by Mindy Klasky
Teresa had used one vortex to steal my magic. And now she used that pilfered magic and another swirling mouth to steal my goods.
Power pulsed in my fingertips, spiking high as rage drowned every conscious thought in my brain. “No!” I shouted, a verbal cry that ripped the back of my throat, even as I added a psychic scream orders of magnitude louder, stronger, more wracked with anguish.
Automatically, I offered up my thoughts, my voice, my heart. I was still sworn to Hecate; the Court had not broken that bond. I reached out to the goddess herself, to the strength she’d always given me, to the guidance she’d always shared. I stretched for the strongest spell I knew, for a Word of power, one forceful enough to freeze every witch, warder, and familiar within a dozen square miles. I took three steps toward the thieves in the safehold.
And I came up short as a gleaming sword was leveled against my belly.
David’s hands shook on the hilt, trembling hard enough I heard his teeth rattle inside his skull. The blade itself was steady, though, utterly still in its deadly force.
That steadiness, that calm told me everything I needed to know. David would never raise a blade against me. Ethan controlled the weapon, managing it with the bond he’d imposed upon my warder.
I reached out for David’s mind, for the bond we’d shared for five long years. I sent him an image of strength, of power. I bid him use my strength to break free from Ethan.
“No, Witch,” Teresa’s warder said equably. “That one is not yours to command.” An iron sheet fell between David’s mind and mine, Ethan cutting me off, exploiting his control over David yet again.
I growled in rage as David threw back his head, despair and remorse tightening every muscle in his body. He had brought us to this pass—his pride and his certainty, his determination to gain me Blanton House when my magicarium would have faltered. I lowered my hands to his trembling wrists.
“Release him,” Ethan said, with the same casual tone he would use to tell me Mercury was in retrograde. He emphasized the command with a tightening of his right fist. David raised his sword higher. His hands were as hard as oak beneath mine. Ethan glided two steps back, forcing David from my touch.
I snarled at Ethan. “You call yourself a Warder of Hecate, but you raise a blade against a witch?”
“No true witch, you,” Ethan said amiably. “Not any longer. Now you stand alone.”
I glanced over his shoulder, at Teresa’s group inside the cordon. They were leaning close to their vortex, hands raised in identical commanding gestures. A wand, rowan inlaid with ash, slipped out of the whirlpool. Teresa caught it with eager fingers, wasting no time in raising it above her head. She channeled more of my power through the ancient artifact, and the vortex doubled its speed, doubled its size.
My cry of fury had no words. All my years of hatred for Teresa crested to a rolling boil. She’d allowed others to betray me. She’d stolen my labor in setting her cornerstone. She’d paid Norville Pitt to attack my magicarium, and when I’d still gained my charter, she’d used my student to plant her thieving vortexes.
I clutched my powers tight around me, shrouding myself in a cloak of magic. I caught my breath, determined to force my way past David, past Ethan, past the shimmering cordon that protected my enemy. I tensed my muscles and ordered my legs to carry me forward, to ignore the threat of leveled steel.
One step.
Another.
And David’s blade sliced deep into my veil of power, sending up a spray of steel-grey sparks.
CHAPTER 19
They burned.
The sparks grew stronger as I leaned into David’s sword, the fiery evidence of his warder’s magic clashing against my protective shield. Each glint lasted longer than the one before, glaring brighter, carving a deeper channel into my own energy.
I recognized David’s magic behind the flares—the familiar logic of his warder’s mind, the rigid reason he’d used to guide me in all my witchy studies. This was the power he’d channeled when he’d first taught me spellwork, when he’d shown me how to use wands and runes and crystals. I’d always been aware of his power cast around me, over me, surrounding me to protect me from anyone who meant me ill.
I’d never once considered that his energy might be leveled against me.
I firmed my resolve, taking a tighter grasp on my powers. Beyond Ethan, I could see Teresa and her sisters pulling a book through their vortex. I had no idea which of my treasures they’d claimed—something in brown leather with gold lettering on its spine. As it emerged from the nucleus, it lengthened the tentacles of power even more. It fed the vortex that brought it into that circle.
