Karma knelt next to me, glowing from behind the inner sanctum of her lilac force field. “Fight it, Gwenlyn,” she whispered. “This isn’t you. You’re one of us. Adrienne doesn’t own you. Fight it.”
I let loose a feral snarl. It was a foreign sound, one that I never would have made outside of Adrienne’s hold on me. Karma scrambled backward as I wrenched my feet free of the ground and stood up. I towered over her, raising a hand full of black magic.
“Gwenlyn, no!”
Morgan appeared out of nowhere to plant herself between me and Karma. A bright blue force field exploded into existence, rebounding the hex I had aimed at Karma. I ducked to avoid it, but Morgan caught me off guard. Her arm swung around and up to catch me at the throat. My airway spasmed, and my defense faltered as I doubled over, coughing.
“I’m sorry,” she huffed.
Adrienne stepped between me and Morgan. Her fur coat was splattered with blood, but it was unclear as to which member of the coven had met her wrath. She lifted her head, easily flicking away an offensive spell from Karma, to address the coven leader.
“Morgan Summers,” she said, her voice booming across the makeshift battlefield. “Do not lead your coven to its death.”
“Go to hell,” Morgan spat, her fury evident even through her shimmering shield.
Adrienne stood taller, her black aura ebbing and flowing like an army of electric eels around her. “Where are my daughter and stepdaughter?”
It was only then I noticed that both McGrath siblings were missing from the Summerses’ side of the equation. It was not what I had expected. Without them, Morgan gave up any chance of the coven surviving. If Nora and Kennedy weren’t here, she had basically forfeited the match to Adrienne.
Morgan rolled her shoulders back, defiantly assuming a posture that made her look taller than she actually was. “You’re too late. I sent them away. You’ll never see them again.”
Adrienne’s eyes narrowed, as though gauging whether or not Morgan was lying. Then she released a bloodcurdling scream, and all hell broke loose.
19
Kennedy
When Adrienne’s scream echoed all the way back to where I waited in the living room, a jolt of panic hit me like a lightning bolt. I scrambled across the room and peeked through the curtains to check on the battle. Morgan and Adrienne stood across from one another. Spells and curses flew through the air like wayward fireworks as they confronted each other. The other witches attempted to defend Morgan, but Gwenlyn had somehow escaped from the barn. She cut through the Summerses’ defenses mercilessly, all the while sporting a dead look in her eyes.
Morgan was lying. She hadn’t sent me and Nora away. Nora was missing. I hadn’t seen her since she’d taken my necklace a few hours ago. Adrienne’s early attack had taken us by storm. Without Nora, there was no way for us to keep the dark magic at bay. Morgan had instructed me to stay in the house to wait for Nora, but as the clock counted down the minutes, it was starting to look more and more unlikely that the Summerses would be able to hold their ground when—if—Nora returned.
When Gwenlyn struck down Laurel with a savage blow, sending the youngest Summers sister to the ground, I decided that I couldn’t wait around any longer. Morgan was preoccupied with Adrienne, and none of the other witches were strong enough to go up against Gwenlyn. With one last glance over my shoulder in the hopes of spotting Nora coming in through the back door, I turned away from the window and toward the front door. There was no sign of her.
Outside, the noise of the battle intensified. Thunder boomed, but I wasn’t sure if it was nature’s soundtrack or the sound of hundreds of hexes rebounding off one another as the witches fired them off. I sprinted toward the fray. Fire burst from my fingertips at the same time an orange force field erected itself around me. I wasn’t conscious of casting either spell. It felt easy and natural, as if the past several years of struggling with my inner energy had never happened.
I focused on distracting Gwenlyn. As she sent another witch toppling over, I fired a cannonball of power in her direction. Unlike the other witches’ spells, which glanced off Gwenlyn’s ward with hardly any effect, mine crashed through the transparent black shield, leaving an open target. Without thinking, I fired another shot of power at the same spot. This one hit Gwenlyn square in the chest, forcing her away from the other witches. I surged forward, putting myself between her and the rest of the Summerses.
