by D. D. Chance
“Then there’s the contract,” I agreed. “Which is also yours to read.”
I didn’t miss her startled glance, and I acknowledged it with a small nod. As king, it was my right to do anything I wanted to that contract. But Belle’s long family line of witches had certainly earned the right to see what they had promised and what had been promised to them.
“Come with me?” she asked quietly. Together, we stepped up to the salver, and I watched carefully as she lifted her hand to pull away the velvet sash. It stayed firm, and with a flash of understanding, I lifted my hand, overlaying hers. The sash broke seamlessly, and the scroll unfurled, lying flat as if it had not been rolled tight for three full centuries.
I expected long lines of densely written prose, but to my surprise, there were only two brief statements. Annalise Hogan shall teach the High King of the Fae magic, as shall the first daughter of each generation to follow her, so long as the mountain Fae rule the realm. In return, the Hogan line shall be blessed with Fae gold, each generation in measure to her service, but no less than the witchling wages she deserves.
Belle rocked back on her heels. “That’s it?” she demanded. “She traded away our freedom for gold with no further explanation?”
“No less than the witchling wages she deserves,” I murmured. The language was old, archaic, and dangerous. What were witchling wages, precisely? But that wasn’t the only problem.
“Shall serve the mountain Fae,” I said, for there it was. What Cyril and I had already suspected and Belle had discerned, laid out in archaic script. I looked at her. “You have no obligation to me, Belle Hogan.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Aiden, I already—”
“No.” I cut her off, compelled to recite the words that my heart had known were coming. “The contract is broken. You are no longer bound.” I picked up the contract and curled her fingers around it. “Grab it,” I ordered.
Her fingers tightened convulsively, and together, we read the short lines aloud, then ripped the contract in two. Despite the heft of the heavy layered paper, it disintegrated into a puff of smoke in our hands.
I drew in a full breath to launch into all the reasons why a new contract should be struck, but before I could, a blast of power erupted straight up from the marble altar, throwing me backward. A stiff wind raced through the room and a hand other than my own sketched a portal between Belle and me. I could no more shout into the gale than I could shut it down, and Belle’s eyes widened with genuine alarm.
“Wait!” she shouted. “Aiden, no! I don’t want to leave you!”
But as she surged forward, reaching for me, the portal took her and snapped out of existence.
39
Belle
“This portal shit has got to stop,” I moaned.
I lay crumpled against the wall I’d unceremoniously slammed into, my face pressed flat against a line of impressively polished floorboards. The wall behind me gleamed white. It wasn’t the marble walls of the Fae tomb or the rough brick-and-plank walls of my own bar, but the place smelled…familiar. Not in the way of knowing exactly where I was, but in the manner of being back in the human realm.
My eyes swam with tears as I pulled myself upright. I wasn’t in the Fae realm anymore, I wasn’t with Aiden. He’d let me go again, before even giving me a chance to stay. Had he intended to send me back through the portal, or had something reared up and snatched me the moment his protection and magic had lifted from me?
It didn’t matter. We’d ripped up the Hogan contract, and I’d been kicked out of the Fae realm in no time flat. Fucking asshole Fae magic.
“Pull yourself together,” I muttered, forcing myself to a seated position. The hallway was dark, though not completely obscured, the building—wherever I was—weirdly silent. I peered around, trying to identify where I was. It felt almost like a museum, but I thought it was a house of some sort. A house unselfconscious in its riches, comfortable in its own grandness.
As I staggered upright, straightening my tunic and pants, I once again had a vague feeling I’d been here before, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember when. My mother hadn’t taken me to many museums or grand homes of the rich and entitled of Boston. She’d never wanted us to be found in public where she couldn’t defend me.
Even thinking that made me grimace. What a warped life I’d led.
I blew out a long breath, looking around. Directly opposite me on the wall was a large painting of a boring pastoral scene that could have been inspired by anywhere in New England. Trees, grass, the hint of a mountain in the background. It almost had to be the portal through which I’d tumbled. But why had I landed here?
Why would this be the place where a Hogan witch was returned once her work with the Fae king had concluded?
The truth hit me with chilling finality. Oh…crap. This was the freaking headquarters of the White Mountains coven. It had to be.
I scanned the hallway rapidly, shocked I was still alone. Gorgeous paintings in heavy gilded frames lined the space, the long corridor stretching to either side of me in the quiet, seemingly empty building. My hand drifted to my neck, where my great-grandmother’s ruby necklace lay against my chest, tucked beneath my tunic. Should I have replaced that stone with the emerald we’d found in the barrow mound? Probably, but how could I have grabbed it while I was being sucked into the portal of doom? I lifted my hand higher, not touching the precious jewel, instead fussing with my hair. Was I being watched? Were the witches of the White Mountain coven just waiting for me to make a move?
I turned resolutely to my right and started walking, forcing my disordered mind into some semblance of logic. I was back where it all started. There had to be a reason for that. Was my value lost to the coven now? Did I have anything to bargain with? Would they kill me?
They couldn’t kill me.
