Witch's Sacrifice

by Emma L. Adams

  “So the war with the Ancients is won,” said one of the mages in self-satisfied tones. Tall and blond, he sat beside Lord Addison, indicating he must be on Edinburgh’s new mage council. I didn’t know the guy, but I took an instant dislike to him. As though he’s the one who trapped Evelyn, not me.

  “Not quite,” Ilsa put in. “There are other gods still out there, along with remnants of their power. With the Hemlocks’ magic contained within a single spirit line, we’ll need a new strategy if we want to prepare for a similar attack.”

  “Is this about blood magic?” The mage looked up and down the table with an incredulous expression on his face. “You think the solution is legalising the barbaric practise of inking runes onto one’s skin—”

  “You seem to know a lot about it,” Vance said, a dangerous glint in his eyes. “Blood magic dates back prior to the mages’ inception, as Isabel’s research shows. It’s no different to our own mage marks.”

  Isabel stepped in. “The Orion League stole the practise and gave it a bad name, but it saved our lives during the battle with Evelyn. Ritual bindings will remain an illegal form of magic, as I outlined in my proposal.”

  Go, Isabel! I gave her an encouraging nod, pleased that her ideas were gaining traction. She must have been busy convincing the mages to consider lifting the ban on blood magic while I’d been gone.

  The mage sniffed. “If you ask me, this is just an excuse to proceed with your absurd idea of dismantling our councils and removing our power and influence. One might say it’s worryingly similar to our former Mage Lord’s plan to list supernaturals on a public record.”

  “Oh, don’t try to equate losing some of your power with being forced to sign a registry,” Drake said. “You’ll only embarrass yourself.”

  The blond mage went bright red. “Would you be content to give up your own position?”

  Drake shrugged. “Sure. I dunno why I’m here, to be honest. Only an idiot would give me a position of power… no offence, Vance.”

  “That’s enough, Drake,” Vance said in stern tones. “We’re not requesting every mage give up their position, only to consider sharing leadership with the other supernaturals. The shifters, necromancers and witches have already agreed to listen to our proposals, with conditions.”

  “And what are those conditions?” demanded the mage.

  “For the witches…” Vance nodded to Isabel. “There have been a number of requests for the witches to be permitted to set up their own guilds, like the mages and the necromancers. I think that’s a fair proposal.”

  “What’s next, the vampires?” The blond mage snorted. “I won’t be a part of this.”

  “Then go,” said Drake. “Don’t let the guild’s vampires hit you on the way out.”

  The mage stalked from the room, muttering under his breath.

  “I think this meeting is over,” said Vance.

  “I thought it’d go on all day,” said Ivy. “I was also gonna stab that dude if he tried anything, Isabel.”

  “He’s all talk,” she said. “I’m expecting worse when I speak to the mage council in London.”

  “Since when were you going to London?” I looked between her and Ivy. “Is this about your proposal to overturn the ban on blood magic? The mages agreed to look at it?”

  “They did.” She beamed. “It’ll be a long road, but it’s a start.”

  “Isabel’s ready to go to war,” said Ivy. “I always knew you had it in you.”

  “You’re the one who frequently gets into arguments with the Sidhe,” Isabel pointed out. “And missed the battle.”

  Ivy groaned. “I know, I know. I don’t know if my talisman would have helped stop Evelyn in the end, though.”

  “Her own magic did her in,” I said. “Isabel, have you been working non-stop since I’ve been gone? How have you managed to run your coven at the same time?”

  “I helped,” added Ilsa. “With the research side of things. She’s right—blood magic goes back thousands of years. I’m thinking of writing my thesis on it.”

  “What else did I miss, aside from the mages throwing a hissy fit over losing some of their power?” I suppressed a grin, imagining Lady Harper’s face if she saw people debating whether or not to remove her Mage Lord title.

  “Annabel is now Vance’s apprentice,” Ivy said. “Right, Vance?”

  Vance stopped behind my seat. “Jas, will you be staying here at the guild?”

