Shadows appeared out of thin air, blocking my path to Trey.
I tightened my grip on my swords and charged forward. Up ahead, hiding like the true coward he was, Trey threw his head back and laughed. I sliced and diced a straight line toward him. With every shadow I smoked and every foot I gained, Trey stopped laughing and grew more flustered. Sweat was already beading across his brow. I was coming for him, and we both knew he was no match for me. I saw revenge. I heard the choir singing of vengeance in my mind. He was going to pay for his crimes, and I was going to deliver that to him.
I ducked and spun, swinging my sword right through a shadow’s knees. It vanished into thin air, but I didn’t look back to see where it reappeared. I made that final lunge for Trey. Our blades crashed, and the sound of metal on metal echoed through the cul-de-sac. I unleashed every ounce of fury I had on him. My blades sliced into his skin, leaving streaks of blood across his chest and arms.
Behind Trey, Joseph let out a loud roar. “It’s not here. KILL THEM!”
And then he vanished into the shadows and out of sight. I glanced over my shoulder to the house. The black smoke river was gone, but his shadow army was still there.
“Hey, Jackson?”
I spun around and met Trey’s eyes.
He looked down at my chest then back up to my face. He arched one eyebrow. “Where’s Bettina?”
My eyes widened.
Trey grinned…and then vanished.
Oh no. No, no, no. I turned back to the house and found the shadows had all left.
My heart plummeted. My stomach turned. A cold chill slid down my spine. “He’s going for Bettina.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tennessee
I stepped out of Tegan’s portal and froze. “This is not Crone Island.”
“What gave it away?” Tegan purred in my ear.
I looked down to give her a smart-ass response when I spotted Henley right beside her. Grinning. Her sapphire blue eyes sparkled in a way I hadn’t seen since…well, since shit went down.
Henley sighed and looked around. “This is Bourbon Street. In New Orleans.”
“N’orlens, darlin’. That’s how they say it here.” Lennox giggled and stepped out from behind a pole. “And let me tell ya’, once we get all this shit settled, I’m gonna come down here and have myself a party.”
“Hey, Lenny.” Tegan stepped forward and gave her a high five. “Sorry for being vague, but we need your assistance and I didn’t want to explain over the phone.”
She pushed away from the pole and tied her indigo hair up on top of her head. Those yellow-green eyes narrowed on the three of us. “It have something to do with that princess sippy cup you’re clutching?”
Tegan held it tight to her body. “Yes.”
Lennox nodded. “Then why don’t you explain when we get there?”
Tegan glanced around the dark alley we were in then snapped her fingers. Her white portal opened up right beside me. “After y’all.”
I stepped through the portal first. The second the salty ocean air swept over me, I felt the tension in my body ease slightly. The gentle wind rushed through my hair, pushing it back off my face. I sighed. The mountains were beautiful and the change of seasons was gorgeous, but there was something about being near the ocean.
“Whoaaaa!”
I jumped and spun around…
“Look at my white dress!” Lennox squealed. “Magic is so damn cool. Where did our clothes even go?”
Henley chuckled and tucked her black hair behind her ears. “Part of the magic of the island. When we cross the border, we get changed into this. When we cross back, our clothes return as they were.”
Tegan clutched the sippy cup in one hand and her crystal necklace in the other. “I’m just glad it doesn’t take my jewelry with it.”
Lennox glanced over at me and nodded. “Damn, Tenn, you look good in a dress.”
My cheeks warmed. “Um, thanks?”
Tegan’s gaze slid down my body then back up slowly. She bit her bottom lip.
I cleared my throat. I couldn’t concentrate when she looked at me like that. “So…um…babe…why are we here?”
“Hey, you portaled us right into the middle…” Henley pursed her lips and nodded. “Cool.”
Tegan grinned. “Thanks. I’m getting good at coming here— Oh, Myrtle!” She waved then skipped away.
