A ball of fire flew through the door and exploded against the stairwell.
"What the hell is happening out there?" I asked, knowing that neither Ethan or Taya would have any more idea than I did.
Which still left me with one more option. I turned on Aoife. One of Ethan's arms was wrapped around her shoulders, holding her in place, while his other hand held her wrists.
I opened my mouth to tell Ethan not to risk a single moment of slack in his grip on Aoife. Her luck would probably give her every possible opening to make her escape.
Except, that didn't matter anymore. Aoife's luck had landed her in the right place at the right time so many times already, working against us at every turn. And now it was inside me, ready to explode outward. But at least it couldn't help her.
"What is this?" I demanded, not sure exactly what I wanted to know. But if this was part of Aoife's master plan, then having their ringleader in our grasp could only work to my advantage.
"You really are entirely dense aren't you?" Aoife scoffed. "It's a fight, little girl. A battle. My people against yours. It's exactly the chance that the factions have been waiting for. Their people vastly outnumber ours, and I wouldn't be surprised if they use this as a chance to wipe us all out in one efficient sweep."
"You don't know what you're talking about." I looked up to Ethan. "Can you bring her to the study? Let's get somewhere a little less conspicuous."
I wanted to go out through the door and get the best possible view of what was happening outside. But everything from imminent danger to the risk of bumping into a single other person had me heading for the large window in the study instead.
The sanctuary of Aoife's small, cozy study stood in stark contrast to the scene unfolding outside. There were several dozen people fighting on the lawn, some with fists and some with magick. But not hundreds. From the look of things, most of the summit's guests had opted not to try to escape through the front and back doors. I hoped they'd managed to get out through the rabbit hole, or at least had the good sense to stay inside. From where I was standing, I could make out at least three bodies on the ground, only one of them still obviously moving.
Another wore a blue top that looked an awful lot like what Tilly had been wearing at the summit the night before.
It wasn't the all-out, epic, movie level fight that Aoife's description had brought to mind, but people emotions were undeniably coming out in the form of flying fists and rage that could no longer be contained. Things were coming to a head, and not at all in the way that I'd hoped.
I'd always expected Aoife to show up, back to the same castle where she'd first set things in motion. But there'd been far too many variables to consider.
Damn it!
We had come so close. And now Europe's factions would destroy ourselves like North America’s, ripping ourselves apart from the inside out.
The answer hit me like a palm smacking me in the forehead: There was no answer, no dramatic chess move I could make that would make things better. It had taken me a long time to realize that I didn't have to do any of this alone. But maybe the best allies weren't always the people I could trust. Or even the people who I knew were on my side.
We had Aoife.
I wanted revenge for the people we'd lost. And for the ones who had lost their lives
I wanted to piece together exactly what Aoife's plan was and find a way to destroy her with it.
I wanted to win.
And absolutely none of that mattered.
Revenge would only further damage an already fragile future.
Knowing exactly how Aoife had done what she'd done, or what her end game was, wouldn't bring a single person back.
Winning in the way I'd once thought of it wasn't even possible anymore. Every person lost, every relationship ruined was another loss for all of us.
One way or another, this needed to end. Now.
"Is this what you wanted?" I asked Aoife, hoping the answer was so clearly no—that there was still room for me to get through to her. If her goal had been chaos, she was right on track. But whatever she'd done, Aoife was still a person. And more than likely, she was a person who thought she was doing the right thing and for all the right reasons. If it pained her to watch her people fall and our community rip itself apart, then there was still hope for all of us. "Help me end this," I pleaded, ego be damned.
Aoife raised her chin in defiance. "I came here to end this. You stole my home, sided with the enemy, and divided our new faction before it even had a chance to get started. Instead of having a conversation, your people used the first opportunity they could to start a brawl. And now you want my help?"
I sputtered, genuinely shocked at Aoife's gross misrepresentation of what had happened. Convenient of her to leave out that she'd trapped my magick and was quickly turning me into a bomb that could destroy all of us, or that she'd been the one to start indiscriminately killing people long before the summit was set to begin. But if I made any of those points, I'd be going against every part of me that knew the best way forward was together. I could make Aoife even more of my enemy than she already was, or I could find a way to fix this, once and for all.
"Maybe we can both agree that things have gotten out of hand. We can talk about who is to blame for what later." Preferably at Aoife's trial for her crimes, but that didn't need to be said. A frantic voice in my head told me to use her to stop the spell inside of me, but there were other lives that had to come before my own. "I have a way to get everyone's attention, to call my people off. But I can't do that unless you'll do the same. Come with me. Let's stop this now, and start picking up the pieces together."
Aoife considered, and every second literally hurt, both for the pressure still building inside of me, and for knowing that every second lost could mean another life gone. "Fine. Have your boyfriend let me go and I'll help you. After that, I make no promises, but no one else needs to die."
"You mean that?" "Not just lesser magicks, the undefinable. But everyone. No one else gets hurt?"
"I swear it. Here and now, unless someone else makes a move against us, nobody else gets hurt."
