“Gofflesby,” Greta whispered. She was becoming woozy.
Gofflesby had resumed licking the doll’s blood. But it wasn’t a doll anymore. It was a bird. A crow.
“Iris… Binx… Ridley…”
“I’m sure they’ll all come to your funeral. Now, drink up, my dear.”
“Love and light.”
“Yes, yes. Love and light. Keep drinking.”
Greta felt wetness on her cheeks. Tea? Tears?
Iris. Binx. Ridley. And Div. And Teo and Mama and Papa.
And Gofflesby.
A footstep, light as a feather.
A man was standing in front of her.
No, not a man. A teenager. He had long brown hair that fell to his chin, and the shadow of a mustache and beard.
“Hello, Greta.”
“W-who are you?”
“I’m Maximus Hobbes.”
“You’re… Maximus?”
“Yes. And you’re Greta Ysabel Navarro. The leader of your own coven. Great-granddaughter of Adelita, whom I had the pleasure of… anyway, I know a great deal about you. I’m also a friend of your friend Binx.”
“Binx?”
Greta’s eyelids felt heavy, so heavy. She was wrong; Maximus wasn’t a teenager. He was a man. An old man. He had long silver hair and a bushy mustache and beard. He had thick, brooding eyebrows over kind eyes.
No, not kind. Sad.
Maximus turned to Mrs. Feathers. “Get it done.”
“As you wish, sir.”
Maximus left the room. Greta needed to stay awake, but she couldn’t stay awake. Her mind was already returning to a dream state. Or was this a dream within a dream?
Gofflesby had stopped licking the dead crow.
Good boy.
Sitting very still, Gofflesby eyed Mrs. Feathers, who was searching for something. A wand? A knife? When she wasn’t looking, he reached out a paw and batted at something, knocking it soundlessly against a silk drape.
The dream was sinking deeper, to a darker place. The end was almost near. Greta could feel it. If only she could hold her familiar one last time, tell him how much she loved him.
But he wasn’t Greta’s familiar. He was her familiar.…
Gofflesby continued batting, knocking, moving soundlessly.
The smell of smoke. Greta blinked through the wooziness and tried to see what was burning.
“No!” Mrs. Feathers shouted. She pointed her wand, or her knife, at Gofflesby.
Hissing, he disappeared into the fire.
No! Greta screamed.
Everything was swirling. The dream was collapsing into the other dream.
She closed her eyes.
And then there was no more.
31
THE FATE OF ALL CROWS
Reality and Dreams can sometimes be one and the same.
Or in great contradiction to each other. Or both.
(FROM THE GOOD BOOK OF MAGIC AND MENTALISM BY CALLIXTA CROWE)
“I think I’ve got it!”
Binx, Iris, and Ridley had slipped out of Penelope’s house and were standing next to a row of parked cars. Binx slanted her phone toward the other two girls and jabbed her finger at the screen.
Iris squinted at a tiny blue dot; was that the gray house where Greta was being held prisoner? She reached over and touched the dot and closed her eyes, waiting for confirmation. Nothing.
Come on, stupid vision, she thought angrily, because she had no other words, no official spell, to make her brain generate the faraway information she needed. Still nothing. Obviously, they were going to have to rely on Binx’s cybermagic to get them to Greta.
“What’s the address?” Ridley demanded.
“It’s One Hundred Fifty-Eight Spring Street. I’m texting it to Aysha and telling her to communicate with Div and Mira somehow without alerting Colter and Hunter, and for all of them to get their butts over there ASAP. So I had Uxie search through a bunch of real-estate sale records and county deeds looking for gray houses. Once I had those, I hacked into this high-tech global satellite system to zero in on their yards in search of bird fountains and big oak trees. Which was not easy. This is the one, though. I’m a hundred percent. Well, ninety-nine.”
“Spring Street… that’s near my house. Like, a block or two away, on the other side of the Seabreeze development.” Ridley pointed. “Come on!”
