by Sarina Dorie
My lightning struck Princess Quenylda before she even realized what was happening. She screamed and crumbled to the floor. I continued pumping energy into her as she smoldered and burned. Her body went up in flames, exploding where arcs touched it. I might have continued shooting bolts of lightning at her, draining myself in the process if Thatch hadn’t placed a hand on my elbow, redirecting that energy back inside me.
The Raven Queen stood. Guards I hadn’t known were there rushed forward. Odette placed herself between the queen and me. Fae hiding in the shadows along the walls became visible, trampling each other to rush away in their fright.
“I told you the Silver Court wasn’t to be trusted,” Odette said. “She planned to steal your throne.”
“But she didn’t succeed,” Queen Morgaine said.
“Only because I stopped her.” I stared at Quenylda’s remains, wishing I could have incinerated her two seconds after she killed the queen.
The Raven Queen eyed the smoking cinders of Quenylda’s body. “That was entertaining. The Princess of Lies and Truth did ask for someone to be killed, did she not?” She batted her eyelashes cloyingly.
She didn’t appear to be as disturbed as she should have been.
Thatch passed my mom to me. My mom’s breathing was labored, and she rested her face on my shoulder. Leaves in her hair tickled my neck.
He strolled over to the cinders. “You wanted to see your loyal ally kill someone inferior and insignificant. I believe you had your demonstration.” He kicked at the charred corpse.
Ashes sparked and fell apart.
Thatch smiled. “I believe you owe my wife a boon for saving your life.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Hope Doesn’t Grow on Trees
I was exhausted after so much exertion of magic, but my mind was still sharp. The potion had made me competent at learning quickly. The Raven Queen owed me a boon. If I was to beat her at her games, I needed to consider my favor carefully.
My fairy godmother’s added weight on my frame threatened to make me fall over. Such physical exertion would normally have distracted me, but with my increased mental faculties, I was able to focus on the debt I was owed.
“Don’t I get a thank-you?” I asked.
The queen regarded me solemnly. She started to speak, but Fae behind us screamed as they fought to exit the great hall. A little thrill of satisfaction coursed through me with the knowledge that they were running from me and my electrical magic.
I had terrified them.
Queen Morgaine flicked a hand at her subjects, blocking out the sound of the commotion. “Name your price.”
“I want to walk out of here free with my husband and my fairy godmother. I wish for us to be safe from harm from you, your court, or anyone you order for the rest of our lives.”
The Raven Queen sat in her chair. “You have done me a great service, but what you ask oversteps what I can grant.” She looked to Thatch.
He gave me a tight smile that didn’t reach his eyes. I could feel the burden weighing down his heart without even trying to project my awareness outside myself.
He wouldn’t be leaving with us.
“Why won’t you allow Felix to come with us?” I demanded with the authority of one who had just slain a Fae.
“He isn’t yours. He has pledged himself to me.” She drummed her long nails against the armrest of the throne. “You may leave. I will permit you to remove that useless seedling from my sight.”
I lifted my chin. “I want Felix Thatch. He has pledged himself to me.”
She snorted. “Your Witchkin marriage means nothing to me. It isn’t binding.”
No, but Thatch’s contract to Elric was. I thought of Baba Nata’s prophecy. Even if he sacrificed himself for me in this way, he would fail.
“What if I trade myself for him?” I asked.
Abigail Lawrence gasped. “No. Don’t do it.”
“I will stay, and they can go,” I said.
“No,” Thatch said firmly.
“Tempting,” the Raven Queen said. “Your affinity would be quite useful against my enemies. You’re more powerful than your Alouette Loraline. Quicker. I can see how useful you’d be as one of my court. But I also suspect you’d be too . . . free-spirited.” She chewed on her lip. “No, I don’t want you for an ally or for an enemy. I simply wish to know what you know about the Fae Fertility Paradox. If you tell me what I wish to know, then I will allow you to walk away with Felix Thatch.”
