by D. N. Hoxa
“What about my aunt Amelia? And Bender?” I asked her after a second, terrified of her answer.
When she looked away from me, I stopped breathing. “I have no idea about your aunt, but when I found Dena Waldorf’s things, Uncle Eli and I planned to come back here to get you together. Before we could, Galladar’s fairies found us, and he told me to come here alone and stayed back to hold the fairies off. He was afraid they’d somehow cross over, too, if he came with.” Wiping her tears with the back of her hands, she sighed loudly. “I don’t know if he made it.”
“He did,” I said without missing a beat. They both made it. This was Bender and Amelia we were talking about. Bender was too good a fighter to die at the hands of a bunch of fairies, and Amelia was too stubborn to die on anyone’s terms other than her own. No, they were alive. They had to be. I would accept no other option.
“What did you find in Dena Waldorf’s things?” Julian asked while I was still struggling to calm my racing heart.
“A lot of strange things, and something she referred to as the portal opener in her journal.” Lynn reached for something in the inside pocket of her jacket.
“A portal opener?” Julian asked in a whisper. It sounded like he knew exactly what that was.
Lynn showed it to us. It was a rock, cut perfectly in a tear shape as big as my palm. It was so black, it looked like it could swallow you whole if you stared at it for too long. When she raised her hand a bit farther, the light from the torch fell on it, and it began to glitter like a rainbow. Holy spell!
“Black ravenstone,” Julian whispered, as if he’d read my mind. “Where did she get this?”
“Her journal said her grandfather was a fairy. She also said the portal opener didn’t work because she’d tried it before, but when I tried it, it did work,” Lynn explained.
“Black ravenstone only opens portals when there’s already a link between worlds. This worked only after Galladar made it to Earth and infused the old portals with his magic. It’s only a guess, though,” Julian mumbled.
“If the portals are open, how come the other fairies who have been stuck on Earth for a century aren’t here already?”
Julian had gone to great lengths to get back home. He’d pretended to be a witch for a century for it, and I doubted the other fairies would hesitate if they found a new way out.
“Because they can’t,” Julian said. “Fairies who have completely lost their magic can’t just come back to the fairy realm after such a long time, or they’ll lose their mind. They have to ease back into it. I was working on a plan to get them all ready for home before Galladar happened.”
“Has he spoken to someone, Lynn? Does anybody know what he wants?” I asked, because if things were as bad as they sounded, I highly doubted I’d be able to do what Julian expected me to do. If there was a way to put an end to this without fighting and killing innocents, I’d take it.
But Lynn shook her head and another tear slipped from her eye. “We’re not sure. He’s monitoring public cameras and phone calls, too. His fairies are all over the place, and they have orders to kill paranormals on sight. We haven’t spoken to the coven in two days.”
The tips of my fingers were already numb. Suddenly, the image of my dream from a few nights before came to my mind, clear as day. The fire, the broken buildings, the empty streets…
“Is this only in Manhattan?” Julian asked because I couldn’t find my voice just yet. My throat was dry and I was so stunned, even my heartbeat was super slow. What if my dream had been a prediction? Bone witches could sometimes predict the future. I always thought my mother knew exactly when she was going to die and that’s why she did everything the way she did with me.
No. Goose bumps broke on the skin of my arms. No, it was just a dream. A nightmare. It meant nothing. I couldn’t predict shit, and I never would. I wasn’t going to allow myself to overthink this.
“No, he’s destroyed all the main coven communities, all ECU buildings and the two main wolf packs. The Bronx is also in ruins,” Lynn whispered. “Maybe more, I don’t know.”
I wanted to reach out to her and comfort her, but I had no idea what to even say. I had no idea how to come to terms with everything she was telling us.
“Winter, you have to stay here,” Julian said after a second.
The shock I felt when I heard his words seemed to revive me.
“Have you lost your mind?” Hadn’t he heard everything Lynn said? Galladar was destroying my home, too!
“You need to learn how to separate your powers. If you can’t do that, Galladar will win,” he said, raising his voice.
“Galladar is already winning. If we stay here and do nothing, he’s going to continue to win until we can’t even get close to him anymore.”.
“You can’t defeat him with your fairy magic, Winter.” It sounded damn near a warning.
“You have no idea what I can and cannot do,” I hissed. I was already close to a hundred percent sure I couldn’t do it, but hearing Julian say it just broke my heart. Even before, when nobody else believed in me, I’d close my eyes and picture him saying that he did. Now, if he didn’t believe in me, who would?
“You are our only chance! Can’t you see? He’s not going to stop,” Julian cried.
“Damn right he won’t if all we do is sit here and talk about stopping him.”
“A chance is all we’re going to get,” he said, his shout now turned desperate. “One chance.”
“Then we’re going to make it count.”
“Please excuse us, but your food is ready,” someone said and made all three of us jump.
Two women had pulled the fabric that shielded the doorway to the side and were standing in front of us with two trays in hands. Definitely not fairy. They had to be witches.
Suddenly, Julian stood up. “Make sure you eat something. I need to take care of something before we leave.” And without another look my way, he stormed out the hole.