  “Why does everyone keep talking to me like I’m about to embark on a round-the-world trip?” I asked. “Considering someone trashed Lady Harper’s house, along with most of my inheritance, that’s not happening anytime soon.”

  “The council would give you what you needed,” said Vance.

  “Not necessary,” said Ivy. “She said she’s staying. Not all of us are going to do what Drake did.”

  “Drake did what?” I scanned the table for the fire mage, and I spotted him talking to Lady Montgomery.

  “He quit the Council of Twelve,” said Ivy. “Gave in his notice. He only came back here to see you, Jas.”

  “He what?” I blinked. “Why? Because of Wanda?”

  “Partly,” said Vance. “He’s staying on the mage council, but we’ll be surrendering some authority.”

  “About time,” I said. “No offence intended.”

  The mages might have raised me, but bad things happened when one small group of supernaturals had all the power. I should know.

  Vance gave me a tight smile. “We’ll be fine, Jas.”

  “Yeah, we will,” said Ivy. “Wanda wouldn’t have wanted us to stop for her sake.”

  Drake’s head lifted in her direction at the sound of Wanda’s name, then he turned back to Lady Montgomery. I hoped he wasn’t getting any ideas about meddling with the forces of life and death. We’d all had enough of that for a lifetime.

  I found Lloyd and Keir waiting for me outside the meeting room, accompanied by Mackie, Morgan, and the demon puppy. It’d grown to twice its former size in the month I’d been trapped in the tree, but happily climbed all over my shoes and licked my fingers.

  “Hey,” said Keir. “I figured you hadn’t gone outside since you woke up, so I thought you’d want to go for a walk.”

  I gave the puppy a stroke. “You thought right.”

  Mackie bounced on the balls of her feet. “We’re going to take out the puppy for a walk, so you can show Jas the—” She broke off as Lloyd cleared his throat.

  “Show me what?” I lifted my hand from the puppy and straightened upright.

  “It’s easier if you see it for yourself,” Lloyd said, taking Morgan’s hand. “Let’s go.”

  The demon puppy ran ahead of us out of the guild, then doubled back to Keir’s side, yapping excitedly.

  “Don’t get any ideas about summoning one,” I told Keir.

  “Maybe I will,” he said. “Nah, I spend enough time looking after this little guy. Since pets aren’t allowed at the guild, the others needed someone to take care of him. And I—” He broke off, his gaze dropping to his feet. “I was a wreck the first couple of weeks after the battle. I couldn’t stand to be at home, but the puppy kept finding me when I was at your bedside and getting us both kicked out of the guild.”

  A lump grew in my throat. “Guess he knew you needed someone.”

  “Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know that I’d have been able to go on, otherwise. This guy is ridiculously needy and won’t leave me alone for a second.” Keir pulled out a rubber ball from his pocket and tossed it up the road, and the puppy sprinted after it.

  “We’re calling him Pepper,” said Lloyd. “We had a vote and everything.”

  “Yeah,” said Morgan. “Now we just need to convince the boss to hire him as the guild’s guard dog.”

  “Should I ask him to pee on Evelyn?” Lloyd asked.

  I shuddered. “I wouldn’t. She’s still scary even stuck in a tree, to tell you the truth. And she can probably hear every word we say.”<
br />
  Mackie shrugged. “I can’t hear her. I couldn’t hear you, either, but I tried to reach you.”

  “It’s appreciated.” I smiled at her. Mackie still wore the iron band on her arm, and the marks the Soul Collector had left on her would never entirely fade, but now he’d gone for good, she’d be free to live without his shadow hovering over her shoulder.

  The demon puppy sprinted back to Keir, pushing the rubber ball into his hand. Something tightened inside me, relief that he’d found an anchor to hang onto without me, without Aiden. My friends would be my anchors, and in time, I’d learn how to breathe again. How to exist without Evelyn.

  Morgan and Lloyd walked hand in hand, halting next to the spirit line to wait for us. While the cracks in the road remained, the world scarred by the Devourer’s magic, a current of green light shone over the middle of the road in the spot where the spirit line had once been.

