Cauldron Bubble (Toil & Trouble Book 1)

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Cauldron Bubble (Toil & Trouble Book 1) Page 9

by Wendy Knight

Destiny didn’t know how to finish that thought. Fate drove slowly, and by the way her hands gripped the steering wheel like a lifeline, her knuckles white, she was having the same thoughts. Destiny wanted to talk to her, but she didn’t know what to say.

  Fate said it for her.

  “What if he doesn’t want us?”

  Destiny glanced over at her, met Fate’s gaze, and reached across the center console to touch her hand. She thought of all kinds of responses, like how could he not? We’re adorable. But nothing appropriate. She had no answers, because it was the fear tied around her heart, as well.

  What if he doesn’t want us?

  Destiny raised her chin and straightened her spine. It took a lot of energy, but it was necessary. “Don’t worry about that. What if we don’t want him?”

  Fate winked at her, but her smile was a little sad. “How could we not? He’s adorable.”

  In the back seat, Alina leaned her head against the side window and said nothing. Destiny had no idea how hard this must be on her. What she must be thinking. Destiny watched her face in the rearview mirror, the big brown eyes staring blankly into the forests beyond the road. The shadows… and Destiny could read in her eyes how much she wanted to disappear into those shadows and not come out. Being in the light hurt. Darkness soothed. Darkness calmed. Darkness healed.

  “I’ve never met another witch who can do that,” Alina said quietly.

  Destiny met her eyes in the mirror. Fate couldn’t do it. Fate belonged in the light. Destiny always felt more at home in the dark. In the shadows.

  “What are we going to say when we get out of the car?” Fate asked. They were pulling into the long, winding dirt driveway.

  “We’re going to say ‘tell us how to heal Destiny and get her magic back.’” Alina nodded firmly.

  Destiny smiled.

  “And after he fixes Destiny?”

  “I’m not a pet, Fate,” Destiny muttered.

  Fate grinned.

  “We will say goodbye.” Alina’s voice was infinitely sad.

  Fate slammed on the brakes. Destiny was thrown forward, instantly grateful for the seatbelt that saved her from flying through the windshield. “Fate!”

  But Fate wasn’t listening. “What do you mean, we’ll say goodbye? He’s our dad. Our father. He needs to be in our lives!”

  “Why?” Alina asked. She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t even look at Fate.

  Fate sent Destiny an incredulous look, but Destiny thought it was a legitimate question. And then she remembered.

  She remembered all the questions when they were little, lying outside on the roof, watching the stars, talking to the spiders and the crows. What do you think our dad is like? Do you think we have his eyes? Do you think he’s nice? Do you think he misses us? Do you think he’s looking for us?

  As they’d grown older, the questions had slowly stopped. Destiny had always wondered. Fate had always obsessed.

  “Fate wants him in her life, Mom.” Destiny twisted in her seat as Fate started driving again. “That’s not saying that you haven’t been everything we’ve ever needed. You were the world’s best mother and father. You taught us to be brave and strong. You taught us magic, and you taught us kindness. There is nothing a father could have given us that you didn’t.”

  “You don’t believe in love,” Alina whispered.

  Destiny’s mouth closed with a snap and she could only blink. “It’s not that. I just—”

  “You think if it can be created in a potion, it isn’t real. You think that because of me.”

  “No.” Fate practically snarled, easing over the potholes in the dirt. The house was just visible through the trees. “She thought that because of Winnie, just like you. Winnie’s more warlock than witch.”

  Destiny patted her sister. “Easy there.”

  Fate huffed and put the truck in park. Destiny took a deep breath and undid her seatbelt. “Here we go.”

  She slid out of the truck just as Luca arrived at Alina’s door. He opened it before Alina could even get to the handle, and she just sat there, staring up at him.

  “Maybe this needs to be a conversation between you two,” Destiny said, catching Fate’s nod of approval on the other side of the truck.

  “Yes. It does.” Luca nodded. “But first, let’s get you healthy again. Can we go inside?” He held out his hand to help Alina from the truck and after a brief hesitation, Alina took it.

