Peitr was there, at the middle of the room, thick smoke around him in strange geometric patterns that extended before him and pressed against the tear in the breach.
“Peitr,” Bailey howled, augmenting the air in her voice so that it shook the air in the seventh Cave. “This is over. Send it back!”
Peitr glanced at her, and then stepped aside. He barked something guttural at the breach.
There was a sharp pull in the air as it rushed toward the reptilian snout, and a vaguely familiar sound, as of something rushing through a long tube.
“Holy—” Bailey said, at the same moment that Chloe named the creature.
“Dragon! Get back!”
But Bailey couldn’t leave the Clearys there to die. Chloe clawed at her arm, but Bailey pushed her back and rushed forward, magic pouring through her and outward haphazardly just as fire exploded through the breach from the dragon’s snout. It was white and blue, and not merely elemental fire—Bailey’s magic burned away just as fast as she could send it to burn. The flames curled along the walls of the Cavern and a toxic smell stung her nose. The flames heated the air, and Bailey had to divert more magic from her defense toward channeling that heat down into the floor of the Cave. A patch of stone a yard wide glowed orange, and the rest of the floor grew warm even through her shoes.
The dragon’s breath ran out, and Bailey wasted no time. Even as her vision blurred, she could feel the structure of the Caves, and the metaphysical structures it intersected. Both were shredded. The best that Bailey could manage now was to hold the opening closed herself—the magical equivalent of sticking her finger in the dyke.
She did that, slamming magic first into the dragon’s snout to drive it back, and then twisting the edges of the breach with her will and magic until it was held tightly closed.
“Bailey, watch out!”
Bailey felt Chloe’s mind as it lashed out at Peitr, and she turned in time to see him stumble, holding a knife high, distracted by the psychic assault just long enough that Bailey could dance out of his reach.
She raised a hand, and a torrent of magic caught Peitr in her grip. “You,” she hissed. “We trusted you.”
“Yes,” Peitr said, smiling though he found it hard to speak with Bailey’s magic tightening around him. “When world is burning, make barbecue. You cannot stop. May as well… rule in hell, no?”
Bailey squeezed.
“No!” Chloe shouted. “Bailey, stop! Don’t do this. You can’t—cross that line and you won’t come back. Please… Bailey…”
“He would have killed these two,” Bailey said, “and unleashed that thing into our world. He’s already broken the wall—as soon as I lose my grip, Faerie will come pouring through it whenever they choose. He may have literally ended the world, Chloe! If anyone deserves to die…”
“Bailey?”
Bailey glanced toward the entrance to the seventh Cave. “Piper? What are you doing here? It’s dangerous, you need to get back to the Tour office where it’s safe.”
“Piper, she’s going to kill him,” Chloe breathed.
Piper stood, shocked, staring at Bailey, and then at Peitr as she realized what was happening. Bailey could feel the cold fear coming off of Piper—some of it from the state of the world in that moment—but some of it for Bailey herself. “Bailey,” she said quietly, raising both hands, “you can’t. That’s not how we do things, is it?”
“Maybe we should,” Bailey said. “If we’d turned him away to begin with, this wouldn’t have happened. I… I can’t tell who to trust anymore. Wheeler’s only half as evil as I thought, and Peitr turned on us even after I invited him into our town. The people out there, who I thought were our friends and neighbors invited hunters here and swallowed their poison beliefs.”
“It’s not black and white,” Piper said. “I know that. But Bailey, you can trust us. Please. You’ll regret this afterward. I know you, Bailey. And you won’t be able to live with yourself if you do this.”
“Then what should I do with him?” Bailey asked. “Put him in jail?”
Chloe stepped forward. “You plan to give everyone magic?” She asked. “You said it before. If you think you can do that…”
Bailey considered it. Doing so was difficult—her thoughts burned with the storm of magic coursing through her body and spirit. But…
She had seen it before, in her vision of all the people on earth with magic. She wasn’t just part of a current—she was the source of the deep magic. The conduit through which it poured into the world. It was the whole fulcrum of what she had to do.
