I screwed up my forehead. “Never mind the dragons. The last one I ran into didn’t try to torch me, so I don’t think they’re bothered by humans. As for the gods, I’m hoping not to find them.”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” said Asher. “I’ll give you a stealth charm and a regular fireproof shield. Anything else?”
I held up my wrist, exposing the mark separating Evelyn and me. “I’m worried about this. It still hasn’t faded. Would Evelyn be able to use it against me?”
“There’s not much I can do if she did,” said Asher. “The mark won’t come off?”
“Nope.” I lowered my hand. “She drew it on me to undo our binding, but that never had a physical mark to begin with.”
“Maybe it will fade with time.” Isabel lifted the tattoo pen and marked my arm according to Asher’s instructions. “If she redid the link, she’d have to hand over her magic.”
“Guess she wouldn’t risk that,” I relented. “She can’t use blood magic on herself as a ghost, anyway.”
“That’s one piece of good news,” said Isabel. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you to go it alone, but you’ll take backup with you, right?”
“I will,” I said. “Ilsa and Ivy. Keir won’t sit this one out, either. Best case scenario is we find her and end the war before it starts.”
Namely, by banishing her into the afterlife.
A nagging doubt remained in the back of my mind. What would happen to the Hemlocks if Evelyn moved on? The Hemlocks’ magic alone kept the Devourer from breaking into this realm and destroying everyone I loved, and Cordelia and the others wouldn’t live forever. The whole reason they’d bound Evelyn and me was to ensure we’d survive to take their place when the time came. They hadn’t accounted for Evelyn going off the rails, and no other Hemlocks had survived the invasion.
“Asher,” I said. “I wondered—have you ever met the Briar Coven? They were supposed to be keeping an eye on me, but as soon as I started looking for them, they vanished without a trace. And today I found out they were my adoptive mother’s family.”
He shook his head. “The Briars have always been elusive. I hear them mentioned occasionally, but it doesn’t sound like they’re local. Granted, I don’t hang out in the same circles as the other witches.”
“Your… adoptive mother?” Isabel faltered in the middle of sketching another symbol on my arm. “You mean Lady Harper?”
“Her maiden name.” I held my arm still as she finished the rune. “Yeah, I know. It’d have been nice if she’d told me while she was alive, but I thought all her family members were dead. Anyway, I don’t have time to spend another few months running around in circles looking for them, even if I wasn’t dealing with the potential end of the world.”
“Yeah, I get that.” Isabel returned the pen to the desk. “It’s weird how they ran off without a trace, considering they saved you from being poisoned to death.”
“Anyone would think they don’t want to be found,” I said. “Which might well be true. If I were related to Lady Harper, I’d want to stay as far away as humanly possible, too.”
Isabel snorted. “Fair point. Is there anything they can tell you at this point that you don’t already know?”
“How to banish Evelyn without destroying the other Hemlocks.” My gaze drifted to the mark on my wrist. “As much as I want her gone, if I banish her and she takes my magic with her, then there will be no living Hemlock heirs left at all.”
Which left nobody to defend the earth against the gods.
“I’ll ask around,” said Isabel. “Someone will know. You focus on Evelyn. Ivy’s going with you, right?”
I nodded. “Assuming the mages give us the go-ahead. I’m not expecting to find Evelyn, but if I do, I’ll bind her and bring her in alive.”
If her death would spell the end of the Hemlock Coven and the magic keeping the Ancients from destroying this realm, I wouldn’t be the one to deliver the earth to the Ancients.
Isabel hugged me. “If anyone can handle her, it’s you, Jas.”
Ilsa approached me when I entered the lobby of the necromancers’ guild. “The mages want to inspect the mirror before we use it.”
I groaned. “Can’t it wait?”
“Nope.” Drake walked up to me, with Wanda at his side. “Another hour won’t make a difference.”
“An hour? Evelyn could conquer the world in an hour.”
“Didn’t fifteen days pass in an hour for you the last time you went into the other realm?” Ilsa said.
“Yeah,” I conceded. “All right, but we’ve wasted enough time already.”
