All other thoughts fled his mind as he focused his attention on here and now. He wove the tip of his wand before him, drawing up a sickening torrent of magic that instantly made his skin burn and his wand sizzle. The formulae flitted over his tongue and lips with the clipped precision.
As the hounds dashed into the open toward him, the ground before them exploded.
Bailey’s heart hammered in her chest. As Avery shouted formulas, his face was twisted with pain, and she watched his pinkie first turn red, and then begin to blister at the tip. The scent of singed fingernails wafted bitterly in the air.
When he was ready, he gave her the signal, and she and Aria locked eyes. Bailey opened herself to Aria’s mind, tracking the chant telepathically as she joined in. It was Gallic, and difficult to pronounce, but the quatrain was short enough that after a few repetitions she had it, and they began walking the circle. The world began to spin, all sense of direction fleeing the area. She saw Chloe and Frances both kneel, and close their eyes to keep focused on the spell that held Thomas in some kind of trance.
Avery finished his part of the spell, the lines of which were almost visible in the space above the circle like some complex geometric nest of shapes, one inside the other. Her own magic flowed out with the words of her shared chant with Aria, mingling with the other woman’s magic and filling in the faces of the construct as tendrils of magic seeped into cracks that began to glow until there was, as there had been on the Faerie side, a phantasmal spider web of hairline fractures in the world, hanging impossibly in the air before them.
Bailey gave Aria a nod, and stepped into the circle. Tentatively, she reached a finger out to the knot in the center of the web. It pulsed warningly, but did her no harm, and she took a step forward...
Aiden had never wielded magic like this before. It was beautiful, but terrifying.
The force of every spell was magnified in Faerie. The ground didn’t merely crack—whole canyons opened up under the feet of the huntsmen and their hounds. Thunder cracked the air as lighting fell from the sky to strike at sidhe horsemen. Trees sprang up and fell down to block their path. Pillars of fire sprang up from the ground and lit up the night. If he knew the spell, he might have managed to split atoms in the air and devastate swathes of the Faerie pursuers.
There were swathes available to devastate. Their numbers were impossible to count in the moment, but they seemed to carpet the forest. Thousands, certainly. Enough to break through the crack in the world and sweep over Coven Grove in an hour—and overrun the rest of the country in a few days. They had no fear, no care for their own safety. As soon as he was able to rid himself of one group, others filled in. The great six-legged steeds the Faerie horseman rode leapt easily over the vast canyons in the ground, and with a swing of their glass like blades the fire and lighting were cut in twain so that they could pass unharmed.
And then, before Aiden knew it, they were at the perimeter, hurling acidic magic that clung to his defenses and began to slowly unweave them, like a sweater being unraveled from a loose thread at the hem. He was forced to abandon his offensive tactics entirely and focus instead on repairing his barriers. His hands were going numb quickly, though, and twice he had to start a spell over when he nearly dropped his wand.
He wouldn’t be able to keep it up much longer. He expected to be afraid but, somehow... he was strangely peaceful at that moment. There was one last spell he could cast. It didn’t require a wand, and the formula was surprisingly simple. It was the last spell that any wizard could cast, developed ages ago as a last ditch tactic; a glass case to break when things got hopelessly dire. There was enough magic in the area to turn this region of Faerie into a crater, probably.
Before it came to that, though, he was more than willing to keep up his defenses, and give the Wild Hunt a chase it wouldn’t soon forget.
And then, he was there. Herne the Hunter. He was bigger than all the rest, and rather than charging forward, he waded through the morass on his great stallion. He looked almost pleased—not with the hunt, but, strangely, with Aiden. He tipped his antlered head briefly in salute, before he sidled up to the edge of the barrier and raised his spear.
Aiden stopped weaving defenses, and started to form the words of the Merlin’s Final Wish.
Someone grabbed him from behind.
He nearly turned around swinging as he shouted the first half of the formula—
And then stopped as soft lips met his, and he floated briefly in the sweetest moment of his life to date. The formula melted in his mind, along with everything else, and he drew his mysterious partner into a deeper kiss.
The noise of the Hunt faded, and the world blinked.
Bailey continued to kiss him.
He continued to kiss her back.
“Short on time!” Someone shouted. It was Avery. They were back. Back in the real world. Everyone was staring at them.
Aiden blushed furiously, and backed away from Bailey. “They’re coming,” he said. “Avery, I need you to—dear lord; never mind.” Avery had been casting without a wand, and had obviously discovered the price of that. He amended his previous opinion from ‘talented’ to ‘prodigal’.
“What are you using?” He asked instead.
Avery rattled off key segments of a number of spells. “You have to follow the form of Elwin’s Supreme Dweomer.”
It took precious seconds to comprehend, but once Aiden did, he gave a quick nod. His hands and arms were numb, but he gripped his wand tightly and began to carve the complex shapes in the air. Bailey stepped toward him, and set herself up to his left, away from his casting hand. She raised both hands and began to chant as well, and in a moment Aria joined her. Then Chloe.
The spells wove together, and pressed into the glowing cracks above the circle of stones—and then out and up, along strange threads that reached away, through the air, into the depths of the forest and away from the sound of the roaring ocean in the distance.