Henley and Lennox hurried after her. I spun around with every intention of following after them, but then my gaze landed on Myrtle and my body froze in place. Memories crashed back into my mind. It was so surreal to have my memories back now. To know what my life was like before Kessler found me. Before I was the Emperor.
I saw Myrtle talking with the three girls a few feet in front of me, except I was seeing something else entirely. I saw me…and Hope. Mom and Dad were talking with Myrtle while Hope and I giggled and chased each other around. They’d only interrupted when we started flinging magic at each other—
“Haven?”
I jumped…and found Myrtle standing right in front of me. Over her shoulder, I saw Henley and Lennox disappear into Myrtle’s workspace. Tegan leaned against the doorway, watching me with a smile. She winked then blew me a kiss.
“Haven?”
I jumped again. I groaned and scrubbed my face. When I pulled my hands away, I looked down at the woman I thought I’d only just met a few months ago. It was weird. My brain couldn’t figure out how to line up all my memories with this one woman. She stood before me, over three hundred years old, yet I vividly recalled the younger version I’d met in Salem.
A warm, soft hand pressed against my cheek, and all the wild, raging thoughts subsided. “There. That better?”
I sighed and nodded. “Yes.”
She pulled her hand back. “Oh, my little Haven. I can’t tell you how nice it is to finally see you again.” Her silver eyes brimmed with tears.
My chest tightened, but I saw Tegan still standing in the doorway and it helped me keep breathing. “Did you know? This whole time?”
“Yes…and no.” Myrtle frowned. “When we first met, in my house in Salem 1692, the moment I saw you, I thought to myself ‘he’s a Proctor’ because you carried Uriel’s aura on you, and it called to that same aura inside me. But then you said your name, Tennessee Wildes, and it confused me. Three hundred years later, on this very island, I met a young Haven Proctor. Goddess, you were only just a year old. But in that moment, I knew. I knew just who you were, because we had already met.”
My breath left me in a rush. I ran my hand through my hair. “So then— How did—"
“I didn’t understand, either, but I knew it wasn’t my place to ask… But then one day she asked me…” She wrung her hands together and shook her head. “She said she’d been watching me with you, and she knew there was something I wasn’t telling her…so…I told her.”
I gasped. “You told her…about our time travel?”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “I almost didn’t. At first, I simply said that I’d met you a long time ago. But your mother was smart, and she wanted to know more. Then she told me that she knew she wasn’t going to live to see you grow up and she just wanted to know…what your future held.”
She knew she wasn’t going to see me grow up? How did she know that? “W-what did you tell her? I thought that wasn’t allowed?”
“I know what it’s like to fear for your child’s future.” Myrtle sighed and her eyes filled with pain. “So, I told her everything. I told her about the young man I met named Tennessee Wildes with the Emperor’s Mark on his arm. She was happy to hear that you named yourself that. You should know that.”
My heart did a weird flip. “She was?”
Myrtle smiled softly. “And then I told her that you had a soulmate named Tegan Bishop, the High Priestess and Aether Witch, and let me tell you…she was so happy she cried.”
“Sh-she d-did?”
“Oh yes. Apparently she’d met little toddler Tegan at some poin
t and absolutely adored her. As a matter of fact…” Myrtle chuckled and shook her head. “She told me that she was going to Hunter’s house the very next day, in Charleston, and that she’d been planning on bringing you and Hope with her so you all could play. But I told her she could not bring you.”
“What? Why?” I glanced over her shoulder to Tegan, but she’d gone inside already.
“How could I let her introduce two soulmates at such a young age only to know they’d be forced apart for twelve years? Think of how torturous that would have been for both of you.”
I opened my mouth then shut it. My chest flared with sharp pain at just the thought of it. “Yeah, that’s true. So…my mom knew all this? She met Tegan?”
Myrtle grinned. “She loved Tegan. She used to talk to me all the time about her those few years. She was always having Cassandra add things into the New Book of Shadows just for Tegan. When I told her that Tegan was yours…well, I think it gave her some peace to know.”
