Piper sucked in sharp, rapid breaths in the back seat of Aiden’s car. “Bailey, if we’re in some kind of danger, I have to get home to my children.”
“As long as no one mentions Riley,” Bailey said, “they should be fine. But still—it might be a good idea to have Gavin take the kids. Or… I don’t know, maybe you should go with them.”
“What happened in there?” Aiden asked.
Bailey cast Piper a sympathetic look, and then sighed. “Lydia… she’s probably a hunter. Or a plant, or she’s related to them. That’s the only way she’d know that there are so-called ‘experts’ out there. I hate to say this, Piper but… I think she played you.”
“But why?” Piper asked. Lydia had seemed perfectly friendly. She’d been an ally in a moment of vulnerability, and… and… she was old. She was like a kindly grandmother. How could she…? “God, I was so stupid.”
“No, you weren’t,” Bailey muttered. “They’re just good. She wanted to get the whole town boiling. No one suspects the kind old grandmother.”
Piper wondered if Bailey was reading her thoughts, but Bailey didn’t respond to her mental question when she asked. Maybe that was precisely why Lydia had been the one to play Piper like she had.
“Now that they are,” Aiden said gravely, “all the hunters have to do is show up. When they were unexpected and we were the only ones looking out for them, the wards might have warned us and let us deal with them. Now, they’ll be invited and we can’t do a thing without arousing the ire of the people.”
“What’s going to happen now?” Piper asked.
Bailey shook her head. “We’ll… regroup. Figure it out. I don’t know. We don’t have time to deal with this kind of thing, I need to be able to focus on the Caves, and Faerie—this is going to cost us.”
“I’m so sorry, Bailey,” Piper said, her throat tight. “I did exactly what she wanted. I’m so, so sorry.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. How was she possibly going to make this better? And leave Coven Grove, after what she’d done? Absolutely not.
“Stop it,” Bailey said. She caught Piper’s eyes. “Just… stop. It won’t do any good and it isn’t your fault. Not even I would have sensed anything wrong with her and I probably wouldn’t have tried. When I did, though, back there… it was like I kept missing her thoughts. Like I kept losing my aim. She had some pouch around her neck.”
“How small?” Aiden asked.
“About this big,” Piper said. “I saw it up close before. I didn’t think anything of it.”
Aiden paled. “That is… rather alarming.”
“What is it?” Bailey asked.
Piper leaned toward him as Aiden spoke.
“The hunters we encountered before were skilled, but unprepared,” he said. “They took Piper only with the aid of Seamus in his… state. It’s possible they were only a fringe family to begin with.”
“Fringe family?” Piper wondered.
Bailey glanced at her and nodded. “Hunters tend to come in families. Parents pass the knowledge on to their children, biological or otherwise.”
“And they have their own version of magic,” Aiden said, disgusted. “Foul stuff.”
“Like what?” Piper asked. The Bakery was coming into sight now, and her van was there. Gavin’s mother was with the children, but Piper couldn’t help but worry about them anyway. She searched for Riley’s presence and found it about where the house was; he hadn’t been taken or anything, at least. It was comforting to know that in the event, God forbid, that he was, she’d have a line on him no matter where he was.
“They abhor all magic,” Aiden said. “But they aren’t above co-opting it to protect them against other types of magic.”
“With what?” Bailey wondered.
“It… depends,” Aiden whispered. “We’re here. We should go in.”
Piper followed Bailey and Aiden to the Bakery at a slight distance. Whatever Bailey said, the guilt wouldn’t go away. And she wasn’t sure what she could possibly to do to alleviate it. What if the hunters came, invited by the people of Coven Grove, and then…
The idea of every member of the Coven’s blood on Piper’s hands was too much. Her heart started pounding, and she couldn’t breathe. What if the Coven was destroyed, and the Caves failed and then the entire world was at the mercy of the cruel Faeries?