  Fate raised her eyebrows and hid a smile as she turned on her heel, starting for the front door. She waited for Destiny at the front of the truck, looping her arm around her waist. What looked to anyone else like common sister closeness was actually Fate holding Destiny up when she was too weak to hold herself up. But no one else would see that.

  “You’ve raised them well,” Luca said quietly.

  Destiny leaned her head on Fate’s shoulder as they paused at the front door while Fate dug for her house key. “Would you look at that,” Fate whispered. “Somebody does see it.”

  “They are good girls,” Alina answered him. “Headstrong, but good.”

  “Like their mother.”

  Alina slid through the doorway, practically melding into the shadows with every step. One second she was there, one second she wasn’t. “Where do you want her?” she asked from somewhere to the left.

  “Couch?” Luca asked.

  Destiny nodded and slid off her running shoes, kicking them under the bench by the door. “This way.” She padded into the living room, Luca on her heels.

  “Will you need anything? Herbs, potions?” Fate called from the kitchen. “Boiled water and clean towels?”

  “I’m not giving birth,” Destiny snapped back.

  She could hear Fate giggling from the kitchen.

  “So tell me,” she said, casting one dark glare toward her sister, who couldn’t even see it. Such a waste of a good glare. “How do you help the coven when you live clear up here?”

  Luca had swung past his house on the way here to pick up his other bag. The one he worked on witches with, apparently. It was only a half hour from their house.

  Was that irony?

  Alina appeared next to them, materializing out of the shadows, and leaned on the arm of the couch.

  “There are two of us. We take turns every other month. Right now, she’s there and I’m here. The interesting thing is, this was supposed to be my month, but she needed to trade. I wasn’t even supposed to be at that meet today.” He dug around in his bag, potion bottles knocking against stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs. It was a very odd combination, indeed.

  Alina sucked in a breath. As a general rule, witches were superstitious. Mostly because they knew the power of superstitions and what they held. Also, she had named her daughters Fate and Destiny, which explained a lot.

  “When did the attack occur?” he asked, oblivious to Alina.

  Or not, judging by the quick glances he stole her way.

  “Over a week ago.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “No. There was a warrior there. She was alone, but her son and I—”

  “Her son? He’s magical?”

  “Only if you call a freakishly powerful uppercut magical.”

  “He tried to fight off warlocks with his fists?”

  “And his feet.”

  Luca smiled, nodding. “Go on.”

  “We went to help her. She was hit and fell just as Fate and my mother got there. We—we invented this new potion. It works really well.”

  “It burns them from the inside out,” Fate said brightly, coming in with clean towels despite Destiny’s not being in labor.

  “You—you invented that?”

  Destiny nodded.

  “They make up potions often,” Alina said, stroking Destiny’s hair away from her face. “They’ve also made one that heals, but we sent the last of it with the boy. Destiny hasn’t been strong enough to make it since, and Fate and I aren’t strong enough without her.”

  Luca stared
at them for several seconds. “You invent potions?”

  Alina nodded. Fate and Destiny nodded, too.

  “Winnie invents potions, as well.”

  Fate dropped the towels and put her hands on her hips. “What?”

  Luca peered into Destiny’s eyes with his bright light. “Say ah.”

  She obediently opened her mouth as Luca continued. “She randomly shows up after being gone for a couple of days. She says she’s been holed up at home working on new potions. I’ve suspected she wasn’t being completely honest.”

  “She’s taking credit for our potions?” Fate snarled. Even Alina’s face darkened in anger.

  “She can never reproduce them, though. Sometimes she’ll show up with a new batch, but if it runs out, she isn’t able to mix more.”

  Destiny suddenly understood. She understood how Luca was here. “You followed Winnie.”

  Fate blinked, Alina inhaled sharply. Luca smiled. “Very astute.”

  “I’ve got to draw some blood, Destiny. It will hurt a little.”

  Destiny nodded and held out her arm for Luca to tie off.