She turned her attention back to Peitr, and searched her own magic for the thread that connected him to the primal source. It wasn’t easy—there was so much of it; so many threads. But she found it, and when she plucked it, Peitr reacted.
“No,” he breathed. “No… I will surrender. Can help, with Faerie people. You have my word.”
“You don’t deserve this gift,” Bailey told him. “This is a mercy.”
And with that, she clipped the thread.
Peitr wailed, and tried to claw at the air as if he could see the thread of his magic flapping free in the wind and could catch it, maybe tie it back together with the source. But he couldn’t—it dissolved like a river after the spring is capped, weakening until it was only wet dirt that would soon dry entirely.
“Take him and the Clearys out of here,” Bailey said. She released him, and Peitr collapsed to his knees. Bailey flicked her fingers and the knife near him spun off into the darkness. “I’ll hold the breach. I need the stones as quickly as possible. There’s no more time left. I have to assemble the throne.”
Chapter 39
Aiden turned sharply at the sound of footsteps emerging from the depths of the Caves, his wand at the ready. Somehow, he didn’t imagine that Faerie foot soldiers were likely to just come charging through the Caves—but then, one never did know; he’d never had to fight a war with Faerie before.
It wasn’t a cadre of Faerie assailants, however—but in some ways, that was almost worse. It was Piper, returning from the Caves with Chloe, Leander, and the warlock, and two limp bodies supported with Leander’s magic, wielded with one hand. The other looked badly damaged.
“What happened?” Aiden asked, alarmed at Bailey’s absence. “Where’s Bailey? Is she alright?”
Chloe let the others go ahead, and stopped by him. “She’s… holding the breach. She’s alright. For now, at any rate.”
“And you left her?” Aiden turned to enter the Caves and help.
“It’s not time,” Chloe said, catching his shoulder to stop him.
He nearly shrugged her off, but she went on, drawing his focus to the task at hand.
“We need to gather the stones and get them to her and that’s going to take as many hands as we have,” Chloe said calmly. Almost. There was a slight tremor in her voice that betrayed how worried she was.
“What happened in there?” He demanded.
“Peitr tried to summon a dragon,” Chloe said gravely. “He… hoped to weather the Faerie incursion with a weapon, I think.”
“Damned fool,” Aiden spat.
“Bailey nearly killed him,” Chloe whispered. “The magic… I want to believe that she’s just exhausted—and she must be—but I can’t help but think it’s the magic that’s doing this to her. She was never like this before, Aiden.”
He stared at her, aghast, and shook his head. “Do you hear yourself? She’s still Bailey. The strain she’s under right now… neither of us can imagine it. It’s not fair to expect her to be a saint.”
“I don’t expect her to be a saint,” Chloe snapped. “I just don’t want her to survive this only to be broken. There are things that you don’t heal from.”
He closed his mouth, and looked toward the depths of the Caves. “The stones are close. The first should be arriving soon. I’ll help you take the first ones in. What happened to Leander?”
Chloe’s face pinched with obvious pain. “Peitr p
ut some kind of creature in there to wait for us. Leander managed to banish it, but it got at him. Frostbite, instantly. Some sort of elemental, I think.”
“He needs to see a healer,” Aiden said, looking to where Leander was handing off the woman and then young man they’d fished out of the Caves.
“He knows,” Chloe sighed. “But he won’t go. He wants to be here when… if there’s an incursion.”
As she said it, there was a shudder that resonated through the world, like before but weaker—sharper, though, and more focused. There was another soon after.
“That’s them,” Aiden breathed. “Trying to break through.”
“The stones!” Chloe pointed, and then took off running toward a group of people each bearing two keystones.
Aiden followed. “Place them on the ground,” he ordered when he was close. “All together. Leander! Come, help me with them.”
