More quickly than I thought she could move, the hermit snatches the royal heirloom from my hand. Her eyes shine as she runs the lustrous pearls through her fingers, making them softly click.
“This will do.” She tucks the pearls into a drawer under her herb table, quickly hiding the circlet away. She hands me the cup.
Potions are universally disgusting. The smell hits me fully the second it’s in my hands, and I almost choke. My eyes start to water. My gag reflex preps for battle, and I try to calm it by swallowing the sharp bite of acid in the back of my throat.
“Will it work?” I ask in a rough, unenthusiastic croak.
“It will do what it’s supposed to do.”
Well, that’s cryptic. “Unlock my magic?” I ask, fishing for a precise answer. “Make it so I can control my lighting?”
She shrugs and doesn’t elaborate, almost like she knows I’m a walking lie detector. With a thump, I set down the cup.
She pushes it toward me, right under my face, and noxious vapors sting my nose again. “The potency won’t last long. Tarry, and it will take longer and be more painful to reach the desired outcome.”
I don’t detect any lies in her words, but something about them makes me sure that she’s twirling around the truth.
“What will take longer?” I ask.
“The effects.”
“What effects?”
“The effects inherent to the potion I just mixed for you.”
I lean back in my chair, putting some much-needed distance between myself and the mysterious concoction. Is the witch just tight-lipped and surly, as old-as-dirt hermits probably tend to be? Or is she performing an expert bob and weave with traitorous words?
“Specifically, what will this potion do to me?” I demand.
She thumps her wizened hand down on the table, making the cup rattle and the potion fizz. “I made the brew. You paid me. This transaction is complete. Drink it, or get out of my house.”
Griffin stands and holds out his hand to me. “Let’s go.”
I glance over. “But—”
“But nothing,” he says. “You don’t want to drink it, so don’t. Trust your gut, Cat.”
The hermit turns an irate glare on Griffin. “Stay out of this, Hoi Polloi.” There’s a heavy punch of power in her voice. Compulsion? It’s not directed at me, so it’s hard to tell. It won’t have any effect on Griffin anyway, but there are never more than a handful of people alive who can compel another human being, like Mother and I can. The hermit witch just entered an entirely new category in my mind—almost certainly an Olympian one.
His features tight, Griffin doesn’t respond to what was clearly meant as an insult. I’m not as polite.
“Give me back my pearls, witch.”
She glowers at me. “Those aren’t yours.” She pushes the cup toward me again. “This is.”
Conflicted still and hating it, I look at the brew once more. I need that lightning.
“What’s in it?” I ask. I don’t want to miss a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The hermit of Frostfire is famous for making potent concoctions that work.
“Things that will free your magic from your body.”
Again, no lie. But the crone is definitely spinning her words, and I want to know why.
I stare at the cup. This won’t be the first potion I’ve drunk. What if I’m being absurdly paranoid? I used to think obsessive suspicion was a good thing—a survival tool—but now I’m not so sure. Trusting people has brought me more happiness than my constant wariness and paranoia ever did.
And I need the full force of my magic. To defend my people. To defend myself. To unite Thalyria. The witch’s brew could be invaluable. What’s one nauseating drink compared to the lives I could save? To what we could gain if I can finally trust my magic to work? Enemies would tremble before the mighty thunderbolt, the weapon of Zeus himself. Surrender without bloodshed and war.
The potion bubbles and reeks under my nose, and all I can think about is how Galen Tarva threatened my mother with his unparalleled Elemental Magic. He made her dance to his tune for years, and nobody but them even knew about it. I could do that. I could show her my power and make her kneel before me. I could offer Mother her life in exchange for Fisa, and she’d take the deal because she wouldn’t have a choice.
My fingers tingle, warming to the idea. I reach out and slowly close my hand around the earthenware cup. It’s hot.
Griffin tenses by my side, and I turn to look at him. He shakes his head. He doesn’t want me to do this.
My grip loosens. He’s right. I don’t need the potion. I never have.