  “The warlocks had been systematically slaughtering all the potion witches. The coven has none, and it was believed that none were left. Winnie had told everyone Alina was killed in the massacre.”

  Alina paled, her eyes huge in her face. “She—”

  “Without potion witches, the coven has been floundering. Turns out the warriors aren’t all that powerful without powerful potions to back them up. And then Winnie starts showing up with these astoundingly effective potions for battle, but can’t reproduce them? How stupid does she think we are? I knew. I knew immediately that Alina had to be alive. So I followed her, but I would always lose her before we got here. I knew… I knew you had to be in this area, so I bought a house and started searching.”

  “How long?” Alina whispered.

  Luca shrugged, putting on the bandage and turning to the blood work. “A while.”

  Destiny glanced at Fate, who was watching the exchange like her favorite daytime soap.

  “So tell me this. How are you a witch doctor if you’re not magic?” Destiny abruptly changed the subject because they were getting into a conversation that she and Fate should not be a part of.

  Luca smiled distractedly at her while he shook the vial he held and watched as it fizzled. “Science is a magic all its own.”

  His smile died abruptly. “Destiny, this is going to be very painful. There’s still a toxin running through your blood. It’s slowly killing you and the warlocks must be nearby, waiting. Like vultures.”

  “What does that mean?” Fate whimpered.

  “It means that they’ve had a taste of her power, and they want it all. They won’t stop until they get it.”

  “Can you get rid of the toxin?” Alina asked. Her lips trembled and her hand, holding Destiny’s, was shaking.

  “Yes, but like I said, it will be very painful.”

  Ah, more pain. Just what Destiny wanted.

  ****

  QUIN DREADED THE MOMENT his dad came back. He had to, of course, keep going to work, keep up appearances, pay the bills, blah blah blah. He’d taken a few days off and then driven the twelve hours home to work for the remainder of the week, but as soon as he’d gotten off work Friday, he’d come racing back. It was the wee hours of Saturday morning now, just before dawn.

  It didn’t matter what Quin had told him on the phone, or how much Quin had tried to prepare him. The devastation on his dad’s face when he walked in to see Cass still completely unresponsive nearly drove Quin to his knees. “Nothing’s changed,” he croaked.

  His dad nodded.

  “They keep telling me — Ancient has been here several times — she keeps saying the night will heal her, but we’ve been through all these nights and nothing’s changed.” Quin raked a hand through his hair and paced through the dimly lit room. He’d hardly left in over a week now. They fed him here, at her side. He showered here, he slept here. The only time he’d ventured beyond the room and into the bright lights of the rest of the coven’s hospital, it had nearly blinded him. Maybe this was his life now, living in darkness.

  His dad mirrored Quin’s movement, shoving his hand through his own wild black hair, except his was peppered with gray now and tamed by careful grooming.

  Quin preferred his wild, like his mother’s. Girls liked it better, apparently, and he didn’t mind that even a little.

  His dad turned in a slow circle. “Witches never speak in regular sentences. Everything’s a riddle to them. If she said night, she probably meant some weird sort of flower or a phase of the moon. I’ll see if they’ll let us access their libraries and archives. Maybe we can find something.”

  Quin studied him. He looked infinitely older than he had just over a week ago. The pain in his eyes, the barely concealed panic, it never went away. The lines around his mouth were more pronounced, his teeth always clenched and his shoulders tense, his hands fisting and un-fisting as if trying to fight against the helplessness, and not knowing how.

  Quin understood.

  “Can’t we just ask Ancient? Or Eldest? She seems pretty normal.”

  His dad shook his head. “They don’t know.”

  Quin twitched. Maybe it was a nervous habit he was developing. “What?”

  “They don’t know. They know the prophecy. They know the words, they don’t know the meaning behind them. Otherwise they would have ended this war hundreds of years ago.” Randomly, he glanced at the clock. “It’s past your bedtime.”

