Images from my dreams played against the chime of the bow. The Balefire blessing had to be significant somehow. What was it Mag had said? The Balefire infuses the heart of a witch.
Suddenly, and with an indisputable ring of truth, I knew what I had to do. It had been staring me in the face all along, and as with seemingly every other problem in my life, the answer involved doing something that made me feel shaky inside.
“I have to infuse an arrow with Balefire and shoot her with the bow, don’t I?”
“That’s the only logical conclusion I can see,” Mag agreed with me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
FULL OF PURPOSE, I picked up the Bow of Destiny, and that was the moment I realized during all this time and talk and worry about firing arrows at people, I didn’t actually have any to fire. Sometimes I think I’m nothing but a crap magnet in a room full of fans.
Maybe I expected them to just materialize after the final repair. They didn’t.
“We have a problem.” Quite an obvious one and I guess I wasn’t the only one who missed it. I’m not sure if that made me feel better or worse.
“What? You have the bow, let’s do this.” Kin, like most normal people, had a fascination with watching someone perform real magic.
“Right I have the bow...” I emphasized and trailed off to make my point.
When it landed, I started giggling at the sea of dismayed faces staring back at me. In fact, the whole thing hit me funny, and the giggles turned to belly laughs and sent me stumbling toward the sofa when the hilarity sucked the strength from my muscles.
Unfortunately, I was the only one finding humor in the situation. The dismayed faces turned to concerned expressions, and that made me laugh harder until tears rolled down my cheeks and I had to clutch my aching belly. That much hilarity makes your face hurt, too.
“Come on; you don’t think this is funny? All this work and what do I have to show for it? A magical bow that won’t stop singing in my head and no magical arrows to go with it.”
“I think she’s hysterical.” Salem looked like he was thinking about slapping the laughter out of me like I had done to Serena, and I gave him a warning look until he backed off.
“Not hysterical, just...I can’t help it. I think it’s funny.”
“What do you remember about the day when Clara shot Cupid? Where did she get the arrow then?” Mag asked the question after everyone had settled back onto chairs and the couch. We weren’t going anywhere until I figured this thing out.
My eyes dropped closed while I cast the mental image against the backs of my lids and watched the whole thing play out one last time. I vowed to lock the memory of that day away and never think about it again, just as soon as Clara was free.
“Cupid has the bow slung over his back. I don’t see a quiver, but when he pulls the bow forward, there’s an arrow. How the...” I replayed the scene and payed closer attention to what I hadn’t noticed the first time.
“The bow isn’t complete,” I said.
“What do you mean it isn’t fixed? Look at it, it’s perfect,” Salem purred the R in perfect.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t fixed; I said it wasn’t complete. There’s a piece missing up near the grip.” And still the bow was singing its happy song in my head and the string hummed in my hand.
“Do we have to go back to Shadow Hold?” Kin looked a little green at the thought; he’d almost died there the last time, and yet he was willing to go back. Love for him rushed right up into my throat and made it hard to speak.
“No. I don’t think so. Can you all clear out and give me a few minutes alone?” All the pieces of the puzzle were there, my bones told me that much, but this was Fate Weaver business, and that meant it was a job for only me.
Each reluctant backward glance received a smile of reassurance as fake as a bad toupee, but they went.
Once I was alone, I picked up the bow and mimicked the motions I remembered my father making. A burst of noise jangled through my head—a happy noise, but with a plaintive edge.
“Listen,” I talked to the bow as if it could hear and understand me. “This is all new to me, and if there’s anything you can do to make it easier, I’d appreciate a little help here. I’m not Cupid, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
The sounds turned even more plaintive. The bow missed Cupid. Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.
“You’re stuck with me, at least for the time being. Can you help?”
In answer, the bow went completely silent. Funny how you can get used to something so quickly that when it’s gone, you’re thrown off balance. As the quiet echoed through my head, the same plaintive song piped from somewhere else in the room. My ears led me to the compass, abandoned near the fireplace where I’d emptied it of its cache of gold.
“Oh, you did this before, didn’t you?” The compass practically jumped into my hand and strained toward the bow. Since no one else was around, I could beef up my part of what happened later, but really, I didn’t do anything other than move my hands closer together. The bow and compass did the rest.
Writhing in my palm like a snake shedding its skin, like a living thing—well duh, living gold—parts of the compass folded, stretched, and morphed. The changes happened so fast it was hard to focus on any single aspect of them before the generated force clapped my hands together.
