Witch's Blade

by Jenna Wolfhart

  The Magister’s chest heaved as he took in a deep, satisfied breath, his lips turning up into a smug smile. Something about his expression sent a shock of warning through me, but I brushed it aside. Of course he was going to look like the cat that just ate the canary. Despite the fact we were calling it a truce, he’d won. He’d forced the sun mages to do what he wanted, and he’d ended up with access to a weapon that would undeniably beat the demons.

  “This was the right decision,” Magister Salvatore said with a smile. “I’m glad we were able to come to an understanding. Now, all we need is for you to hand over the weapon, and we’ll get this pesky little wall out of your way.”

  “The blade is stored—and protected—inside a magically-sealed room,” Elder Sarah began. “We can lead you there, just as soon as you lower the wall.”

  Magister Salvatore twisted to say something to the Enforcers just behind him, words that were spoken too softly for me to hear, before turning back to the Elders. “To demonstrate your commitment to this new partnership, why not fetch it and bring it to me? That way, we can each uphold our end of the bargain simultaneously.”

  “That just isn’t possible,” the Elder said, his voice going tight even though is face remained as cool and as composed as always. “All Elders must be present in order to unlock the door, and I would struggle to carry it myself all the way from the building down to here. It’s at least a mile, and the weapon does not like being handled by anyone who isn’t a shadow mage.”

  “This is becoming tedious,” Magister Salvatore said. “Do you mean to tell me that the Witch’s Blade is stuck in that room unless all of you are there?”

  “It’s our fail-safe way of ensuring that the weapon doesn’t fall into the wrong hands,” he said. “This way, we can pass the blade along to Zoe directly. At no point will we have to worry that you’ll keep it for yourself.”

  The Magister’s face broke into a scowl, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Things were starting to go wrong here. Very wrong, if the Intuition slithering through me was any indication. The Elders words had pissed off the Magister, and it had brought to light an issue with the truce. From the look on his face, the Magister didn’t want the blade handed directly to me. He wanted it for himself, which meant that he might not be planning to uphold his end of the deal after all.

  But that was crazy. This entire deal had been his idea in the first place…or had it? I tried to think back to our conversation. I’d convinced him Dorian and I could negotiate some kind of truce. He’d been the one who had mentioned the Witch’s Blade and his willingness to give up the siege if they handed it over.

  So, he’d gotten what he’d wanted. There’d be no reason for him to turn his back on his word now.

  That said, even though it was logical, the back of my neck still prickled with alarm. Something wasn’t right here. I turned toward the Elders. They’d been confrontational during this entire exchange. They’d been pretty much forced into this situation, and they were certainly doing their best to stall the transfer. Maybe they didn’t plan on giving me the weapon. All of this could just be some way to trick the Magister into lowering the wall.

  “Are you going to give me the blade now?” I asked. “Because earlier you said you couldn’t open the blade room without all of the Elders present.”

  “That’s right. We can’t.” A few of the Elders exchanged looks. “The fail-safe requires that we’re all present anytime we need to unlock the door.”

  The Magister flicked his fingers, and the shimmering wall separating us from them immediately vanished into a bright puff of orange smoke. He stepped through to the Sun Coven side and cocked his head as he scanned the Elders standing before him.

  “And yet, if I’m counting correctly, not all of you are present here now.” Magister ticked off his fingers. “I know you make it your business to know what’s happening in my coven? Well, I do the same to you. There are seven Elders. Not five. So, where are the other two?”

  “They’ll be returning to us any day now,” Elder Arthur said without meeting the Magister’s eyes.

  Tension crackled through the air as the Bone Coven leader tipped back his head and laughed. “Any day now? You must think this is all a big joke if you believe you can agree to a truce without handing anything over for an unspecified number of days.”

  Shifting on my feet, I glanced at Dorian. His face was as stony as my heart felt. This was going terribly wrong. The Sun Coven had not only insulted the Magister, but they had possibly set us all up. Now, the siege wall was down, and the Bone Coven had nothing in return. I had a feeling our Magister wouldn’t take this sitting down.

  “We have given you our word which is far more valuable than your own. When we make promises, we keep them,” the Elder said with a dangerous glint in his eye. “We will give Zoe the blade when our Elders return. Until then—”

  “If there are two more Elders in the first place,” Magister Salvatore cut in. At the widening of Elder Arthur’s eyes, the Magister merely smile. “It would be a good trick. Make us think there are more of you, tell us you need seven when you only need five. It would keep us hanging on indefinitely when you could have accessed the room the entire time.”

  The Magister stepped in close and pressed his blade against Elder Arthur’s neck. A shout got lodged in my throat as I rushed toward the confrontation. The Bone Coven Enforcers shuffled to their left, blocking me before I could do a thing. Their bodies were practically brick walls, and all I could see were the tops of the leaders’ heads.

  “You will take me to the blade room. Now.” His voice was as hard as steel, and his eyes were as dark as the night sky. “And you will open that door so that I can take the weapon myself.”