“Sorry,” said Wanda. “Vance’s idea. Not ours.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Vance has convinced everyone the mirror has a bomb hidden inside it.”
“Pretty much.” Drake grinned. “We’re stuck on guard duty until he lets us leave.”
“Even you, Wanda?” Wait—did she know her grandmother’s maiden name? “Actually, I had a question I wanted to ask. Do either of you have a copy of Lady Harper’s family tree?”
Wanda blinked in surprise. “I might have one somewhere. Why?”
“It turns out she was related to the members of the coven I’ve been looking for,” I explained. “The Briar witches. They raised me for the first year of my life.”
Drake’s eyes widened. “I thought you grew up in an orphanage before Lady Harper took you in.”
“I did, but I was born in Edinburgh and lived here until the faerie invasion.” I glanced over my shoulder out of habit in case anyone was listening in, but by now, it didn’t matter how many people knew my history. Besides, Wanda and I had been close friends before Lady Harper had intentionally split us apart, and I trusted her.
“I do remember a family tree,” Wanda said. “Vance might know. Hey, Vance!”
Vance walked up to us, wearing his usual knee-length dark cloak. “Jas, the mirror will be free in an hour. Is everyone here?”
“Everyone except Keir,” I said. “I’ll fetch him, but I had a question about Lady Harper.”
“Oh?” He cocked a brow.
“Did you know her maiden name was Briar?”
“Briar,” he said. “Yes, the name rings a bell. Why?”
“I lived with the Briar Coven as a baby and they saved my life last year,” I explained. “When she said she had people watching me, I didn’t know she meant her own relations.”
“As far as I know, she cut off contact with that side of the family,” he said. “After the invasion, I didn’t know she had surviving relatives.”
“They can’t have been close,” I said. “She never did make anything simple, did she?”
“You’re telling me,” said Drake. “She had a whole secret family?”
“I’m taking a wild guess that she mortally insulted them years ago and they cut off contact,” I said. “It’s a long shot, but they’re the closest to the Hemlocks I have left. Aside from Evelyn herself, obviously.”
Wanda looked at me, concerned. “Are you sure you want to be the one to find her? I mean, she is your… your family.”
“She’s nothing to me,” I lied. “We’re barely related by blood, and we never knew one another in life.”
Drake gave me a look which suggested he thought I was bullshitting, but Vance spoke first. “Ivy wants to join you on your mission to find Evelyn.”
His tone suggested he wasn’t happy about that.
“Thought so,” I said. “She has a talisman—and now Ilsa’s lost hers, we’ll need it.”
“Chill out, Vance,” said Ivy, striding over to us. She wore her long dark hair tied back in a ponytail, and her sword strapped to her waist beneath her leather jacket. “It can’t be worse than Faerie. I should know.”
Vance gave her a concerned look. “That doesn’t lessen the risk. We know even less about that realm than we do about Faerie.”
“Then we’ll go by guesswork,” said Ivy. “We’re chasing a ghost, besides.”
“She’
s still powerful.” Vance nodded to me. “Right?”
“Not as much as she would be with a body of her own.” Perhaps she’d find another human’s body to possess, but it didn’t look like there were any humans living in that realm at all, aside from the dragon shifters.
“Good.” Vance gave a nod. “Fetch your vampire friend, Jas. It’s almost time.”
5
I made my way over to Keir’s apartment, texting him an update on our discoveries last night. He answered the door, wearing loose jogging trousers and a t-shirt, his hair damp and tousled.
“Aiden’s in the shower,” he said. “We were sparring. His pride’s bruised because of how out of shape he is, so go easy on him. I take it this isn’t a social call?”
“It can be.” I wrapped my arms around him and brushed my lips over his. “Keir, the mirror is ready. I’m not going to ask you to come with me, but the option is open. We leave in less than an hour.”
He pushed open the bedroom door, and we went inside. “I’m not letting you go alone.”
“I won’t be alone,” I said. “Ivy wants in, and Ilsa is coming to get her talisman back from Evelyn. But you have Aiden to think of.”