I tugged on my hair and started to pace. “It doesn’t make any sense, Myrtle. How could you know me and then just not know me? I mean, if you recognized Uriel’s power—"
“Your mother’s magic was potent—but that is a story for another day, though.” Myrtle grabbed my arm and gently led me toward the building where the girls went. Then she forced me down into a reclining chair right outside the door. “When I heard that your family had…perished, I, of course, knew you survived. I knew who you became…but when you showed up here with Tegan and the others in August…your mother’s magic had diluted my memories of Haven so much that I had to actively concentrate just to get little fragments of memory. It’s a painful thing to fight, so I didn’t. And you had a job to do. I knew we would be here one day, on the other side.”
“Do you know where Hope is?”
“I feel her. She is alive…but it’s stuck, right on the tip of my tongue.” Myrtle tipped my chin up, forcing me to look into her eyes. “Because I only knew Hope as Hope. I hadn’t met her in the past, as an adult, with her alias. It’s a tricky thing.”
“Okay, but—”
“But nothing.” She reached out and pressed her palm to my forehead. “I must get inside and help Tegan create the reversal potion so that we may find your sister. You, on the other hand, need to sit right here and get some rest until we’re done.”
“No, no, I need to h—”
“Rest.” She pushed me back down, and silvery magic billowed out from under her palm. “I am your grandmother, Haven, many times removed. Do as I say and sleep.”
I opened my mouth to argue with her—but darkness pulled me in.
“Babe?”
I jumped up and stumbled out of the lounge chair. Soft, warm hands caught me. Then I looked down and found pale green eyes sparkling up at me.
I sighed. “Hi.”
“Hi.” She grinned. “You okay?”
“My grandmother knocked me out.”
“You’re welcome,” Myrtle said with a chuckle from behind me.
I turned, ready to give her some attitude—then froze. Lennox and Henley were carrying a massive golden cauldron. It was full. I frowned and pointed.
Tegan slid her hand into mine and tangled our fingers. “It’s time to set Hope free.”
My pulse quickened. My body began to shake. Set Hope free. My sister. I was excited. Nervous. Terrified. I didn’t know what to do with all of these emotions at once. But Tegan held on tight, so I concentrated on that.
Myrtle walked over to the cauldron then bent over and sniffed. When she stood, she turned back to Tegan. “Brew this over a flame until the second moon rising. Then pour the contents over the Goddess’s glyph on your Holy Ground and recite the spell. This was not designed to be reversed by drinking. The earth will send the magic to reverse the effects.”
“Th-that’s it?” It seemed too easy. Too simple.
Lennox rolled her eyes. “Right, that was simple.”
Tegan snapped her fingers, and the portal opened up right behind Lennox and Henley. They said one last goodbye to Myrtle, then carried the cauldron through the portal. Tegan gave her a hug, then skipped over to the edge of her portal.
I gave Myrtle, my great-grandmother, a hug. But as I was pulling back, I thought about the words Myrtle had said about a mother worrying. “We removed Saffie’s curse.”
Myrtle gasped and stepped back. Her eyes went wide. “Y-you wh-wh-what?”
“We removed her curse.” I nodded. “But when we did the spell, it sent her to Salem. Keltie was there, and she went to Salem to find her.”
Myrtle’s eyes teared up, and her bottom lip trembled. “When you find her…bring her to me?”
I pressed my palm to my chest. “I promise.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bettina
“How are you sitting there so calm right now?”
Emersyn looked over and frowned. “You mean because they’re all over there fighting and we’re not?”
“Because Deacon is over there fighting and you’re here.”
“You get a crash course at getting used to it.” Her face softened. She looked down at her hands and shook her head. “He died in my arms in October. Tegan brought him back, but it was the longest sixty seconds of my life. And, I don’t know, after that…you’d think I’d be even more scared. And I was at first. It’s just…I think I’ve grown a little numb to it. We’ve lost so many people now.”