  “Take the weapon yourself? But what about—”

  “Hush,” he said with a hiss as he turned his devilish gaze onto me. “This elaborate scheme was probably your idea because if that blade room ever did get unlocked, the weapon would go straight to you. Nice try, Zoe Bennett, but you’re not the first shadow mage I’ve tangoed with, and I know how you think. Cuff her,” he said in a shout to his Enforcers. “The Unbound, too.”

  “What do you want us to do with the Elders?” his Enforcer asked as they twisted my hands around my back. With a grunt, I tried to stomp down on his foot, but he jogged out of the way as if we were in the middle of a well-rehearsed dance. And we were. I’d trained with this guy, as well as the other five Enforcers with the Magister, practicing their moves several hundred times. They knew the routine even better than I did, and nothing they’d taught me could catch them off guard.

  The Magister’s gaze lingered on the cluster of older mages. “As long as they’re alive, that room will remain locked. Kill them. And then burn the bodies.”

  Chapter 30

  My jail cell was one of the Sun Coven’s underground bunkers, though a single sunlight overhead filtered through the bright beams of the midday sun. When we were first captured, I’d heard the Magister discuss the idea of throwing me into darkness, but then he agreed that it might not be best to give me access to shadows. And he’d be right. As long as the siege wall was down, I could travel the hell out of here anytime I wanted.

  Just as soon as I found some darkness.

  The Magister hovered just on the other side of the door. I could hear his wheezy breaths as he stood motionless, listening and waiting, as if he expected me to do something other than sit here bored out of my mind.

  “You going to say something?” I called out, my voice echoing in the empty steel space. “Or are you just going to stand there being creepy as fuck?”

  “We didn’t want it to come to this, Zoe,” he finally said. “If you’d stayed out of things and cooperated, we wouldn’t have been forced to put you in this position.”

  “But eventually, I would have ended up just like this, am I right?” I raised my eyebrows, even though he couldn’t see my expression through the door. “You always planned to use me as the mage behind the blad
e.”

  “I have to admit, I’d been hoping you would have been a tad more agreeable about the entire situation,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Though I realize now how naive that was of me. You’ve never done things the easy way, Zoe. Why would you start now?”

  “What you mean to say is that I don’t blindly follow whatever it is you say,” I said, leaning against the door and crossing my arms. “Questioning your motives and your tactics, not a trait you find very attractive in your soldiers.”

  “Most leaders want their soldiers to follow orders,” he said. “That’s part of the job.”

  “Well, then I guess I’m going to have to find another job, aren’t I?”

  A soft laugh filtered through the thick door, a sound that sent a storm of goosebumps across my skin. “You won’t be finding another job, Zoe. You’ll be sticking around for as long as we need you. And there’s no telling how long that might be. More than just a few days. Months, maybe. Hell, this war could end up taking years.”

  “Years?” I narrowed my eyes. “Why the hell would it end up taking years?”

  “You tell me, Zoe Bennett.” His voice drifted away as his footsteps echoed on the steel floor. “Enjoy your solitary confinement. I hope it gives you a newfound perspective on things. See you…in awhile.”

  Down the hallway, the Magister shut the door behind him, a sound that echoed in the quiet space. Suddenly, I was very much alone with nothing but the bright sunlight streaming through the overhead window. All around me, the place was lit up like a star. Bright fluorescent bulbs were glued to each ceiling and wall. While the sun mages had no doubt used this as a source of power, it was like hell for a mage like me. Without a shadow or a blade, I had zero access to my magic.

  Days passed without any relief. I spent my time with my ear to the wall, listening for any sign of Dorian or the Elders. I had no idea if they’d captured them as well. And if they had, there was no guarantee they’d be in the same building. The only sign of life was the drop-off of a food tray every morning and every night. A plate of bread, cheese, and milk. Nothing more and nothing less.

  After four days of this, I was ready to hurl the milk at the wall.

  I didn’t have a lot of patience for this bullshit. They couldn’t just keep me locked up in here until the day they decided they wanted me to stab a demon.

  On the fifth day, the Magister returned to my cell, accompanied by his two bodyguard Enforcers. He slid inside the room and settled down into the metal chair. He motioned for me to sit, so I perched on the edge of the cot, my body tense and ready to fight at a moment’s notice.

  “Before we begin, I must tell you that there’s no use in trying to fight,” the Magister said in a smooth as silk voice. “If you manage to take out both me and my bodyguards, you’ll make it as far as the next door down the hall. It’s locked and monitored by a video system. No one will let you out, and no one will come in. They’re under strict orders.”

  “They would come in if they thought their Magister was in trouble,” I said, lifting my chin. A veiled threat, one that didn’t go unnoticed by any of the men standing before me.

  “I made sure to put some real soldiers outside those doors. They aren’t like you. These good mages do as they’re told.”

  “Good for them,” I said with an icy smile. “Perhaps you should just try building yourself some robots next time you want to add some Enforcers to the team. You’d probably appreciate a heap of iron and wires far more than you’d appreciate an actual living person with independent thoughts and emotions.”

  “Instead of going to all that trouble, I could just use a control spell, yes?” He tapped his chin and leaned forward onto his knees, his beady little eyes boring holes into my skin. “Then, I could have all the obedient Enforcers that I need, including you.”