  “Whoa,” I said. “Why does it look like that?”

  “If I had to hazard a guess?” Ilsa said. “I’d say it’s like the Ley Line.”

  “In what way?”

  “For one thing,” she said, “You can use it to travel to any other key point on the same spirit line, even in London.”

  My jaw dropped. “Is that how everyone got here so fast?”

  “Yeah, it’s like the forest,” said Keir. “Minus the illusions and traps.”

  “Just Evelyn, stuck in a tree.” I stepped onto the spirit line. At once, the view changed to a single wide path, extending in either direction.

  In the very centre stood the tree—huge, majestic, roots climbing across the ground, branches extending up to the heavens. Bone white in colour, its surface rippled with green-tinted runes, binding spells keeping the Devourer’s insidious shadows from infecting the world.

  “You have all the power you need now, Evelyn,” I murmured.

  I hoped that if she was still conscious at all, she at least knew that.

  I reached out to touch the surface, but no answering hum came from beneath my skin. Evelyn and I had been bound for so long that I might as well have torn part of my own heart out when I’d left her behind, yet here I was. Whole, separate, and free.

  I turned around to see Keir watching me. “Not going to take a trip over to the other side, are you?”

  “Nah, I won’t.” I walked to him, took his hand. “I don’t have any Hemlock magic left. The Hemlock line ends with Evelyn.”

  As she was immortal, there would be no need to pass on the curse to another Hemlock. Nobody else would need to give their lives to keep the Devourer’s magic from consuming the world.

  Keir eyed the tree as though to say, good riddance. Then he took my hand and pulled me after him back into Edinburgh.

  Some doors, once opened, could never be closed. The humans who’d just developed magic for the first time knew it. Evelyn’s demise had opened the floodgates, and the mages would have to accept they were no longer at the top of the supernatural world. The Hemlocks, no longer the most powerful witches.

  And yet for all that… I felt it, humming inside my veins. A spark, not like the Hemlock magic, but something else. Light bloomed in my palm, springing up from nothingness.

  Keir looked at me. “What’s that?”

  I grinned, turning the glowing light over in my hand. “My witch magic.”

  Thank you for reading!

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  I hope you enjoyed Witch’s Sacrifice. If you have a minute to spare, then I’d really appreciate a short review. For independent authors, reviews help more readers discover our books, so if you’d like more books about Jas, Ivy, Ilsa and the others, I’d love to know what you thought!

  Other books by Emma L. Adams

  If you’d like to see how Jas and Ilsa met, you might like Hereditary Magic, Book 1 in the Gatekeeper’s Curse series.

  Ilsa Lynn has made it her life’s goal to avoid the curse that binds her family to serve the Summer Court of Faerie, but when she discovers volatile magic inside a family heirloom, she must learn to wield it before her family faces a fate worse than death.

  Find out more!

  If you’d like to see how Ivy’s adventures started, you might like Faerie Blood, the first book in the Changeling Chronicles series.

  When faerie-killer Ivy is hired to find a missing child, replaced with a changeling, she’s forced to team up with the seductively dangerous Mage Lord, at the risk of exposing her own dark history with the faeries—and this time, running won’t save her.

  Find out more!

  If you’re curious about what happened in the time of the faerie invasion and want to learn more about the dragon shifters, try Alight, Book 1 in the Legacy of Flames series. Dragon shifter Ember must risk it all to rescue her sister from the supernatural-hunting Orion League, even if it means kidnapping a lethal ex-hunter who'd like nothing better than to add her name to his kill list.

  Find out more!

  About the Author

  Emma is the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author of the Changeling Chronicles urban fantasy series.

  Emma spent her childhood creating imaginary worlds to compensate for a disappointingly average reality, so it was probably inevitable that she ended up writing fantasy novels. When she's not immersed in her own fictional universes, Emma can be found with her head in a book or wandering around the world in search of adventure.

  Find out more about Emma’s books at www.emmaladams.com.