“I’m coming,” he said. “I’ll tell Aiden the risks—he of all people knows there might be some time slippage involved.”
“That’s the problem,” I said. “I’m asking everyone involved to face the possibility that if we get stuck there for longer than an hour or two, they might never see their families again.”
“We won’t get stuck there,” he said. “Because I trust you.”
“You trust me to navigate a world I’ve been to once, by accident, with nothing but a half-illegible map from my old mentor?” I shook my head. “I’m way out of my depth. I haven’t even read all of Lady Harper’s journal, but I think it’s safe to say that if the Ancients settled in that realm after leaving Faerie, it’s not a human-friendly area. Even if Evelyn hasn’t found the gods yet, I doubt she’ll let us drag her out of there without kicking up a fuss.”
“I trust you because you’ll tear the spirit lines themselves open to save the people you care about, Jas,” he said. “I know that about you.”
“You expect too much of me.” I leaned into his embrace despite myself, shivering as his touch brushed against me in the spirit realm. “I’m not always in control of my decisions.”
“I trust you,” he said firmly. “To prove it, I want you to feed from me. Do it now. You won’t hurt me.”
My breath caught. “Keir, I… don’t know. I still don’t trust myself not to do what Evelyn did—”
He pulled me into his lap on the bed. “I can’t do this to Evelyn.” His lips traced my jawline. “And I don’t want to. Not ever. Nobody except you.”
My breath stopped as his touch went deeper, skimming down my back, dancing across my skin until every inch of me ached for him.
“Stopped thinking about Evelyn now?” he whispered.
“Yes.” I ran my hands over his shoulders, deepening my touch until a vivid thread of blue light connected us. Tugging on that light, I let some of his energy flow into me. He laid down on the bed and fit his body to mine without breaking the connection. I gasped and squirmed above him, pleasure sending sparks to my nerve endings. “You okay, Keir?”
Keir moaned against my neck, his erection pressing between my legs. “Don’t stop,” he breathed, reaching for the drawer.
I drew more energy from him into me, and he swore, freeing his erection to slide on a condom. I worked my jeans and underwear down to allow him access to me, without letting our tenuous connection break.
Our bodies moved against one another, each brief moment of numbness only making the return of sensation more intense. I couldn’t take it any longer and cried out, the noise muffled in the pillow. Feeling me orgasm pushed him over the edge and he gripped the headboard, gasping for breath. At the moment of release, the connection had broken without my noticing. He withdrew from me, and we lay tangled in one another’s arms, breathless.
He brushed a kiss to my forehead. “I’m with you, Jas.”
A knock on the door startled us apart. “I thought you two were going on an important mission, not boning one another.”
Keir raised his head. “Chill out, Aiden, we have time to kill.”
I checked my watch. “Not much time. You’d better find some clothes, unless you want to go hunting for Evelyn half-dressed.”
Keir pushed off the bed and grabbed a pair of discarded jeans. “The only person I want to see me half-dressed is you, Jas.”
Aiden made gagging noises from outside the door. Shooting him a scowl, Keir finished dressing and opened a drawer to reveal a set of knives. “Might need some of these…”
“Where do you get that lot?”
“Mostly from relieving their deceased owners of weapons they no longer needed.” He flipped a knife into his hand, his movements fast and agile.
“Are you showing Jas your illegal weapon collection?” Aiden asked through the closed door. “That’s how you know he trusts you. He never lets anyone touch those knives.”
“That’s because someone can’t stop himself from wrecking my shit,” Keir responded, sheathing two knives at his waist. “I don’t give a shit about the knives, I care about you barging into my room without permission.”
“Let’s hope we don’t need them,” I said. “A knife would barely tickle a dragon.”
“Dragons!” Aiden yelped. “Where are you… no. Absolutely not.”
“I knew he’d take it well,” Keir muttered. “Yes, we’re going into the other realm.”
Aiden opened the bedroom door, staring between us in disbelief.