That simple realization made me pause beside a painting of a woman in a seventeenth-century gown, erect, severe, her quiet beauty lost behind an autocratic glare. According to the brass plate affixed to the painting, Constance Montebatten peered out at me, looking so much like her own descendant that I thought for a second it could be Cassandra herself. But the painting verified where I was, at least. I proceeded down the hallway with equal parts apprehension and curiosity, peering at paintings in the dim light of the occasional windows, glancing outside to confirm the building was set on a wide lawn with trees all around. Silent, isolated. If my family’s erstwhile coven was going to try anything funny, this sure would be a good place to do it.
But they weren’t. They couldn’t.
Another unexpected surge of confidence flowed through me as my brain returned that same dismissal of any fears. I was a Hogan witch, with enough magic to teach the king of the Fae. The coven of the White Mountains had no jurisdiction over me. They’d tried and failed to burn down my tavern. They’d tried and failed to find the women my family had helped over the years. They’d tried and failed to force me to teach the Fae king—instead, I’d been released from a centuries-long service for which the coven had been paid handsomely and the Hogan witches not at all. That was a metric ton of back salary I was owed.
They’d failed…yet here I was. Maybe my situation wasn’t as ideal as I wanted to believe.
I started moving again. The paintings went on for another thirty feet or more, with no other openings beyond windows down the long gallery, until the hallway ended with a sharp turn to the right. There, I finally saw a set of open doors along the inside wall. I glanced again at another window down the hallway. This moonlit view showed trees for miles, and judging from the angle, I realized I was on the second floor of the building, which seemed far too grand for a coven of witches trying to keep a low profile. Then again, if they had any modicum of illusion magic, maybe the coven had built the place over time, hiding in plain sight.
Goddess knew they had enough Fae gold for the renovations.
These musings took me all the way to the open set of double doors, and I peeked in. The space b
eyond was wide and dark, but seemed too cavernous to be a simple room. I took another step inside, clearing the doors—and they swung shut behind me, so quickly I could do little more than start in surprise.
The lights swept on.
The room was actually an enormous ballroom, filled from end to end with women aged from late teens to easily ninety or more. All of them burst into wild applause as I jolted to a stop, staring.
“You’ve done it!” a woman announced with celebratory cheer. I jerked my head up, blinking in confusion at Cassandra Montebatten as she stood on a perch opposite me, across the wide room. She was tall, statuesque, and elegant in a long crimson dress, her deep brown hair piled atop her head, her dark eyes radiating pride. “You’ve defeated the spell of the Fae, bringing the Hogan witches home again. Long have we waited, unable to help you, unable to tell you or any of your family the truth. Such were the constraints of the contract signed so many centuries ago. But now you have returned home, Belle Hogan, and we can celebrate.”
Another cheer went up, and for a moment, I believed her. I went all in on the idea these witches had somehow been waiting and hoping for me to return triumphant, having shattered the hold of the Fae king on a righteous witch. Then I remembered the piece of Fae gold in my tavern and all the centuries of service we’d performed…without a single shred of payment to show for it. And, of course, the fact that they’d tried to burn my tavern down.
“Quiet,” I ordered, my attention focused solely on Cassandra. The sound blanked out. Below us, the witches of the White Mountains coven continued to clap and chatter, mimes acting out their part on the stage, apparently unaware of the fact I could no longer hear them. Cassandra masked any surprise she felt, merely lifting her brows as I continued.
“You took the gold promised to my family. And when that gold ran out, you took the gold of the Fomorians.” It was a guess, but it was the only guess that made sense. The Fomorians had started gaining ground in the last several decades, with the witch’s boils appearing in the land of the high Fae and the Riven District springing up in the monster realm. The coven of the White Mountains had grown richer and stronger in that same intervening time period. That couldn’t be a coincidence. “How?”
Cassandra’s response was gentle, almost reproving. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
“And I don’t have time for your bullshit,” I retorted. “The Fomorians paid you to keep us away, didn’t they? Or that’s what you promised them. ‘Look at our grand coven. What we once gave to the Fae, we now have taken away. What’s it worth to you for me to continue doing that? How about the same amount of gold I’d been pumping the Fae realm for?’ That sound about right?”
Cassandra’s return smile was unapologetic, acknowledging that I had the right of it. There was no benefit to her, I sensed, in keeping up the subterfuge any longer. Which meant I was in more danger now, not less.
“Not at first,” she said. “At first, we hunted for the Hogan witches. But as the years went on and the gold dwindled in our stores, we knew something had to be done. We had grown too fond of being wealthy and protected, and enjoyed our status among the other covens too much.”
“They knew you taught the Fae?”
“They knew we controlled the Fae. We kept them on their side of the veil in all but the most insignificant ways. They didn’t know how, they didn’t care. And that was our opportunity.”
“So did you reach out to our enemies, or did the Fomorians find you?”
She lifted one shoulder, then dropped it. That was all the answer I needed. Cassandra had reached out, had actively struck a deal. With the only enemy that we had that were older than the Fae themselves.
“How did you escape censure?” I asked, legitimately curious. Below us, the witches had returned to their party, still oblivious to the conversation above them. I didn’t doubt that Cassandra had laid another spell atop mine, showing whatever she wanted them to believe. And in that, of course, I had my answer to my own question.