Ridley and Binx took off running, and Iris ran after them. Her head was throbbing, and she felt like throwing up; her anxiety was off the charts, despite her moonstone pendant, despite her therapy breathing, and despite several attempts at calming spells. She and the others had to save Greta. But what if they were too late?
“Did you find out who lives there?” Ridley asked Binx as they took a shortcut through one of the construction sites on Lilac Street.
“I think it’s a rental, but I didn’t have time to find out who’s renting it,” Binx replied.
Iris hurried her steps to catch up to the other two girls. “Guys? Isn’t this close to that street with the red pickup truck… you know, where we found…”
Ridley looked around as she ran. “You’re right! I think that construction site is, like, half a block over.”
“So if Penelope was, um… and then they moved her body to… it wouldn’t have been very far,” Iris noted.
“There it is!” Binx yelled.
The sign for Spring Street was just up ahead, half-hidden behind a stand of pine trees. Iris reached into her shoulder bag for her wand; she didn’t care who saw it, she wanted to be ready. Binx and Ridley seemed to be on the same wavelength; Binx pulled her wand out of her backpack, and Ridley did the same with hers.
They raced around the corner and onto Spring Street…
… and stopped in their tracks. At the far end of the street, the windows of a house glowed bright orange. A small gray house. Plumes of smoke seeped out of its sides.
“Is that One Hundred Fifty-Eight?” Ridley cried out.
“It’s on fire!” Iris shouted.
“I have a 911 spell,” Binx said, pushing a button on her phone.
Iris quickly cast accelerando to increase her speed. And then just like that, she was standing in front of 158 Spring Street. Binx and Ridley were still a hundred or so feet behind her.
Fire was blazing inside the gray house, spreading across the walls, licking at the curtains. Iris could make out the outlines of two people inside. One was moving around, the other was sitting in a chair. Tied to a chair. Was that Greta?
Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, Iris told herself.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to remember the spell from Callixta’s book that extinguished fire.
“Restinguere!” she yelled, raising her wand in the air.
Nothing.
Binx and Ridley came running up to her.
“What about ceasaro?” Binx said breathlessly.
“Yes!” Ridley nodded.
The three girls stood in a semicircle, pointed their wands, and yelled: “Ceasaro!”
Still nothing.
Just then, a red Miata convertible came tearing down the street. It screeched to a stop in front of 158 Spring Street, and Mira, Div, and Aysha jumped out.
“We got your message. What’s going on? Where’s Greta?” Div called.
“Inside. Where have you guys been?” Ridley demanded.
“No time. Everyone, form a circle, now!” Div ordered.
The five witches obeyed. They pointed their wands inward, creating six spokes in a wheel.
“Visualize Greta in the middle. And repeat after me. Exorior!”
“Exorior!”
Greta did not appear.
“Exorior!” they repeated, more loudly.
Still no Greta.
The clock was running out. Forget about Div’s spells or Callixta Crowe’s spells—Iris had to do what Jadora had done when her familiar, Baxxtern, was trapped inside a burning tavern and her magic wasn’t working because of the Ongolean Ork king’s Weakenin
g Curse.
Run into the fire.
I am strong. I am brave. I can do this. Intention!
Wielding her wand in her right hand and covering her face with her left, Iris spun around, ducked her head, and shouldered her way through the front door. A tsunami wave of heat pounded against her. Smoke burned her eyes like acid. She could hear the girls outside yelling her name.
“Greta, where are you?” Iris shouted.
“I-Iris?” came the faint reply.
Greta!
Hope and resolve cut through Iris’s panic and gave her strength. She pointed her wand in front of her. “Malorna!”
A beam of light sliced through the dense smoke. Iris could make out Greta slumped in the chair, rope binding her feet and legs.
The smoke was getting thicker by the minute; Iris could feel it scraping and choking her throat, her lungs. Coughing, she aimed her wand at the ropes. What was that spell? Oh yeah.
“Solvo!”
The ropes splintered and snapped and gave way. Greta started to tumble out of the chair. Gasping for breath, nearly blinded by the smoke, Iris rushed to catch her before she fell.