We made eye contact, and Gwenlyn’s resolve seemed to solidify. We attacked at the same time, our auras clashing together like a fiery thunderstorm. I wielded my craft with ease, probing Gwenlyn’s ward for weak spots while maintaining my own personal shield. Though our powers were on par with each other’s, I had a leg up on Gwenlyn. Wards were my thing, and as my confidence skyrocketed, my craft solidified into an unbreachable bunker. I advanced on Gwenlyn, grinning as her attack spells ricocheted off of my ward without even making a dent.
Her black shield was solid enough to take in my hands. I grabbed each side of the hole in the middle and ripped. The muscles in my back and shoulders flexed, and the shield tore in two before vanishing altogether. Gwenlyn had no defense now. She tripped over the leg of an unconscious witch and went sprawling toward the ground. I stood over her, raising a hand full of fire.
“Please,” she begged in a voice that was barely her own. “Please.”
When a sparkle of green energy flickered at the tips of her fingers, I realized that this was the real Gwenlyn, fighting through Adrienne’s influence as she had last night. She wasn’t begging me to spare her. She was telling me to put her down, to stop her from hurting any more members of her own family.
The light left her eyes as a burst of power traveled from my hands to her chest. As she absorbed the spell, her skin glowed orange and the black marks that peeked out from beneath the collar of her jacket writhed like dying snakes. Her aura disappeared entirely, like a breath of wind snuffing out a candle.
“No!” Morgan cried.
Adrienne looked bewildered as Morgan abandoned their duel to rush to Gwenlyn’s side, leaving the rest of the Summerses unprotected from her wrath. This dawned on Adrienne in a matter of seconds, and she used the opportunity to cut down another five witches in her path. I left Gwenlyn in the grass to take Morgan’s place. As I faced Adrienne, staring into her cold eyes, my craft burned like an uncontrollable wildfire. It flared up behind me like a tidal wave, illuminating the entire yard.
“I see you’ve finally gotten control of yourself,” Adrienne said. She tilted her head to look at me. “Pity. All that power and no sense of direction.”
“I’ll give you direction.”
Everything culminated to this moment. It was always going to be me versus Adrienne. She had engineered it herself from the very day I was born. That knowledge burned inside me and translated into control. I was no longer scared of myself. I didn’t have to suppress anything anymore, and so for the first time ever, I freed every single atom of power from within me. The Summerses retreated, dragging each other away from me and my stepmother as flame engulfed Adrienne. She disappeared in the raging fire, and for a moment, I thought that it had taken her over, but she emerged from the inferno like a woman out of hell, unharmed but devilishly red.
She laughed coldly, protecting herself from my spell but allowing the fire to rage on. It melted the snow underfoot and torched the ground below as she stepped toward me. “Did you think it would be so easy?” she hissed. “You’re just like your mother, Kennedy. She was useless. She had no purpose or drive or motivation. She was yet another leech sucking the true power out of the Summers coven.”
Anger boiled in the pit of my stomach, but instead of replying, I used it to fuel my attack. The fire blazed again, but this time Adrienne met it with a fume of black smoke. I felt her magic smothering mine but refused to back down.
“That’s the thing that bothers me most,” Adrienne went on, unconcerned by our warring forces. “The Summerses had so much potential. We could have b
een one of the most powerful covens in the entire world if it weren’t for the likes of you.”
“And yet here I am,” I snarled.
“Not for long,” Adrienne replied. “After all these years, do you think I never learned anything about you? I raised you, Kennedy. You’re mine. You can expel all the power you want, but in the end, you will never be able to defeat your own mother.”
“You are not my mother.”
My temper erupted, and the fire spread beyond the borders of mine and Adrienne’s turf war. It licked at the heels of the escaping witches, out of my control. Before I could rein it in, Adrienne swept forward. She caught me up at the wrists and yanked, forcing me to step within her cloud of smoke. As soon as I did, my fire extinguished itself, completely nullified by Adrienne’s magic. My ward vanished too, leaving me entirely vulnerable and far too close to Adrienne for comfort.