I’d never asked to become a witch. I’d never asked to be in charge of the Osgood collection, to be responsible for those treasures. But they’d called to me from their basement stronghold; they’d beckoned me with their imposing sense of foreboding even before I lived in the garden cottage where they lurked. The collection had been primed with my attention. I’d organized it, learned with it, used it to teach others.
Even if I never spoke with another witch again, I needed to protect the Osgood cache.
Another glance at Teresa, another book pulled through the nucleus. The witches were working faster now, more in sync with each other, taking advantage of the larger, faster-spinning whirlwind in their midst. Every item they plundered super-charged their working. If they reached my massive box of crystals, all hope would be lost.
I had no choice. No matter what happened—if I broke David’s sword, if he cut through my protective veil—I needed to try. I needed to fight for all I treasured.
I caught my lower lip between my teeth and stepped forward.
David’s blade rose to meet me. This time, the sparks were a river of light, flowing from his sword, sizzling against my raiment. Each glint dug a trench in the protection I’d woven; every wave chewed away at my garb. The light show was matched with a horrific screeching, as if the harpy had returned, as if the foundation of the magical world was being sheared off its axis. My ears ached under the onslaught, my mind juddered, but I had no other option. I forced myself forward another inch.
I’d known David long enough that I could read the words Ethan did not let him say. I understood that his taut lips were ordering me to stop. The strained lines of his throat were commanding me to yield. Green flecks brightened the depths of his mahogany eyes, and I knew he was pleading with me, begging me to give up before Ethan forced him to destroy me.
“I can’t,” I whispered. “You know I can’t.”
He closed his eyes; Ethan gave him that much freedom. He even threw his head back. The other warder did not need him looking at me, did not need him concentrating on the sword that was wedged deep in my astral armor. I filled my lungs and tensed my belly, telling myself there was no other way. I could not let Teresa win without taking my last painful step.
My veil flared. Steel-grey sparks crashed against me like boulders. The sound of my shield shredding was a million cats stretched on a million racks.
It was suicide to push forward.
I stood down. Tears streaming down my face, breath snagging in my lungs like Velcro against silk, I forced myself to back away.
David’s head slumped forward, his neck utterly slack in defeat. Ethan’s victorious cry echoed across the lawn. Beyond him, Teresa and her cursed sisterhood dragged through a trio of silver flasks.
My knees started to buckle, and I closed my eyes so I would not have to see the rest. I wasn’t strong enough to watch the destruction of everything I’d worked for. I wasn’t brave enough to face my enemy in utter defeat. I’d pushed myself to my limits, and I was wanting. Teresa Alison Sidney had won.
Before I could hit the ground, a firm hand closed on my biceps.
I knew that grasp. My mind processed the touch even before my eyes bolted open. A strong shoulder was leaning in close to me. A warm body was standing beside me, giving far more support than he took.
Neko.
&nbs
p; “No,” I croaked through numb lips. “You can’t. The Court—”
“Really?” he asked, cutting me off. “You awakened me on the night of a full moon. You gave me autonomy—twice. And you think I’m going to waste my freedom giving in to that desiccated group of pontificating bureaucrats?”
His fingers slipped through one of the rents in my gown of power, settling against the pulse point in my right wrist. He captured the remnants of my own flagging magic and mirrored it back to me, flooding me with sudden power. My mind cleared with every ripple, every reflection. My body calmed. My heart slowed, as if I were in the middle of deep meditation, and I took the time to focus on a series of breaths that cleared the last gasp of panic from my lungs.
Yes, I’d been cast out. Yes, I was poison to all witches who knew me, to my familiar. But that familiar was choosing me, choosing the crazy, patched-together life we’d built together, no matter the cost to himself.
“Excellent,” Neko said. “But I’m not the only one who made a choice.”
He tilted his head to the side with all the sly grace of a cat calculating its next pounce. My gaze followed him by reflex. A cry caught in my throat as I realized what I was looking at.
