“Sorry I missed it.”
“Next time,” Aaron said easily.
“But the more important question is,” Izzy broke in. (I was sure she had inserted herself into the conversation out of curiosity more than jealousy, even if I knew the easygoing banter between Aaron and me had to worry her.) “What was the forest trying to tell you?”
“I’m not sure. Something bad is coming. That’s all I can say,” I admitted. “It’s not like I speak Leaf or whatever you call the language a forest speaks.”
“’Leaf’ sounds about right,” Aaron agreed.
“In any case,” I said, though I was smiling Aaron’s way for the joke, “we didn’t actually have a conversation. It felt more like the forest sent me a feeling of dread.”
“That’s comforting,” Izzy said dryly, though I could see her reaching for her belt all the same. She did carry a gun—and she’d made sure Andrew taught her how to use it—but this time, she took out her dagger. That made sense, considering I’d seen her and Aaron fighting goblins with long daggers the way Theresa and her family and friends fought. They’d trained against goblins with blades, not guns.
Still, even with the light teasing, the forest’s warning had everyone on edge. I could see Andrew sticking closer to Elaine, and Theresa had a hand on Tara’s arm with every step. And I definitely noticed Tony sticking close to the two sisters—but I wouldn’t point that out to him yet. Maybe there was hope for him to figure himself out on his own.
Maybe.
We didn’t run into any problems for a long while—but that in itself seemed to have everyone even more on edge. Before the evacuation, we could hardly set foot out of the village without being swamped by goblins. And now? The only sound was the ambient life of the rainforest, and that felt ominous too.
“Maybe the forest was wrong,” Aaron said at last when the relative silence seemed to be too much to bear.
“I don’t think a gigantic forest reaches out willy-nilly just to freak people out,” I said, though I didn’t look his way. Instead, I tried to keep my gaze roving, searching for the danger the forest had warned me about.
We didn’t actually see the trouble until we’d walked right into it. Because we’re apparently incapable of doing anything the easy way.
“Don’t move,” a voice rang out through the trees, along with a chorus of metallic sounds that told us our assailants had plenty of guns locked and loaded and pointed our way.
“Okay, I admit it: I shouldn’t have doubted the all-knowing forest,” Aaron whispered, though I could hear the shake in his voice. The last time he’d been captured, he had been pretty badly beaten, and even if the vacation had helped him heal from that, I knew he couldn’t have been thrilled with the prospect of a repeat performance.
“Be silent,” the same voice called out.
“Why don’t you come out and face us instead of hiding like cowards?” Izzy shot back angrily. She had a dagger in one hand, but I could see her hands shaking too. She’d been captured by witches twice now, and the stress of facing it once again was getting to her too.
But Izzy had a way of commanding attention and respect that I’d always admired about her. She expected to be listened to, and people seemed to react to that. I’m pretty sure that charisma of hers led to the silence that descended on the forest before a Royalist soldier—dressed in sharp black—stepped forward with a lieutenant on either side of him, guns raised, ready to shoot anyone who tried to take their leader down.
“I don’t answer to humans,” the man sneered when he saw Izzy and realized that she had been the one making the demands.
“Clearly, you do,” Izzy shot back, her chin thrust out and her eyes flashing with defiance.
The man’s eyes narrowed. I didn’t like the way he looked at Izzy, so without even thinking about it, I pulled her behind me—and kept myself between Aaron and the man as well. Not that either one of my friends would call me out on the blatantly protective move, since of the three of us, I was the one who could heal without stealing someone else’s life force.
But to my surprise, the man didn’t shoot Izzy or hit her with a spell. Instead, he seemed to shrug off Izzy’s presence entirely, his gaze drifting from her to Theresa, who was gripping her sister’s arm tighter with every passing second until Tara let out a soft “ow” that told her she needed to let up.
“As agreed,” he said, speaking clearly and obviously addressing Theresa, “you can go.”
All of a sudden, the silence in the forest seemed that much thicker as everyone in our group turned to face Theresa. She had gone stiff and stone-faced, and she didn’t look at any of us as she held the man’s gaze. “And my family?”
“Guaranteed safe passage,” the man said with a smile.
Theresa kept her head up and continued to refuse to meet anyone’s gaze as she walked forward, still holding tightly to Tara. But for as quiet as the forest was, we could all hear it when Tony said, very softly, “Theresa?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, just as softly, and the tone of her voice was the only thing betraying how honestly upset she was. Everything else about her body language was stiff and strong and nothing like the anguish we could all plainly hear when she spoke.
“You sold us out.” Andrew wasn’t nearly as quiet as Tony had been, and he was a lot more obvious about his anger. “All that yelling at me and you sold us out.”
“Because you brought them here.” Theresa shot back, her tone icy as she spun on her heel to face him. “You brought an army, and they found my family. My village. They cut off our evacuation. What was I supposed to do? Let them slaughter everyone I care about?” She shook her head. “I’m trying to keep my family safe. That’s all I’ve been trying to do this whole time.”