Joyful song boomed through my skull, both from within and without. Its high-toned clarity was more than my humanity could bear, and I slumped to the floor, the bow with its newly formed sight slipping from my nerveless hand.
That’s where they found me an hour later. Knocked out cold with a huge grin on my face.
Amid the well-intentioned hubbub that followed, Mag went from amused to impatient, and I was right there with her.
“Drink your tea, Lexi.” Terra thought I couldn’t taste a healthy dose of her favorite tonic.
“I'm fine. Let me up.” While Kin’s strong fingers kneading my arches felt amazing—he’d cuddled down with my feet in his lap as I stretched out on the sofa—I had things to do, witches to unstone. “No, I mean it. It’s time.”
“I still don’t see any arrows.” Vaeta was the one you could always trust to state the obvious.
Patting Kin on the arm reassuringly, I pulled my feet away and rose to collect the bow from the floor where the faeries had wisely left it. My hand closed over the grip, and a powerful sense of oneness straightened my spine.
Half witch, half demigod. Those were the parts that made up my whole, and I accepted them.
I was a Fate Weaver. This was my moment to shine.
And I did shine. Pink fire colored my vision as I brought the bow to bear in a left-handed grip. Instinct drove my right hand, and I drew the arrowhead from the living gold of the bow like it was being born from the metal.
The heart shaped head needed a shaft. That’s where I came in. Drawing on everything that made me—humanity and witchblood, maybe even my soul—I poured myself into the form. The whole thing happened in the time it took my hand to cross the space between the grip and where the fletched end fitted against the bowstring.
It looked like magic. It was magic, but it was more than that.
With a triumphant smile on my face, I lowered my hand and showed off my weapon of choice. The shaft looked like solid pearl and shone with an iridescent glow.
I might have underestimated the impact of pink eyes on the crowd. Expressions ranged from Kin’s shock to Mag’s wide grin. She let out a whoop that bounced off the skylight and echoed back to us.
The biggest life changes sneak up on you like a panther stalking prey. Sly and sleek, you almost never see their magnitude until the rush of attack that comes in the moments before you know nothing will ever be the same again.
Pulling an arrow from the Bow of Destiny took a vital part of me, but it also made me into the most epic version of myself. Even if only for that single moment before I settled into the newness and made it comfortable around me.
>
The moment begged me to say something profound.
“Look how pretty.” Decidedly not profound, but completely Lexi.
In a flurry of activity, we rounded up one of the smaller cauldrons to carry a bit of the Balefire with us and left the workshop with hope in our hearts. It seemed like things had been happening to me for months now and, finally, it was time for me to step up and be the catalyst.
I could do this, right? What if I missed? What if it didn’t work? What if it did? How would the faeries react when the true owner of their home returned? Was I about to set off a nuclear faerie bomb? Shuttered expressions told me nothing of their thoughts and all four of them remained uncharacteristically quiet. Never a good sign.
My brain revved up to full throttle while my body calmly went about the business at hand. If I let the multitude of questions pick away at my resolve, I’d never go through with it. Shooting an arrow, even one you’re reasonably certain won’t draw killing blood, at anyone is a tricky thing. The only way I could do it was to find that feeling again; the one I’d had not ten minutes before. Funny how confidence comes and goes.
A semi-circle of family formed behind me when I infused it with my will and thrust the tip of the arrow into the Balefire. Eyes closed, I centered myself and called on the Fate Weaver within. Pink flames shot skyward, enveloped, and clung to the arrow.
Doubt fled. Calm certainty filled me, and in one deft motion, I assumed shooting stance. Elbow cocked, bowstring taut, my eye locked on the newly formed sight. Using the bow on Joshua would be a piece of cake after this. Breath whooshed from me and the world stilled. I was ready as I ever would be.
I let the arrow fly.
Pink flame arced and sped toward its target, pierced stone and lanced into Clara’s heart. For half a second, nothing happened, and it was as though the world took a breath.
THE END
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Also by ReGina Welling and Erin Lynn
The Fate Weaver series:
Featuring Lexi Balefire, a matchmaking witch with a certain something extra. Her story is full of magic, romance, zany family antics, and intrigue.
