Ariel and Ellison wrapped their threads around True in an attempt to start the first phase of the spell and bind her, and their magic ricocheted back.
The Many whispered loudly in her ear.
“Inside the Menagerie of Magic
space bends,
magic waits,
and whole worlds
can take new shapes.”
True’s magic had been waiting for them.
Ariel and Ellison fell to the floor, shivering as power poured off them in waves. Persephone let out her own cry as Hyacinth staggered to where Ariel lay, running her hands over her cousin, trying to help her.
“Oh goody,” True said, scooping up an urn and crossing to them. “This really will be easier than I thought.”
Magic emptied from Ariel and Ellison into the urn, filling it up. The remnants slipped like shadows among the objects, before fading entirely.
“Magic must go somewhere.”
Persephone’s heart raced in her chest, but she forced a slow breath out. She couldn’t react, needed to remember why she was here. She studied the objects and thought of the library, thought of all Amara had told her about her sister and what True initially sought to do. The power she’d tried to hold.
Persephone was a conduit. She was the conduit. She snuck along the edge of the room to where True waited. She sniffed the air, ran a hand along the threads of space. Persephone didn’t have long. As soon as True realized what Persephone was doing, she would likely shift into the element of air and pull the items to her.
The Menagerie of Magic was not a house of magical items; it was a house of magical power. Persephone was the conduit, she could draw power in a way no other witch could. She would take every. Last. Drop.
Ariel and Ellison, crumpled on the floor, turned their heads in the direction of Persephone as though they could hear her thoughts. Ariel’s fingers slid into Hyacinth’s and she squeezed once.
Persephone held out her hands, palms up. Then Ariel whispered a quiet apology to Hyacinth, took back her hand, exchanged a look with Ellison, and the two Way witches threw the last embers of their power into Persephone.
As their magic left them, True’s magic froze Ariel and Ellison Way completely. Trapping them as it had trapped Moira.
Hyacinth let out an inhuman cry. She wrapped her arms around the frozen form of Ariel.
Persephone bit back heartbreak and fear and reached for the urn. She touched her third eye, ran a fingertip across her lips, slashed it across her chest over where her heart beat, and commanded …
Release.
Power did not need to be asked twice.
The magic poured forth like a hot spring. It left the housed objects and crested across the room.
Return.
On her command, the magic coursed into Persephone—it crested over and over, again and again.
Persephone gasped for more, for air, for light. When the magic shifted into dark … she welcomed it with opened arms.
The amount of power that pulsed into Persephone could tug the ocean from the shore; it could turn clouds into mountains and raindrops into caverns.
There was nothing in the elemental realm that Persephone could not touch or do.
Except.
“There is always a cost,” True said, her voice tinny and smug. “Don’t you know better by now?”
The magic shifted, and slugged in one direction before it sped up in reverse.
All the power, all the magic she’d gained, poured from Persephone.
Persephone tried to plug the hole, tried to find the leak and stop it. But it would not shut off.
Every last trickle of new magic bled from her, and when it was done, it took the rest.
All that she was, all she’d been born to be, was stolen out of Persephone.
“Blessed be,” True said, coming to stand beside her sister, throwing an arm across Amara’s shoulder.
Persephone looked up, gasping on a breath that shuddered into a wheeze, and stared into the face identical to Amara’s.
* * *
IT WAS ALMOST like looking into a mirror. Amara and True Mayfair. More than sisters, they were two sides of a coin.
Persephone lay on her side, her eyes shifting from the sisters to the urn that was full of her magic. Her magic and Ariel’s and Ellison’s, and who knew who else’s. Persephone’s hand gripped in an involuntary effort, but she could not summon the smallest inkling of aether.
“I knew you wouldn’t turn on me,” True said to Amara, who appeared like a watered-down version of her sister as the strength that bloomed in True wilted from Amara. “What were you thinking going after the key on your own?”
Amara took a seat on the small stool a few feet from Hyacinth, who had yet to let go of Ariel’s marbleized form. It was unclear if True even took stock of the fact that Hyacinth was still in the room—her gaze was focused so intently on Amara.
“What good will this do you on the other side?” Amara asked, waving a hand, her voice tired. “You know you can’t hold this much power on your own.”
“I don’t need to hold all of it,” True said, reaching out to press a hand lovingly against her sister’s cheek. “I only need to transport it. When we are home, I will use it to restore Three Daughters and you. Return the magic and the darkness, rebuild our people.”
“Into what?”
True smiled, and her face transformed into an upside-down fun-house version of Amara’s.
“Into everything I need.”
Amara closed her eyes. “You don’t have a plan, do you?”
True’s spine straightened as she tossed her hair back. “I will take what is mine. No one will stop us this time. No fools of men or beasts of burden. We will be queens, and the islands will be the start of everything.” Her hands clasped together. “It’s just as it was before, only this time I’ll get it right. You’ll have your home and gardens, and I’ll have all the power I’ve been unable to hold. I’ll control the source and I’ll control the islands.”
Amara shook her head. “I cannot follow you.”