She collapsed on the grass, numb and aching at the same time, sobbing even as Bailey descended on her, and then Avery, the two of them hauling her to her feet to take her inside.
“Just breathe,” Bailey kept saying.
“It’s okay, Pipes,” Avery whispered. “It’s okay, you’re with us.”
But that was just the problem. Piper was with her friends.
And she didn’t deserve to be.
Chapter 10
“How were we unable to read Lydia’s mind?” Chloe asked the Coven. “Obviously it’s some hunter trick but it’s not her innate magic is it? Not unless…”
“She’s a Faerie?” Bailey suggested. She shook her head. “If she was I would sense it.”
“You didn’t before,” Avery pointed out. “When Mr. Dove was here, none of us realized it. Or Seamus, for that matter, when he was possessed.”
“It’s likely neither of those things,” Aiden said.
“Then what?” Chloe asked.
Aiden looked uncomfortable, and Bailey could feel the apprehension coming off of him. She touched his hand, and he took hers and stared at her fingers. Sheer terror vibrated through his skin, broadcasting on a frequency that probably only Bailey could pick up. It made her grip his hand tightly.
“It is possible,” Aiden said, his voice raw, “through certain terrible, dark arts… to defend oneself against a practitioner’s magic through a kind of sympathetic charm.”
“What kind of charm?” Bailey asked.
“From what I’ve heard,” Aiden said quietly, “the most reliable charms are… made from finger bones. Of… of practitioners. Normally witches.”
Bailey stomach turned, and she was glad she’d had nothing to eat since that morning. “My God… is that what Lydia has in her pouch?”
“I can’t be certain,” Aiden said, shaking his head. “But if so, she’ll be proofed against most general magic, and whatever kind of magic the witch herself possessed. The one whose finger Lydia possesses. These charms are rare and valuable among hunters.”
“So whoever she’s with,” Piper said, “they’re serious.”
“Far more organized and with greater resources than the hunters on the mountain,” Aiden agreed. “It is likely that… those hunters informed one of the greater families. They don’t waste time.”
Everyone was quiet for a long moment, until footsteps descended the stairs in the back room, and Alkina emerged. She frowned when she saw the general state of them all. “It did not go well, I take it.”
When they’d caught her up, Bailey adjusted her estimation of the woman. Not that it had been low before; but Alkina had seemed calm, controlled, and possibly impervious to being upset.
Now, she fairly trembled with rage.
“If this is so,” she said, “then we must fortify our defenses. Numbers and diversity will be our greatest strength. Twice before my Coven faced hunters, and both times we took losses which nearly destroyed us. We cannot afford to take such losses here. Not so close to re-establishing the throne.”
“Our priority is sealing off Faerie,” Bailey pointed out.
“Which can only be done by gathering the ancestral stones,” Alkina said. “We must speed our sisters here. Our Coven knows of two others, who surely know of more themselves. If we spread the word far and wide, then in time they will all arrive.”
“Our contact with other Covens was lost ages ago,” Frances said. She stood near the door, watching the street for any sign of an incoming lynch mob.
“And it would take too long, anyway,” Bailey said. “If witches everywhere are also being called here then… we just have to wait.”
&nbs
p; “Some of them may ignore the signs,” Alkina said. “Or they may not understand them. Much of the old knowledge has been lost. It could be weeks, or months before all of the stones are gathered.”
“And that assumes none of them have been lost or removed,” Aiden added helpfully. “Some of the Caves failed quite a long time ago.”
“I may have an idea,” Avery said from his corner of the room, near Piper.
Everyone looked at him.
“Uh, specifically about bringing everyone here,” Avery clarified.
“We’re desperate to hear it, Avery,” Bailey said when he didn’t immediately tell them.
“Well it’s untested and mostly just a theory,” Aiden muttered. “But… ah… the essence of the spell that Leander and I have been working on is a kind of… bridge matrix. Sharing magic between two planes in order to strengthen a central—”
“Avery,” Bailey sighed.