That seemed like a big “unless” seeing as the only person I could truly control was myself, but it would have to be good enough. I risked a glance away from Aoife's eyes up to Ethan's, hoping for confirmation that I was doing the right thing. He tilted his head toward me in something that seemed to be part nod, part shrug. He wasn't any surer of this than I was, but he trusted me.
We were going to have to take a chance. But the pay-off could mean everything.
"Let her go."
Aoife shook herself loose as Ethan's grip relaxed. Outside, someone shouted out in pain. "Well, what are you waiting for?" she demanded. "What's your big plan to stop the fighting?"
Moving as fast as my body would allow, I started toward the stairs and the amplification spell that sat atop it, gesturing for Aoife to follow. "I kind of figured we'd ask them nicely."
I took the stairs two at a time, all while trying to write an inspiring speech I could broadcast to everyone in the house, encouraging them to stop fighting and listen. But twelve seconds isn’t enough time to write any kind of anything. I was going to have to skip grace and eloquence. We'd only setup the spell to broadcast the user's voice inside of Castle. And since most of the violence looked to be happening outside, I was going to have settle for loud.
"Put your hand here after I do," I said, indicating to Aoife. "Once you do, everyone inside will hear you. Tell them who you are, and then you're endorsing the ceasefire."
I didn't wait for Aoife to agree.
"Everybody calm the hell down!" I shrieked, using my lungs to amplify my natural voice and leaving the spell to do the rest.
Chapter 27
It took Aoife and me a good ten minutes to actually stop the violence. Our shared message did most of the leg work, but eventually we resorted to forcibly stopping anyone still intent on violence, using everyone willing to help. Except me. Etha
n stayed with me as I leaned, forehead first, on the back wall of the staircase landing, huffing and aching and trying to hold myself together.
"I'm okay," I said. "You'll do more good out there. We need to take care of any injuries... where's Nina?" I finished, my thoughts jumping around too fast for me to keep up with. As things had started to settle, Aoife and I had both agreed that we had the same first priority, but after that was anyone's guess. One thing at a time.
If anyone had been hurt, Nina would be the best person to have on the scene, but at that point we didn't even know for sure who was still in the castle, if anyone had made it back to town, or who was still alive.
"Come downstairs," Ethan insisted. "Sit for a minute, have some water. And then we'll track Aoife down and have her undo whatever's been done to you."
"I should stay here. There's too much going on, too many people. I'm not sure I'll be able to take another brush with somebody else's magick. I'll bump into someone accidentally, and then we'll all be dead anyway." I hoped that last bit was an exaggeration, but there was no way I was willing to risk it.
"Ethan! Melanie!" I turned at the sound of my name and saw Cooper running up the stairs toward us. "I'm so glad you're both okay!" When he reached the top of the stairs, he moved to pull us both into a hug, but Ethan moved just in time, blocking his path to me.
"Careful. That ritual of Aoife's did something to Melanie. You're going to want to be careful not to touch her. And make sure no one else gets close."
Cooper nodded, not asking any more information from his alpha. "What can I do to help?"
I started to tell him to go see if he could round up our friends, and make sure everyone was okay but it was getting harder and harder to speak. Ethan jumped in instead. "Can you get us some water? Maybe some food from the kitchen if there's anything. She's in rough shape, but as soon as Aoife gets back we're going to get this taken care of."
"Of course." He looked toward me. "I'm so sorry! I had no idea we were doing something to you directly. I guess everyone else had already gotten the details before leaving Galway, either that or they weren't big on questions. I wasn't sure what we were doing, but once things started I wasn't sure how to get us out there safely. Messing with rituals can end in some hardcore disasters, and I figured if everyone was standing in a circle where I could see them then they weren't going to be doing anything else. By the time I saw that Aoife wasn't part of the circle, she was already headed to the front door. As soon as we saw those two come crashing out the window, I broke the circle. On my own it wouldn't have been enough to do anything, but the others with me did the same, and... I don't know. I just hope we didn't make things any worse."
"You did exactly what we asked you to," I answered. "We'll figure out the rest."
Pain shot through my chest, and for a second I thought I was finished. I'd waited too long, and now everyone was going to pay the price.
Reaching out to grab Ethan's hand, I inhaled a sharp breath and tried to picture all the people I'd thought of before, the ones I wanted to fight for.
The flash of pain dissipated, but only slightly.
"Never mind the water," Ethan barked to Cooper. "Find Aoife. And any witches you come across. Send them here and do it now. We're taking care of Melanie before this goes any farther."
I shook my head. "I'm fine," I lied. "We need to..."
"If you die, even if no one else is hurt, the summit ends here and now. And so does this truce with Aoife. I'll rip her and every single person that stood with her apart. And we wouldn't want that now would we?" Ethan tried to tease me, but a deadly serious note rang true through his tone.
I forced a smile through the pain. "No, I guess not."
Aoife appeared behind Cooper in record time, along with Taya and a few women I didn't recognize. I assumed they were witches, but didn't have the energy to ask.
"How many people are hurt?" I asked through gritted teeth.
"Nineteen hurt, three dead," Aoife answered. "Nina managed to pull at least two back from the brink, though she's wearing herself out pretty quickly."