“Of course you can,” True said, picking up a small looking glass and holding it out to better admire herself.
“No,” Amara said, “I can’t.”
Amara shifted in her seat, just an inch, but an inch was all it took. Her element, aether, spirit, slipped out of her and into Persephone.
I cannot give you all the answers. I am sorry for that, but we grow short on time.
Persephone blinked and saw the vision Amara had shifted into her mind: Amara growing weaker day by day.
Amara’s magic leaching the life from her in this world, and in any other.
Amara would not live to see Wile Isle again, or outside of this room. And yet her power, the last of it, she’d held back.
Amara had been holding back for years.
This was always the only way, Persephone. When it is time, you must strike, Amara whispered into Persephone’s mind.
Hyacinth turned, and the connection between Persephone and Amara was broken. Her cousin looked at her, then at Amara, before dragging her gaze to True.
“What of Moira?” Hyacinth asked, her words soaked in pain. “And Ariel and Ellison?”
True pasted on a clown’s sadness. Exaggerated and plastic, her frown spread across her face. It was miles from reaching her eyes. “Sacrifices must be made, Hyacinth. There is always a price. This is what it takes for you to be truly free. I have kept my word; your well of magic will be filled when we return. You will be able to go anywhere, be anything. We will all be freed.”
Hyacinth shifted in the direction of Persephone, and opened her mind. Persephone saw how True had tricked Hyacinth, how Hyacinth had worked for the past ten years trying to find a way to break the bond to the witch. How she’d tried to mend fences with Ariel, showing her the last of the memory Persephone glimpsed—Hyacinth telling Laurel to ask Ariel out, to take a chance on love, only to have Ariel misunderstand and the cracks between them widen into a
gulf. Hyacinth’s heart was in her memories, and it was as broken as Persephone’s.
Persephone saw herself sitting on the couch in front of Hyacinth as they drank tea, and her cousin’s love swam into her.
Hyacinth’s eyes filled in one second as they stared at Persephone, and when she turned to True, they emptied. Persephone had never seen grief shift into power before, but Hyacinth reached out, snatched hers up, and staked her claim inside it.
Before True knew what was happening, Hyacinth sliced her palm, threw her hands out, and tackled True. She took down both the witch and the urn, which upended onto the floor.
“Save her, save her,” chanted the Many.
Hyacinth poured the magic spilling from the urn into herself, until the darkness of it hollowed out the irises of her eyes and turned her dark hair crimson red.
As Persephone watched the magic devour her cousin she tried to move, to scream, but she was frozen to the spot. Hyacinth’s will held her where she stood.
Blood poured from Hyacinth’s mouth, as her body wilted from immediate decay.
As Hyacinth held the magic, she turned and took more from the last waiting source.
True screamed. Her hands rising to her face as she raked nails down her cheeks. Hyacinth clung on, even as she was engulfed by the dark magic she embraced.
Now, Persephone.
Amara stood up, as calm as the sea after a storm, and reached for Persephone. She pulled her to her feet and met her eyes.
Change may be inevitable, but it can lead to a new, a better way.
Persephone stared into the depths of Amara’s soul and saw the past flood forward: Amara and True swinging beneath a giant oak tree, picking carrots in their garden, singing songs and casting spells.
Amara and True holding each other during violent autumn storms, and clasping hands when they learned to control the ocean and turn the tide.
Amara’s power taking over, manifesting into a darkness that would consume her and the land.
True devising a plan to save them both, Amara failing to stop her, and the plan turning as dark as the magic.
Magic always enacts its price.
“I am sorry,” Persephone said, her eyes flicking to Hyacinth, her heart squeezing painfully in her chest.
She looked back at Amara and the witch smiled.
I will miss you, daughter of my daughters.
Persephone felt Amara’s smile in the marrow of her bones. Then Amara cracked open her soul and poured every ounce of her being, pure and bright and light, into her great-great-granddaughter.
When it was done, Amara Mayfair fell to the earth. A husk of who she once was.
True screamed again, the sound so shrill it burst the mirrors, splintered all the glass in the room and in the chambers surrounding them.
Persephone was free to move, and the faces of the Many flashed before her eyes. As they did, she heard the lines from Christina Rossetti’s poem.
“One had a cat’s face,
one whisked a tail,
one tramped at a rat’s pace,
one crawled like a snail,
one like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,
one like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry,
she heard a voice like voice of doves, cooing all together:
they sounded kind and full of loves in the pleasant weather.”
They weren’t just any voices—the Many were her family. They were the women who’d gone before her, lost and locked in the library, until Persephone came along and offered them a new way. First through the locket, and then at the last when she’d welcomed them home into her.
The last two faces paused before her. The first nodded, her eyes the same as Ariel’s, her mouth as generous as Ellison’s. Persephone bit back the grief as she nodded back to Ellison and Ariel’s mother. Then came the next face, and this one was as familiar as Moira’s and Hyacinth’s. It was the face of their mother.
You have always had the power in you. It was her voice that she had recognized, so like her eldest daughter’s. Please save her.