A certainty I’ve rarely felt wells up from somewhere deep inside me, spreading like a fast-moving tide. It fills me up, buoys me. I already have the most potent concoction around—Griffin and me together.
“I’ll unlock my magic on my own. Griffin is all I need.” I swipe the cup to the floor, and it shatters, its thick contents bubbling between the hermit’s feet and mine.
The hermit glares at me through a curtain of foul-smelling smoke. The way her head moves, the turn of her chin, her eyes…
I stumble back, my gasp barely making it into my lungs. The confidence I was just floating on crashes like a ship into solid rock.
“We need to leave.” I’m suddenly terrified but not entirely willing to accept why.
Griffin sweeps his chair back, but I stay rooted to the spot.
“You always make things so difficult.” Cruel, cold voice. Green eyes, so similar to mine. “You never did know what was best.”
Dread erupts in me and rams savagely outward through my chest. My heart beats so hard I can’t breathe.
I reel back into Griffin as the hag straightens, growing in a swirl of magic-hued green. The transition is turbulent. Horrifying. In mere seconds, the woman sheds the appearance of the hunchbacked hermit witch of Frostfire and turns into my worst nightmare. Mother.
CHAPTER 12
I should have known. How did I not know?
Terror grips me, and I freeze just long enough for Mother to strike hard. Her hand whips out and cracks across my face, jerking my head to the side. A stinging burn explodes across my cheek, and I hiss in a sharp breath.
Griffin lunges for her, but his hands swipe through a cloud of dark-brown dust and green magic. Mother disappeared. Disintegrated.
Everything swirls back together in the blink of an eye, re-forming in the shape of a huge bird. Not a bird—a Harpy. It has Mother’s head and torso. The rest is all talons and feathers. She bats powerful wings and rises toward the vaulted ceiling, out of our reach in two flaps.
I gape up at her, my face on fire from the brutal slap.
Metamorphosis! I didn’t know she could do that. I didn’t know anyone could do that.
Why can’t I do that?
“A Harpy. That’s fitting.” Griffin gets firmly in front of me.
Mother’s snide words come back to me. Endless possibilities. Shortsighted. No vision.
Maybe I can do that. What’s holding me back?
She sneers down at us from above, and suddenly I know. Morality holds me back, something that Mother lacks entirely. Ironically, it’s what makes me both the weaker and the stronger of us two.
I raise my hand to my still-blazing cheek. “The potion would have set my magic free from my body?” Utterly true. My magic would have floated off into the ether, because I’d have been dead! “You were going to poison me,” I say, appalled.
“The most expeditious option, given the circumstances.” Her Harpy voice is sharper, more grating, like a bird of prey’s strident call. “Victory to the swift.”
Another of her childhood lessons. It rings in my ears. Strikes like a blade.
“Poison is for cowards,” I spit back. She might remember saying that a few times, too.
He
r emerald eyes narrow on me as she squawks a shrill command. I look warily around, wondering what atrocity will happen next. The answer is a flock of enormous crows shattering the south window with a thundering crash. The front ones drop dead, leaving their blood on the broken glass. The followers flood into the room in a raucous, cawing, black-winged turmoil. They’re unnaturally big—Ice Plains crows. Piercing eyes, razor-sharp beaks, feathers a dense blue-black. There are at least a dozen of them, circling, diving, taking up all the air and space. They shriek and scratch and bat their wings, driving Griffin and me back.
A bird the size of a dog dives at Griffin, knocking him back a step as he raises his arms to protect his head. I spin out of Griffin’s way, jump in front of him, and then grab the bird’s tail feathers, yanking hard just as Griffin bats the creature away. I end up with two long feathers in each hand and Griffin with a gash near his ear. A trickle of blood creeps down his jawline.
Oh Gods. We’re both unarmed, and my magic is totally unreliable. And now Mother knows it—right from my own mouth. I’m stupid, so bloody stupid, and I brought Griffin here, straight into her trap.
I flip the feathers in my hands and grip them down low, ready to use the stiff ends as weapons if I can.