My magicarium was ranged in a circle around Teresa’s cohort. There, at the east point, at the quarter devoted to the Guardians of Air, stood Raven. Kopek nestled at her side, his hangdog expression made no worse by the overwhelming surroundings. Tony stood behind the pair, his ceremonial sword raised.
Toward the south stood Alex, accompanied by Garth and by Majom, Clara’s familiar. Gran stood several strides away, her weathered hand resting on the forearm of Bree’s familiar, Perd. A little farther off stood Emma, protected by Caleb and supported by Alex’s Seta. Clara was next, her brilliant chartreuse caftan swirling around Raven’s Hani. Bree was last, resting easy with Luke at her back and Nuri by her side.
“Ready?” Neko asked.
“I can’t,” I croaked. “Working with me will doom all of them.”
“That’s what David said, when he called me. When he warned the others away.”
When he warned… That’s what David had done, when he’d cast back his head. He could not speak with me; Ethan had seen to that. But the other warder had never thought to cut off David’s communication with Neko. My warder and my familiar spoke on a channel nearly as well-worn as the ones they shared with me. Ethan had likely never imagined such a contact. Teresa’s tethered familiar Connie certainly offered no such partnership.
“It’s not fair,” I said.
“Each of us made a choice,” Neko answered. “Full and informed. Each witch. Each familiar. Each warder.”
David had told them. They knew the cost. And still they’d chosen to stand with me, to preserve our community. I closed my eyes and I could feel it, the steady thrum of six willing witches, six willing familiars, all watched over willing warders. I saw the weaving we could make, the power we could raise.
“Sisters,” I sent, blazing into my students’ consciousness with a power I’d never dared use before. “Friends.” I reached out to include their familiars.
Each responded to my unvoiced question with an offering. Raven rolled out a wave of violet power, an ocean of raw ability that sifted over and around us. Alex, Emma, and Bree dove under that astral blanket, buoying it up with their own signatures—indigo quills from Alex, silver water from Emma, rich brown earth from Bree. Gran and Clara were the last to chime in, rounding out the working with their familiar ruby and emerald strands.
As they poured in their energy, each of my allies shifted, physically moving to adjust their circle. Within a few strides, they’d expanded their boundaries, still enclosing Teresa and her companions within a ring that was large enough to reach me.
I laughed as I stepped into the circumference of their working. Golden light gathered in my chest, rippling to flow down my arms and through my fingertips. Neko bolstered the effect, tossing strands to Perd and Seta, to Hani and Kopek, Nuri and Majom. The other familiars responded as they’d learned to do, as my magicarium had taught them. They fed energy to their witches, reflecting back my students’ innate power, charging it to become something new, something stronger.
Our magic sang as we wove our astral fabric above the cordon of Teresa’s warders. I heard each individual note, a clarion call from every witch, amplified by every familiar. The ringing cloth sailed high into the air, increasing in strength, magnifying in intensity.
I saw Teresa sense our threat, measure out the danger we presented. I read her lips as she broke off another command to the vortex. Instead, she ordered her sisters to gather closer to the centerstone. She clutched at Connie’s shoulder, the bones of her long fingers standing out white against the poor familiar’s shirt. I felt Teresa’s panicked draw on her magical lifeline, clutching at straws to boost her strength, even as she calculated the tremendous array against her.
With a mental nudge, my students and I lowered our weaving. Our cloth coruscated against the dome set by Teresa’s warders. I fed more power into our strands, forced them lower, closer, tighter.
Of course those paired warders outside Teresa’s glittering cordon did not stand idle. Individually, they poured their energy into their protective hemisphere. The iridescent surface bulged outward, issuing a series of noises like volcanoes splitting the earth. Empowered by their immediate success, the warders redoubled their efforts. The cordon pulsed again, stretching our weaving to the breaking point. Still more energy dripped into the dome, pulsing, pressing, ripping at our efforts.
We staggered.
