Alexa
Alexa and Liss stood at the mouth of the cave, their hands joined, and already whispering the words when Dan came bombing out of the cave, gasping for breath. Alexa grabbed her hand, pulling her into line with them.
Stacked in front of them were the Black Books—the one that Liss and Dan had tended for so long, and the real one, that held Volunin’s power. The energy they contained would have to be enough to seal the mouth of the cave.
Alexa raised her voice, shouting the words of the spell, their voices a chorus. Magic rippled through them, from Alexa’s palms into Dan’s and Liss’s, the three of them a channel, a bond, three stars in constellation. Alexa focused on the Books, envisioning their power bursting free.
A thin vein of smoke was rising from the books.
Alexa pushed harder, sweating now, the effort of magic like a horrible deep-sea pressure inside her bones, inside her teeth, inside of everywhere. She pulled on every thread inside her—Lorelei and Swann, Volunin and Maggie, generations of witches who had come before, who had fought and sacrificed so that Kasyan would be contained.
She clutched Dan and Liss’s hands harder and they squeezed back, and the three of them lifted their voices louder.
He was almost there—a dim figure was moving in the dark.
Kasyan would not go free.
Not while the three of them had life left in them.
Alexa thought of laughing with Dan on their drives into Gratton, of Liss protecting her secrets when they were still strangers, of watching sunsets in LA with Lorelei and Domino nuzzling her feet, of how the people you love can somehow become the only place of stillness in the wild and beautiful world that all of them shared and none of them understood.
Alexa pushed her voice into a roar.
A light flashed, magnesium-white and brilliant. The Books exploded into flame and the girls stumbled back into the waves. With the release of the Books’ energy, the rocks began to grind against one another, sending tremors through the sand.
They kept chanting.
The fissure in the cliff that had led into Kasyan’s prison was closing, beginning at the top and working its way down, the passage becoming smaller with each moment, the earth groaning and shaking against the force of the spell.
But Kasyan was closer now. He held a physical form, and Alexa could make out his white hands and pale face. He was staggering, then bounding toward the narrowing gap in the rock.
Alexa raised her voice higher still, summoning every last bit of energy, all of her magic. She would burn all of it out, for this.
Their magic was stronger than him. They were stronger than him—stronger than all they had been through, strong enough to move the earth against itself. The cave entrance narrowed: a slit, a sliver, the rock colliding into itself. Kasyan was so close, Alexa could see the utter darkness of his eyes as he lunged toward them, desperate and furious.
The spell was complete.
The cave was sealed, a white hand protruding from a black seam in the rock.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Dan
They ran.
Or they ran where the terrain allowed it, when everyone was able, because they weren’t home yet, not now that the tide was rising. They stumbled through the suck and heave of the waves, over the jagged and slippery rocks, with barely enough light to share among the five of them.
Bringing up the rear of their line, Dan breathed deep against her fear. Her feet had been soaked by the glacial, dark water of the Pacific so long and thoroughly that they were clumsy unfeeling bricks. The muscles in her legs wobbled, and given the way she’d missed a few steps, Dan worried they might give out completely.
She kept seeing Kasyan’s hand in that rock. He wasn’t chained in the same way Volunin had chained him, only stopped by the sealing of the cave. Who knew if he could escape that way? Alexa had burned the hand into crumbling ash, using a freaky white fire she summoned with the remaining energy from the destruction of the Black Books.
Was it enough?
Dan pushed the thought away. She could worry about Kasyan later, so long as there was a later.
First, they had to get home.
It was the only thing that would make everything they’d suffered worth it. Johnny and Zephyr could reclaim the lives they’d almost lost. Alexa could begin to mourn Lorelei. And for her and Liss, it was the chance to live with all this in the past, as people who had made horrendous mistakes and done their best to make things right.
Only if they made it back alive.
Up ahead, Liss was leading them back, and Dan wondered how she felt to have Johnny just a few feet behind her, after all the months she spent missing him. She must be desperate to hold him or kiss him or even just ask if he was okay, but Dan could tell from the beam of Liss’s headlamp that she didn’t turn back to him. Instead, she pushed them forward, against the press of the ocean itself, and Dan knew Liss was just as scared as she was.
* * *
—
At the final promontory, the waves swelled to their knees. The ocean pressed them against the cliff then tried to pull them from it, but Dan could see the curve of Heart’s Desire Beach with its black sand up ahead. First Liss made it back onto the safety of the beach, then Johnny collapsed into her arms. Zephyr followed, falling to her knees in the sand, with Alexa just behind.
Dan’s gut flooded with relief. They had done it. They had actually done it.
She didn’t see the wave coming until Liss screamed.
The hump of water rolling toward her was at least twice as high as the waves they’d been dealing with, big enough that it would smash her against the cliff and take her back out to sea. Dan scrambled, her frozen feet unsteady against the rocks and her legs near to giving out. The water pushed higher around her. The beach was just a few paces away. She could make it—she had come so far and she was so close.
Her feet went out from under her. Salt water slammed into her nose and eyes. Everything was black, icy, and she was being pulled, and she couldn’t tell if it was the tide or something else.