My mouth remained open long after he was gone. I couldn’t believe he was mad at me for this, when he fooled an entire planet just to get to his home not even a year ago. The left side of my head hurt like someone had drilled into my skull. Even my limbs felt heavy with disappointment. When the witches brought me and Lynn the trays and put them in front of us, I had no urge to even drink the water in the cup, but I did anyway. I was going back to Earth soon, and I needed all my strength with me, despite what Julian said.
Twenty three
“You are both Bone witches,” one of the women in front of us said.
After they placed the food on the ground for us, I assumed they were going to leave. They didn’t. They just stood in front of us, and now they were analyzing Lynn. I left the food on the tray and waited for them to speak, as they were obviously going to.
“I was one, too, a long time ago.” The woman who spoke was wrinkled and her hair completely gray, but her blue eyes still sparkled with life. When she smiled, perfect white teeth almost blinded me.
“What are you now?” Lynn asked, taking the words right from my mouth.
“In this realm, we don’t divide our powers. We’re all just witches,” the blue-eyed woman said.
“It’s liberating to get rid of titles,” the other woman said, nodding. She still had strings of black hair here and there, and her brown eyes looked as alive as her friend’s. If I had to guess, I’d say she was at least a couple of years younger.
“But they aren’t titles. They tell what holds our magic,” I said.
“That might be true on Earth,” the blue-eyed woman said. “Here, we are all the same.”
“If you’re a Bone witch, then you’re a Bone witch,” Lynn said. She seemed to agree with me.
The women in front of us looked at each other for a second, a smile on their faces, one that said “oh, how adorable they are,” and then suddenly sat down on the ground in front of us.
“Magic in the fairy realm works differently,” the blue-eyed woman said. “We’ve learned to treat
it the same way. We collect it from everywhere, not just Bone, Blood and Green.”
“I wouldn’t know how that works,” I mumbled. That was exactly the sort of thing Julian was talking about. He wanted me to manipulate my power sources as if my magic could be divided into two kinds.
“Of course you would. We all do,” the other witch said. “It’s only a matter of making up your mind.”
“We have you never returned home?” Lynn asked.
“This is our home now,” they said at the same time. “The witches sent us here to punish us. Instead, they rewarded us with a magical world.”
My mouth opened and the words were at the tip of my tongue. But it’s your home, I wanted to say, but I stopped myself. It wasn’t my business where they chose to make their place. I was more interested in something else, anyway.
“Why haven’t you tried to attack Galladar already?”
“We have,” the blue-eyed woman said. “But our magic alone can’t do any damage while he’s here. He’s protected.”
“Protected how? Like with a shield or something?”
But the woman shook her head. “We’re not sure. It must be fairy magic.” Then, she smiled. “Our magic isn’t very strong, I’m afraid.”
“It is if you’ve conjured spells that can keep this place protected from the fairies.” Maybe they wouldn’t be able to kill Galladar, but they could sure hurt him.
But the women shrugged. “It didn’t work. Our magic can’t get to him.”
“So he’s using a shield.” That was the only way I knew how to keep a spell off your back.
“Could be,” she whispered.
But something else occurred to me. “Come to think of it, how did he manage to be able to absorb fairy magic all of a sudden? How come nobody figured it out?”
It must have taken years of practice, if everything Julian told me about fairy magic was anything to go by. He did need a long time to hone his skills and perfect the role of a Blood witch, magic and all. Sure, fairy magic could become anything, but it would take a lot of time to learn how to actually absorb it. Somebody must have noticed something.
The women seemed to be clueless, which gave me a nagging feeling in my chest. “Nobody has heard of anything like it before, but with fairy magic, everything is possible.”
“Yes, possible, and also obvious. Where is Galladar from?”
“The Summer Court,” the witch said. “He used to live in the palace. He’s the Queen’s cousin.”
Shivers washed down my back. “So somebody must have seen him the whole time.”
The witches nodded. “Yes, they say he was a good fairy before all of this began. A quiet man who spoke very little.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this made no sense to me. “Then how did he learn his tricks?”
“Like we said, with fairy magic—”
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s possible. But not in the blink of an eye. Not something like this.”
I was going to ask them some more questions about Galladar, but then Julian walked in just as fast as he’d disappeared minutes ago. The two witches immediately jumped to their feet, and with their heads down, they slowly moved towards the doorway.
“The best of fortune to the Bone witches,” the younger one said.
“Hey, wait!” But they were already out the hole.
“You haven’t eaten anything,” Julian mumbled, looking at the tray when he sat down next to me again.
“Something’s not right,” I said instead. “This guy Galladar, he just woke up one day and could absorb magic, just like that?”
Julian narrowed his brows in confusion. “Yes?”
“I don’t buy it.” How could I? It was bullshit. “How long did it take you to master Blood magic? Or even your physical transformation from fairy to witch?”
“About four or five years,” he mumbled. “But I was on Earth.”
“How much faster could you have done it here?”
He thought about it for a second. “Probably a couple years.”
“Right, a couple years. Not within a day. The guy lived in a castle, for God’s sake. Somebody would have noticed if he suddenly began to suck magic off everyone who used it around him, don’t you think?”