The walls rattled from the force. The floor fragmented into pieces. The land beyond the veil, and the Menagerie of Magic, was toppling in on itself.
Persephone blinked and the vision dissolved. This time she did not hesitate. She reached for Hyacinth and closed her fingers around her cousin.
“Let go,” Persephone whispered, knowing what to do, no longer afraid. “Like you taught me, Hyacinth. I love you. Just let go.”
Blood pearls dripped from Hyacinth’s eyes. She looked at Persephone and her grief ran ragged through them both.
Hyacinth’s tears fell faster, the blood shifting to ice, the ice to water. Hyacinth’s system ran clean of the magic. As it ebbed clean from her it ran into Persephone, and Persephone fought to hold control.
She turned to True, and the temptation rose inside her.
It would only take one time. Spirit, the element of Persephone and within Persephone, could obliterate the dark witch. She could have vengeance. Revenge.
Change may be inevitable, but it can lead to a new, a better way.
Amara’s words wove around her heart.
Persephone felt the Many. They were knitting her together, infusing her with the rawest of faith.
A new way.
She reached out and pressed a hand against True’s cheek.
“Let go,” Persephone said, her eyes reflecting back far more than her own soul.
Then Persephone drained every single last drop of magic from the witch.
Eighteen
TRUE CRUMPLED TO THE earth. Alive but frozen. A husk not yet depleted.
The outer world beyond the veil penetrated the menagerie now that it was no longer made by magic. The far wall of the menagerie crumpled, bringing down bark and vines and ice apples. They rolled across the floor, decaying as they scattered.
Persephone’s control over so much magic was frail, tenuous at best even with the Many helping her. The power rose up, ready to claim her.
Hyacinth clamored, struggling to stand. She stumbled forward and embraced Persephone.
“I knew you’d figure it out,” she said, a sob choking her words. “I screwed up so bad. I was only trying to fix it.”
“Viola filled in the blanks,” Persephone said, hugging her cousin, trying to stay focused. All around her the threads of time were unraveling and reworking themselves. “Dorian gave me the stone. You did fix it in the end.”
Hyacinth shook her head. “I was only trying to protect you and Moira, and now…”
“Get your sister,” Persephone told Hyacinth, as threads of aether exhaled around them. “All is not lost.”
Persephone forced herself to breathe. Steady in and out like Moira had shown her. Persephone needed control. Her life and those around her depended on it.
Persephone could see now, with fresh eyes of the Many and the freedom of so much magic, what she was destined to do. The power had always been hers. It was nothing to fear.
With Amara gone, the souls she had carried would be lost among the witches on this forsaken island, trapped in the mirrors as shades of themselves. You have to give up something to gain something. There is always a great cost.
The Many must have known that, much as they must have known how Persephone would need them to harvest and contain so much magic for even a short window of time.
Persephone thought of Dorian and the library. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the pen Dorian gave her so many days ago. For emergencies, he’d said. She studied it, and knew how to use it.
Biting the cap off, she wrote on the air.
Dorian?
The word faded and, after a long pause, new handwriting replaced it.
It was quick to scrawl:
You are not alone, Persephone. You could never be.
Inside the Menagerie of Magic, space bends, magic waits, and whole worlds can take new shapes.
Persephone smiled and studied his words, turned them over.
&
nbsp; Magic waits. Whole worlds can take new shapes. Persephone’s element was spirit. As lonely as she’d been in her life, it was startling to realize she could never really be alone.
She thought of the two roads interlocking, two sides of one coin. The full circles. Change. Change could be its own magic, one of creating new possibility and a better future.
Persephone knew what to do.
She waited for Hyacinth to return, carrying her sister’s frozen form. Persephone grabbed the shards of mirror off the floor, and pulled a thread of aether from the shadows.
Persephone wove it around the mirror pieces. As the mirror reformed, the shades—the trapped spirits of the witches frozen beyond the veil and the mortal souls Amara carried and had released when she died—crossed into the looking glass. Their shadows moved in and out of the frame, stretching beyond its borders.
“Break this when you’re home,” Persephone told Hyacinth. “The bad luck will be yours for a time, I can’t do anything about that, but they—all the lost and trapped souls beyond the veil, mortal and witch alike—will be free.” She hesitated. “There is always a cost.”
“I will gladly pay it,” Hyacinth said, squeezing Persephone’s hand. “I’m so sorry. I—”
“It’s okay, cousin,” Persephone said. “I understand.” She pulled Hyacinth to her and squeezed tight, counting to twenty, inhaling her floral scent, breathing her in, hoping the memory would last.
Persephone released Hyacinth and reached a hand to Moira. She brushed her hands across her cousin’s nose and mouth, remembering the set of it as Moira practiced her Tai Chi, seeing the laugh on her lips as she taught Persephone how to sift flour. Persephone pressed her lips to Moira’s and sent as much of the light as she dared into the frozen form. Then, Persephone whispered in her ear the final stanza from Goblin Market.
“For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.”
When she was fully revived, Moira would understand Persephone’s message. Moira would be strong enough for all of them.
The Orphan Witch Page 34