Battle of the Hexes

by Lidiya Foxglove

  “I wondered if you would ever call me,” she said. “You seemed to be in trouble.”

  “Well, I don’t want you getting hurt,” Harris said.

  “No shame in needing me,” she said.

  “I can handle myself. Just fly over that a way and see if you can see Montague, but be careful. There are many other familiars around.”

  “Yes, the familiars of Etherium are quite restless,” she said. “The usual rules don’t apply today. The council has broken them all to fight you. You should be proud of yourself.”

  “I am.”

  He lifted his arm and she took flight, sailing over the tree tops. He watched her, clearly anxious.

  “Cousin?” Another voice called out in the distance.

  Apparently the staff of Merlin College had finally arrived. Piers was heading our way. “Cousin, where are you?” he called. “I don’t really want to fight you.”

  “It really drives me insane how he calls me ‘cousin’,” Harris said. “Charlotte—you stay here. I’m going to head out to meet him, head him off at the pass so to speak. Stuart and the other spirits aren’t here yet, but we know there are other spirits at Merlin. I’m going to buy you enough time to summon what you can. We need backup. Okay?”

  “Okay…but…Alec and Firian…”

  He put a hand on my shoulder. “They’re going to live, all right? I promise. They can take care of themselves, but you need backup. We came here to fight. This is your moment, Chosen One. Don’t fuck it up.”

  “Oh, please.” I laugh-sobbed. “Get out of here.” I gave his ass a spank the second he turned away from me. He gave me the finger.

  I smiled. Funny how much that infuriating guy could cheer me up.

  But that was the last smile I would make.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Charlotte

  Okay. I took a deep breath. No big deal. Just raise up the spirits of anyone you can. I already knew Merlin College had a priest who was also a Wyrd warlock, Father Early. He would definitely be on my side. He helped me before. I conjured up a vague memory of his image, Victorian beard and all.

  “Father Early,” I said. “I need help.”

  I thought about Alec bleeding and how he was alone right now. I felt like he would be there for me if I was hurt. He needed me now.

  “You helped me before, and now…I need help again.”

  Then I heard a small rustle in the brush. Was it the snake man again?

  Silence followed. No, I couldn’t worry about that. I let my senses flow, my breath steady, tapping into the spirit world…

  I was struggling. This was not the time to struggle. I knew that. I needed to be focused and tough, but the sight of Firian getting stabbed and Alec’s wings falling away from his body, the blood everywhere…

  What were a handful of ghosts going to do for me against this kind of onslaught anyway? A choking knot was forming in my chest and wrapping up my windpipe until I struggled to breathe.

  Eleanor swept overhead, flying with speed, going toward Harris.

  “Eleanor!” I shouted.

  She didn’t want to stop for me, but reluctantly wheeled around and landed on top of a fallen tree, the roots at the base pitched upward, the wood rotting back into the soil. “Montague has fallen,” she said. “I’m sorry to say. He and Ignatius Blair both.”

  “Wait, what? I mean—they’re dead?”

  “He’s barely conscious,” she said. “And they were force-feeding him some kind of potion. Ignatius looked like he might be—“

  A potion?

  Maybe they had a new technique for purification. They would drive the vampire blood out of Montague, send him home to his family. Alec, too. Since their families were still well-respected, they would be allowed to live. But there was no reason to let Firian or Ignatius live.

  What about Harris? He’s with Piers. Maybe they’ll drag him home.

  And me? My family?

  My mom and grandmother were both on the council’s shit list. Catherine kept trying to offer me some sort of ‘redemption’. I had a feeling she was done with me now.

  I was all alone in the forest. Trembling. I felt naked without being able to call Firian to my side. Worse than naked. Firian could offer more protection and support than a layer of fabric ever could.

  I understood the whole plan now. Separate us. Damage us. Kill the ones that didn’t matter, drag home the ones who still had a chance. Show the faeries who was boss. Some kind of cruel bargain to force Daisy home was probably next.

  They would never let us get away with our plan. The sheer number of familiars attacking us just drove home how small and helpless we were, how ridiculous we were for trying to change the world.

  I didn’t know which way to go. They all needed my help. For the first time, I wished I hadn’t embarked on this shared relationship that split my feelings four ways. When I was the last one standing, who did I choose?

  “So you’re the girl Harris has fallen for,” Eleanor said.

  I had forgotten the hawk was there, since she was as silent as a stone, blending in to the forest around her. “Yeah, I…”

  “You’d better do something,” she continued. “Just standing there isn’t any help.”

  “Boy, you really are his familiar, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t usually talk to humans,” she said. “Consider yourself lucky just to get any advice. Your friends are dying. Do something.”

  I stopped thinking so much. Maybe I stopped thinking at all. I let my gut decide.

  I ran back to Firian.

  HAM had each other as well as me, but Firian was mine and mine alone. Even if he could be friendly with other people, he wasn’t human. No matter what we were doing, his golden eyes roamed back to me like I was a beacon. He existed to protect me.

  I owed him so much, but maybe all I could give him was me, one last time.

  No…

  I ran back to the clearing and my heart stopped.

