by Lily Velez
There was an immense emptiness inside me, my magic no more than wisps, like the smoke from a snuffed out candle. I was dizzy and spent, more than I’d ever been in my life. But I kept my hands on Jack’s chest and reached into his soul the way I’d reached deep into the earth. I was a huntress in the vast wilderness of his being, searching for any last embers of his magic.
Come on, come on, come on…
A spark! I hurried to kindle it, gently stoking its flames before it died out.
Jack, it’s me, I whispered to him. Take my hand. It’s not your time yet.
The spark trembled in the darkness, but I cupped my hands around it and poured an overflow of love into it. Then I remembered something. At Iveagh Gardens, Jack had said I’d somehow pushed a memory to him. I pushed a flood of them to him now. I reminded him of his mother, waiting at Serenity Falls, who’d still need him in the days ahead. I reminded him of his brothers. He thought they were better off without him, without his curse hanging over their heads, but he was wrong. He was their foundation, the sun around which they orbited. I sent him the happy memories from Alison’s mind too, his family celebrating Redmond’s birthday in a yellow-tiled kitchen filled with love, and I sent him the images I’d seen from Maurice’s life, of Jack and his grandfather growing closer over the years as they talked magic and myths.
And I sent him a memory of the two of us as well, hands clasped tight before a garden fountain, his magic awakening mine from its dormancy. He had promised to help me nurture my powers. I didn’t want to do it without him.
Please come back to us, to me. We still need you, Jack…
I pushed all of this into his consciousness, holding on to every bit of faith that someone still remained on the other end to receive it. But it was as if I were only delivering missives into a great unknown, every memory seemingly swallowed by the black hole that had replaced Jack’s essence. It was cold in the absence of his being, and that spark of magic started to die out. I sent the last glowing coals of my own magic to it, urging it to waken, to ignite.
Jack, please come back…
Nothing but silence answered.
But then—a cough!
My eyes flew open just as Jack coughed a second time. He rolled over onto his side and coughed more. Then his eyes focused on me.
“You called me from out of the darkness,” he said, his tone filled with awe.
I threw my arms around his neck in a tight embrace. He curled an arm around me, and I closed my eyes, tears striping my face. It had gone still and quiet all around us, the torch fires now nothing but smoke, the earth no longer trembling, the menhirs and cauldron all in ruins. The tree from the Otherworld stood broken and lifeless, entities no longer escaping from its depths.
But the sky was a brilliant display of dazzling light, covered by what had to be a thousand stars. Stars that now swam in an ocean flooded with the spirits of the damned.
48
The storm cleared. The lightning, the thunder, the tumultuous winds—they were all gone. The earth shuddered once and then slowly stitched itself back together, each of us grabbing hold of each other lest we fall through one of the crevices in the ground. As the leaves in the neighboring trees settled, the broken menhir fragments and the tree from the Otherworld flickered with magic. A second later, they dissolved into nothing, leaving the summit as we’d first found it, the remaining untouched standing stones sinking back into the earth.
For a moment, all we could do was stare at each other, catching our breath, taking inventory of our injuries. We were all battered and bruised, covered in blood and dirt and painted in the ethereal glow of the full moon, its pale face like a pearl stuck in the sky.
It was Lucas who spoke first. “Well that was a bloody nightmare.” He pressed a hand to his head and grimaced, as if weathering a migraine. I was hesitant about him being unbound, but the glints of red had faded from his eyes. As far as I could tell, he was back to being the Lucas I knew. I could only hope it stayed that way.
“Hello, lads.”
We all startled at the sudden intrusion of a new voice. I spun around, ready to attack, my hand flying to the pocket into which I’d tucked the Hallowstone. The person standing before us, though, wasn’t the slightest bit intimidating. He also wasn’t entirely corporeal.
Maurice.
I recognized him at once from the oil painting at Crowmarsh. The dignified air about him was unmistakable. He was taller than his grandsons and wiry thin, and he wore a tasteful three-piece suit. He called to mind a distinguished, early nineteenth-century gentleman. Except he was made of a translucent, blue light, his spirit shimmering brightly.
