by Sarah Piper
When had it gotten so dark?
“What time is it?” I asked. “How long have we been out here?”
Haley glanced at her watch. “It’s only half past eight. Less than an hour.”
“We’d better head back.”
Overhead, the treetops swayed and creaked, dumping another load of snow on the forest floor. And then… silence. Stillness.
Not the good kind.
A chill crawled across my skin. The dogs closed ranks, flanking me and Haley. Then, they began to bark, but there was no one around—not that I could see.
“Something’s not right.” I closed my eyes and reached out for a connection with the earth. But for the first time since I’d gotten back in touch with my witchcraft, I felt nothing. It wasn’t just that I couldn’t sense the earth’s magic or draw up the energy. It was like there was no energy there at all. Something was actively blocking it.
“We need to go,” I said urgently. “Now.”
But it was too late. We’d been spotted. Not by a person or shifter or fae magician.
By something else entirely.
Twenty-Five
GRAY
“What’s happening?” Haley’s eyes widened. “It feels—”
A gust of arctic wind stole the rest of her words, and she gasped for breath, her lips turning snow white right before my eyes.
Holy. Shit.
“Haley! Move your ass!” I grabbed her hand and bolted, dragging her behind me. I had no idea what was happening, but I felt the frigid air close on our heels as if it were an actual monster chasing us through the woods. Without breaking my stride, I glanced over my shoulder to make sure the hounds were following, and the sight behind me threatened to steal my breath, too.
It was as if the woods had been hit with a tsunami, but instead of sweeping over the landscape with water, this one was invisible, and it turned everything it touched to ice. Glittery, silver-white crystals solidified behind us, freezing the air in a narrow path that wound through the trees, heading right for us.
It was no more than fifty feet away.
“Move!” I shouted, tugging her forward. “Faster!”
This was no ordinary storm. Not even the freakiest weather event could explain it. All I knew was that if we didn’t beat this thing to the house, we were going to be encased in ice.
We were going to die.
“Haley, faster!”
With a burst of new energy, she pushed forward, linking her arm in mine as we hauled ass toward the backyard. My lungs burned, my lips cracking and bleeding from the cold, my fingers and toes already going numb, but the harder we pushed, the further away the yard was starting to feel.
“We won’t make it!” Haley shouted. “There’s too much—” The wind howled between us, carrying away the rest of her words.
She was right. That thing was coming too fast, we were already bordering on exhaustion, and the backyard would be another trudge through hip-high snow. We had one last recourse, a realization we both seemed to reach at the same moment.
Magic.
“We need to connect blood!” She shouted. “Bite your hand!”
Still running, we each bit into the soft webbing between our thumb and index finger, drawing blood. Without speaking, we clasped hands again, pressing our wounds together. I felt the touch of her blood immediately; my magic sparked to life in response.
“Channel my power!” she shouted. “Now!”
Holding onto her hand for dear life, I stopped and turned toward the invisible enemy, raising my other palm and calling on the last of my reserves, drawing on whatever power I could from my sister. I felt her own magic move through me, much liked Darius’s power had when we’d fought the memory eaters in the Shadowrealm.
An electric bolt of bright blue magic shot from my outstretched palm and slammed into the icy torpedo heading our way. It exploded in a shower of sparks, and for a moment, everything stilled. It stopped, mid-air, and I bent over at the waist, trying to catch my breath.
“Calm before the shit-storm,” I panted. “We need to keep going.”
Haley nodded, still clasping my hand. The magic had bought us a precious few seconds, but it’d weakened us both severely, and now we stumbled awkwardly through the trees and out into the yard, pushing ourselves beyond all physical possibilities.
Everything below my waist was numb.
Sparkle and Sunshine were barking like mad, clearing a path ahead of us.
Slowly, the back deck came into view, and the sliding glass door opened, Emilio and Asher bolting out, their eyes wide with shock.