“Oh, my God,” Lynn whispered.
“What are you trying to say?” asked Julian.
“I’m trying to say that he must have practiced for a very long time in order to shape his magic into what it is today.”
“Of course!”
“But nobody noticed a thing! Am I right?”
Julian leaned his head back. “Nobody noticed a thing,” he repeated.
“So how would he have practiced while living in a castle together with a King and Queen and probably hundreds of guards?” I was no expert on fairy royalties, but royalties of all kinds were protected by guards. Lots and lots of guards.
“Are there witches in the Summer Court?” Lynn asked, her voice breaking.
I looked at Julian and the second the words registered in his brain, his eyes widened. “You think that…”
“A spell,” I said and jumped to my feet, too excited to stay in one place. “Of course it was a spell!”
“But that would mean that…” Julian put his hand on his mouth. “Holy hell.”
“And if it was a spell that did this to him, a spell can be broken,” Lynn said. She was making me proud.
“If we find the spell caster and kill them,” I finished.
“This is…it fits,” Julian whispered and looked up at me. “It fits perfectly. Nobody suspected a thing before he attacked the Summer Court—not even his own brother, and they did everything together.”
“And he’s the Queen’s cousin. You’re a Prince and it took you years to alter your magic. Didn’t you say royal bloodlines are stronger?”
Julian nodded.
“You’re a Prince?” Lynn asked, obviously impressed by the title just as much as I had been when I heard it first.
“I am,” he said. “I was.”
“How many witches were there in the Summer Court? Do you know?”
“I’m not sure. Probably as many as in ours. About twenty,” Julian whispered. “But we can find out.”
I smiled. “Gerin.” That old fairy had made it against all odds, and I was sure glad he did.
Julian ran out the hole fast, and when he came back not a minute later, he was breathing heavily.
“Thirty-one,” he said. Thirty-one was a damn good number.
“At least one of them could have done such a spell. What coven were they from?”
But Julian shook his head. “In the realm, they aren’t classified—”
I rolled my eyes. “Right. They’re just witches here.”
“Look, it doesn’t matter what coven they were from. I know enough Blood magic to guess that something like this has the potential to be done. Blood magic is the strongest. If I could find a spell that opened a portal untied to any dimension, I’m pretty sure power absorption is right there on the list.” He sure as hell convinced me.
“How can we find the Summer witches?” They had to be called somehow.
Julian flinched. “Galladar killed most of the Summer Court, and I’m assuming he didn’t spare the witches. But if a witch really did this to him, he’d keep them right by his side.”
“Only if he knew that anybody knew, which I don’t think is the case. Maybe he left them here.” A girl could hope.
“Looks like we’ll need Gerin even more than we thought we would,” Julian said. “He must know a way to the Summer Court without getting noticed.”
“If there’s something left of it,” I said with a flinch. That asshole Galladar had wiped everything the Winter Court off the face of the realm. I wouldn’t be surprised if he did the same with his own home.
“The castle’s still standing. He imprisoned the King and Queen and has taken their throne,” Julian said. “I need to talk to Marva.”
Ugh. “You should do that alone be
cause I don’t think she likes me very much.” And I could say the same thing for her.
“Marva doesn’t like anyone,” Julian said with a smile.
“She sure likes you.” She’d hugged him at the prison like he was the love of her life. God, I was such a wreck. What the hell did jealousy want with me in a situation like this? A whole world was in ruins, for God’s sake. And another was going down the same path.
“We grew up together. She commands the Winter army.”
“So does this mean you’re staying?” Lynn asked, and if I wasn’t mistaken, her voice was full of accusation.
“No, I’m not. We’re going back, Lynn. While we deal with Galladar, Julian’s friends will find out if a witch is behind all of this,” I said in a rush. Caught up in my stupid jealousy, I’d forgotten how scared she was.
Breathing a bit easier, Lynn nodded. “When?”
“I’ll go talk to Marva,” Julian said. “Now, eat, you two. I’ll be back soon.”
This time, nobody interrupted us when we put the trays on our laps and ate the large steak they’d overcooked for us.
***
When somebody appeared at the doorway of the hole, I thought it would be Julian, so I looked up with a smile.
When I saw Marva’s face, I cringed. Totally involuntarily.
“We’re being attacked. Follow me,” she said.
My stomach turned, and I almost threw up everything I’d eaten. What the hell? Was she serious? Because she looked like she was telling me it was time for fucking bed!
But before I could ask her, she disappeared out the hole. Lynn’s eyes were wide with fear as she looked at me. I grabbed her hand in mine and followed Marva back to the large hole where everybody else was.
“Don’t worry. We’ll be gone soon,” I promised her, though running from a fight felt like such a cowardly thing to do. I needed to remind myself more than once that I wasn’t running from a fight. I was simply choosing another, which just so happened to be in another world.
Everybody was running from one hole into the other. Panic at the highest level. Fairies, men and women, were picking up weapons from the wooden boxes across the fruit baskets, and though fear hung in the air, there was excitement, too.