“Sorry,” he said quickly. He glanced at Piper, and then to Bailey. “If we were to work out a similar kind of bridge, between you and Piper, so that your magic was… sort of blended together, then because you seem to be connected to every witch in the world and Piper has her… witch radar kind of gift, then it’s possible that you might be able to reach out and call to all of the witches directly. Telepathically, I mean—using your own native gift.”
“There are a lot of possibly’s and maybe’s in that, it sounds like,” Frances grumbled. “Are you talking about something you know how to do, or some kind of mad science?”
“It is not only wizard’s magic that can accomplish such a thing,” Alkina said slowly. She raised a finger. “My own gift, dreamwalking, demands that I create a similar bridge between myself and another. And, when walking the dream, I have often accessed the gifts of other witches; though the gift fades upon waking.”
Bailey and Piper shared a look. Bailey’s was concerned, and Piper’s was eager to the point of desperation. Bailey stayed well away from Piper’s thoughts, but she could sense Piper’s need to correct her perceived failure. It was painful to know that Piper held herself responsible, but Bailey supposed that were their positions reversed she likely would as well.
“Is it dangerous?” Bailey asked.
Avery hesitated. “No… I don’t think so.”
“Aiden?” Bailey looked to her other wizard for confirmation.
Aiden also hesitated, his eyes distant in the way they were when he did wizardly math in his mind. After a moment, he nodded. “Depending on the method used… it should be safe. I suspect that if Alkina can help to facilitate that spell itself, it would be far more stable.”
Alkina balked at the idea immediately. “Facilitate what? Wizard’s magic? What do I know of wizardry.”
Bailey sighed, and stood. “It’s not as difficult for us as it is for them,” she said.
The foreign witch didn’t seem at all convinced, though, her eyes wide. “You not only invite wizards into your sanctuaries, but work magic with them? Witchcraft in the US is very different than I am used to.”
“It’s not the US,” Frances sighed. “Just here. It takes some getting used to.”
“But,” Aria added, “we’ve found, over time, that it’s very effective.”
Alkina nodded slowly, and then spread her hands. “If you wish for me to assist, my queen, then I shall.”
“I do,” Bailey said, stifling a groan. “And please, don’t call me that. Call me Bailey.”
Alkina’s apologetic smile was strained. “As you wish.”
Hopeless, Bailey decided. And not a fight she had the energy for now. Not when there were… what was she up to now, four? Four fights to deal with.
“Well,” Bailey said to Avery, “what do you need to do this?”
Avery grimaced, and glanced at Chloe. “Well… for one thing… I need someone better at it. I think we might need Leander.”
Chloe very studiously assessed the mug in her hand. “Why look at me? He’s free to help.”
“He can’t come into Coven Grove for very long,” Avery said, hesitantly. “And when he’s here his magic is… difficult.”
Of course. Chloe’s curse.
Bailey looked at her mother for a while before Chloe finally looked up.
“It’s not like flicking a switch,” she said. “That curse is tied to an old, deep hurt. It’s not like I haven’t tried to lift it.”
Alkina raised her eyebrows. “Is that right,” she muttered.
Chloe nodded, and narrowed her eyes at Alkina’s apparently knowing smile. “What? Do you know what I can do?”
“Oh, yes,” Alkina said. “I know quite well. But I doubt that you will like it.”
Chloe rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to respond, but Bailey cut her off.
“Whatever it is,” she said quickly, “she’ll do it. Chloe… Mom… we can’t afford to hang our future on a grudge.”
Chloe’s teeth clicked, and she sighed with obvious irritation. Her jaw muscles twitched, and she swirled her coffee before finally she shrugged. “I’m sure it will be fine. So, Alkina… what do I do?”
Chapter 11
“I don’t see why we can’t just go to Leander in his little… shack in the woods,” Chloe muttered while they waited for Avery to return with Leander.