The worst part? I could absolutely see where Theresa was coming from. I knew I’d do anything for my family. I’d given myself up to save them! But as I watched Theresa lead a frowning Tara away, the same simmering anger I knew the others had to be feeling warred with my sympathy until anger won out and I found myself glaring as well.
Betrayal hurt. No matter what the reasons were.
No one could find any words to put to the situation as the circle of Royalist soldiers tightened around us. We didn’t have to say anything to know that we’d fight our way out rather than surrender—we were all waiting for the soldiers to make their move first.
That was the nice part about sticking with the same group for so long. Even if it hadn’t even been a year since I met Elaine and Andrew, we’d been in nonstop trouble together, and that put us on the same wavelength when it came to fights like this.
But instead of gunfire or handcuffs or anything we’d been prepared for, the silence was broken by a new voice calling out: “Don’t let them leave!”
The soldiers all turned toward the voice, and then Wendy came bursting through the forest, one hand raised to throw out a freezing spell that held Theresa and Tara in place.
(For the record, I think Theresa probably could have gotten out of such a simple spell on a good day. But with how upset she was over the situation and betrayal, she wasn’t on her game.)
Once the two sisters were frozen in place, Wendy bent over to catch her breath before she looked to the leader of the Royalist group. “You almost let the Future Seeker slip through your fingers,” she said sharply. “Do you have any idea how valuable she is to us?”
“If you touch her,” Theresa said through gritted teeth, every word a struggle for her with the freezing spell in place, “I will kill you.”
Wendy gave Theresa a smug smile and took a step forward, but that seemed to be exactly what we needed to break the spell of silence. And Theresa wasn’t the one that broke it, either. Instead, Tony let out a cry of frustration before he sent a spell Wendy’s way that she barely blocked in time because she heard him cry out.
And with that, the fight was on.
Chapter 14: I’m Getting Pretty Good at This Battling Thing
So far, every battl
e I had been in since I joined the Rendezvous felt different.
Maybe that wouldn’t be the case once I’d been with them long enough to become battle-weary, but for now, I still got swept away by the complexities of every single fight. Even with all my memories, I still found myself in awe of the raw power and destruction that witches could bring to each other—probably because my centuries of experience had largely been with human wars, not magical ones.
I’d come to the New World not long before the United States declared its independence, so I’d seen almost every war in the young country’s history. I’d lost family members to those wars. So I knew that war wasn’t abstract or untouchable. War was concrete and so, so painful. War left wounds that never healed—and not just the physical kind. I could remember watching the last of my blood-related family members in the New World wasting away to nothing after her son had died in battle.
And on top of the violence that came standard with any war, a witch’s battle wasn’t anything like a human battle. It still had similar elements—the sound of gunfire, the flash of a knife—but the very world around us got involved as well, leaving anyone who witnessed a witch’s battle feeling like they were watching the world tear itself apart around a few fierce fighters.
Speaking of fierce fighters, Elaine wasn’t the only one with the forces of nature at her command—though she was obviously the best example of it. After a few centuries of experience, I could finally see the connection to the world around her that she forged every time she fought. She had a knack for finding the right synergy without even trying.
And given what I remembered about my ability to connect with the forces of nature at the height of my own emotions, I suspected that synergy was a family gift.
Putting that particular theory to the test, I reached out to the forest. After all, it had taken the time to try to warn me about the trap we’d stumbled into anyway, so I felt like it was on my side. At least a little bit.
I always connected with my surroundings more in times of high stress, and this was absolutely no exception. I could feel the forest around me in acute detail, every leaf and every branch calling out to me like volunteers in a green army.
I smiled as I felt the warm reassurance of that connection. The forest loved being filled with life; it didn’t want to be a place of death. Which meant these Royalists had to go—and so it sided with me, like I’d hoped it would.
I had planted myself in front of Aaron and Izzy without even thinking about it, but that position helped to fuel my emotionally-charged magic. As good as my friends were, they were still the most vulnerable in a battle, and I was not going to let them fall into Royalist hands again. I still felt terrible that they had been kidnapped in an attempt to get to me. I couldn’t forgive myself for that; I wouldn’t let it happen again.
The first Royalist who pointed his gun toward me and my friends found himself suspended in the air upside-down and hanging by his ankle from a vine. Before he could twist around, cut himself down, or respond with any kind of counterspell, I snapped the vine straight up, and he flew into the air.
He’d come down eventually.
I had more than just the plant life at my command. The ground beneath my feet rumbled beneath me a few seconds before a circular platform started to rise out of the dirt, carrying me and my two friends into the air. From that vantage point, Aaron and Izzy could more easily fire at the Royalists—and I could see the whole battle to direct my friends and warn them about any threats I could see that they couldn’t. And yeah, sure, I knew they could hold their own in a fight. But every little bit helped, okay?
From there, I got to see up close that Aaron was actually a pretty good shot either way, considering he could only line up his shots based on how the people he could see were fighting. Izzy, on the other hand, could see everyone. So while Aaron could out-shoot her on the range, she could out-shoot him in a battle. They were even making a game of it, betting each other who would shoot better as they took up positions. They only waited for the platform to stop moving before they peered over the edge and started sniping.