Between the two of them they were able to create enough force to lift the pile of stones, each of them sharing the task of keeping them steady and lifting them from the earth with magic. They were heavier than they should have been, somehow exerting a pull toward the ground, and when they were floating, finally, they drifted toward the Caves of their own accord.
“We’ll take these to Bailey,” Aiden said. “Avery should be coming soon with the rest. Get them inside as soon as he arrives.”
Chloe nodded, and let them go.
Aiden and Leander entered the darkness, unable to spare extra magic to create light, and proceeded slowly as they crept over the uneven ground, mindful of the passages as they navigated the levitating keystones through them.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Aiden said as they walked, “about Bailey.”
“I don’t imagine she would care for your asking me if you can marry her,” Leander said, amused.
“How did you know?”
Leander snorted. “I’m not all that old, lad.”
“It’s not about permission, really,” Aiden said. “It’s just… approval, I suppose. Ryan passed before I could gain his.”
“I’ve no doubt that you had it, Aiden,” Leander said gently. “But for what it’s worth—of course, you have mine as well. Though, perhaps it would be best if you did not tell my daughter that I said as much. God willing, we will have more time to know one another as father and child but… I fear that’s a hope come too late.”
“I don’t think that’s quite true,” Aiden said. He didn’t like to think about not having that time. “She wants to be close to you and Chloe. It’s just that she only recently lost her other parents—Ryan, and Wendy. She doesn’t have the closure she needs, and I’m not sure that she’ll ever get it. It’ll just take time.”
Leander didn’t respond. Some time later, they both felt the tension of magic ahead, and emerged into the seventh Cave.
Bailey was there, both hands outstretched toward the wall. There had been a series of other tremors, and her arms shook as though she were literally holding a door closed.
“Where are the rest of them?” She asked. Her voice was ragged and taut. She hadn’t looked at them, or the collection of keystones. Whatever sense she was using, it wasn’t a physical one.
“Coming,” Aiden assured her. “Avery is on his way with the rest of the stones from Asia.”
“Can’t spare the thought to reach out,” Bailey said. “How far away?”
“Minutes,” Aiden assured her. “What can I do to help?”
“Nothing,” Bailey grunted. There was another tremor, and she shook with renewed effort.
“Avery’s interdiction spell may help,” Leander said.
“Hope we… get a chance to find out.” Bailey shifted her feet, and Aiden realized that she wasn’t standing straight up—she was leaning forward at an angle that should have let her fall over.
“How are you going to do the spell while you hold the breach?” Aiden asked. “What can we do to prepare?”
He moved closer to her, and could feel the tumult of magic in the air around her like an invisible, intangible hurricane. How any spell could be managed in the midst of that, Aiden couldn’t imagine.
“Crones,” Bailey said. “Get them up here. I… tried to reach out, but they’re in the eighth Cave and I can’t.”
“You believe they can help?”
“I don’t know,” Bailey said impatiently, “but I don’t think anyone else can.”
“That’s two aces,” Leander said, with hollow cheerfulness. “It’s something. I’ll go back to the front and bring Avery in when he arrives with his stones.”
Aiden nodded, and let his teacher go after they shared a long look, each making silent promises.
“Let me help,” Aiden said. He brandished his wand. “I can at least provide support.”
“Save your magic,” Bailey told him. “Aiden I… I can feel myself getting weaker. My magic isn’t endless. Or… my capacity isn’t endless. I’m burning up in it. Once the stones get here I have to put all my attention on that. What’s on the other side is powerful. So… horribly powerful. There won’t be any way to hold the breach for very long. They’re going to get through before I can make the Throne.”
She glanced at him, tears in her eyes. “People… not everyone will survive. I can’t save them all, Aiden.”
He felt utterly helpless at that moment. “Not all of them,” he told her. “And that will be something.”
Bailey sucked in a breath, and nearly buckled. Aiden caught her before she fell, and her skin was almost hot enough to burn him.
“Bailey! What is it?”
