of every magickal person on the planet, along with everyone who comes after us. If you're just here to play games, I'm not interested. If you're here to gloat, same again. What is it you want?"
Aoife rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Fine. If that's what you want, we'll do it your way. I know you've already worked out what's happening to you. At least some of it. How's your head feeling?" she asked so sweetly, I actually wanted to believe she was concerned.
My hand reached up to the fresh new bump on the back of my skull automatically. That was a lot more detail than I'd expected her to have.
"I'm sure you have your share of people inside the building, all ready to report back to you on our every move," I said, working it out as I spoke.
We'd known from the get go that there was a good chance that there were people loyal to Aoife inside the summit, but I hadn't given it much thought since we'd first found ourselves trapped inside the castle.
"I hope they've taken time away from reporting back any strategic advantages to also tell you a little about what we've been doing here. And that no one is trying to use anyone against their will to announce magick to the world. You'd have been welcome if you hadn't already resorted to violence. Again."
As I was talking, my mind was hard at work trying to figure out who it was that had been in Aoife's pocket. Had she had spies embedded in our ranks from the beginning or were there people she'd somehow been able to turn after the destruction at the church?
I'd never had a chance of keeping her out of the loop on what was happening to me.
"What I can't figure out is if this means no one inside the castle is actually at risk of going down with me, or if you were happy to just play with their lives, consequences be damned."
Aoife's eyes narrowed slightly at my accusation, but I couldn't work out what the gesture meant. Aoife's motives had never been a secret. She was trying to protect people, in a way to protect all of us. But she'd also proven that she was an ends justified the means kind of gal.
"Now," I continued, "were you planning on telling me what you wanted any time soon? I'd also take a villainous monologue where you fill in all the blanks on your master plan if you've got one of those in the works."
"I'm here to suggest a trade. If you're willing to cooperate, we can end all of this without any further bloodshed."
"Bloodshed on our side of things has never been the issue. So what you're really saying is that you want something, and in exchange for that, you're willing to stop murdering the same people you claim you're trying to protect."
"This doesn't need to be—" Whatever sales pitch or threat Aoife had prepared, I never got the chance to hear it.
Glass shattered from somewhere above me, near the far right corner of the building on the very edge of my line of sight, sending shards out onto the lawn along with two bodies, one on top of the other. Both yelled out in pain as they hit the ground, the top form rolling off the first. Aoife's body blocked some of my view as she too turned toward the commotion.
My breath caught in my throat. Someone had gotten outside! Had the spell keeping us in here had been lifted?
My instinct should have been to make a break for it, to push past Aoife and hope that those behind me would do the same. Or at least to retreat. But nothing good would have come from charging away from my own people toward Aoife's, and there was no guarantee that we'd get another distraction like this one.
I had to do something.
Instead of flight, my body went against anything that might be considered better judgement and opted to fight. I grabbed out toward Aoife and wrapped my fingers around her wrist. Her head whipped back toward me in the same moment that I pulled her toward me, yanking her inside the house. The element of surprise gave me enough momentum to send her stumbling far enough into the house for Ethan to grapple her away from me as half of our group charged out the front door behind Mathias with a shared yell of battle.
But the damage had already been done. Pressure pushed farther into my skull, deeper into my bones and
I let out my own shout of surprise.
I'd taken Aoife's powers inside of me. Stripping her of the luck that marked her as a leprechaun while also making it that much harder for me to stay standing.
Clutching at my chest, I focused on merely breathing as the noise around the castle continued to grow. People rushed past me toward the door as my vision blurred. My eyes squeezed shut as I willed myself to keep existing, not to give into the magick inside me.
"Stay with me, Melanie." Ethan's voice sounded so far away, but it was something to hang on to.
Ethan. My parents. Taya. Cooper. Katie. I had more reasons to push through now than I ever had, and that was before I started to think about the hundreds of people here, fighting for our future. And the hundreds of thousands more that they were all fighting for. If I gave in to the magick straining inside of me, the cost would be unimaginable.
It hurt, but these days, what didn't? I'd been born to a legacy of magick than ran in my very blood. Aoife had tried to shackle me with the very powers I'd spent my life trying to control. And now I had her gifts inside me too.
I could use that.
With a ragged breath, I found the strength I needed.
I opened my eyes.
This magick wouldn't control me.
Not anymore.
Chapter 26
Getting moving again was easier said than done. There was also no other choice.
At least there was no one other than Ethan and Aoife standing within a few feet of me. No one who could push me over the edge.
"Taya?" I called out, already moving toward the front door. My friend was by my side in seconds. I couldn't do any more damage to her than I already had. "Do we know where Cooper is?"
"He and the others were around back. It looks like the circle broke up when the barrier spell went down though. It's a free for all out there, and I'm not sure where anyone is at this point."
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