“Oh, I’m really going to enjoy this,” she said.
As Adrienne’s eyes flooded black, I suddenly knew how Gwenlyn had felt when she’d collapsed in the woods. Adrienne sucked my power from me like a vacuum, but instead of simply taking it from me, she let it devour me instead. My inner fire escaped from the vault in my core and took hold of my insides. It burned through me, ripping a white-hot path through my heart until it had devoured all of me. I fell to my knees at Adrienne’s feet, devoid of energy.
A dreadful calm took over as Adrienne gazed down at me. “Goodbye, Kennedy.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as she raised a hand over me, preparing myself for the end. There was nothing left to do but pray that the Summerses somehow pulled it together. Nora’s face flickered in my imagination. This was all for her. Everything. At least she wasn’t here to watch this.
“Kennedy!”
A burst of pink light forced Adrienne away as a familiar warmth settled over me, soothing the ache of Adrienne’s influence and refilling the void within me. Nora had finally arrived on the scene, but as I weakly looked up to see her strolling toward us, I wanted more than ever for her to be as far away as possible.
“Nora, no,” I gasped.
But instead of listening, Nora planted herself between me and Adrienne. They were two sides of the same coin. Nora perfectly mirrored Adrienne in looks and mannerisms, but when it came to their inner morals and goals, they were absolute opposites.
“Nora, darling,” Adrienne said. “Step aside, won’t you? Once this is all over, we can return to Windsor Falls with our pride still intact.”
“I won’t let you hurt her,” Nora replied, standing firm.
“Let?” Adrienne laughed lightly. “My dear, as much as I love you, I can’t begin to pretend to allow you any sort of power in today’s decisions. When we get home, I’ll teach you the intricacies of negotiation. Until then, it’s best you leave this to me. Off you go.”
Nora shook her head. “I won’t let you tell me what to do anymore, and I refuse to stand idly by while you abuse Kennedy like you’ve done her entire life. You made her feel like she was worthless, but you know what, Mom? She’s the one person in my life that I always knew was worth saving.”
Adrienne dropped her mommy act, her expression morphing into a sneer. “Nora, if you don’t stand aside—”
She stepped up to her daughter, enveloping the pair of them in the black cloud. They were nearly invisible behind the smoke, but I heard Nora gasp in shock or pain.
“No!” I cried, squinting through the gaseous cloud.
Something gold glinted in Nora’s hand as Adrienne loomed over her daughter. It was my necklace, glowing with Nora’s pink aura. Quick as a flash, Nora ducked under her mother’s outstretched arm and slipped the necklace over her head. The tree pendant settled at the base of Adrienne’s throat as she stopped in her tracks. For a second, nothing happened. Then pink, red, and white light spread out from the pendant like splatter paint across Adrienne’s chest. She clutched at the necklace, trying to tear it off, but it stuck to her skin like a new tattoo.
She reached out to Nora, gasping for air. “What have you done?”
Nora evaded her mother’s fingertips. “What had to be done.”
Adrienne stumbled backward, tripping over her long fur coat and sprawling to the ground. Her witchcraft detached itself from me and Nora, and I drew a fresh breath of clean air. Nora ran to my side, dropping to her knees to make sure that I was okay.
“It’s fine,” Nora murmured. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
“Adrienne—”
“Kennedy, look at her.”
I squinted through heavy eyelids to see that Adrienne’s cloud of magic was shrinking rapidly. The necklace seemed to be drinking in her power. As it disappeared, Adrienne shrieked with rage, writhing on the ground as she scratched at her neck to dislodge the necklace. The red, pink, and white auras spread across her skin and squeezed until she actually started shrinking in size. The pendant was literally absorbing Adrienne herself. With one last horrifying scream, the jewelry sucked her in completely. The yard fell silent save for the Summerses’ heavy breathing and Nora’s relieved sigh.
Nora stood up, walked to the spot where her mother had disappeared, and picked something up. As she did, the sun broke free of the clouds, shining down on Yew Hollow for the first time in months. Nora walked back to me, dangling the tree pendant for me to look at.