But then hands were grabbing her by the armpits and heaving her out of the waves and up onto the beach. Dan opened her eyes, stinging with salt, and Liss and Alexa were there, their limbs tangled together. Behind her, the wave slammed into the cliff, and the sand-thickened water surged against them.
They had saved her just in time.
For a moment, it was just the three of them: Liss and Alexa and Dan. They were shivering and soaked and crusted with sand, but here they were, back safe on the beach, staring at each other with the absolute certainty that they’d nearly lost everything.
“We are never doing anything like this ever again,” Liss said.
Then she burst into tears.
* * *
—
They called 911. Liss came up with a story: the three of them were going to hang out at Heart’s Desire to avoid the lame Solstice Parade scene, but they’d found that weird cult from outside Marlena doing its own pagan ritual—except this one involved two missing teens. They’d followed Keith down the beach, which they totally didn’t realize was probably very dangerous. Zephyr told the officers that Keith was acting deranged and talking about sacrificing her and Johnny to some god he made up. They’d struggled, and Keith slipped on some algae and got pulled away in the tide. It happened so fast, there was nothing they could do to help—plus he was basically trying to kill them at the same time, so it was a challenging situation. Johnny couldn’t manage anything more than a nod in corroboration; he’d barely spoken since they’d gotten back to the beach, and Liss hadn’t let go of his hand.
Dan, huddled beside Alexa in a silvery thermal blanket, watched officers from the Highway Patrol and the county sheriff’s office point flashlights at the cliff the girls and Johnny had just navigated. They shook their heads; it wasn’t passable at all. They weren’t optimistic about e
vidence recovery.
Fortunately, Black Grass’s seekers didn’t remember what happened. They sat bewildered in the sand, talking past the officers’ questions. It was supposed to be the most important meditation of their lives, and now Keith, their Guide, was swept out to sea—disappeared. How would they speak to the Lord now? Had their Guide advanced without them?
“Honestly,” Alexa whispered. Dan fished her hand out from the thermal blanket, found Alexa’s, and squeezed.
“We’re doing a full investigation,” an officer assured the seekers. He was doing an impressive job of keeping a straight face. “But this looks like a death by misadventure. I’m going to need to take down everyone’s names.”
Then a cry pierced the commotion on the beach, and Johnny’s mom was running toward them—toward her son. She wrapped her arms around the frail shape of him and wept into his hair. Then everyone was crying all over again, even some of the officers, and soon Zephyr’s parents were there, and she and Johnny were packed off into ambulances.
Finally Alexa, Liss, and Dan got back in the car and followed the snaking road back to Dogtown.
LATER
Alexa
Lorelei was dead.
Whatever part of Kasyan had kept her breathing for those painful weeks had stopped when they trapped him in the rock. Domino was sitting in the window when Alexa got home, waiting to tell her.
Never forget, I love you, kid.
Domino’s voice in her head was exactly like Lorelei’s, the way it sounded like a wink, felt like a sigh—like all the trust and protection and love that Lorelei had shared with her.
Alexa bundled Domino into her arms and cried into his silky fur for a long time.
Then she called Swann, took the cat, and went to Dan’s house.
She stayed for the next eight months.
* * *
—
Swann staged Lorelei’s death as some kind of accident. The police never asked Alexa any questions about it, which made it clear that the Wardens had avoided a proper investigation using some unnatural influence. It was also discovered that a rather large life insurance policy had been taken out on Lorelei, which Alexa was to be the beneficiary of. It was enough to get her through college, maybe with a little left over depending on where she went. Alexa cried all over again when she found out, not because of the money, but because it meant that Lorelei was still taking care of her, even now that she was gone.
Alexa went down to LA for the funeral with Swann, who greeted the majority of Lorelei’s friends as fellow Wardens. It was a real loss, Swann had said on the flight, that Lorelei had passed without handing down her powers, but if Alexa wanted to join the Wardens, she’d be more than welcome. It was still hard to think about how Lorelei had lied to keep that part of her life from Alexa, but then she felt the secret crackle of magic in her fingertips—a reminder that Lorelei hadn’t kept it from her, only that she hadn’t managed to tell her before she died.
At the funeral, Alexa’s dad wore a patchy beard and smelled like booze, which Alexa wasn’t sure was due to his sister’s death or a regular habit. As usual, their conversations were full of meaningless platitudes like “Look at you, all grown up!” that hinted he felt a little bad for not being there and wanted assurance that he hadn’t entirely screwed up her life. She always replied with something like “Yep, that is how time works,” in the hopes of reminding him that if her life wasn’t entirely screwed up it was absolutely no thanks to him. He seemed relieved to be rid of her when he clapped her on the back and said, “Keep doin’ what you’re doin’, sweetie,” before heading for his car.
The whole experience was so exhausting Alexa barely wanted to leave her (extremely comfortable) hotel bed. When she did, LA felt unfamiliar. Too many people, the weather too nice, too many memories that felt like they belonged to an ancient version of herself.