As a group, we could not maintain our tension, could not continue the inexorable push down against the desperation of eight warders fighting to save the body and spirit of their witches.
Neko hissed beside me, the furious sound of a cat lashed into a corner. I gritted my teeth and tugged a little harder on the rope he offered me, on the strength that bound me to our joint working.
Slowly, painfully, we regained our collective footing. We pressed down on the others. We tightened our weaving, flaring our colored strands like the Northern Lights. Each of my witches renewed her bonds across the circle, reaching out for other familiars, relying on the community we’d built over the past six weeks.
We had a nucleus, a core of common power. But each of us remained independent, remained strong in separate ways. Alex lashed out with her angry urban energy, a wing of power as dark as midnight. Clara poured in her own crazy magic, a sage scented dreamcatcher that bolstered all our disparate strands. Bree and Emma, Raven and Gran, each maintained her own indomitable power.
I saw the look on Teresa’s terrified face, and I drained the last power from my capillaries. My own tentacles were woven throughout our working, golden strands that reinforced a flagging edge of our work, that pressed down on the iridescent cordon, that shored up another swaying span.
Teresa’s protection started to shudder. Spiderweb cracks opened and closed along the crest of her dome.
“No!” Ethan’s bellow rang out beneath our woven canopy, echoing from ground to sky. The one word was filled with anguish, strapped tight against bitter command. He was a warrior who led other men. He was a warder who protected his witch.
Shoving David to his knees, Ethan grabbed for the sword that had been leveled against all my powers. He plucked the steel from David’s fingers as easily as he might have taken cotton candy from a child. David was still bound, still enthralled. He could do nothing.
Ethan planted both swords—David’s and his own—against the edge of the cordon. He channeled his iron energy through the forged steel, pouring out his power in double time. The angry buzz we’d heard as Ethan bonded David’s weapon returned now, ten times louder, twenty.
The draw was too much to sustain. Ethan had to strip his focus from David. He loosened his grip on David’s throat, allowing him to speak, to bellow wordless rage. Ethan gathered up the energy he’d spent on David’s silence and fed it through the swords, bolstering th
e cordon still held by his men.
I leaned hard on Neko, crushing the mirrors of his reflective force. The splintering facets shone my power back at new angles. I harvested the dram of fresh power and stabilized our weaving.
Ethan peeled back more of his power from David, freeing my warder’s arms. David reached toward me, grasping, desperate. Ethan poured the gleaned energy into Teresa’s shimmering dome.
I countered again, reaching through Neko to the other familiars. I used stalwart Perd to excavate the depths of Gran’s powers, scraping the last tendrils of her magic and adding them to our web. I clutched at Nuri, relying on my familiarity with the woman to deplete Bree. Majom was next, the mischievous little boy who’d joined our group so early. I carved out every bit of energy Alex could spare, leaving her barely enough to breathe, to swallow.
A sharp crack echoed between Teresa’s cordon and my own. Her dome was breaking.
Ethan grunted in response. Sweat streaked his face, ruining the starched collar of his spotless cotton shirt. He pulled back the last of his power from David, yanking the final bonds free with a force that sent my warder staggering like a newborn colt. Ethan dumped his collection into his shimmering dome, shoving the last of his energy into the protection of his witch.
Everything rested in perfect balance. Our carefully woven net pressed against Teresa’s cordon. Ethan’s boost held our working at bay.
We had nothing left to give. Every witch in my community had poured out her utmost. Each familiar was channeling untold heights of power, weaving it, transmitting, keeping the entire impossible net charged. We were stretched to the outer limits of our capacity. Beyond.
Ethan drained his bond from David’s sword. Iron caltrops leaped from the blade, falling against the iridescent dome. With each jagged spike, the structure swelled, pushing back against our net, becoming an opalescent shield that obscured the witches inside.
They were winning. We had offered up everything we had, every trick, every spell. We had nothing left to give. Teresa Alison Sidney and her eight compatriots were safe beneath their dome, secure to continue their working, to siphon off every last item in the Osgood collection.