“She doesn’t know,” Thatch said.
My mom trembled against me. Pain pulsed in her belly. Her knees went weak. I struggled to hold her up. I thought about all the things the Raven Court had done to her that supposedly wasn’t hurting her—starving her and keeping her locked up away from sunlight. Then there was Odette and her magic acorn. My mom wasn’t well. It would transform her if she didn’t get it out of her soon.
“I’m leaving now,” I said. “I’ll be back for my husband.”
“Of course you will.” She waved a hand at Thatch. “See them out, mon cher. They may leave by the front door.” She nodded to Odette. “See to it that your brother doesn’t try anything heroic.”
Thatch lifted my mom into his arms and carried her out of the throne room. Odette trailed behind. I kept my head held high, not wanting the Fae to see how much the idea of parting with him hurt me, though I suspected they already knew.
I searched my brain for something else, something I was missing. There had to be another way. Another path. All I could see was the dark tunnel before me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Not Able to See the Forest for the Trees
My mom moaned as Felix Thatch carried her down the stairs and along stone corridors to the entryway. We passed sasquatch servants in chains scrubbing bloodstains from floors and less recognizable creatures carrying firewood who skirted out of our paths. I was surprised the Fae guards didn’t bar Thatch’s exit.
The Raven Queen had told him he wouldn’t be able to come with me. I still searched my brain for some kind of solution. Any kind of solution.
Odette silently glided in front of us, her wings outstretched and her feet stepping in a graceful dance as she led the way out of the castle. The sky outside was dark. Mist blotted out the illumination of stars or moonlight. Trees peeked through pockets of fog along the path. The long train of my dress shushed across the ground behind me. It caught on twigs and tore.
Mom’s breathing came in labored gasps.
Odette frowned. “You need to hurry.”
“What did you do to her?” I asked.
She looked to her brother. “It was to save her.”
“What was to save her?” he asked.
I touched the necklace at my throat. It would cost my soul to ask him for one last boon.
“I sparked Abigail Lawrence’s fertility magic with my affinity,” Odette said. “I used blood magic so that no Fae would be able to undo my spell.”
She had used blood magic on the acorn. Oak was my mom’s affinity. The seed would grow inside her and take root. She wouldn’t die, but she would be transformed into a tree.
“Isn’t there a magical equivalent of getting someone’s stomach pumped?” I asked.
“The acorn has already taken root,” Odette said.
Elric wouldn’t be able to help. This was Red affinity magic. It would take a Red affinity to remedy her spell.
Thatch handed Abigail Lawrence to Odette. “I told you I was coming. You should have waited.”
Felix Thatch could save her. He knew how to fix anything.
Mom moaned.
Odette shifted my fairy godmother to hold her more securely. “Yes, but you sent word weeks ago. You didn’t say when. She might have been dead by the time you arrived.”
It appeared they were in closer communication than he’d ever let on.
Thatch waved a hand at his sister. “Undo what you did.”
The Raven Queen’s castle loomed above the trees, radiating evil. It felt as if a thousand eyes watched us from the spindly spires.
Odette stepped off the path and away from Felix Thatch. “Say your goodbyes to your wife. The Raven Queen will be calling us back soon.”
If I could get my mom to Womby’s, Vega could help me. She was a Celestor and a Red affinity.
I turned to Thatch. “After I make sure she’s all right, I’ll return, and—”
He drew me into his arms and kissed me. When he broke away, he said, “Promise me you won’t come back for me.”
“No.”
He kissed me again. I knew what he was doing—or trying to do. He kneaded his fingers into my hips, trying to arouse me. The touch was so full of desperation he couldn’t make me forget the sorrow in my heart. I didn’t lose myself as I had before when he’d tried to manipulate me.
“Promise me,” he repeated.
I twisted away. “Stop it. I’m not going to promise.”
“You have to,” he insisted. “You need to stay at Womby’s where it’s safe.” There was a strange echoing quality to his voice.
