“Ainsley!” Justin’s voice disrupted her train of mish-mashed thoughts. She glanced around and saw him staring intently at her, motioning to the far end of the upside-down star. “We need you at the last point.”
Her chest squeezed. “But I’m not a witch.”
“It doesn’t matter. We can still channel your life force. We need all the help we can get. Take off your gloves.”
Nodding, she scurried into place and did as she was told, shedding the blood-stained gloves. Her skin stung immediately from the icy air. Justin sat on one side of her and Ava on the other, grabbing her hands as she sat. A tingling warmth flowed into her fingers and palms, her wrists, up her arms, and throughout her entire body. Her body hummed with electricity.
Justin must have understood what she was experiencing because he squeezed her hand. “That’s our magic flowing through you. It’s okay, it won’t hurt you.”
How was this working, she wondered, when so many other magical interactions hadn’t?
The hail slowed. Either Saskia was easing up on them, or their magic was counteracting her assault.
A heavy bolt of lightning illuminated the space, and Ainsley saw the dozens of runes and symbols Langston had been busy carving into the snowy ground all around them, including the Evil Eye.
Sydney began chanting the spell to summon the shapeshifter, the skull still high above her head. The candle flames whooshed before tripling in size.
Everyone, even Langston, began reciting some other incantation. A protection spell? Something to gather their strength? She wasn’t sure, but the air around them began to still.
Ainsley’s palms were sweating, not only from the heat of the magic but from her massing anxiety. The thrumming in her ears intensified, and she fought to listen past it for any sign of movement. She did her best to keep watch from her position at the Seal’s base, checking the trees and bushes around them for any movement. How long would it take before the shifter appeared?
Her question didn’t remain unanswered for long.
Ainsley clasped Justin and Ava’s hands for dear life and shouted, “Something’s coming,” and watched in horror as a figure stepped forward through the darkness of the snow-covered Hemlock trees. She fought the urge to close her eyes, to stand up and run, to scream.
Keeping her eyes trained on the movement, she gasped as Harper stood before them, a frightened look on her face.
“Harper!” Ainsley yanked her hands away and bolted up.
Harper ogled the scene as if attempting to register what was going on. Shadows of candlelight flickered across her confused face, fear clear in her wide dark eyes. “What’s going on here?”
Ainsley’s stomach dropped. No, Harper couldn’t be here. She could get hurt, or worse. How did she find them?
Unless… How could she know if it was Harper or the shifter?
Justin and Khourt urged Ainsley to sit back down, while Sydney kept on chanting.
Harper pointed accusingly at the circle, the candles, the chanting Sydney, and Ainsley, her mouth twisting into a horrified grimace. “What are you doing? I came to find you because I was worried. Two people are dead! Did you know that?” Her face changed before Ainsley’s eyes, rolling from concern to terror. “What?” She took a step back and pointed as if finally seeing the scene clearly. “What is she holding? Is that a skull?” Harper’s mouth gaped as she stumbled and lost her footing. She steadied herself. “Was it you? Did you kill those people?”
“No!” Ainsley felt the wind leave her like a punch to the gut. It really was her friend. “I get this looks bad, but let me explain.”
“It’s not Harper,” Ava yelled across the circle, still holding onto Jax’s hand and reaching for Ainsley’s. “We summoned the shifter. That’s the shifter. Back away now!”
A pang rattled through Ainsley’s chest. She took a step back, observing her friend. It was her roommate. Surely, she’d be able to tell. Wouldn’t she?
Harper shook her head. “What’s she talking about? Two people are dead, so I came looking for you. A couple of people said they saw all of you walk into the woods. What are you doing here, Ainsley? Come back to campus with me.” She reached a hand out at Ainsley, whose heart twisted in place.
“Don’t listen to it,” Khourtney said in a strangely calm voice. “Think about it, Ainsley. How would the real Harper find you all the way out here?” She continued in the same sing-song voice Ainsley’s mom used when teaching her to swim in the ocean. “No one saw us leave, Ainsley. We made sure of that, remember? Look, it’s wearing gloves. It’s lying to you.”