“No,” she breathed. “No, no, no…”
“Tell me,” Aiden urged, “I can’t help if I don’t—”
“Hunters,” Bailey gasped. “They’re attacking.”
From the Cave entrance, Aiden realized, he heard the echoes of screams.
Chapter 40
Avery and the other wizards worked what magic they could to shorten the journey. One step became ten, and then fifteen, and the woods and the beach flew by their party at dangerous speeds.
It was exhilarating, and terrifying. The Pakistani wizard had taught them the spell but warned them that under the circumstances, warping the space in this region might be dangerous. They’d found the limit of the spell and crept as close to it as they could.
It carried them toward town much faster, but did nothing for the strain of running. Avery carried only one of the stones, his other hand needed for his wand and the spell, and within only a few minutes he was sucking down burning breaths and struggling to keep his legs moving. Adrenaline helped, but after half an hour of running at full speed he was near to passing out. How those among them that had to carry two stones—like Peter—were still standing, he couldn’t fathom.
His beacon spell pulsed ahead of the pack of runners, indicating their position to Aiden and Leander. Between the portal, the beacon, and the distortion field to make their journey faster, he wasn’t sure what he would have left in the event they had to fight.
The answer to that question, it turned out, was going to be discovered sooner than he realized.
They came to the Caves from the beach side, releasing the distortion field as the stone face that jutted out of the slope appeared. Already the sounds of fighting and the quiver of battle magic were in the air—as well as a thick plume of smoke or mist that was already beginning to envelope part of the beach.
“What is that?” Peter asked, breathless.
Four wizards twitched wands and peered through dweomer spells, and all came to the same conclusion.
“Not magic,” Avery said. “Something else.”
“Hunter smoke,” one of the older Swedish witches said. “Witchhazel and a rare tobacco, and finely ground iron. And worse. We cannot go there; we will lose magic. Such as it is.”
“Do we have wind workers here?” Avery asked, looking around.
One young woman raised her hand hesitantly. “I… have not learned well. I can feel magic here,
but it is slow. I am not strong yet.”
“Great,” Avery muttered. “Alright… then just six of us. Grab two keystones each, and we run straight through. Hold your breath if you have to. We’ll take the stones straight into the Caves. Don’t get distracted. Maybe the smoke will give us some cover.”
It was as good a plan as any. Peter insisted on being one of the runners, and after seeing him keep pace Avery couldn’t deny the man had stamina they would need. The two younger wizards went as well, and two of the swedish witches.
“The rest of you stay clear of the smoke.” He looked at the older wizard. “Leon, find a spot to hide everyone and keep it warded.”
Leon nodded, and began waving the rest of the party toward the slope.
Avery and the other runners sucked in deep breaths until they were almost light headed again, over-saturating themselves with precious oxygen as they jogged toward the Caves and up the northern slope toward the entrance.
Just as they came to the farthest edges of the smoke cloud, they sucked in a final breath, and sprinted into the haze.
Chapter 41
Aria struggled to ignore the pounding that was coming faster and faster as she coaxed the currents of life in Rhonda’s body onward. Alkina helped some—she was in a trance, meeting with Rhonda in some dream place, trying to keep her spirit here in the living world. Sonya, likewise, kept her hands on Rhonda’s feet, reaching in with her power to tilt the million little biological coin-flips in the patient’s favor.
Between the three of them, Rhonda was surviving. She only needed to hang on long enough for the antidote to neutralize the poison.
They were nearly there when Simone gasped, and then put her hands to her ears, and then screamed.
“Simone!” Mary cried, and went to her sister’s side, covering her Simone’s hands with her own. “What’s wrong?”
Rhonda stirred, groaning weakly.
“I can hear them!” Simone screamed. “They're so afraid!”
“Who?” Aria asked. “Simone, who do you hear?”
Simone’s puffy eyes opened, and she turned to stare daggers at Wheeler. She pointed at him. “Your hunters! You lied to us!”
Witching for a Miracle (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 7) Page 17