  Firian had reverted back to his human form. He was laid out on the forest floor, dead leaves cushioning his body, his hands folded over his chest, covering the wound. His skin was eerily pale now.

  I rushed toward him, desperate to touch his skin, to feel if there was any warmth in him. It seemed really cruel for him to die wearing his joke t-shirt. I didn’t have a nice suit to put him in.

  Oh god, I just needed to feel his embrace. Hear his voice in my ear telling me everything was okay, that he was always there.

  “Firian? Firian, are you—“

  My great-aunt stepped out of the woods, intercepting me. She had picked some evergreen sprigs, and she crouched to place them under his hands, in the absence of flowers.

  “Charlotte, I’m sorry,” she said, tucking her hair back behind her ears. “I really am.”

  “He’s not dead,” I said. “I didn’t feel it.”

  “You might not,” she said, in a way that was so casual it was like a twist of the knife. “Who told you you would feel it? Familiars very often die before their witches do. They are our first line of defense. They sacrifice themselves when we are too young to know better.”

  “I—“ I couldn’t stop looking at him. His chest was still. The color of his skin…it was just like when Harris died.

  “I really am sorry it had to be this way.”

  “Sorry?” I screamed. “Sorry? No, you’re not sorry. It didn’t have to be this way. It never did. Not with my grandmother. Not with Samuel and Ina. Not with me. The reason you don’t have family now is because of you.”

  I got to her, a little bit. She made this small pause as her mind tried to spin her actions into something justified. “This didn’t work out as anyone hoped. I have realized how harsh the council has become, in the course of trying to save you from your mistakes. We used to be the good guys, and we must not look that way to you now…”

  “No shit!”

  She winced. “But they are mistakes. You are hitching your wagon to the frailest of all the magic realms, an
d you don’t know anything about the faeries. None of us do, really. They have avoided dealing with us. We can’t let them gain ground, and if you join with them, we’ll have to keep hurting you. Yes, Firian had to die. But you don’t have to die.”

  “Firian didn’t have to die. You could have just let us have this place. We would leave you alone.”

  “Let you ‘have’ Merlin College? Dear, that is not realistic. Why do you think we could give up such a sacred place without a fight? You are children under the bad influence of deviants. But they’re all gone now. I just got word that Ignatius has been killed.”

  “Ignatius…” Ignatius too? Was I going to lose every single person who supported me?

  “It’s not a sad ending for him or her,” Catherine said. “The friends are together in the afterlife. It’s sweet. But I wouldn’t like to see your friends follow them, so young…”

  “My grandmother was right,” I said. “I couldn’t believe that a member of our own family could truly be heartless, but you killed Firian. I bet you would have applauded if my grandfathers died, too, and if your sister Sally was forced home to be a good little witch. You pretend to care and you don’t know what caring really is. What a family is really like. I don’t know the faeries and you’re right, they might be a bad alliance, but at least my magic is no longer tied to the council. This is what my family was working toward, and I intend to see it through.”

  “A lot of good that will do you, tying your magic to such a strange place as the faery realm.”

  I spread my arms.

  I felt ready now. If Firian was dead, if everything was on the brink of being torn from me, I had nothing to lose. My despair brought a certain calm, in the moment. I was going to give this everything I had in me.

  Maybe I would die. Maybe that was okay. Firian looked so peaceful.

  “Blood and bone, spirits without home…the hour calls for your unrest, the hour for our greatest test…I summon you to stir and fight, to follow me and make things right…”

  I really did like rhyming my spells. Even Harris teased me about it. It’s my party and I’ll rhyme if I want to.

  It would have been really awesome if Catherine just stood still and let me summon some ghosts, but nooo, she had to run toward me, wave her wand around, and knock me to the ground, where tree roots lifted up from the cold earth and tried to encircle my hands. I had to play some defense, battling with the trees. Luckily I was coursing with adrenaline. After all the bad stuff that had happened, I felt like a living cup of espresso, just trying to survive the next hour or so. I got back on my feet and repeated my spell again, while keeping my eyes focused on her.

  This was the lesson Stuart kept trying to teach me. To live in the moment enough that I didn’t have to live in grief. I could keep fighting.

  “Fares wyrd as she must…”

  I felt all of the energy around me coming alive. All my training kicked in, all the hours I spent with Firian telling me I had to stay focused. The hours of meditating and practicing different kinds of spell and getting in tune with different energies. I felt it all working for me now. I had become stronger than I ever realized. Even now, when I was all alone, I could still put up a fight against a witch from the council.

  Ghosts started to materialize in a circle of protection around me, keeping Catherine from hurting me.

  What do you want us to do?

  Shall we kill her?

  Some of the spirits whispered to me, not quite friendly.

  “No…” I couldn’t go that far. “I want her to be trapped. Subdued. Powerless.”

  Catherine whistled. Familiars came flying and running in to help her.

  “I need you to contain Charlotte,” she said. “She’s beyond reason. Another woman in my family will be lost to sense and spend her life in the Haven.”