Jackson’s face flashed in my mind. “You’re not afraid?”
“I’m terrified,” she whispered, then shook herself. “But fear brings me to a dark place where bad things happen…so I have to shut that door and not look inside. It’s hard, but I’m working on it.”
I nodded, but I didn’t know what to say to that so I let silence fall around us. Her words made sense, but I couldn’t stop the runaway freight train of fear in my mind. Jackson was fighting Joseph and Trey as we spoke, and I had no idea if he was okay.
We’ve lost so many people now.
I shuddered as images I didn’t want to see flashed through my mind. Timothy. I looked down at my hands and groaned. “Sometimes I can still see Timothy’s blood on my hands.”
Emersyn sighed and it was full of pain. “I used to only wear my nails in a French manicure…but now I have to paint them dark colors, or otherwise I just see Deacon’s blood caked in there.”
“Do you think we made a mistake staying here?” I blurted before I could stop myself. It was the one question I’d been asking myself since the others left.
“You know as well as I do that that locket is not at Ruth’s house.” She shook her head and gripped the wooden balcony rail on the front porch. “You were at the river. You saw. That locket is with Hope. And when Joseph discovers it’s not at that house, he’s going to come looking here next.”
“Because Timothy was here, and Joseph will suspect he had it the whole time.”
“Exactly!”
Em and I both jumped and spun around at the sound of a familiar male voice.
Trey stood by the corner of Coven Headquarters, leaning against the wall. He grinned and wagged his eyebrows. “Ladies.”
“TREY,” I growled.
He gave me a weak salute. “So nice of your Coven to leave you two Barbie dolls here alone. I’m just gonna go have a look around inside. Tell me, did Tegan by chance leave the Book of Shadows open again? I never would’ve learned how to transform myself without her.” He snapped his fingers…and then that little blonde girl in the pink frilly dress stood in his place.
I gasped.
Trey winked then looked up at the open window right beside him.
NO. I threw my hand out and pushed my magic. Ice filled the open window just as Trey tried to jump for it. He slammed his little-girl palms against it, then cursed—which sounded crass in a little girl’s voice. I inched toward the edge of the porch, holding my dagger behind my leg so he wouldn’t see it. My phone vibrated in my back pocket, but I didn’t dare look away. Besides, I knew who
was calling. But I also knew Jackson and the others would be on their way here already. We just had to stall.
Or kill Trey.
I wanted to do the latter. I just didn’t know if I could.
Trey turned and sprinted around the corner of the house, his little blonde curls bouncing in the breeze. I leapt over the rail and raced after him. He giggled as he ran.
Don’t let him inside! I pushed my magic out to the side of the house, covering every inch of it in solid ice. That locket wasn’t in there, but I wasn’t going to let him get inside one more time. I threw my magic at the ground in front of his feet, and the grass turned to ice.
But he was a trained Sword. As his feet slid, he sliced his dagger through the ice on the wall to swing him around the next corner.
Damn it!
I dug my heels in and pushed my legs faster. My power sang through my veins, waiting to be unleashed. I rounded the corner a few steps after him. He might have gotten a head start, but I had long legs and a ton of speed.
As soon as his shaggy brown head came back into view, I hurled my magic at his back. Baseball-sized chunks of ice struck his shoulder in rapid succession. He flew forward then flipped over his head and landed on his back. But he scrambled back to his feet immediately. I fired my hail at him again and again. He cursed and threw his arms back, and a black cloud slammed into my face.
I coughed and stumbled back, swatting at the smoke.
Trey laughed then spun around and sprinted ahead. I coughed and raised my hands to shoot him down again when the back door flew open and slammed him right in the face. He yelped and stumbled back.
Emersyn stepped around the door with an evil grin. Bright orange flames danced along her body. “Going somewhere, assface?”
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