A Match Made in Spell
All Spell is Breaking Loose
To Spell & Back
No Chance in Spell
Spell Hath No Fury
A Cold Day in Spell
Elder Witch Cozy Mystery Series:
Featuring Mag and Clara Balefire. Sassy sisters, witches, detectives.
Murder Above the Fold
Murder on the Backswing
Murder Below the Waterline
Haunted by Murder
Ponderosa Pines Mysteries
Nothing bad ever happens in the weird little town of Ponderosa Pines...until someone dies.
Cat Killed A Rat
Crafting Disorder
Caught in the Frame
Bait and Snitch
Also by ReGina Welling
The Psychic Seasons Series
A little mystery, a little romance, and a paranormal twist hit Julie Hayward when the ghost of her grandmother shows up with some interesting news.
Rings on Her Fingers
Bells on Her Toes
She Shall Have Music
Wherever She goes
Earthbound Bones
Earthbound Wings
Excerpt from No Chance in Spell
Clara
PEOPLE—even witches—find great comfort in telling their secrets to the dead. Or, in my case, the not-quite-but-assumed dead woman in statue form.
Why confess their hearts to a witch with a heart of stone? Because no matter how petty were the crimes of my sister witches, they paled in comparison to mine—to the worst sin imaginable. I stand (because I cannot do otherwise) accused of killing my own daughter. A gravely mistaken assumption, but who could blame them for jumping to the conclusion? The punishment for killing another witch is being turned to stone.
No one knows by whose hand the sentence is served, only that it is swift and irrevocable. Kill a witch, become a living monument: an effective warning against falling prey to the destructive side of the power that runs through the blood of our kind. All the evidence was against me.
Not having murdered anyone before, I’d had no idea if stoned witches remained awake inside their prison for all eternity. In the middle of a heated discussion with my daughter—a fight, if you want to be technical about it—my binding spell crossed with Sylvana’s ball of dark magic, picked up some of her intent, mixed it with mine and slammed us both with the result.
Nothing remained but a burnt scar on the earth and me, fearful I’d destroyed my own flesh and blood, forced to stand watch over the scene of my own destruction. Wanting to cry and not being able to shed a tear is the worst feeling in the world.
I’d resigned myself to an eternity of listening to the transgressions of others while wishing I’d eventually die inside my cocoon—that is, until sly Sylvana showed up very much alive and well. And with no intention of releasing me from stasis.
When word of her miraculous resurrection spread, the number of huddled confessors decreased dramatically.
Since then, witches pass me by with a look that says they hope I never heard a word of their transgressions and if I did, that I never have the chance to speak of them out loud. But I’ve smelled the dirty laundry flung around my feet, and I remember the stench of every tiny tidbit.
Lexi stands before me now with fierce determination in her eyes and a longing to set me free so strong I can feel it in my granite bones. She’s tried before and failed, but third time’s the charm. So they say, anyway. A pot of Balefire sits at her feet; the Bow of Destiny rides her hand with an arrow aimed at my heart. It’s a good thing I'm virtually frozen because my instincts are screaming for me to duck.
I can’t duck. I can’t look away. Nothing is left but to stand (as if I had any other choice) and listen for the twang of the string, wait for the burning sting of the barb, and hope that her aim is true.
Lexi
SHOOTING my stoned grandmother with Cupid’s bow and a flaming arrow. What was I thinking?
Determined, I pulled the bowstring back, forced trembling nerves to rock steadiness. Hushed calm flowed like water to fill me from the bottom up, pushing out my breath on a sigh. There would never be a better moment than now.
I let the arrow fly.
Time slowed to a crawl, and crystalline clear vision focused on the burning arrow crawling through the air toward its target. The golden barb picked up light and magic until it passed the halfway mark and time fell back to normal speed.
Pink flame arced straight and true, pierced stone, and lanced into Clara’s heart. For half a second, nothing happened, and it was as if the whole world held its breath.
My heart tried to punch a hole in my throat.
A lifetime of longing for blood family—for the mother of my dreams—hadn’t come to much once Sylvana finally appeared. Wicked witches make lousy parents, and you can’t trust them as far as you can throw a unicorn. Don’t try that, by the way, unicorns get stabby when you pick them up. Especially the purple ones.
The pressure popped my ears, my stomach plummeted into my shoes, and the Bow of Destiny slipped to the ground. Nothing else moved in the cotton-heavy silence—not a bird, not a bee, not even me.
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ReGina Welling, To Spell & Back
To Spell & Back Page 22