“Now raise your arms and cross them at your wrists like an x in front of you.” Tennessee’s deep voice sucked me out of my mental tailspin.
I nodded and held my arms like he’d asked.
“Okay, now hold hands.”
My eyes widened. Hold hands? I tried to remember a time when Tennessee and I had held hands, but my mind was struggling to think properly with him standing so close to me. I licked my lips and opened my hands. I looked up and found him watching me. His eyes sparkled against the potion’s purple glow. He crossed his arms then slid his palms against mine. I wasn’t sure how we were supposed to do it, but our fingers intertwined. We gripped each other tight, our eyes locked. His skin was hot to the touch, and I wanted to wrap myself in it. My chest burned that familiar burn; it was almost comforting now.
Purple mist swirled around us, twisting and turning through our arms. I peeled my gaze off his to watch the spell. Inside the violet smoke was a white cord. It slithered out of the cauldron like a snake. I glanced up at Tennessee and he winked.
“By knot of four, this power we store,” he chanted. “By knot of five, our spell’s alive.”
There was a tug in my gut. The cord shot up and wrapped around our hands, tying our wrists together. The cord bound us to each other so tight I couldn’t pull away. It tied a knot under our hands then slid over my shoulder toward Emersyn. I watched it repeat the same knots around Em and Royce’s hands. Their fingers definitely were not intertwined like ours. Tennessee’s gaze tingled against my jaw. I turned back, letting myself have an excuse to stare at him.
Something happened whenever we were this close. The rest of the world always disappeared. Tennessee’s lips moved, except I couldn’t hear his words over the heavy thumping of my heart. My chest grew tight, like I wasn’t breathing. Maybe I wasn’t. I leaned into him until the tips of our noses brushed. I wanted to close my eyes and lose myself in the moment, but I knew there were too many witnesses in the room. Instead, I held his stare, memorizing every fleck of color in his mismatched eyes.
Cooper chanted something, but he was too far back for me to hear. The purple mist lightened until it was gone, like a vacuum sucking up powder. The white cord shimmered gold and radiated heat…and then it was gone. The crystals crashed to the hardwood floor.
“So…was that it?” Royce asked from behind me. “We done?”
Tennessee gasped and jumped back, without letting go of my hands. It was only then I realized just how close we’d been standing. A cold draft swept over me from the loss of his body heat. My head spun from lack of breathing. I blinked and waited for the world to right itself.
“Yeah, cousin. No big deal, right?” Deacon chuckled.
Tennessee squeezed my hands. He leaned forward and pressed a quick, soft kiss to my knuckles, then pulled back. His fingers slid out of my hold, and I almost whined in protest.
He cleared his throat and looked away from me. “We better keep moving.”
We found Constance and Kenneth standing in the courtyard just outside the library.
Constance cleared her throat and smoothed the front of her white shirt down. “Come. You don’t have time to waste.” With that, she turned and led us across the courtyard.
No one asked where we were going. We knew. We may not have known where they were leading us, but we knew our destination. The Old Lands to find the Garden of Eden. It seemed wild that all of this was to find a book, even though I knew how valuable the Book of Shadows was. Bentley had told me himself before I left. He said the only way we could close the original Gap in Salem and fulfill the prophecy before Samhain was to find the Book. He wasn’t sure what was in it that we needed. That part was on me. In the back of my mind, I kept wondering what spell I’d have to perform for Keltie. There was no tricking the Fae. I would have to come through on my promise, and it scared me more than I wanted to admit.
A loud bell chimed from nearby. Moments later, a horde of people practically ran out of every door in sight like a stampede. Students. They looked about my age, some younger, some older. They all laughed and talked with the people around them…until they spotted us. It was like everyone saw us at the exact same moment. A hush echoed through the crowd. In an instant, several hundred eyes were on me. I glanced left and right only to find the same slack-jawed expression. Eyes of every color widened. Fingers pointed. Mouths were covered.