Aiden worked furiously, willing his arms and hands to move with precision until, at last, there was a great sound that rent the air, like great stones moving against one another. The cracks in the world began to shrink, and dim, and finally wink out of existence, one after the other until only a point of light was left.
Something came through.
The spell completed, Aiden, Bailey, Aria, and Chloe all shouting the final words of their respective parts at the same moment, and the light vanished. Something thudded to the ground.
Someone screamed behind them, and Aiden muttered a word to light up his wand.
Thomas Hope was on the ground, writhing momentarily, with Frances on top of him, holding his shoulders. Chloe and Aria rushed to her side and between the three of them Thomas was soon asleep.
Aiden looked around the circle.
There, in the center, was the upper two feet of a spearhead.
He knelt, and picked the object up. It buzzed with power, from the bottom of the cleanly cut shaft to the tip of a short, leaf-shaped spearhead. It was made of some kind of Faerie wood and metal, light as air but solid as steel. He glanced at his apprentice, and smiled.
Again, someone grabbed him from behind. A moment later, he was looking down into a furiously beautiful face. And then, he was looking slightly to the left. Though his face was mostly numb, the distant sting of a slap burned his cheek.
“Never do anything like that again,” Bailey snapped.
And then she kissed him.
Chapter 25
THE EIGHTH CAVE WAS somehow smaller than Bailey remembered when she filed into it with the Frances, Chloe, Aiden, and Avery. Aria took Isabelle to the Sheriff’s station after she’d been urged to admit she ran away. It was safer that way, and she seemed to understand that.
Thomas was in tow, led by Chloe. Now that the Faerie magic that he’d apparently been connected to was cut off, his defenses were gone, and Chloe was using some kind of magic on him that she refused to explain to Bailey. “Some things are a burden to know,” she said
, and left it at that.
Now, they stood before Rita and Anita, both of whom looked on Thomas Hope with more pity than Bailey had ever seen in anyone’s face before.
There was very little discussion, no judgment or tribunal. Whatever Thomas’ fate was, it was a forgone conclusion for everyone in a position to mete it out. The crones weren’t hopelessly cruel, though. Or, at least they didn’t think they were.
“Release him,” Rita told Chloe.
She nodded, and a moment later Thomas blinked as though waking from a dream.
He stared around at them, and then up at the open ceiling of the cave. “It’s real,” he whispered.
“We sincerely hoped that you would never see this place,” Rita said, her voice thick with sorrow.
Thomas sneered at her. “I just bet you did. Is this where you did it? Where you took my family’s magic away?”
“We never meant to do that,” Anita said. “We didn’t know that Esme was pregnant when the binding was laid.”
“Would it have changed anything if you did know?” Thomas asked.
Rita shook her head slowly, as did Anita.
Thomas looked away from them, and leveled his gaze on Avery. “You’re going to let them do this to me, then?”
“Thomas,” Avery said, emotionless in the wake of his shutting down to avoid the pain of it all, “you misused your gift, however small it was. It wasn’t your fault that your magic was bound from birth—but it was your choice to make a dangerous deal and endanger the lives of children, and all the rest of us. You knew what the consequences would be if the Faeries made it through.”
Thomas snorted. “You know, I came here with a ring. It’s in Aunt Rita’s house. Side table by the couch, near the kitchen. Top drawer. I thought... well, it doesn’t matter now.”
Bailey wanted to slap the man. Staring down the barrel of what would almost certainly be a permanent judgment, he just had to take one more shot before he went.
Avery didn’t answer. Instead, he turned away, and left the cave. “I’ll be outside when it’s done.”
Bailey met Aiden’s eyes, and a second later he followed.
The crones and the coven ladies stood in a circle around Thomas. Bailey wasn’t asked to leave, but she wasn’t invited to help, either. She wasn’t sure she would have wanted to. Yes, what Thomas had done was unforgivably wrong, and there was no prison that could reliably hold him—or a court that would convict him for enchanting thirteen children and trying to bring about the end of the world—but she couldn’t stomach the idea of carrying out his sentence herself.
Chloe put her hands on Thomas’s temples as the other witches raised their hands and began to chant softly. It was a spell Bailey didn’t recognize, but she could feel at least some of it’s effect. Chloe’s presence in the world, in Bailey’s mind, grew exponentially.
“It’s not fair...” Thomas muttered, and then closed his eyes. A moment later, it was done.
Frances and Aria caught Thomas as he slumped to the ground, and Rita stood over him for a long moment, mourning. “Take him back to the house,” she said. “He’ll leave town when he wakes up. And... give my condolences to young Avery.”
Rita and Anita turned together, and Anita put her arm around her sister as they made their way into the cabin.
They took Thomas back to Rita’s old house. He slept the entire way, which wasn’t unexpected. Chloe told them he’d sleep for twelve hours or so, having strange dreams while his mind worked to fill in the new gaps of his memory. “When he wakes, he’ll be a bit confused but otherwise fine,” she said.
“Will he remember me?” Avery asked her.