“We have to get you out of here. Can you walk?”
Greta mumbled an incoherent reply.
“What?”
“S-save. G-Gofflesby.”
“Gofflesby’s here?”
A crashing sound. A ceiling beam had fallen just inches away from them, kicking up more flames. The fire was accelerating, blooming into an inferno; they had to get out of the house immediately.
Iris reached for Greta’s velvet scarf and wrapped it loosely around Greta’s nose and mouth. “Breathe through this; it’ll be less smoky. Come on… this way!”
“G-Gofflesby.”
“I know. I’ll find him, but we have to get you out of here first.”
Iris half led, half dragged Greta to the door. She could hear sirens in the distance; help was on the way.
The girls were waiting just outside the door. Ridley, Binx, and Aysha took Greta from Iris and laid her gently on the grass. Div and Mira immediately launched into a series of healing spells on Greta—first respiri, then medeora.
Ridley and Binx began casting the same spells on Iris. But Iris didn’t have time to be healed. She had to go back in for Gofflesby.
She started to head inside again… then stopped when she saw Mrs. Feathers from school, standing behind a column of flames in the burning house.
Was she… smiling?
“Mrs. Feathers!” Iris shouted. “You have to get out of there! Is there a cat in there with you?”
In response, Mrs. Feathers raised her arms in the air.
She said something, her lips moving furiously, but Iris couldn’t hear.
And just like that, the flames vanished.
The smoke cleared.
The siren noises stopped.
Iris turned around, feeling fuzzy and dazed. Greta was rising to her feet and brushing her hair out of her eyes. “What were we talking about?” she asked Iris.
“I—I can’t remember,” Iris replied.
“Where are we, anyway? How did we end up on this street? What is our location?” Binx asked her phone.
The screen flashed an answer.
“Huh. It says we’re at One Hundred Fifty-Eight Spring Street. Do we know anyone who lives at One Hundred Fifty-Eight Spring Street?”
Mira strolled over to the mailbox. She reached inside and pulled out a handful of envelopes. “Someone named… Margaret Feathers?”
“Who in the hex is that?” said Aysha.
“Not sure. Seriously, how did we get here?” Div asked, brushing dirt off her white dress.
Aysha glared at Binx. “Hey! Did you guys prank us?”
“No! Did you guys prank us?” Binx shot back.
“You guys used transfero on us, didn’t you? Maybe that plus praetero?” Aysha sneered.
“No, but you guys obviously did!” Binx said hotly.
Ridley rainbow-waved. “Excuse me! I’m hungry. Is anyone else hungry?”
Mira studied her French tips. “I know a cool spell that turns rocks into food.”
“That’s weird. Let’s get some real food,” said Binx.
“Let’s go down to my grandma’s café. I think she baked scones today!” Iris piped up.
“Yeah, okay, fine. But I have to be home in an hour to walk the puppy,” said Binx, glancing at her phone again.
“Mira, you and I don’t have time for scones. We’re having dinner at the Jessups’ house, remember? Colter and Hunter invited us,” Div reminded her.
“Oh. Right!”
“How is your undercover work going?” Greta asked.
“The plan is to win Colter’s and Hunter’s trust so we can find out if one of them is the head of the New Order group. Or whether their father is involved. I guess we should consider their mom, too? Once we know that for sure, I think we’ll be a lot closer to finding out who killed Penelope,” Div said.
“Whoever did it is going to be so sorry,” Ridley murmured angrily.
“Justice will be served,” Mira said, then took out her smart key. “Who wants a ride? I can drop everyone off, then Div and I can head over to the Jessups’.”
“Can that little car fit”—Iris counted on her fingers—“seven people?”
“No worries. I have a spell for that,” Mira replied with a wink.
As the two covens drove off down Spring Street, Gofflesby jumped out of the bushes and trotted along behind them.
EPILOGUE
“Hey, Pokedragon.”
“Hey, ShadowKnight.”