“You’re joking,” he said. “Why would anyone in their right mind go there? I mean, except me, but I wasn’t really in my own mind. Or in my own body, anyway. Or anyone else’s, either—”
“We know,” Keir said. “Evelyn’s in the other realm, right, Jas?”
“You’ve got it,” I said. “She has Ilsa’s talisman and she’s looking for the Ancients. I need to bind her to me before she can do any more damage. As soon as the mages stop screwing around and let us go through the mirror, that is.”
“I don’t want you to get lost over there for fifty years and come back to find I’m an old man.” Aiden scowled. “You only just got back. I mean, I just got back. Whatever. Can I come, too?”
“No!” Both of us spoke at the same time.
“Absolutely not,” said Keir. “You’re in no condition to run from murderous dragons. You can’t even block a left hook.”
Aiden clutched his chest. “Low blow, man. I’m wounded.”
Keir sighed. “I’m not going to get lost for fifty years. You should go back to bed. I know you didn’t sleep last night. I heard you yelling at the wall. Which is creepy as fuck, I might add.”
“Look, I was locked in a glass tank surrounded by deranged ghosts for years.” Aiden rubbed his eyes. “Maybe I’ll have a nap now.”
“Do that,” said Keir. “Trust me, Jas knows what she’s doing.”
Let’s hope so. Evelyn knew that world better than I did. She’d been there before. All I had was the map and Ilsa’s word that leaving Evelyn to her own devices would be worse than chasing her and potentially provoking her into action.
“I hope you’re right.” Aiden’s mouth turned down at the corners. “For all our sakes.”
By the time Keir and I reached the guild, the path to the mirror was clear. Lady Montgomery stood in the corridor to stop curious novices from wandering in, while the rest of us gathered in the empty training room which now housed the mirror.
“Why don’t I get to go through?” Mackie protested.
“Because that place is a dead zone,” said Ilsa. “There’s only one way in or out, and if anything goes wrong, we might end up stranded. I’m also not sure which types of magic work over there.”
“Talismans do,” River said insistently. “Let me—”
“No, Ri
ver,” Ilsa said, quiet but firm. “You’re needed at the guild. Besides, this won’t take long.”
“We’ll have enough talismans between us, once we get Ilsa’s back,” Ivy put in, tapping a fingertip on the sword at her waist.
Isabel leaned over to whisper to her. Ivy frowned, then nodded. “Let’s not use magic if we can avoid it, in case it has side effects. We don’t even know if the Ley Line exists in that realm the same way it does here. It’s not the same in Faerie, for instance.”
“The only way to find out is to go and see it for ourselves,” I said. “Do you have the map?”
“Yep.” Ilsa held up Lady Harper’s hand-drawn map. “I’m not bringing the whole journal, but I doubt Evelyn has read it all.”
Yet she’d left the map behind, giving us the means of following her. Maybe she’d wanted us to. So I’d witness her return to glory.
The mirror waited, its silvery sheen casting bright patches on the grey-painted walls of the room. “Ready?”
The others gave murmurs of assent, Keir on one side of me, Ilsa on the other, Ivy behind us. I pressed my hands to the mirror, and its surface turned transparent.
Then I stepped through, and my feet touched down on the hillside. Glass crunched beneath the soles of my shoes, pieces of the shattered Moonbeam. Behind me, Ivy swore under her breath. Keir took my arm, looking up at the stone construction visible in the mist before us. “No dragons?”
I took a step towards the cathedral-like stone building, then halted, unpleasant memories returning. “This isn’t where I was when I first met the dragon. He flew me from over there.”
I pointed ahead, not that any of us could see what was on the other side. I could barely see in front of my nose.
“Damn, it’s foggy out here,” Ivy said. “Can you sense anything in the spirit realm? Anything living, I mean?”
“No,” said Keir. “I can’t even find any vessels to pilot.”
“Meaning no dead bodies,” I added. “I’d say that’s good news.”
“I wouldn’t walk outside your body in this place,” Ilsa said. “Like Isabel said—no magic until we know for sure it won’t have complicated side effects.”
Witch's Sacrifice Page 5