I turned to Cooper. "Maybe get her that food and drink instead of me?" I suggested.
"Enough," Ethan said, sounding as pained as I felt. He stepped toward Aoife, his broad body shadowing her petite frame. "We need to know what you did to Melanie. And more importantly, how to reverse it."
For me, that was the make it or break it moment. If Aoife cooperated, I could have at least a little faith that she was willing to play nice and try to reverse some of the damage she'd done. If not, then I wouldn't be the only one at risk of some serious consequences that day.
But if I could see that our position was the stronger of the two, then so could Aoife. And it probably helped our case that whatever was going on with the magick inside me now involved her powers as well.
One way or another, the two of us were now in this thing together.
"The power binding spell?" Aoife asked. "The ritual we were doing was supposed to make Melanie's powers go dormant. We were going to use that as a bargaining chip to get you to cooperate, showing you all that if we could strip Melanie's powers, we could do it to anyone. But the spell should have ended when the ritual did."
There was still no sign of magick in the air around me, so there was no chance for me to get my hopes up on that front. Especially since I was still very much feeling the ritual's effects. "What about the other powers I absorbed?" I asked.
Aoife looked to the witches who were with her. "Absorbed?"
"I absorb the powers of everyone I touch," I explained, desperate to think that somehow they'd just forgotten this one teensy element of their spell, along with the fact that once it started, there seemed to be no stopping it. "I can feel this pressure building up inside of me. It gets worse every time I touch someone. And after I do, the people I touched can't use their own powers any more than I can use mine. And I don't think any of that has changed since the ritual was halted." I looked to both Taya and Ethan for confirmation.
Taya held out a hand. I wasn't sure what she was trying to make happen, but the result was a lot of nothing. Ethan shook his head as well.
The one surprise in all this was that Aoife genuinely hadn't known that I'd taken her ability. And she'd been cooperating anyway.
That was something.
"Aoife, this includes you. When I grabbed your hand to pull you in here, I felt something change. I don't know for sure, and I doubt you can test luck, but I'm confident your powers are now inside me or whatever this is now too." I resisted the urge to apologize for being the bearer of bad news. She'd brought this on herself.
Aoife shook her head, a silent denial.
"Can you feel your powers somehow?" I asked, wanting to confirm this particular theory so we could all move on.
"No. It's always been there. Well, maybe. I feel different, but I thought that was stress induced. How do we get the magick back into the right people?"
"That's kind of what I'd like to know," I said with a complete lack of amusement. Great. Now Aoife would be fully on board, but she had no idea what she'd done or how to fix it. Something that wouldn't matter much at all if we didn't find a way to ease up some of what I was feeling.
"None of this was in the ritual we organized," one of the witches said, her eyes wide. "I don't know what could have gone wrong."
"Perhaps the mistake was in utilizing Melanie?" Aoife suggested, looking surprised but not concerned at the latest development. "Her powers are not exactly conventional. Perhaps the spell interacted differently than it was supposed to."
"We also had people in your circle who were somewhat of a last minute addition," I pointed out. "If they were supposed to do something other than stand there and contribute their power to the ritual, odds are they were doing it wrong."
"What does it matter?" Ethan said, nearly growling. "We need to stop the spell, not chat about it."
"The discussion helps," Taya said. "Magick is something of a science. We need to figu
re out where the chemistry went wrong in order to work out what needs to happen in order to reverse what was done."
"If we don't do this properly, we could make things worse," another of Aoife's witches added.
"I don't mean to be an alarmist here," I said. "But I'm not sure how much worse this thing can get. That pressure I mentioned... yeah, we thought it was intentional. We figured you were trying to turn me into some kind of weapon or kill me outright when my body couldn't handle the magick inside me anymore. And based on the way I'm feeling, that still feels right. Maybe this isn't going to turn into some sort of magickal light show where I explode in a blaze of glory, but it doesn't feel like my body can take this much longer. So how do we figure out where exactly things went wrong?" Hopefully everyone would understand why my patience was running thin.
Cooper appeared with a glass of water and a cookie as the witches got to talking, and I drank it gratefully.
As the cookie passed my lips, I had to wonder if it would be the last thing I ever ate.
More witches joined us on the stairs, both from the summit and those that Aoife had brought with her. Most talked over each other, pushing ideas around and getting nowhere. But my focus was on the one woman who didn't quite get involved but stayed on the periphery, watching nervously.
They ruled out Cooper's participation having any ill effect, which left my own magick as the culprit.
No one knew exactly how my combined magick worked, which didn't leave a lot of ideas to try on how to adapt the binding spell to release not only my magick but everyone else's.
In one of my few moments of clarity, I remembered where I'd seen the other woman before. She was a witch as well, but one of the Americans. The Southern woman whose room I'd been in on the first day of the summit.
"Ethan," I whispered, trying not to draw anyone else's attention. He didn't hear me. Because his wolf was gone, or suppressed, leaving him with human ears. I reached out and tugged on the edge of his shirt.
Worry colored his expression as he turned to face me. "What is it?"
Magic In My Blood Page 17