Ainsley heard Khourney’s warning, but she couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that her harmless roommate was standing, frightened beyond belief, in front of her. “But I was wearing gloves too, she said meekly. It’s freezing.” Her instincts screamed that she should listen to Khourtney, so taking a step away, she shouted, “Prove that’s it’s you, Harper.”
Ainsley registered that the chanting had stopped. Sydney advanced with her arms outstretched in front of her. A blast of violet light shot out of Sydney’s fingertips, striking Harper dead in the chest.
“No!” Ainsley cried out. Harper’s body buckled in half and started to convulse under the purple glow. “Stop it, you’re killing her,” Ainsley called. She was about to tackle Sydney when the witch dropped her arms.
Holding her breath, Ainsley saw Harper still standing, seemingly unharmed. Ainsley’s chest tightened as the wind left her. “Oh my God,” she whispered.
Harper’s brown eyes swiftly morphed into reptilian slits, glowing a sick yellow-brown. Panic flooded Ainsley.
“It’s the shifter!” Khourtney screamed.
Sydney and the others launched simultaneous streams of magic. Ainsley watched in shock as concentrated electric blasts of violent, blue, silver, and red struck her friend, eliciting a roar that filled the air. The entity writhed under the intensity, and Harper’s face contorted as though melting. Her body glowed with a pulsating red fluorescence.
Ainsley was mesmerized. She had to keep telling herself that it wasn’t Harper, but the shifter.
Langston’s voice called out to Ainsley, and she turned to see that he had the globe in his hands. “If anything happens to me, you need to take this because they need to keep their power focused on the shifter the entire time.”
She nodded, watching as he approached the chaos, still clutching the globe.
The shifter appeared to be gaining its strength back. Saskia was right. They couldn’t kill it. Ainsley observed the stalemate unfolding before her. Five witches were sending magic blasts into the entity, and the entity was sending a rolling wave of magic back. Magic siphoned from their own people was now used against them.
Heat emanated from the untethered magic in the air, melting the snow in a ring around them. Beads of sweat trickled down everyone’s faces.
Ava faltered, her legs wobbling as she worked to keep her balance under the pressure. Her arms lowered, and Ainsley saw red trickling down her nose and the sides of her eyes, as though crying blood. Ainsley couldn’t tell if her magic stores were depleting or if the shifter was somehow siphoning Ava’s magic from her as well.
She wanted to rush in and help, but what could she do? She was useless.
A body stumbled, catching her attention out her periphery vision. Jax had collapsed, blood streaming from his ears and dripping down his jawline. His eyes were closed, and she prayed he was okay. She saw the slight rise and fall of his chest, and she exhaled with relief.
“We need to get them out of here,” she called out to Langston, who stood by, mouth gaping in helpless fear. After everything he’d gone through during his own attack, he seemed in a state of shock.
The shrill crack of electricity flying through the air made Ainsley shrink back and duck. It sounded so close, and her mind flashed to her mother. She had to survive.
All the apprentices had blood dripping down their faces from the strain; they were growing weaker by the second. A
insley had to do something to help.
A deep crimson light emanated from the shifter’s palms, counteracting her friends’ magic. Their faces distorted from the pain of trying to hold on.
Langston still managed to clutch the globe, even as he watched his friends’ pain in utter horror. “It needs to change into its mist form, or we’re all dead,” he muttered out loud.
If it stayed in human form, they couldn’t bind it inside the globe, and they didn’t have a whole room to put him in the way Saskia had. It was as though the entity knew it. Acid burned Ainsley’s throat, and tears blurred her eyes. Had it been there the whole time, watching them get ready? Had it somehow known their plan?
A moment later, Jax pushed himself back up despite his weakened state and resumed his attack. Ainsley breathed a sigh of relief.
The shifter shrieked abruptly, its red glow dulling. Maybe it was getting frailer.