It was only a few days, but she missed the dangerous and empty roads, the clammy fog clinging to her skin. She missed Dan and Liss—and Zephyr.
* * *
—
At first, Zephyr had just needed a friend who had been there, when there meant inside a demon’s lair, where Zephyr had killed a man who would have destroyed them all. But Dan and Liss had been there too, and Zephyr didn’t text them virtually all day, nonstop. It made Alexa’s heart feel funny, like it was sneaking toward happiness when her back was turned.
Then Zephyr kissed her, and that settled that.
* * *
—
It was strange and new and surprisingly, a little scary. It wasn’t that Alexa hadn’t wanted a girlfriend before, just that she had tried not to dwell on it, because thinking about what you wanted and didn’t have felt like a dead end. But now that she was with Zephyr— someone who she liked so much it was almost hard to breathe in her presence, who smelled good and put up with her rambling about Flintowerland and Quest of the Axials, and who kissed her with lips so deliciously soft and hungry—Alexa wondered if there wasn’t another reason she hadn’t let herself think too hard about romance.
Being with Zephyr was amazing, but how long could it possibly last? She’d seen her mother be left and do the leaving so many times, and losing Lorelei was almost more than Alexa could bear. She couldn’t stand to imagine the lifespan of Zephyr-and-Alexa; she could practically feel the cracks spidering where her heart was preparing itself to break.
“You think I’m going to break up with you?” Zephyr said when Alexa confessed how she felt. They were lying side by side, sharing a pillow in what used to be the guest room at Dan’s house, but was now Alexa’s.
“I don’t know,” Alexa mumbled. The pillow pushed her glasses off-center, and she couldn’t fix them without getting up, which she didn’t want to do. “When I’m with you, no, not at all. I forget about all of that and it’s just—us. But then later, I get worried, I guess.”
“I get that. I think it’s normal to be nervous,” Zephyr said. With her curly hair clouded behind her on the pillow and her blue eyes searching Alexa’s, she looked like an absolute vision; she always did. “Sometimes it still feels weird that I’m dating a girl. But then it feels even weirder that I haven’t been dating girls for my entire life. When I was with Brodie—which is so gross to even think about now—I kept trying to convince myself he had something that guys my age didn’t. I thought none of them had ever really made me feel anything because they were too immature.” Zephyr smiled. “But you made me realize I’d been looking for the wrong thing all along, when I should have been looking for you.”
Alexa’s heart felt impossibly full and fragile at the same time. She bit her lip. “You can still break up with me if you want. You don’t have to not break up with me just because I said that.”
“I’m not breaking up with you.” Zephyr traced the line of Alexa’s jaw with a finger. “I’m like, completely in love with you, Alexa.”
“You’re—you’re what?”
Zephyr grinned. Her fingers teased the baby hairs at the back of Alexa’s neck. “I love you, Alexa. I don’t want to think about breaking up with you or hurting you, not ever.”
A tear ran from the corner of Alexa’s eye onto the pillow, but she didn’t care, because Zephyr was kissing her, wrapping her arms around her, pulling her close and all of it felt like coming home.
Zephyr pulled away. “It’s okay if you don’t say it back. My feelings aren’t totally hurt or anything.”
“You kissed me before I could!” Alexa kissed her again, gently this time, her nose brushing against Zephyr’s and her eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks. “I love you too, Zephyr Finnemore.”
Liss
After a long hospital stay, Johnny came home quietly. The story of Zephyr’s kidnapping drew a lot of media attention and kept Johnny out of the spotlight. He claimed he didn’t remember much of what had happened over the last ten months and never said otherwise until the doctors dia
gnosed him with a form of amnesia stemming from his trauma.
Liss didn’t believe it. There was a difference between forgetting and not wanting to remember.
Liss finally got to visit him two weeks after he was released from the hospital. Johnny had no phone, so his mom was the only way to contact him. She had promised to let Liss know when he was ready for visitors, and Liss had to respect that.
Liss had only been to the Sus’ house a handful of times; no comforting feeling of returning to simpler times greeted her when Dr. Su opened the door. The house was crowded with boxes and rolls of tape.
“You’re moving?” Liss asked.
“I’m joining a dental practice near Davis.”
“That’s hours away.”
Dr. Su offered half a shrug. “We think he’d do better somewhere inland. He has issues with the ocean. And the wind. And darkness. There are trauma specialists there.” Dr. Su removed her glasses and rubbed her temple. “I can’t wait to leave this place.”
Liss couldn’t argue with that.
She held her breath as she walked the hall to Johnny’s room.
He was sitting on the floor in front of a crate of records, but nothing was playing on the turntable.
“Hey,” she said quietly, because she had to say something. “How are you feeling?”
His eyebrows scrunched up. His hair had been cut short, but he ducked his head like he could still hide behind it. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Happy to be home,” he finally said, his tone flat.
She couldn’t bear looking at him like that, so she scanned the room instead. It was still dusty from his absence, and unassembled boxes rested against a wall. His desk chair had been pushed aside, and under the desk lay a pillow and a blanket.
He saw her staring. “It’s the only way I can sleep.”
A Wicked Magic Page 33