Tennessee raised his right arm in the air and flexed his hand. The air warped around his fingers. It was subtle though. If I hadn’t been looking, I would’ve missed it.
I frowned and looked around. I knew what he was doing. I knew what the hand-in-the-air thing meant. He was calling his sword, except I had no idea where it was. I hadn’t seen it since I used it to slice open the garden door on the plane. Every time I asked someone how it worked, they just shrugged and said, “Tennessee isn’t human. We stopped asking how.”
I bit my lip and waited. A few seconds later, there was a swooshing sound as something shimmered through the clouds. His sword slammed into his right palm with a soft thud. All without him breaking his stride. He twirled the hilt around in his hand, like they were greeting each other.
And then I heard it.
Emperor. All around the crowd the word Emperor bounced in hushed voices.
I smiled and looked up at my soulmate. He marched in front of us, right alongside Kenneth and Constance. Right where he belonged. He stood tall, with his shoulders back and his head held high. His long black hair rustled in the mountain breeze. Pride bloomed inside me. I didn’t understand why he didn’t want to lead. He was made for it. It was natural for him.
“Okay, this is as far as we can take you.” Constance stopped and turned toward us. She pointed behind her. “This is the path that will lead you to the Old Lands.”
I frowned and followed her point. My stomached dropped. It was something straight out of a horror film. A black wrought iron gate separated the school grounds from the wilderness. The archway had runes etched into the metal in silver and gold. It loomed like a gate into Hell itself. Behind it, the path was only paved a few feet, then it disappeared into a cloud of fog. My mind flashed memories from the Gathering and sent my pulse into overdrive.
“Use your pendulum to guide you to the Banished One. May the Goddess be behind you, and the Heavens on your side.” Kenneth placed one hand on Tennessee’s shoulder and squeezed. He leaned in and whispered something so low only Tennessee could hear. Then he looked to the rest of us. “Remember, you were chosen for a reason. Stay together, stay strong.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tegan
I lost cell phone reception at quarter till four. My phone stopped working at two minutes after six. As in entirely refused to function. Couldn’t slide it open to the home screen. Couldn’t power it off. Couldn’t turn on the flashlight. It was stuck. According to my phone, time just stopped. The sun kept dropping, but my clock remained the same.
The trees stood too tall to see the sun or the moon to track the time. Darkness fell upon us far too soon. The flashlights we packed were supposed to last for sixty hours, or something crazy like that. I kept telling myself that running out of battery was a product of the Old Land’s ancient magic and not because we’d been walking that long. Without artificial lighting or the moon’s guidance, we only had the glow of mine and Tennessee’s bodies. And we tried not to use it. We didn’t know if our magic would be depleted faster there as well. We had to conserve everything.
Including our strength. My body ached in places I never knew could hurt. The bottoms of my feet burned and pleaded for me to sit down, to relieve the pressure. Everything around us looked the same. Part of me wondered if we were walking in a circle. The only thing that gave me hope that we hadn’t already failed was the blueish-colored crystal dangling from Tennessee’s fingers. Somehow the pendulum was its own light. It shined like a Christmas light in the dark.
It was difficult to see Tennessee with his black hair and all-black attire, although the same co
uld be said about me. Unlike the rest of us, his steps made no noise. His breathing was calm and steady. He moved like a black leopard, a shadow in the dark. The purple crystal amulet in his dagger shimmered a subtle glow, but it barely stuck out of his boot enough to see. I knew his sword was gripped in his hand, but the black crystal hilt and black hematite blade were as invisible in the night as he was. For the first time since we met, I understood Emersyn’s fear of him. He was elusive and dangerous, the perfect camouflaged weapon among shadows.
Without the binding spell, I wouldn’t have known he was there at all. That spell allowed me to feel my friends’ presence without seeing them. I couldn’t tell what they were feeling or thinking, thankfully. But I felt every step they took. If someone stopped for even a second, it tugged in my stomach. I gripped my mother’s dagger in my right hand and held it at my side. My fingers itched with the need to pluck the other dagger from my thigh holster, but with that hand I held Chutney’s.