  Quin raised an eyebrow, since it looked like his dad was the one about to collapse. Had he slept at all while he’d been away? Or had he paced the house alone, praying for answers that wouldn’t come, begging for a miracle? “Yeah. Okay. Let’s both get some sleep. Maybe this is the night that’ll wake her.”

  His dad nodded and slipped out of his jacket. Quin settled into his chair, pulling the thin blanket up to his chest. He dropped his head onto the arm — after so many days of sleeping here, he’d mastered the best position to sleep in — and he closed his eyes.

  He heard his dad’s broken plea and his heart broke. “Please come back to us.”

  Sleep didn’t come easily after that. Or at all, actually. Quin lay in his awkward position and listened to his dad breathe, and his mom breathe, and half-panicked when he wondered if his dad would go to sleep and not wake up, either.

  Except that his dad wasn’t sleeping. He could tell by the constant shifting, the low coughs every so often. They both pretended for the sake of the other, or maybe because there was nothing either could say that would make this suck less.

  Night will save your mother.

  Quin ran through every herb his mother had ever used. She’d always wanted to be a potions witch. She said she didn’t have the magic touch, that her potions were lackluster, but she’d so loved mixing them, and she’d loved it when Quin had helped. Just because men couldn’t be magic like women didn’t mean he couldn’t help.

  A fat lot of help he’d been when they were attacked. If it hadn’t been for Destiny…

  Destiny. He hadn’t thought about her since Eldest and Ancient and all their prophecy talk. He wondered if they ever had tracked her down. He wondered if she was really the one to end this all, and it didn’t take much thought until he decided that yes, he could believe she was. His mother had said her healing potion as unlike anything she’d ever seen or used. And he’d seen her himself, fighting off those warlocks. She got the crap beat out of her, and she hadn’t even paused.

  A horrible thought hit him, something that hadn’t even occurred to him in all this time. What if Destiny hadn’t made it? What if they’d killed her, fed from her, took her magic and her soul? What if he’d grabbed his mother and run but left Destiny there to die?

  But her mother had come. And Fate. If something had happened, they would be here, wouldn’t they? And certainly Eldest would have told him, or at the very least, not been surprised when he’
d mentioned twins. So she wasn’t here, and that meant she was safe.

  Except she had seemed wholly unprepared for that battle. And his mother had told him there were no potion witches left. So maybe she didn’t even know about the Coven. Maybe they’d been banished. Maybe she was out there, suffering, with no help at all.

  He felt like he was going to be sick.

  She’d been on her feet, though, when he’d left, and winning. Actually, she’d been on his mother’s broomstick, which she’d had no idea how to ride, obviously. The thought made him smile, just a bit. The furious blue eyes, the determined set to her mouth. The midnight black hair tumbling behind her. If she wasn’t a warrior, well… she should have been.

  He froze, mentally replaying his last several thoughts.

  Midnight black hair.

  Mid-night black hair.

  His own words, to Eldest. Twins, one night, one day, will stop the war and save the day.

  And Ancient’s words. Only the night can save your mother.

  Destiny was the night. Fate was the day. They would end the war, and Destiny would save his mother.

  “Dad, I’ve gotta go back. I think I know what to do.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  DESTINY COULDN’T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME she’d been in so much pain. It felt like her blood was on fire, and it was burning her as it moved through her body. It felt like—like the blood was hurting her where it touched the inside of her skin. She had long since given up trying to scream her way out of it or writhing. Nothing helped. Now, she just lay still because every movement hurt, even breathing, and prayed for help.

  “Is there nothing we can do? This is killing her.” She heard Alina’s voice, soft, because they had learned quickly that loud noises or sudden movements hurt Destiny even if she had her eyes closed. They had pulled all the curtains and turned off all the lights, but still, Destiny hurt.

  “They must have realized quickly how powerful she was. There are hundreds of thousands of spells — spells that act like talons, trying to take all the magic from her blood. It hurts her so badly because our potion is waging war on each of those spells.”

  “How did they know she was so powerful when we’ve never known ourselves?” Fate whispered.

 

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