“Grandda,” Jack whispered.
The lines at the corners of Maurice’s eyes crinkled as he smiled at his grandson. There was so much warmth in that smile, so much love. “Thank you, Jack,” the man said. “Because of you, I may now enter the rest that awaits me in the Land of Youth.”
“I didn’t do it on my own,” Jack said. “Connor, Lucas, and Rory were with me every step of the way. And we had the help of friends both old and new.” His eyes found me. In that brief moment, they weren’t haunted. There was nothing but the utmost thankfulness in them. It made my heart feel double its size.
“Aye, that you did,” Maurice said. As the Daughters of Brigid had done, he bowed his head to me, half in gratitude and half in respect. I didn’t think I’d ever get accustomed to such shows of reverence, but I nodded back, paying my own thanks. Maurice had played such a significant role in Jack’s life, and I was grateful for that.
A gentle pillar of light descended from the night skies then, soft and luminous. Maurice regarded it with a bittersweet smile. “The time has come.”
“Grandda, wait. Surely there’s a way for you to stay. This isn’t supposed to be how it ends.”
“I don’t fear death, Jack. I don’t wish to leave you, but we must all take this journey at some point. And though I had hoped my own journey would yet be far off, the gods have deemed it otherwise. So I step forward to make my last pilgrimage, thankful for the life I leave behind and for the love I now take with me.”
“What about the curse?” Connor asked. “You were going to help Jack break it.”
Maurice nodded. “It’s the reason I’ve come to you now. I was permitted this final audience to convey a message to you and present you with a gift. The Lost Clan is the key, Jack. My last night on this earth, I discovered a story in a text I’d borrowed from The Council’s vast library. It indicated that long ago, The Lost Clan had broken such a curse once. It could be no more than a myth, but I don’t believe it is. As you well know, after all, there is truth in all the legends.”
“But I thought no one’s heard from The Lost Clan in ages,” I said.
“Leading most to assume they were lost to persecution,” Maurice replied. “And yet your very existence may prove otherwise.”
I came up short at that. In the back of my mind, I’d always known that if Jack was right about me hailing from The Lost Clan (which seemed to be likely since I couldn’t read any other clan’s grimoires in the library Zoe had led us to), then it meant there was still a line of descent in existence. I'd just imagined it to be a very limited bloodline, especially since no one had come forward laying claim to The Lost Clan in decades. What other conclusion could be drawn except that my dad and I were the last ones?
“Find The Lost Clan,” Maurice said. “And you will discover how it is they broke the curse.” He extended a hand to Seamus’s altar, and in a shimmer of magic, an ancient book appeared upon its surface. The text Maurice had spoken of. His parting gift, courtesy of the gods. “My hope is it leads you to the answers you need.”
The beacon of light beside him brightened and pulsed. Maurice looked at each of his grandsons in turn for a long moment, and I could see the pain in his eyes, the regret that his time with them had been cut short. As he stood there, his spirit slowly began to dissolve in a passing breeze, carrying him into the light.
“I go now to jo
in our kinsmen,” he said, his face as radiant as the sun. “And we will prepare a place for you in the Land of Youth, my grandsons. One day, you will join us there. But not yet, lads. Not yet.”
And we watched as the breeze gently caressed him and carried him upward, finally taking him home.
“What are we going to do with this one?” Zoe asked, nudging Seamus with the toe of her boot.
Seamus laid on his side, cradling an arm. It was bent at an unnatural angle, an injury most likely acquired when Connor had flung him across the summit in a blast of air. The man’s face was contorted with both fury and despair. I almost felt bad for him, remembering he’d only wished to be reunited with his wife and daughter. But his glare was filled with fire, as if he wished to skewer us alive.