I expected her to be terrified, but she was the most at ease. All around us, animals stirred and went on with their lives. We couldn’t see them, but we heard them. The clawing of their nails against tree barks. The gnawing on leaves. The hissing. The growling. Every sound sent a chill down my spine.
Chutney squeezed my hand and stopped walking.
STOP. I whispered into my friends’ minds. We froze in place as a unit with our weapons raised and ready for use. Chutney’s magic allowed her to speak with animals, and she heard their thoughts in her mind. It didn’t take long for us to realize why she was chosen. When she heard something coming near, she let me know by squeezing my hand, then I’d tell everyone else. That was how we chose to talk to reduce the evidence of our existence.
A large shimmering gold lion with wings on its back and talons on its feet stomped into our pathway.
Willow, now.
Willow was becoming a bigger asset with each animal interaction. She raised her hands just inside my peripheral vision, and the air around us sparkled like glass. I had no idea what she made the creature see, but it hissed and fled. Chutney tugged my hand and began walking again.
Continue, guys.
The path we were on wasn’t so much a set path but slightly less wild than the rest. We ducked under branches and climbed over fallen trees or random roots. In the dark, I couldn’t be sure what anything was. The pendulum swung in a leftward angle. We followed it around what appeared to be the biggest tree I’d ever seen in my life until everything around us flattened out. For the first time since we left Eden, we were on level ground with open air around us and a perfect crescent moon above. There was just enough light off the moon to see we’d found a clearing of some kind. It was a small circle, maybe thirty feet across, with trees lining the perimeter like skyscrapers.
Tennessee’s pendulum spun in a circle.
Emersyn made a little whimper noise behind me. I knew what she was seeing. This was far, far too similar to the Gathering for my comfort. That night had been terrifying to live through, but looking back at it, knowing what I did now, only made it more frightening.
Are we here?
“Yes,” Tennessee whispered.
Great. Now what? I asked on everyone’s behalf.
Tennessee scowled and shoved the pendulum back in his front pocket. “We’re supposed to find the Banished One here,” he whispered back.
“I don’t see anyone else.” Willow clung to Chutney’s arm.
“Doesn’t mean we’re alone.” Tennessee narrowed his eyes on the edge of the clearing and walked forward.
A blast of hot energy hit my back. My eyes widened, and I stood tall. I glanced over my shoulder but found only darkness. We had no idea who or what the Banished One was, but it was here…and it was watching. Almost like it was waiting for something. But I had no idea what it would be waiting for—unless…maybe it wants the crystal?
I reached into the inside pocket of my leather jacket and pulled out the massive chunk of raw quartz crystal. Its energy tingled against my palm then shot up my arm.
Acting on an impulse I couldn’t identify I walked to the edge of the clearing where I felt the heat coming from and knelt down. I set the crystal on the ground and nodded to the dark.
“Tegan, what are you doing?”
I don’t know.
The darkness moved. That heat I felt intensified and slammed into my face. Without standing, I crept backward. Chutney gasped a split second before a massive pair of scarlet red eyes appeared from within the dark. Tennessee shouted something, but it was too late.
Something huge and black shot out from the trees and slammed right into my stomach. The wind was knocked out of me. Black spots danced in my vision. My back hit the dirt, and I slid across the clearing. There was yelling and shouting, except everything sounded fuzzy and faraway.
I clutched my stomach and rolled to my side, trying to get up and failing. My face smashed into cold dirt. I coughed and coughed until my throat burned and I gagged. I ran my hand under my shirt, sure I’d find a hole in my body and gallons of blood, except I found neither. I shook my head to clear the fuzziness, but it wasn’t working. Everything seemed to be happening far away. I closed my eyes and summoned my magic. Heal me. Heal me. Heal. Me.