“Get back!” I shouted at them, knowing the ice-missile was already back in motion. “Move!”
They ignored me, both of them leaping off the deck and charging toward us at lightning speed. They reached us at the same time, grabbing us by our jackets and yanking us backward, half-carrying us back to the house. They practically threw us onto the deck, where Ronan and Elena were already reaching for us, hauling us in through the doorway. All four of us plus the hounds tumbled inside, and someone slammed the door shut behind us.
We all watched in horror as the white path that had been targeting us spread out, then crested, peaking as a giant wave that towered over the house.
“Everybody, duck and cover!” Elena shouted. “Away from the windows!”
Then the wave crashed. It broke upon the house, shaking it down to the foundation. Windows shattered. Shelves rattled, dishes crashed to the floor, door frames cracked under the pressure of trying to stabilize the walls.
And then, just as quickly as it had burst on the scene, the mysterious vortex was gone.
Gingerly, we all got to our feet, rounding up everyone inside and making sure no one got hurt. Miraculously, everyone was okay—just completely freaked.
Outside, as far as we could see, the entire property and the forest beyond—was encased in ice, a child’s fairytale wonderland that would’ve been beautiful if it wasn’t so absolutely deadly.
“What the hell is happening?” I asked, still panting. My heart was in my throat, hammering so hard I wasn’t sure I could even speak around it. “Is this all Darkwinter’s doing?”
“No,” Jael said. “The magic that made this is much more ancient. Much more deadly.”
“What the fuck is it?” Ronan asked.
A familiar voice echoed across the house, his ominous words sending a chill down my spine that had nothing to do with the ice palace outside.
“It seems the price of our actions in the realm has just gone up,” Liam said. “And our debtors are ever eager to collect.”
Twenty-Six
GRAY
“I’ve been banished to the material plane,” Liam said. “Delivered, in essence and body, to your doorstep. I fear my arrival is what brought about your current predicament.”
I picked a path across a sea of broken glass in the kitchen, slowly making my way over to Liam. He was in his human form, dressed in dark jeans and an olive green V-neck sweater that made his blue eyes look even more ethereal than usual. To say I was happy to see him was an understatement, despite the bad news he’d brought. Despite all the things that still lingered between us.
He’d brought Emilio back to us. And now he was here.
I pulled him in for a tight hug, my heart still pounding from the ordeal we’d all just been through. He seemed surprised by the contact, stiff in my arms, but I didn’t care. I’d missed him. Having him here… Well, it felt like the band was back together again. There was no other way to put it.
“How can the ice bomb be your fault?” I asked, pulling back to look him in the eye. “And what do you mean, you’ve been banished here? You can’t travel to the Shadowrealm?”
“In this form, I am unable to travel anywhere now, unless it’s on foot or by other normal means of transportation.” Liam lowered his eyes. “My powers have been temporarily suspended. I can still take on my raven or owl forms, but that is the extent of my magic. Even as an avian being, I must
remain tethered to the material plane. I can no longer manipulate soul energies, travel to or between realms, or perform any of my sacred duties as Death. For all intents and purposes, I’m human.”
“Human?” I gasped. Liam had wanted a chance to live out the rest of his life as one of us, but something told me this wasn’t what he’d had in mind. “But if you’re here, without your powers, who is serving as Death?”
“There is none,” he replied somberly.
“But how can that be? For how long?”
“I know not. For as long as it takes the Old One to reach a decision, I suppose.”
“So you’re on probation, huh?” Asher chuckled. “Never thought I’d see the day you’d break the cosmic rules, Spooky.”
If Liam was surprised by my hug, he was downright shocked by Asher’s uncharacteristic display of affection. Ash tackle-hugged the poor guy, nearly knocking him onto his very human—and very nicely packaged in those jeans, I noticed—ass.
“I am… pleased to see you liberated,” Liam said, awkwardly patting Asher on the back. “I am pleased to see all of you, though I wish it were under better circumstances.”