Sydney and Justin moved in closer, shifting their streams of magic onto the figure’s chest. Imposter Harper began transforming—her face and body melting right in front of them. It was as if the shifter’s resolve had broken all at once, and it could no longer hold on. The liquefied skin and loose clothing slid down, dropping into a bloody, fleshy heap onto the wet ground. A cloudy, gray mist whirled frantically into a formidable funnel above them.
Ainsley stepped back as her friends’ magic remained focused on the shifter. Their bloody eyes, ears, and noses made her stomach twist. What if it was killing them? She’d never seen anything like their effort before. They wouldn’t survive if they tried to keep this up.
The mist broke free from the funnel and began circling above their heads so quickly that the five couldn’t keep their magic steady on it. Ainsley gasped, her hand covering her screams as Jax, Ava, and Sydney simultaneously buckled to their knees, their arms lowering dangerously. Only Khourtney and Justin remained on their feet, their arms fully outstretched, but it was evident that their power was diminishing, their blue and yellow blasts dwindling to erratic surges.
The mist drew back and launched straight for Sydney.
Without thinking, Ainsley threw her body in front of Sydney, bracing herself for the impact. The mist struck her with a force she hadn’t anticipated. It rattled her body, jarring her insides, but she dug her feet into the ground, leaning into the pain, refusing to be bowled over. The weight of the energy pressed into her chest, flexing her ribs, squeezing them into her lungs. She gave up fighting for air and focused on her legs which were trembling under the force of the blow. Somehow, she remained upright.
Suddenly, its wave of electricity seemed to bounce off her. It was still painful, but no longer debilitating. Her eyes tore down to her chest, and she cried out with her newfound breath, seeing a gray-black radiance rebounding from her body.
A furious, thunderous roar crashed from the mist, and Ainsley crouched, her hands sheltering her ears. The sound ripped and twisted through the air all around her. She needed it to stop.
The grip on Ainsley released, and she realized it was drawing back. The mist swirled into another funnel, propelling itself dizzyingly toward her. The funnel encapsulated her, twisting around her body, trapping her inside it, and ripping the breath from her lungs.
Chapter 15
Sydney
Sydney stood in disbelief, watching as the mist wrap its coil around Ainsley just feet away from her. The middling had thrown herself in front of Sydney, protecting her. But why?
The sound of the entity violently spinning, ever closer, made her ears pulsate, and she fought the urge to duck, to cover her head and hide. Instead, she raised her hands higher, sending as many blasts as she could into the blurry funnel.
Justin screamed and directed waves of rage-filled magic toward it. They needed to be careful not to hurt Ainsley in the process. Blast after blast hit the mist, but it didn’t relent. How could they beat it when it didn’t seem to be weakening? Sydney’s lungs ached, and she willed herself to keep going, although she only wanted to give in and collapse.
Glimpses of Ainsley’s pallid face broke through the fog. She looked like a rag doll, limp and flopping at the fog’s direction. She was a middling with no special powers, nothing to fend it off. No human could survive this.
Sydney’s head pounded, and her eyes felt like unseen thumbs were pushing them out from inside her aching head. She couldn’t give up. She wouldn’t. For some reason, a middling—to whom she’d admittedly been awful—had given up her life to save Sydney’s. Lifting her hands higher, Sydney dug her feet into the slick, hard earth and gritted her teeth. With quaking arms, she cast as much magic as she could from her fingertips. Her resurgent power added to Justin’s. Sickness tore from Sydney’s chest up through her throat, and she inhaled sharply to stabilize herself. It was all she could do to keep her magic steady, aiming high at the vortex, not wanting to damage Ainsley’s body more than it already was. Syd owed her that much.
Moments later, Jax, Ava, and Khourtney were on their feet and attacking as well. She had to believe that the shifter was getting weaker, but they needed extra power. The Ancestors must have reached inside her mind to help because she suddenly remembered what they were standing on.
“Use the ley lines,” she screamed, her voice lost in the thrashing of wind.
Justin and Jax looked at her, mouthing the words, “What?”