“How did you know?” I demand, tilting my head back to watch Mother hover near the ceiling, her big wings brushing the beams. “We told almost no one where we were going.”
Peals of harsh laughter burst from the crows. Mother laughs, too, and the room fills with the sound of flapping wings, cawing, and hate. “I have spies everywhere. On the ground. In the air. Inside of you.”
My eyes widen in shock. Little Bean.
A vortex opens up in my middle, hollowing me out. Dark and violent, it churns with fear and wrath, and my heart sinks straight into it, imploding along with my lungs and breath.
I thought I knew rage and terror before? That was nothing. This is hot and horrible and consuming. Blood roars in my ears. My chest burns and squeezes tight while magic blasts through my veins. The sudden surge of power bounces inside me like a painful echo, not finding its way out. The ricochet shakes me hard, and I lurch, not knowing if I’m about to collapse violently inward or shatter outward into a million broken pieces.
Steadying myself on the edge of the table, I stare at Mother. I’ve killed people and sometimes felt satisfaction at the result. But I’ve never wanted to murder before, to kill savagely, paint myself in blood, and scream while I do it.
Mother cocks her head just like a bird would, as if assessing the best way to pounce on a worm. “Children. So innocent. No defense against the invasion of the mind. And yours… So new, and yet already so aware. So ripe for molding.”
The black hole inside me expands. Little Bean, not even really showing but already thinking. Knowing.
No wonder her energy felt so disrupted while we were making our plans to come to Frostfire. She was scared. Confused. Maybe in pain. She was being used as a conduit for information!
An agonized shout builds in my throat, but no sound comes out. I swore this woman wouldn’t touch my baby. Even if I didn’t voice it as a magical vow, I swore it to myself. To Griffin. To Little Bean. And I failed. I’ve already failed.
Mother looks so disgustingly proud of herself. She one-upped me at the expense of my unborn daughter, and now she gets to share her victory with us and grind my face into my own heartbreak and failure.
I cross my hands over my belly, a crow’s feather still clutched tightly in each fist.
“Cat! Let’s go!” Griffin’s voice barely penetrates.
Slowly, I turn to him. Does he really think she’ll let us leave?
A huge crow slams into me from the side. I stagger but hardly feel it. Out of the corner of my eye, I see another one coming to bomb me, but I don’t care. I don’t respond at all.
Moving like a powerful wind, Griffin catches the bird before it hits me, snaps its neck with a sharp twist, and then hurls the limp body toward the monstrosity that is my mother.
“Stay away from my family!” he roars, white-faced with rage.
“Stay away from my family!” she parrots. Her crows caw with mocking laughter. “I’m trembling in my feathers.”
Howling in fury, Griffin grabs the empty potion pot and long wooden spoon from the table. He becomes a maelstrom of muscle and movement. I blink, and five of the crows are already dead on the floor.
Flying herself even higher, Mother utters a sharp command. Her minions converge on me, diving as one. I lift my arms and strike out wildly. I see Griffin whirl back to me, but then I can’t see anything at all, my vision cut off by a violent tumult of beaks and claws and wings.
Crows grab my arms, and I cry out. Sharp nails dig into me from wrists to shoulders, piercing my skin and scraping bone. My mouth pops open on a gasp. Then I’m off my feet and flying toward the vaulted ceiling, leaving my stomach on the floor.
“Griffin!” I cry.
He charges after me, but Mother swoops down and latches her talons into my hair, jerking hard on my scalp. I shoot upward with a hiss of pain.
Griffin jumps and just barely misses catching my foot. He climbs onto a chair to get higher, but then magic suddenly explodes below. Bright-green arcs skim my boots and singe my toes. They swirl around Griffin and scrape at his clothes. The room trembles, and then every last piece of furniture abruptly starts flying around.
He staggers and falls from his perch. He springs back up only to have to duck a zooming lamp. It smashes behind him, shattering. Oil coats the floor. Mother’s telekinetic magic sends the flint and iron from the hearthside crashing into the same spot with a shower of sparks. Fire ignites, slithering the length of the stain.