He broke free, then looked at Ronan, who nodded in greeting. Liam’s gaze finally came to rest on Emilio, and the two locked eyes for a long moment, a silent understanding passing between them.
“Where’s the vampire?” Liam asked.
“Basement,” I said. “Sleeping. Someone should probably go check on him.”
“I’ll go,” Elena said. “I need to check in with the department, too. I want to know if anyone else was affected by this—”
“Arctic missile,” Haley said. Then, to Liam, “Yeah, so getting back to that… I thought Darkwinter created the storm? But Jael said it was some kind of ancient magic. Now you’re saying it’s your fault?”
“The dark fae did indeed create the storm, but due to my predicament, it is now growing even larger and more brutal than they’d envisioned. My arrival here seems to correspond with the polar weapon that targeted this precise location. It was as if the stripping of my powers had an immediate and equal reaction on the material plane.”
“I thought it was targeting us,” I said. “Haley and I were in the woods, and everything just turned into this insane winter wonderland.”
“Only not so wonderful,” Haley said. “More like a winter wasteland.”
“I believe it was drawn toward my energy,” Liam said. “Understand… The suspension of my powers is not just about human souls. I am Death, the Great Change, the Ultimate Transformation. Without me, life energy such as that which balances nature cannot—well—transform. We will now experience a state of perpetual winter, compounded infinitely by unchecked fae magic and spellcraft, and a complete power imbalance resulting from the disruption of the witch communities here. All of those forces have conspired in this moment to bring about the destructive forces you’ve just witnessed.”
I leaned back against the kitchen counter, trying to stabilize myself. “This is insane. You all know that, right?”
“I’m afraid there’s more,” Liam said. “The longer I’m stuck here, powerless, the worse those inhabitants of the material plane will suffer. Living souls will not be able to pass on in death.”
“What, like no one can die?” Asher asked.
“People will still die. And their souls will vacate their bodily vessels. But I won’t be available to guide them, to call upon my ferriers, to move them through the transition. The souls will wander on the material plane as ghosts, trapped, and growing increasingly confused and frantic at their inability to move on. The more restless a spirit becomes, the more dark energy it draws to itself. That’s when you begin to see poltergeists and hauntings, non-demonic soul possessions, things of that sort. That happens now with restless spirits, but consider it on a mass scale, where all spirits are restless.”
“Humans will go insane,” Emilio said. “They will absolutely break with reality.”
“Yes, that is my prediction as well,” Liam said.
“So we’ve got a winter weather lockdown,” I said, “with the possibility of random, deadly, unpredictable events like what we saw today. We’ve got ghosts, possibly angry ones. We’ve got hauntings and possessions. And that’s on top of the militarization of cities by the dark fae and the hunters.”
“It’s a lot to face,” Haley said. “But remember what Ronan and Darius said. One thing at a time, deal with the known, figure out the rest as we go.”
Footsteps echoed up the basement stairs, and I turned to see Elena emerging from the doorway, cell phone in hand. “No reported injuries from the arctic blast,” Elena said. “Not in Raven’s Cape, anyway. And Darius is fine, too. Sleeping like a vampire. I decided to let him be. He’ll have a busy night ahead of him—as will the rest of us.”
“So you got through to the department?” Emilio asked.
“Mayor’s office, actually,” Elena said. “It seems that what happened here was localized to my property—a rare weather anomaly, they’re calling it. But another band of heavy snow is moving in fast, and the rest of the region is still dealing with the accumulation and frigid temperatures we’ve already experienced. The governor has declared a state of emergency. They’re requesting federal aid, with military intervention a strong possibility, should things continue on this trajectory.”
“But that means more humans flooding into the Cape,” I said. “Right into the path of danger.”
“That’s exactly what that means.” Elena’s lips pressed into a grim line.