I opened my eyes and choked on a gasp. Standing between me and my Coven-mates was a twenty-foot dragon as black as night itself. Its wings stretched up and over its head, blocking my view of the moon above. It turned and whipped its tail through the clearing. Tennessee jumped over it like he was playing jump rope on the playground. Deacon tackled Emersyn to the ground just as the tail swept over their heads. I got up on my knees.
Royce yelled and waved his arms. A long branch jumped out from within the trees and wrapped itself around the dragon’s tail. It thrashed and hissed. The three spikes on the end of his tail would slice through the tree in no time. We had to act fast. I just wasn’t sure what we were supposed to do. Something told me killing the creature wasn’t a good idea.
The dragon roared, and the ground trembled beneath us. I glanced at Tennessee. He was glowing and held both his weapons at the ready, but he wasn’t using any magic. His eyes were locked on the beast.
He doesn’t think we should kill it either. Except, if killing it wasn’t the plan, then what was?
The dragon lowered its head. Smoke seeped out from its nostrils. My stomach rolled. I threw my hand up and pushed my magic out just as the creature spit a stream of fire right at my friends. The flames hit my magic and shot up to the sky. The dragon didn’t notice its failure. It turned and spit stream after stream. I threw my energy into the center of its fire. I’d never tried to control fire like this, but I managed to force each of the flames away from my friends.
Tennessee’s eyes widened. He dropped to his knees and crossed his arms over his face. A little tornado of wind wrapped around him, blocking the flames from touching him.
None of this mattered. The dragon just kept shooting. We were going to run out of energy long before it ran out of fire.
Emersyn growled like a lion and jumped to her feet. Her long blonde hair whipped around her pretty face. Her golden eyes burned like the sun. She leapt in front of the flames with a ferocious scowl on her face, and then she…inhaled. With her arms raised, my sister sucked in each and every flame. Once they were gone, she stepped forward and gave the dragon a taste of its own medicine. Fire shot out between her lips and slammed into the dragon’s side.
The dragon jumped back and shook its head.
“STOP!” Chutney shrieked. She sprinted to the center of the clearing. Blood dripped down her forehead and her jeans were ripped at both knees, but her light blue eyes were wild. “Stop! Don’t hurt him!”
“Don’t hurt him?” Royce spun on her. “He just tried to cook us!”
Chutney’s curls bounced as she ran up to Emersyn’s side. “He doesn’t mean to hurt us. Stop fighting him. Royce, release his tail!”
“Are you nuts?”
“It’s not trying very hard to ki
ll us, Royce. Think about it.” Tennessee dropped his arms and stared up at the creature.
“Then what did you call all of that?” Royce snapped.
“A test.” I climbed to my feet, still holding my stomach. “As usual, I’m never ready for them to start.”
The dragon turned its bright lava-red eyes on me. He snorted and a puff of smoke left his nose. He tugged at the branch holding his tail, and it snapped like a piece of silly string, like it wasn’t actually ever restraining him. He whipped his tail over our heads to the edge of the clearing. The three-spiked tip scooped me up and carried me to the center where my friends were. Tennessee’s gaze scanned me up and down with a deep scowl.
I took a deep breath and smiled up at the dragon. “Thank you.”
“See,” Chutney snapped. She moved to stand right in front of the dragon. “I’m Chutney of The Coven. A prophecy from the Goddess requires us to seek the chalice inside the Garden of Eden.”
No one else moved or said a word. We all watched silently while our Fool talked to it.
Chutney nodded but then her eyes widened. She blinked. Before we could ask, two glowing orbs the size of basketballs appeared at the dragon’s feet. One was sea green, the other sky blue. Kinda like Tennessee’s eyes. The orbs hovered above the dirt. A cold chill slithered down my spine and I shivered. This wasn’t good. I knew enough to know this dragon was presenting us with a choice.
“Chutney.” Tennessee’s warm, silky voice broke through the silence. “What is going on?”
Chutney cleared her throat. “He says he had to test us to make sure we were worthy. Now that we’ve passed, he can offer us a ride to the entrance of the Garden of Eden.”
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