“We’ve got to get you a rifle or something,” I told Izzy out of the corner of my mouth as she shot yet another Royalist—and I speared a few Royalists with some vine when they took aim at my platform.
Izzy grinned up at me. “Yes, ma’am, General Michelle.”
I shook my head at that. “Really, Izzy?”
“Hey, don’t act like you wouldn’t be great at it.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Sure, Michelle,” Izzy said, rolling her eyes and going back to what she was doing.
I knew she meant well, but I also knew that Izzy didn’t understand how bad I thought I was at taking the lead. I wasn’t as well-trained as Andrew, and I wasn’t as powerful as Elaine. The only thing I had going for me was that I could pull off some pretty powerful magic when I put my heart into it.
I wasn’t a leader. I was just very good at protecting my friends and standing beside them.
Besides, I had other things to focus on. For example: Wendy seemed determined to reach Theresa and Tara, and while Theresa could obviously hold her own in a fight, Tara. . . .
Actually, Tara was doing fine.
I had been completely prepared to step into that fight and pull Tara up to the platform and to safety, but she seemed to be headed our way completely without prompting, leisurely strolling through the forest. Every time a spell or a Royalist got too close, I could see Time slow down around her, so that she walked through bullets and spells without breaking stride.
I let out a low whistle. Seriously, how could Izzy call me a leader when I had friends like that?
When Tara reached the base of my platform, I called the dirt up so she could join us, and she simply sat down on the edge, her legs dangling off the sides as she watched the battle beneath us.
“Okay, but I thought of all the people to manipulate Time, Future Seekers would be last on the list,” I said.
Tara smiled at that. “Do you think you’re hurting the forest or the earth around you because you use it to your advantage?” she asked.
“Well, no, but that’s not really—”
“It is the same thing,” Tara broke in. “You have only seen temporal spells that try to force Time to bend to the will of the caster. Those who truly understand Time do not try to master it. Instead, we ally ourselves to its power.” She leaned back, propping herself up with her arms with her hands flat against the earth as she looked toward the sky. “Your family has always seen fit to force the world to bend to its will,” she said. “Even your mother tried to defy death.”
I narrowed my eyes at that, remembering how my mother had gone from person to person when the plague hit our village, trying to save anyone she could—especially children. “My mother was a hero.”
“Yes,” Tara said gently. “I meant no offense. I meant that you come from a lineage that refuses to accept the flow of fate. Your mother was an example of a heart that refused to break. Your father, on the other hand, has an ambition that refuses to bend.” Tara gestured broadly to the fight below us. “You strike the balance between human and witch, between head and heart, between old and new.”
“But no pressure or anything,” Izzy teased without looking up from her weapon, though just to tease her, I took out the guy she was aiming at before she could shoot him.
“I didn’t realize I was getting a lecture in what my Future Seeker name means when I decided to praise your skills,” I told Tara.
“I like to help people see the truth,” Tara said. She turned her gaze to the battle, taking it all in. “That is why I always wanted to be a Future Seeker. Theresa complains that Time influenced me even before I took the mantel permanently, but I always felt drawn to guiding others.” She looked up at me again. “I know you feel the same. I know you prod Tony toward my sister, and you encourage Andrew not to give up on his heart.”
“That’s not really—”
“You really should
stop thinking in such a compartmental fashion,” Tara said, her smile turning more troublemaking. “Not everything is so easily defined.”
“I guess,” I said. I didn’t really want to argue philosophy in the middle of a battle anyway.
Instead, I turned my attention back to Theresa, who was studiously keeping ahead of Wendy’s spells. She had a long dagger in each hand, and she was downright graceful, almost captivating to watch as she twirled and ducked away from Wendy’s offensive strikes. Even from my vantage point, I could see that her daggers were also glowing with some kind of magic so that when she drove them into Wendy’s energy shield, the whole thing rippled and shuddered.
I glanced toward Aaron, who was covering Tony’s back and firing at anyone Tony attacked, following the flash of spells to track the Royalists. Izzy was still expertly picking off Royalists from all angles. And when I looked toward Tara, I saw her lazily stretch out a hand, directing some kind of temporal spell that left a barrier around our platform. Any Royalists approaching us that stepped into the spell’s area of effect found themselves suddenly aging faster—so they very quickly backed away from the base of our platform to avoid dying of old age.
That was my non-fighter friends taken care of, and Elaine and Andrew were performing their usual ballet when I looked their way. Elaine had the forest and the winds at her command—and Andrew had her back. Between them, they had the attention of most of the Royalist forces.
But that left Theresa fighting a member of the Family without backup. I could see Tony making his way toward her, obviously ready to help, but he was still far enough away that I could see his expression getting more desperate and worried. Especially when Wendy managed to catch Theresa off her guard with a spell that erupted from the ground itself and knocked Theresa off her feet and onto her back.
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