He felt insubstantial in my arms. “What’s happening?”
“My queen is summoning me.”
My hand went through him, scattering his chest into swirls of vapor.
He touched his lips to mine, the sensation cold and ghostly. “If you loved me, you would leave me be.”
It was a cheap shot, and it wasn’t going to work. He faded from my sight.
“No,” I said. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I was supposed to be able to do anything now.
“The competency lozenge—” I started to say. We could use its knowledge to help us.
Thatch’s voice came as a breath of wind. “It didn’t work. The Raven Queen’s wards made them inert before you’d ever swallowed it. Go. Before she changes her mind.” It sounded like he said more, but the distance between us was too great.
If the competency lozenge hadn’t helped me in the first place, was he saying I had figured out how to master my affinity all by myself? Yet, if the competency lozenge had worked, I would know how to solve this problem. He might have more at Womby’s. If I could get there in time. . . .
“Clarissa,” Odette called. “There’s isn’t much time.”
I ran into the shadows off the path toward the sound of her voice. Odette had my mom standing on her own feet. That seemed like a good sign. Only my fairy godmother’s face was mottled, the texture of the freckles and dirt on her face wrong. Her eyes were closed, and she swayed.
Odette swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
“Undo it. Felix said to undo it. You have to.”
The calm mask Odette had worn in the Raven Court was gone, replaced by regret. “I can’t. I’m not strong enough, nor have I the skill.”
I searched myself for the knowledge. There had to be a way. I would not accept this as an answer.
Abigail Lawrence stretched her arms up to the sky. She dug her toes into the earth. Amni Plandai magic rolled off her. I didn’t want her to turn into a tree, especially not here, so near the Raven Queen’s castle. The gloomy palace crested over the trees like a half-submerged monster ready to strike at any moment. If my fairy godmother transformed here, the Raven Queen could chop her down at any time.
We didn’t have a lot of time. I shifted my awareness outside myself, trying to see the magic Odette had used. Fractals of green were woven into a mess of red light. The magic was knotted and twisted together in a jumble of patterns.
I reached out with my mind, trying to untangle a knot around my fairy godmother’s heart. I pushed the fabric of spells back, but they kept growing and closing in on her. For every jumbled mess I unraveled, two more were created. I tore through the weaving as though it were the fragile silk of a spiderweb.
“Careful,” Odette said. “You’ll hurt her if you aren’t gentle.”
I didn’t want my mom to suffer. I wanted her to be safe at home. I wanted her to be happy.
How could I be gentle and quick? If only time would slow for me again and my senses speed up as they had when Quenylda had been about to strike. I needed to burn through the spell Odette had used. I pushed at the tangle, trying to force it away from my mom, to place my will between her soul and the magic as a shield.
The competency spell was supposed to help me learn faster, but I had to have a foundation to build on. All I knew how to do was shoot out magic to kill someone or cycle my energy into another Witchkin. That wasn’t going to undo a spell made by a Red. It would only feed it.
A reedy sound came from Abigail Lawrence, pain and anguish in that inhuman breath. My inaction only furthered her suffering. I had to do something, but I feared I would make the wrong choice.
With all the electricity I had left in me, I projected it out of my hands and into the strands of the spell. My magic traveled out of my body and into hers, breaking into fractals as it split along branches of the magic.
Either this would cure her or it would kill her.
“No!” Odette said. “You’re just going to feed my magic with yours.” Odette shook me and tried to break my hold. “You’re making it worse.”
I had suspected this might happen. I’d nourished the spell. Opening my eyes, I found my fairy godmother transformed. She wasn’t a woman as before, nor was she completely tree. She was halfway in the process of changing. Her branches shifted in the breeze above my head, and in that wordless lullaby, I heard her song of pining.