  “Nice try,” I said. “As ignorant of the supernatural world as you think I am, I do know which spells are illegal.”

  “It’s illegal because an old Magister declared it so, way back in the 1700s. All it would take would be a single word from me, and manipulation and control would be legal once again,” he said. “That’s the benefit of being in command. If I want something to be legal, then it’s legal. Simple as that.”

  I stared hard at Magister Salvatore, barely believing my ears. Could this really be the same mage who tried to save the coven from Magister Dupont? The one who had rushed headfirst into danger. He’d never been perfect, but he’d turned out to be a hell of a lot better than what had come before. And it was impossible to believe he’d turn his back on one of the core principles of magic.

  We couldn’t kill. We couldn’t torture. And we couldn’t control.

  “You wouldn’t.” I shook my head. “I don’t believe it. As shitty as this entire thing is, you wouldn’t turn your back on our laws. If you were going to, you’ve already had a hell of a lot of opportunities to control me and all the Elders here.”

  “Well, I suppose you have a few options.” He smiled. “You can call the bluff—if that’s what it is—and refuse to answer our call when we need a demon destroyed. Or you can cooperate.”

  “And you’re just going to keep me down here until you want a demon killed,” I said slowly.

  “I’d prefer to move you back to Boston,” he said. “We have a room in headquarters with your name on it, but our team is working to ensure that it’s secure. Don’t want any pesky shadows helping you escape. With the way you returned to Boston with Dorian, we know that you’ve mastered some sort of travel spell and all it takes is a few shadows.”

  “Why are you here?” I asked, deciding the less I inform Magister Salvatore about my powers, the better. “Did you think it would be fun to come down here and taunt me? A little bored with your usual council work?”

  “We need some information,” he said, reaching into his rucksack. “And you’re going to give it to us.”

  It was hard not to laugh in his face. That was pretty rich coming from him. After everything he’d done—not only to me but to the sun mages and to my friends—he had a lot of guts coming down here and expecting me to help. I was his prisoner, for fuck’s sake. A little robot toy to be taken out every now and again whenever he deemed me useful. If he wanted my help, he’d have to do a lot better than this.

  He pulled a blank page from his bag. A page I very much recognized. It was the one from Wagner’s collection, the one I’d been trying to interpret by the light of the blade. Somehow, Magister Salvatore had gotten his meaty little paws on it, and I rose from my perch on the bed.

  “I see you recognize this,” he said, pushing the paper back into the bag. “Care to tell me what it is?”

  “It’s a blank sheet of paper,” I said. “Why do you have it?”

  “I found it when we were searching the sun mage headquarters,” Salvatore said. “It was in a bag among your things. I didn’t think much of it until I noticed the mark on the corner. It signals the Witch’s Blade, does it not? Which led me to the idea that this might be one of those papers that can only be read by its light.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “I don’t know anything about secret ink or a witch’s blade. Really, that thing just looks like a blank paper to me.”

  “Then, you won’t mind if I burn it,” Magister Salvatore said as he nodded toward one of his bodyguards. As if on command, the Enforcer produced a ball of flaming light in his palm. He angled it toward the corner of the paper, the flickering flames only inches from the parchment. It would only take a moment for the entire sheet to disappear into a puff of acrid smoke, ashes sprinkling onto the cold steel floor.

  “If it really is what you think it is, then maybe it’s not such a good idea to burn it,” I said, doing my best to think on my feet. “Did you try testing it?”

  “I can’t get into the blade room,” Magister Salvatore said quietly. “It turns out that the Elders weren’t lying after all. Every single living one must be present in order to op
en the door. We’re waiting for them to return, and then we’ll be on our way. Once we have the blade, of course. And once we can read the writing on this sheet.”

  I curled my hands into fists and fought against the rage that boiled in my stomach. “So, you killed all those innocent mages for what? Nothing?”

  “They were far from innocent, Zoe, but I don’t expect you to understand.” He shook his head. “You always have been slow with the political side of our world.”

  “You can blame it on politics all you want, but that doesn’t change the truth.” Pressing up against the side of the bars, I stared out at him, my anger seething out through my teeth. “You’re a murderer. You don’t deserve to be at the head of a coven any more than I do. And soon enough, the entire supernatural world will find that out. Then, we’ll see who ends up stuck behind bars for the rest of his miserable, goddess-forsaken life.”

  “Luckily for me—and unfortunately for you—you’ll never be free to tell your side of the tale.” He gave me a vicious smile that reminded me of the Nosferatu back in Scotland. “And the second you try anything at all, just remember I know where your grandmother lives. She might be feeling better now, but it wouldn’t take much to tip her back over the edge.” His smile widened even more. “Enjoy your evening.”

  I narrowed my eyes as he walked away, my magic coiling tight inside my body.

  “You better watch your fucking back,” I muttered after him. Because no one—and I do mean no one—gets away with threatening my grandma.

  Chapter 31

  I wasn’t sure if another day passed or two, but the Magister had clearly gotten distracted from the idea of torturing me to get what he wanted. Time seemed to tick by in exaggerated slow motion, and the only way I was able to tell the difference between day and night was by the location of the sun in the sky.