“You’ve all made a terrible mistake tonight,” he pushed out through gritted teeth. “You’ve let the hunters win. You’ve passed on great power that was ours for the taking. When witch-kind is eventually decimated by its enemies, the blood will be on your hands. You’ll be—”
Zoe flicked her hand, and Seamus’s lips sealed shut. He groaned against the invisible restraint, struggling to part his lips, but the magic wouldn’t allow it. His glare became all the more heated.
“He needs to answer for his crimes against witch-kind,” Zoe said. “In the coming days, after we’ve all had time to grieve our dead, each clan will designate a new Elder to sit on The Council.”
“They’ll condemn him to die,” Jack said. “There won’t even be a trial. The clans will demand his blood.”
Zoe arched a perfect eyebrow. “And?”
“I’m with her on this,” Connor said. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s nothing to us anymore. He lost the privilege of calling us family the moment he cursed our mother. And killing Maurice in cold blood? He doesn’t deserve your mercy, Jack. Why are you so bent on giving it?”
“What he did—it wasn’t Seamus. Not truly. The dark magic corrupted him, but if we could help him find his way back to himself, there might still be hope. We can take him to Crowmarsh. We can place him under house arrest.”
“Are you mad?” Zoe asked. “Absolutely not. I wouldn’t trust the situation even if The Council were to strip his powers away. Who knows what creatures from Underneath are still bound to him, still ready to do his bidding? He deserves death for what he’s done.”
“And if we served him such a sentence,” Jack said, “how would that make us the better witches? At what point does the bloodshed end?”
Connor dragged a hand down his face, muttering curses. “This is hardly the time to be a bloody pacifist, Jack.”
“And if it was my fate you were deciding? Would you so quickly rush to the chopping block then?”
“It’s not you.”
“But if it was, Connor? If I were the one who’d gone dark, and you had to decide between sparing me and dragging me before a jury that would surely demand my death, would you so easily forget who I’d once been to you?”
Connor met his eyes, a fierceness in his expression. “Never,” he said. “But you haven’t gone dark.”
Jack shook his head sadly. “I was dark the moment I was born with this mark.” The words silenced us, sucking away any response in a dizzying vacuum. My eyes dropped to the brand on Jack’s wrist. The identical copy Seamus had carved into the ground was no longer aflame, but it would be forever imprinted in my mind. My questions about Jack and the dark magic raced to the forefront. I wanted to know—no, I needed to know—what it all meant.
“What about The Citadel?” Jack asked Zoe, bringing us all back to the more urgent subject at hand. “Since it’s located Elsewhere, no demons would be able to reach Seamus. And the prison’s bound by magic, so his powers will be useless there, meaning we won’t have to wait for a new Council to form to strip him of his magic.”
Zoe scoffed and crossed her arms. Despite the cuts and bruises, not to mention the twigs and leaves in her hair, she still looked like an enemy’s worst nightmare. The silver studs on her gloves glistened in the moonlight. “The Citadel won’t protect him from those who want retribution. Besides, no one’s sentenced there without first standing before The Elders.”
“Not necessarily. You have connections in The Citadel, don’t you? You could easily bring Seamus in under the radar and put him in isolation. No one would be the wiser.”
“You’ve completely lost it, haven’t you?”
Jack sighed. “Zoe, please. We’re the only ones who know the sluagh were working for a Reaper, and we’re the only ones who know the identity of that Reaper. For the time being, I need that information to stay with us. I need the chance to get through to Seamus before we have to lose yet another family member.”
Zoe worked her jaw, clearly not a fan of the idea. She looked from Seamus to Connor and then back to Jack, a barrage of thoughts flying across her dark eyes. She tipped her chin up, her face as hard as stone. “I take him to The Citadel now. If you’re able to salvage whatever humanity you think is left in him, we can discuss our next steps then. If you fail, and he has no interest in giving up dark magic, then The Citadel will be his home until the day he dies. I won’t endanger any more of our kin. Family or not, right now, he’s a threat to all of us, and that’s the best I can do.”
Jack took a long, hard look at Seamus. If the man felt any concern for his fate, he certainly didn’t show it. He only glared at the ground, Zoe’s magic still muzzling his lips. Finally, Jack let out a long breath and nodded. “Take him.”