I didn’t know how to cure her or turn her back. I did the only thing I could do. I pushed more magic into her so that her metamorphosis would be complete. My store of energy felt depleted, even as I churned the electricity in my core to generate more. I thought of Thatch’s lips on mine, hoping to inspire pleasant sensations.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I gazed at the woman who had raised me. It was difficult to have happy thoughts to inspire touch magic.
I dug deeper inside myself and willed everything I had into the oak woman before me, strengthening the spell. It still wasn’t enough. I gathered strength from the trees around me, adding to the Amni Plandai magic. I drank in Odette’s own affinity, her hand on my arm lending me more power, whether she intended to do so or not.
I poured magic into the tree until she stood tall and strong. Abigail Lawrence was just another tree in the forest, though whether that would conceal her, I didn’t know.
Odette dropped to her knees, gasping for breath. My magic had petered out. I rested my head against the trunk, hugging the tree as I sobbed.
I had done this. I had tried to do good, and I’d made everything worse. Odette crawled away. I’d probably drained her. I didn’t even care. Maybe I was like Alouette Loraline, selfish and uncaring for anyone other than herself.
The Raven Queen had stolen the two people I loved most. She had taken my fairy godmother and my husband away from me. She had won this battle. I couldn’t allow her to win the war.
I would put an end to her evil ways. I would make her suffer, even if it cost me my soul in the process.
Move over, Alouette Loraline. The world was about to meet a true wicked witch.
THE END
Safe Hex
BOOK SIXTEEN PREVIEW
CHAPTER ONE
Fifty First Wakes
The world was white and bright like heaven when I woke. The bed was made of the softest clouds. Everything shimmered with golden light. Birch trees woven into Celtic knotwork formed the bedposts of the canopy bed. The windows were cut in ornate shapes, edged with iridescent panels of stained glass. The room was so beautiful it hurt my eyes to look at it.
Khaba gazed down at me, his smile pleased. “How are you feeling, honey?” His hot-pink ensemble was a strange contrast to the heavenly surroundings.
My best friend, Josie’s face came into focus next. She grinned like a madwoman, tears spilling down her cheeks from under her black-rimmed
glasses. “You’re awake.” She hugged me like she’d never been so happy to see me.
“What happened? Where am I?” I sat up, glancing around the room.
“Easy now. Take it slow.” Khaba placed an arm under my shoulders and helped me sit up.
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?” Josie asked. She was dressed in one of her usual bohemian dresses made of lavender lace that matched her witch hat.
A wave of dizziness washed over me. I didn’t know what I felt other than the gnawing void inside my core. I doubted that was a hunger for food.
My eyes darted around my foreign surroundings. I wasn’t at Womby’s School for Wayward Witches. I was in the Faerie Realm. Vega, my former roommate, stood in the corner talking to her fiancée, Prince Elric of the Silver Court, and Felix Thatch. I smiled at Thatch. He stared down at the floor, avoiding my gaze. Something about his hunched body language reminded me of a puppy who knew he shouldn’t have chewed on someone’s slippers and felt guilty about it.
Elric strolled over. “There you are, love. Feeling better? It appears Mr. Khaba can even make a Fae’s wishes come true.”
Khaba turned to face Elric, fists on his hips. “You shouldn’t need a djinn to wake Clarissa. It wasn’t a curse-induced coma.”
Elric spread his palms face up. “I’m no longer a prince of the Silver Court. I haven’t the same advantages I once had.”
“It’s more than that.” Khaba’s eyes narrowed. “I know a magical imbalance when I see one. What’s this about?”
I was so tired I could barely think. “What do you mean by a ‘magical imbalance?’”
Khaba strode around my bed toward Elric. “Someone owes Elric a debt, and he hasn’t collected. Now he’s been left too weak for powerful magic. That’s how it works.”
“Is this true?” Vega asked. “Who owes you a debt?”
Elric laughed, a little too loudly. “Mr. Khaba, you’re being ridiculous.”
“Is it true that you’re in a weakened state?” Thatch demanded. “I thought you said we’d be safe here.”