“It wasn’t difficult,” Cassandra said. She didn’t sneer or boast. She didn’t have to—she knew more about being a powerful witch than I could ever hope to, and she’d kept the coven of the White Mountains going strong even in a world that hated magic. “Witches prefer to believe that all witches are honorable. When we said we had continued to solve the problem, they didn’t ask too many questions. And the Fae were gracious enough not to notice that we had struck up an alliance with their enemy. The Riven District was created, allowing money to be exchanged and the Fomorians to gain a foothold within the monster realm. Dwarves were found who were willing to mine Fae gold.”
I grimaced, remembering the scene when I’d entered the Riven District. There had been a lot of dwarves there—I hadn’t thought anything about it.
But Cassandra continued, “Now you’re here, which means you have been released by the Fae king himself, freeing you to strike a new bargain…one that you will find more advantageous than the first, I should think.”
I practically choked on my laugh. “There will be no new bargains.”
“You don’t think so?” Cassandra replied mildly.
Here it was, I thought. Here was the trap she’d been waiting so patiently to spring.
I opened my mouth to shut her down, but she pushed on. “Now is your opportunity, Belle Hogan. You won’t get a better one. You can return to the king of the Fae with whatever deal you would like to set with them, keep some modest sum flowing to the coven until we can make other arrangements—or forever, if you want to avoid us needing to make other arrangements. In return, we will not trouble the witches you have foolishly stolen from us, and we will not trouble you any further. You’ll be free to carry on your rogue witch ways, helping whatever unfortunates stumble through your door. We will leave you to it.”
“Oh, yeah, that seems likely.”
“In addition, we’ll no longer aid the Fomorian in their fight against the Fae. Those two races can destroy each other if they want, but any assistance rendered will be through you and you alone.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “So far, this seems to be a pretty one-sided deal. I do all the work, and you sit on your hands and don’t cause any more problems.”
Cassandra tilted her head—once more not triumphant, merely confident. “Ah, but the deal you will strike with the Fae is yours to control, not ours. And it can be any deal you want—after you complete one more task for us.” She lifted a hand, and I flinched as the pressure around my head increased, the shackles on my wrists clamping tight.
“Stop that,” I grunted, but the pressure lessened only the barest amount.
Now Cassandra did allow herself a satisfied smirk. “You should be careful what you’re told in the Fae realm, idiot witch. You’d think your Hogan experience would have taught you that—except, so sadly, Reagan just couldn’t remember everything she should have now, could she? And especially not the magical adornments she didn’t realize were constraining her as much as they were aiding her, up until she fled the realm.”
I didn’t bother honoring that with a reply, as it was all I could do to stand upright. The Hogan witch’s shackles—not constructs of the Fae at all, but the infernal bindings of our own coven? Giving me magic, sure, but stripping away my freedom at the same time? How could any coven be so horrific to one of their own?
Cassandra continued, oblivious to my growing outrage. “As I was saying, before you can be freed to secure your future—without the crown and shackles of your service binding you—there’s one more small matter you need to settle. Because if it is ever discovered that the White Mountain witches struck a deal with the Fomorians, our coven will be held accountable. We’ll all die. You’ll die.”
“Oh, right,” I shot back. “You’re not my coven anymore.”
She chuckled, now having the grace to appear a little grim. “I’m afraid it’s not quite as easy as that. We have signed a contract with the Fomorians, as binding as that which you signed with the Fae. To cancel it—a
nd eradicate it from existence—requires a simple step. As it turns out, you’re that step. Rather neatly negotiated, I must say.”
“I’m the step,” I echoed, finally amassing enough annoyance to ignore the pressure of the coven’s infernal crown and shackles. The first chance I got, I’d be frying those hunks of illusion right off my body. I didn’t care if I lost the ability to wield great magic. It wasn’t worth sacrificing my freedom.
“You are indeed. It seems that after all the generations the Fae have enjoyed the company of the Hogans, the Fomorians want a Hogan witch too.” With that chilling statement, Cassandra gave an almost regal gesture. “And we have agreed to deliver her.”
Behind me, I heard a portal whoosh open, and I whirled to see a torrent of blackish-green oil pouring from it. I lifted my hands in horror as a dozen long-armed, long-legged creatures rushed me. Beyond their bobbing heads and shoulders, rising tall, I caught sight of an enormous warrior bristling with muscles, his long hair dripping with scum and his legs as brackish as the bottom of a poisoned sea. On his head, he wore a sharply spiked crown.
“If you escape your captors this time, you’ll truly be free. All contracts ever struck will be forgotten by you, the Fomorian, and even the mighty Fae.” Cassandra’s voice reached me over the screaming sea of slippery-limbed assailants. “Of course, by the time the Fomorians are done with you, I’m afraid there won’t be much of you to—”
I couldn’t hear her final taunt, because the Fomorian line reached me. Without thinking too much about how I was doing it, I threw out my hands, my palms gushing a stream of fire—only to have that stream and most of my body doused with the brackish lime of their watery underworld, coating me in layers of yuck. I couldn’t think—I could barely breathe. I cried out in my mind to the only person I could think of who could help me.