I looked around the kitchen, cataloging the damage. Broken glass. Broken windows. Cracked walls. Outside, I thought of all the living creatures that must’ve been buried under that ice fall, and my heart broke.
The full implications of what Liam and I had done in the magic realm were slowly sinking in.
“This is my fault,” Liam said.
“No,” I said. “It’s mine. I’m the one who tracked Emilio to the Shadowrealm. It was my decision to bring him back. You were simply honoring my wishes.” I turned to look out the back door, beyond the edge of the property where the trees now sparkled like diamonds in their icy prisons. “I risked all of you… All of this… I put everything on the line to bring Emilio back.” I turned back to face them, their outlines blurred by my tears. When I found Emilio’s warm gaze, a smile touched my lips. “But I won’t apologize for it. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, for any one of you.”
“As would I,” Ronan said.
“Ditto,” Asher said.
“Same,” Haley said. “Come on, Gray. Really.”
“That isn’t up for debate, love.” Darius peered out from the other side of the basement door. It seemed he didn’t want to sleep through the excitement, after all, but he still couldn’t risk sunlight exposure. “All we’ve left to do is deal with the outcome. How we arrived at that outcome is now irrelevant.”
Emilio laced his fingers through mine, giving my hand a squeeze.
“Alright, we need to divide and conquer on this one,” he said. “Let the governor coordinate with emergency services and deal with the human population. As for the rest of us, our job description hasn’t changed. We need to stay on track with our plans.”
“The mayor wants all hands on deck at the precinct,” Elena said. “I don’t see how I can refuse.”
“No, don’t refuse,” Emilio said. “You, Lansky, and Hobb should do whatever you have to do to maintain status quo. We don’t want to arouse any suspicion from the humans, so if coordinating from the precinct is what you’d normally do in extreme weather, then that’s what you need to do now. But Elena, you need to be very, very careful out there. Don’t travel alone, and don’t take any unnecessary risks. Your job is not worth your life. ¿Claro?”
Elena nodded. “We’re clear.”
“In the meantime, I’ll reach out to Verona and start coordinating with the witches in the area,” Emilio said. “It’s more important than ever that we stick together on this.�
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“We’ve always been stronger together than scattered,” Haley said. “It’s time we start remembering that.”
“It’s happening.” In a swirl of cold air, Deirdre stepped in through the front door, her coat and boots thick with snow, her eyes wide with excitement.
Either she knew something the rest of us didn’t, or she’d finally gone off the deep end.
“I sensed a sudden shift in the universal energy,” she said, breathless. “Can’t you feel it? I came as soon as I could. We have so much to prepare for, and very little time to do it.”
“Deirdre, slow down,” I said. “What’s happening? What are you talking about?”
She beamed at me, locking me in her bright blue gaze.
I knew in a flash what she was going to say next.
“The Silversbane Prophecy, child. This is how it begins.”
“With the blizzard from hell?” I forced out a laugh, but a bolt of nervous energy shot down my spine, and inside, everything was trembling.
“You’ve already begun gathering witches,” she said, gesturing toward the sea of faces around us. “And now you will gather more.”
“Okay, and then what?” I laughed again, but anyone in that room who knew me could’ve seen right through it. “I just stand on a chair, bang on a glass, and roll right into it? Like, Hi! I’m Gray, third daughter of a third daughter of a third daughter, Silversbane heir, destined to unite everyone. By the way, how do you all feel about uniting? Hope no one’s got any plans tonight! Let’s do some icebreakers!” It sounded ridiculous, even without my added snark. These women were strangers. Many of them had their own covens or had been practicing solitary for years. Who was I to come in and claim such a powerful legacy?
Who was I to unite them? To lead?
All the old doubts rushed in. But then Emilio squeezed my hand again, and Haley came to stand at my side, and Ronan gave me a crooked grin, and Asher winked, and Darius offered a single nod of unwavering support.
And Liam’s eyes blazed bright, just for a moment.