Chloe grimaced, and shook her head.
Avery sighed. “Good.”
When they arrived at Rita’s house, Aiden and Avery worked together to get him into bed, and then Bailey tended Avery’s burned hands.
“You did impressive work,” Aiden said as she slathered ointment onto the burns and blisters and wrapped them in bandages. “I can’t really express properly how proud I am of you, Avery.”
Avery didn’t answer right away. He only nodded slowly, and gave a weak smile.
“Why did they burn?” Bailey asked.
“The purpose of the wand,” Avery said, “is to contain and channel magic. Without that containment, it runs wild.”
“Wizards don’t cajole magic into working for them,” Aiden added when Bailey looked confused. “Not like witches. We have to tame it as it comes up. Frankly, lesser wizards would have lost fingers. It’s possible to burn a finger to the bone.”
“Did you know that could happen?” Bailey asked her friend as she finished wrapping the last bandage.
Avery shrugged. “There wasn’t much choice. A few fingers in exchange for thirteen kids... seemed like a fair trade.”
“More than that,” Aiden said. “The Wild Hunt... well, it would have been more than the children that suffered. You acted bravely.”
“Sure,” Avery sighed. He glanced toward the stairs, where they’d carried Thomas to his room. “Um... I’m going to stay here tonight. Make sure Thomas is okay tomorrow. Or, later today, I guess. What time is it?”
“Well past three,” Aiden said. “Try to get some sleep.”
“We’ll see.” Avery looked down at his injured hands, and then reached out to hug Bailey.
She took it, and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”
“Any time, Bails,” he said.
They left him then, to rest and, Bailey suspected, to grieve in peace.
Piper’s call came just a few minutes later. She’d been contacted by the hospital as soon as the children woke up, as had all the parents. When Bailey answered her phone, Piper was barely coherent with joy.
“I don’t know what you did,” she sobbed, “but I know you did something. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. I just don’t know what I would have done...”
Bailey comforted her friend, and promised to visit later to check up on them, and when Piper hung up, the exhaustion of the past days finally caught up to her, politely waiting for this moment to come crashing down on her shoulders.
She leaned heavily against Aiden’s car, and closed her eyes.
“We came very close to the end,” Aiden said softly beside her, after he joined her.
“Yeah,” Bailey sighed. “I know.”
“Bailey, there’s something I think I should tell you.”
Bailey groaned, and shook her head. “Not now. Please. I don’t think I can handle anything else. Can it wait?”
She looked up to see him wracked with what was probably guilt—though, given that she was starving and ready to pass out it wasn’t easy to see straight much less read his expression.
Finally, though he nodded. “It can wait. Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” Bailey agreed. “Or maybe next week. I think I could sleep for a week. And eat this town out of food entirely.”
“I’d have to agree with that. There’s no where in town to get a bite this hour, is there?”
Bailey shrugged. “Do you have anything in the pantry at your place?”
Aiden’s lips parted as though to answer, but for a moment he simply hung suspended there, looking scandalized or hopeful or some combination of the two. “Ah...”
And then Bailey kissed him. Not because some magic spell had to be fooled into taking them both across some dimensional wall, through a crack the size of a quarter—but because she wanted to. She’d wanted to for a long time and for several sweet seconds she let herself forget about the prohibitions, about the rules and ancient traditions, about Faeries and Thrones of dead witch queens. For those few seconds, she let herself be concerned only with herself, and with Aiden.
They parted, and reality settled back in. Aiden rubbed the back of his head self-consciously, and Bailey let the disappointment weigh her stomach down. Of course, it could never work. She knew that. So did he.
And yet, he leaned forward and kissed her back anyway.
“Come on,”
he said, when his lips left hers, “I think I can make us something to eat.”
“Good,” Bailey breathed. “I’m starving.”
Epilogue
THERE WASN’T VERY MUCH real estate to sell in Coven Grove. Most of the buildings that were classed for business were downtown and had resident local businesses in them that had been part of the community for anywhere from ten years, right on back to the founding of the township when it was just a street with a few rickety shacks to either side. People sometimes sold their houses, and when they did someone quickly came along and bought it up from out of town; but people had a habit of staying in Coven Grove once they were here so that didn’t happen very often.
Because of this, Linda Mackey was Coven Grove’s one and only real estate agent. If property was bought or sold in Coven Grove, it crossed her desk. This wasn’t by any effort on her part—no one else had jumped into the market, and why should they? As far as real estate agents went, Linda didn’t make that much money and never really needed to. She made enough to live comfortably in Coven Grove, though not enough to travel.
Despite the rarity of these events, Linda was a professional, and she kept professional hours from nine in the morning to five in the evening every day. She had an office above one of the shops downtown, her little sign hanging cheerfully over the entrance to the little stairway that led up to her business office, “Coven Grove Real Estate Specialist, Linda Mackey.” The picture on it was fifteen years old and taken on perhaps the best hair day she’d ever had, but she didn’t update it. It was important to have a professional look. Plus, she hadn’t changed her hair or makeup in that long.
Still, she never expected anyone to walk into her office. If there was property for sale, she knew about it long before it came on the market.
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