  The familiars and ghosts started battling each other, which was just strange, like seeing a movie with a major special effects budget playing out around me. I kinda wished my dad could see this. Even as I was trying to hold on to my sense of calm and power, I couldn’t help but appreciate how cool it looked. The ghosts came in different forms, some wispy and some more like translucent humans. Some of them passed through the familiars, leaving them stunned, while others turned partly solid to attack.

  The familiars, of course, could shift easily back and forth. Spells of different colors flew through the air, rustling leaves and scorching tree trunks.

  I tried to join in, but a wall of ghosts still held me back. “Please, I need to help,” I said. I wasn’t sure if my side was winning.

  “You are the Wyrd Witch…you are the link. You must live to see the alliance through,” one of the ghosts whispered in my ear before flitting away again.

  I must live.

  I never would have guessed that those words would upset me, but right now I was so afraid. Stuart’s warnings were coming true. I might lose the people I loved and be left alone in this world to finish what I started. What was the point of any of this, then?

  Father Early appeared before me with this cool rippling effect. “Are you all right, Miss Byrne? Don’t you cry, now, after all this. Look what you’ve accomplished. You actually managed to make the alliance that we’ve been working on for a century, and more. Every witch with a Wyrd wand will be able to come home.”

  Come home? I had never thought of Wyrd as a home. But I guess so much of me was still a human. I didn’t feel a life or death attachment to Etherium or Sinistral or the other realms. I didn’t particularly care about the fight to capture magical territory. I just loved magic, and I used to think it was a dream that only existed in fairy tales and video games. Now it was real, and it was mine, but just like anything else, it wasn’t any good to me if I didn’t have someone to share it with.

  “I don’t want to be alone…Firian…”

  “Do you think you’re really alone? Is there nothing left when we pass on?”

  I slipped a hand to my stomach, almost without thinking. What if I was pregnant? “But if he’s not here with me, to play computer games with me and banter and laugh…if his kid never gets to know him… I can’t bear that. It’s like, the council wanted to erase him as a person. And they won.”

  “They didn’t win,” Father Early said. “They can’t take love from you.”

  Suddenly, a knife flew into me, sinking into my stomach.

  The snake man had thrown another blade that had made it right past the ghosts protecting me and into my skin.

  Blood was pouring out of me, onto my hands. I felt no pain at all, nothing. I guess I was in shock. It’s over, I thought. I’m going to die. I’ll lose the baby.

  “While she’s dazed,” Catherine said. “Get her tied up.”

  I fell back, sitting hard on the leaves. There was nothing more I could really do, I thought. The familiar army had the ghosts outnumbered. My elemental powers would never beat a council member. The other magic I had learned seemed like nonsense in a life or death situation.

  Hold on, Charlotte.

  I thought I heard Stuart’s voice.

  At the same time, two men grabbed me and hauled me to my feet, dragging me toward Catherine. “Charlotte…” She actually had the audacity to be in tears. “You have put the Ethereal Council of Witches in danger, attacked the Haven, tried to stage a coup at your own college, for heaven’s sake, and you might even be pregnant by your own familiar. Any other witch would be executed for this, but I will stand up for you in front of the council to live out your days. If Ina makes it out of this, you’ll be together in the Haven. It’s all I can do.”

  She put her hand on the knife and yanked it out of me, blood everywhere, a sudden burst of pain. “You can never have his child,” she said. “Or any child. The Caruthers line…dies with me. And Wyrd goes back to the shadows.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Charlotte

  I felt the air change around me even as she spoke.

  The ghosts from the Haven arrived.

  A mom
ent too late.

  The men gripped me more tightly, trying to keep ahold of me against the coming onslaught.

  What does an army of the dead sound like? Not like thundering footsteps, but like a strong wind rushing in on the mountain top. The temperature dropped, chasing away the hint of spring in the air. And whispers swirled around us, invisible spirits leading the charge, whirling Catherine’s hair and skirt around her.

  “Take her to Etherium—now,” Catherine said.

  “No…!” Father Early flew toward me and took one of my hands. I felt another hand take my right hand and I felt that Stuart was with me too. They were giving me an anchor to this world so the familiars couldn’t drag me away.

  Okay, then. I felt their spirits grip me. I thought of all the wizards who had fought before me. Just when it seemed impossible, I still had some fight left. “I draw strength from the earth, I know what I’m worth, your hands cannot touch me, your magic cannot claim me!”

  I knocked the men back and ran for one of the tree trunks, leaning against it heavily while I put my hand over the blood on my shirt.

  “Charlotte!”

  “Montague!?”

  “I finally found you!” Montague came vaulting over logs and bushes to get to me as fast as possible. His jacket was torn in several places and he had leaves in his hair and I’d never been so happy to see him.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t get too close—I’m bleeding,” I said.

  He looked at the wound and his brow furrowed. “I don’t smell anything.” He placed a hand on my stomach. “Blood should be hot and sticky. Charlotte, this is an illusion.”

  “An illusion?”

  Oh my god.

  Witches studied illusion magic in depth. Warlocks only learned the basics. Catherine conjured up an entire fake office complete with a chair when we met at Merlin College last year. But I hadn’t considered this too much, because I only learned enough illusion to like, cover up zits. I thought illusion magic was kind of superficial.