“I knew she wouldn’t go down without a fight,” she explained, letting the necklace coil in the palm of my hand. “And I was never going to be able to take her down without any offensive training. I needed another way to contain her. This is what I came up with.”
“What did you do?” I asked in awe, inspecting the piece of jewelry.
“I infused the pendant with power from the yew tree,” she explained. “You see, it already had Alana’s perseverance ability and your ward ability since the two of you were the ones who wore it most. When the yew tree merged those abilities with its own power of the Summers coven, I was able to use the pendant to trap Adrienne. She’s not dead, but she’ll never be able to hurt us again.”
“What about the curse?” Morgan said. Her face was streaked with tears. She was still next to Gwenlyn, who lay unconscious in the grass. The witch’s mark hadn’t faded. It had stretched up to her cheeks like the fingers of the dead trying to draw her under the ground. From this angle, it didn’t look good. Morgan looked down at her, a look of absolute hopelessness in her expression.
Nora left me to join Morgan. She took Gwenlyn’s unresponsive hands in her own. With a sudden swell, her pink aura blossomed outward. It touched everything like a sunrise, illuminating the gray yard with its rosy light. The witches that had been unconscious stirred on the ground. Their eyes brightened, their cheeks regained a pinkish hue, and their faces filled out again, no longer sunken in.
“The curse on the Summers coven is no more,” Nora murmured, holding Gwenlyn’s hands to her heart. Slowly but surely, the marks receded from Gwen’s cheeks and neck. She flushed with color, and with a great gasp, she returned to the land of the living.
“Oh, God, please don’t tell me I’m dead,” she said.
Morgan laughed, cradling Gwen’s head in her lap. “You are definitely not dead.”
Little by little, the effects of the curse wore off. The clouds dissipated completely. The sun melted the snow on the ground. Laurel cried in relief as a family of swallows swooped across the sky and the trees began to whisper in the wind. Yew Hollow was coming back to life. As everyone began to realize that the ordeal was finally over, a sense of celebration flooded through the coven. They whooped in delight, shooting victory sparks into the air.
I got shakily to my feet and made my way over to Nora. She smiled as I wrapped an arm around her, pulled her close, and kissed her forehead.
“I’m so proud of you,” I whispered.
“I’m proud of you too.”
Suddenly, the coven fell silent, their celebratory shouts getting lost in the new wind. My heart stopped, thinking that maybe we had rejoiced too soon. Ha
d Adrienne already discovered a way to escape her lonely prison?
“It’s Alana,” someone said in a hushed voice.
The crowd parted. From across the yard, Alana stepped uncertainly through the coven. The witches reached out to her as she passed them, but she only held their hands for a brief moment before continuing on. I stood frozen in place, clutching Nora’s fingers so tightly that she winced, until Alana walked right up to me. She studied my face, a look of utter heartbreak in her electric eyes.
“Kennedy?”
My breath got caught in my throat. “Hi,” I managed.
She lifted a hand to trace the outline of my cheek, as if checking to make sure that I was actually real. Then she threw her arms around me, and I was—finally—home.
20
Kennedy
“Nora, hold still or it’s going to fall off again,” I mumbled around the collection of bobby pins in my mouth as I tried to fix Nora’s graduation cap to her head for the twentieth time. Whoever designed the mortarboard clearly did not plan for the elaborate hairstyles of one Nora McGrath.
“The ceremony’s over, Ken,” Nora said, squirming as I accidentally scraped a pin against her scalp. “Why do I have to wear the hat for pictures?”
“Because it makes you look collegiate.”
“It’s just high school.”
“And soon you’ll be off to college,” I added, “Which makes you collegiate. Damn!”
A shower of bobby pins cascaded to the floor of Nora’s bathroom and the hat made its escape once again.
“Move over,” Gwenlyn ordered, appearing from the hallway of my father’s house. She hip-checked me out of the way, picked the mortarboard up from the floor, and affixed it to Nora’s head.
“It’s not going to stay—” I began.
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