Binx sat cross-legged in the Japanese meditation hut, trying to decipher ShadowKnight’s semi-pixelated face on her phone. It was late, almost midnight, and her mother was asleep inside the house. The dirt-colored puppy (which still had no name) was lying next to her with one eye open and one eye closed; it smelled like wet socks and kibble. The air was cool, and a full moon illuminated the velvety blue sky in a way that would have seemed romantic if Binx had been a romantic person (which she wasn’t).
“I’m glad I finally reached you,” she said to ShadowKnight. “Like, so much is going on here.”
“Same.”
Binx took a deep breath, wondering where she should start.
“Your genealogy app,” she said finally. “I think I’ve finally got it to work. I even got some names from it.”
“You did? Callixta Crowe’s descendants? That’s amazing… and maybe we can convince one or more of them to march with us in DC!”
“Yeah, maybe. The thing is… are you sitting down? This is pretty dark. Okay, so I went to a funeral the other day. This girl at our school, Penelope, was murdered. And she was a witch. My coven-mates and I are thinking she was killed by a member of this local Antima group called the New Order. Maybe this guy named Colter or his brother, Hunter, or someone else in their family. So we and this other coven are looking into it.” Binx paused. “What’s weird is, Penelope might be related to one of the names I got from your app.”
“What? Are you saying your friend Penelope’s a descendant?”
“Was. Yeah, maybe. So, why would the Antima kill Callixta’s descendants?”
“Maybe the Antima know about our march and our efforts to find descendants to stand with us? In any case, this may be the first Antima murder of a witch, and there’s bound to be more. I’d better share all this with my group ASAP. And we need to warn everyone on that list you got from the app, and tell them to warn their descendants, too. Kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews.”
“Good idea.”
“We’ve been brainstorming new strategies to deal with the Antima. Sounds like we need a plan, fast, so they don’t hurt any more witches.”
Binx nodded mutely.
ShadowKnight gazed at her. His eyes were sad, serious. “Listen. I’m sorry; it’s awful that Penelope was killed. Is there anything I can do?”
“Actually, yes.” Binx took a deep breath. Was she ready to
do this? She was ready to do this. “Let me join your group.”
ShadowKnight blinked. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. I want to tackle this full-on. I want to use my magical powers for more than, like, changing my hair color and updating my playlist and pranking other witches. I want to be a superhero, help make our world a better place for people like us. Which means going after 6-129 and all the evil Antima scum, just like you guys are doing.”
“Great! That’s fantastic!” ShadowKnight exclaimed. “What about your coven-mates? Are they okay about this?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll figure it out, though.” Binx reached down and petted the puppy.
Tomorrow. She would solve that problem tomorrow. For right now, she just wanted to enjoy her conversation with ShadowKnight, her connection with a smart, like-minded gamer-slash-witch who was part of an awesome national community of activist witches. And enjoy staring at his cute (in an intense, brooding way) face.
Not that she was crushing on him or anything.
“I’ll get back to you about my coven. Hey, new topic… have you reached Level Twenty-Three yet?” Binx asked him.
“I’m almost there. I just have to figure out how to defeat the Ethelerean Ghoul and cross the Bridge of Never.”
“I can give you a hack.”
“Wait, you’re already at Level Twenty-Three? How?”
A sleek gray cat suddenly appeared in the frame and rubbed up against ShadowKnight’s stubbly face.
“Aww, is that your cat?”
“She’s my friend’s cat. She has like a ton of pets. She named this one Loviatar, after the daughter of the Finnish god of death.”
“Nice,” Binx said. “I’ve been trying to think of a name for my new puppy. He’s not very ‘Finnish god of death,’ though. More like ‘Can I Finish That Breakfast Muffin for You?’”
ShadowKnight laughed. “You’re hilarious. Okay, so fork over that hack.”
Binx smiled and leaned back and curled her body around the puppy as she continued videochatting with ShadowKnight. This felt right. Her friendship with him, joining Libertas. She was part of a witch revolution now. And after it was over, she, ShadowKnight, Ridley, Greta, Iris, Div, Mira, Aysha, and all the other witches out there were going to be free forever, for real. No hacks necessary.
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