She tried again, over-enunciating. “Ley lines! Tap into the power of the lines!” Her friends nodded with eager recognition. She concentrated, pulling the ground’s magical energy up into her body. She felt a warm sensation enter her feet, snaking up her legs and chest, and flowing down her arms and coursing out her fingertips.
The mist grew more aggressive, twisting and dashing all around them as if it understood what they were doing.
Holding her hands firm, she felt her magic intensify and checked Langston to see if he was ready with the globe. Her stomach sank. He gripped the orb, his mouth open and eyes unblinking.
No, no. He was focused on Ainsley, shell-shocked.
“Langston!” Sydney called out, desperate to snap him out of the terrorized trance he was in. “Langston, we need you!”
He turned his head toward her and nodded.
Syd nodded back, relieved he was still with them. “Everyone hold steady!”
Their power momentarily suspended by the entity. They needed to move it toward the globe. If the others could contain it, she could perform the binding spell. She’d memorized the words to the incantation, but she’d have to release her hold on the mist in order to reserve enough magic to perform it. Praying her friends were strong enough, she pulled her hands back, resting them at her sides. Her muscles ached and throbbed with a severity she’d never experienced before. Her tendons felt like they were going to snap.
The others had pulled the fog nearly to her. Just a little bit more, she told herself. Hold on just a little bit longer. The magic from the ley lines was helping, but they were all drained. Sydney felt hollow, her hammering heart threatening to give out. All of her limbs quivered.
Doubts began to flood her mind. What if she wasn’t strong enough to complete the spell? She breathed deep and reminded herself: Focus. She saw her dad, too weak even to open his eyes. If she died, she’d never find a cure for him. Sydney summoned every last cell in her body to electrify.
“Hurry up, Syd!” Jax called out.
It had to be now, or this thing was going to kill them all, incorporate their magic, and murder every witch she knew.
Raising her hands one last time, she closed her eyes and began reciting the complicated incantation—the one to pull the mist inside the orb, binding it forever. She drew every ounce of available power she could, from the ground and the supernatural energy thick in the air around her.
Halfway through the spell, Khourtney’s voice broke through her concentration.
“We don’t have long!”
Keeping her eyes closed and her focus on the spell’s words, Sydney kept going.
Ag
onized screaming rang out, a bellowing that snapped her out of the spell’s intensity. She opened her eyes to see Ava and Justin pinned to the ground, the mist circling them. An image of Langston and Jake shrieking and writhing in anguish filled her field of vision. Her whole body threatened to break.
Then a bright light flashed, and two streams of golden magic shot over her right shoulder, hitting the mist. Sydney reeled around to see Máthair Zhang and Athair Choi blasting magic straight into the swirling entity, beams of pulsating energy pouring from their palms. Ava, Jax, Justin, and Khourtney steeled themselves, adding their power to the mix once again. Electric currents of gold, red, blue, purple, and silver wrapped around the entity. Echoing cries filled the air as the mist fought their attack.
Sydney concentrated, reciting the binding spell from the beginning as quickly as she could manage. She dropped to her knees as sweat trickled down her swaying body, but she didn’t stop.
“It’s working,” Athair Choi called out.
Sydney dug deeper. The incantation was almost complete.
Langston jumped into her periphery vision, holding the charmed globe. “Over here,” he shouted above the chaos.
Their collective powers ensnared the mist in a magic web, guiding it toward Langston, who held the globe as far from his body as possible.
The mist throbbed and struggled.
“Now!” Máthair Zhang and Athair Choi released one final burst of magic, lighting up the darkness with such brightness that it momentarily blinded Sydney.
Sydney wanted to look away, but she kept her resolve, studying the mist as her fellow Wildes lowered it into the globe. She needed to speak the final incantation, and the mist would be sucked inside and bound.
“Adiuro vos huic rei. Adiuro te incolumem. Et ligabunt te in aeternum!”
Wilde Abandon (Ashcroft Academy Book 3) Page 13