Griffin leaps out of the way. Rugs, other lamps, broken furniture, and decorations all join the destruction, tumbling through the growing flames and catching fire. The magic has no effect on Griffin himself, but it upends everything else. Mother focuses her attack, making burning things crash into him. Griffin struggles through the wreckage while I can’t do anything but watch from above in horror and shock.
Finally gathering my wits, I try to steal the magic from Mother, hoping to use it to deflect things away from Griffin. It nips at my skin, chafing and heating as it sinks into me. But the power seems to change character inside me, and what pours back out when I try to use it is nothing but a harmless green glow. Mother keeps launching the entire house at Griffin, and I can’t stop her at all!
She hovers near the roof’s angled peak, batting her enormous wings to stay in place. I hang there, my arms dripping blood and my scalp on fire while the contents of the hermit’s home shatter, fly, burn, and slam into Griffin, burying him alive. I scream for him, and he fights his way out of the flaming debris only to get covered again. He bellows for me over and over, pure, crazed anguish ripping my name from his throat.
I swallow hard. I need to focus before the fire gets any worse. I need to fight.
Taking a deep breath, I reach down into my well of power, concentrating hard on what I know should be there. Smoke fills my lungs, but magic jolts in my veins. Lightning sizzles under my skin. My left side does nothing, but a current of white-hot power coils down my right arm. Triumph swells inside me, and I will the magic to explode into a mighty blast of Olympian power that’ll incinerate the crows right off me.
The lightning fizzles at my fingertips, weak and puny and worthless. No!
I scream in frustration.
The birds gripping my right arm caw angrily, smoking and stinking, but they don’t let go. Mother shakes me hard, and for a blood-chilling moment, I think she’ll snap my neck. Pain darts deep into my scalp, making my eyes water.
“Zeus!” I call out to the only God who wields the lightning bolt. The magic comes from him. The least he could do is make it work!
But no lightning appears, and no booming voice answers my plea for help. Flames lick up the
walls, orange and red fingers climbing higher with every second. Smoke rises and billows around my head. I twist, kicking out at the birds, and hooked claws dig farther into my skin and bones. I gasp.
Below me, Griffin breaks free once more, erupting like a volcano from under a cage of fiery wreckage. He’s bloody, scraped, and covered in soot. With a desperate sort of energy, he starts tossing things out of his way. His clothing is charred and torn. There are raw burns all over his exposed skin. He looks wild and fevered and, for the first time in my eyes, utterly destructible.
“Griffin!” I shout. “Run!” Mother can’t kill him with magic, but she can bring the burning house down on him.
He jumps for me again, and his fingertips brush my boot. I strain downward, stretching myself. If he can catch my foot, he’ll pull me down. There’s no way Mother and the crows can hold both our weight.
Griffin crouches down low and then springs up, trying again. While he’s in the air, stretched out and vulnerable, Mother uses her magic to sweep up a half-destroyed table and send it spinning into his ribs. He falls backward with a harsh grunt, breaking through a smoldering chair. The wood shatters, showering him with sparks. He hits the floor flat-out on his back and doesn’t move.
Fear twists my stomach into a hard knot. “Griffin!” He’s not invulnerable. He seems like it. He usually acts like it. But he’s not, and right now, he’s scaring me to death! “Get up!”
Fire glows all around him, closing in. My heart beats furiously. Lightning sparks—then fizzles. Useless!
“Griffin!”
He stirs, rolling over, but then Mother’s green cyclone starts burying him under the destroyed and blackened contents of the room again.
My frantic pulse drums in my neck. My arms and scalp throb to the same hammering beat. “Get up!” I shout, my voice hoarse from yelling and smoke. “Get out of the house!”
Cursing my trapped position, I watch, praying to the Gods that Griffin will listen. The pile shudders as he starts to break free, and I exhale in relief. He finally rises, staggers, and then grimaces, clutching his right side. He doesn’t look good, but he’s up. He’s conscious. He’s breathing. And that’s enough.
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