“The spell will have to take place in the Caves,” Bailey said. “We need as much of a connection to the shared current as possible. Relying on my magic alone could be dangerous to Piper.”
Chloe grunted, conceding the point but only grudgingly.
Bailey rolled her eyes when she was sure Chloe wasn’t looking, and Aiden gave Bailey a patient smile. She wished he would let down his wards entirely so that she could speak to him privately inside their own minds. It’s so strange to see her acting like a sulky child, she’d have said to him.
Maybe he saw it in her eyes, because his sparkled a little with amusement.
She supposed, in a way, that part of her mother was still a teenager. That’s what happened to people, after all—something happened to a person when they were young, they never resolved it, and fifty years later that part of them is still waiting for resolution, unable to really grow up until it happens.
Lifting a curse—in the event one was cast in the first place—was typically a matter of breaking whatever base was used. Sometimes that was a crystal, or a personal item from the recipient, or a fetische object like a poppet doll or some such. No honest, self respecting witch would have wasted her energy on a curse intentionally; but then that was the problem in a nutshell.
Chloe had cursed Leander when she was young, inexperienced, and unaware of what she could do. The base for her curse had been something that couldn’t easily be broken—the pain of betrayal itself. That was the connection she’d used, instinctively, when she’d cast him out of Coven Grove and told him never to return.
Since Leander had come back—almost—to Coven Grove, Bailey had often wondered how her life would have gone differently if he’d been able to stay.
It was hard to get a clear read on Leander. At times, he looked at Bailey with what she could only interpret as pride; but she wasn’t sure if there was anything truly paternal about it. Other times, he seemed so self-absorbed and focused on his own plans and machinations that she wasn’t even certain he could be trusted. In fact, even now she worried about whether letting him back into Coven Grove was a good idea or not.
How much of that was her own old, rusted pain?
It didn’t take long for Avery to return with Leander. He was staying just at the edge of what Chloe had once considered to be “town,” which was technically inside the official border of Coven Grove but outside the main drag. For him, it was apparently a wall that he was very aware of once he passed through it. So far, he’d managed to spend a full hour downtown successfully—after that, he’d started to simply wander off. Powerful magic.
So, they had about that much time before Leander would be next to useless, assuming he had any work to actually do in the pro
cess.
“Finally,” Bailey breathed when she saw Avery park. Alkina was already down at the Caves with Aria and Frances, preparing her ritual. She put her hand on Chloe’s shoulder. “Are you ready for this?”
“I can’t say for sure,” Chloe admitted. “But I’ll try. Going back there… it makes me scared. It’s silly, right? It was more than twenty years ago. I was different. He was probably different. I wish I could just let it go.”
Bailey wished it were that easy as well. “Maybe this will be good for you in other ways.”
“Silver linings,” Chloe agreed.
Leander and Avery approached them, and it was clear that for Leander there was an effort involved.
“Chloe,” Leander said when he was near them.
Bailey had to smile a little. Whatever his motivations, and whoever he was then or had become since, when Leander said Chloe’s name it was obvious that he still had a flame for her. Maybe he was still eighteen as well, deep down where that old pain waited.
“We don’t have much time,” Chloe said. “We should get going.”
“Lead the way,” Leander said.
They walked together, down the slope toward the sea, and eventually onto the wide dirt path that led to the Caves. Lights were already flickering just inside the first Cave, though the ritual itself would take place deeper inside, in the third of the seven Caves for which the landmark was named.
There was an eighth Cave, technically—but Bailey had speculated for some time that it might not truly exist. It was a strange place that was too large, and had a clear view of the sky despite the fact that there was no such atrium visible from above the rock formation that jutted out from the earth.
Chloe led them through the first two Caves, past a few squat candles that were lit mostly to light the way rather than for any ritual purpose—the three visiting witches were unfamiliar with the rough interior of the Caves, and the coven was, of course, not short on candles to spare to light their way.
Witching for a Miracle (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 7) Page 5