49
The hospital had that same antiseptic smell all hospitals did, the one I’d become overly familiar with this year. I strode through the freezing corridors flanked by the Connellys, humming vending machines on either side of me as I took stock of the ascending room numbers. Before we’d even left Uisneach, one of my dad’s nurses had called me at Lucas’s number, which I’d provided during my last call, with the news I’d feared I’d never hear: my dad had awakened. He had finally, finally awakened.
Halloween decorations overran the hospital, smiling paper Jack-O-Lanterns taped to the walls amidst stretchy, cotton spider webs. There were nurses everywhere. They bustled to and fro in their squeaky shoes, armed with clipboards and outfitted in colorful scrubs that featured skeletons, black cats, or ghosts. It was nearly four in the morning, but I wasn’t surprised by the commotion. Hospitals knew no sleep.
“Can I help you?” a stout woman asked as we passed a nurses station. She adjusted her glasses, appraising us more thoroughly. She was probably trying to decide whether our haggard appearances were a part of our costumes for the day, a sort of zombie chic perhaps. Fortunately, I’d cleaned the blood from my face on the ride here. The others had done the same.
“That’s all right,” I answered. “We know the way.” Had it really been just days ago that I was here? My nerves were a jumble of tangled wires as I finally came upon my dad’s room. Heart pounding, I rushed the rest of the way and gently pushed open the door.
My dad was sitting up in bed, thin and weary. My lungs tightened at the sight, and I closed the distance separating us between one breath and the next. His hair and beard were a lot grayer than when I’d last seen him. There were a few more lines on his pale face as well. But he was alive. He was so blessedly alive.
“Scarlet?” His voice sounded more like a croak.
“Hey, dad,” I said, my voice cracking slightly. I gripped the bed rail and swallowed the painful lump in my throat as I willed the tears in my eyes not to fall.
I’d been in this very position months ago. I hadn’t been able to save that parent. But this time had been different. The powers that be were giving me a second chance with my dad, and I didn’t intend on wasting it.
Colors flashed against his face and against the wall over his bed. I looked across the room. The TV was on, though muted, and a world news anchor relayed details about a bombing in what looked to be Eastern Europe. Footage played of a crumbling building and throngs of terrified people barreling for safe
ty. Knowing my dad wasn’t fond of televised news, a nurse had to have turned the TV on for him, perhaps forgetting to set the remote within his reach. I scanned the immediate area and found it on his nightstand, on the other side of a water pitcher. I quickly snatched it up and powered the broadcast off. The last thing he needed was to be barraged with more stress.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. My focus strayed to the heart monitor beside his bed with its mountain peaks in primary colors, each one measuring a different aspect of his health. Everything looked normal as far as I could tell.
He frowned. “Ask me again in a week.” He looked past me. “Scarlet, why are the Connelly boys standing in the doorway?”
I turned. Sure enough, all four of them watched on from the threshold, as if they were each personally invested in my dad’s recuperation. I couldn’t help but smile a little, feeling just as connected to them in that moment as I had when we’d cast the circle to invoke Brigid. I returned my attention to my dad. “It’s a long story,” I said. “Do you remember anything about how you ended up here?”
“I’ve tried to, but it’s all a blank. The last thing I recall is grading papers in my office. After that, my memory blacks out. How long have I been here? Do the doctors know what might’ve happened?”
My heart skipped a beat. I exchanged a look with Jack, who seemed just as surprised. He remembered absolutely nothing? Not the sluagh, not his time inside the menhir, not even the ritual and finding his way back? I supposed it wasn’t exactly the worst news. Maybe it was better he didn’t remember a thing.
“You haven’t been here too long,” I said, not wanting to agitate him. I rested a hand upon his arm. His skin was cold. I reached for the bed cover, pulling it up to his chest. “You should rest for the time being. On the phone, the nurse had said they might be able to discharge you before the week’s out if you continue to do well. Then you can finally come home.”