Witch's Soul

by Emma L. Adams

  “I’m not letting you run off alone,” she said firmly.

  “He doesn’t want me dead,” I said. “He wants me—and Evelyn—on his side. Maybe he can’t possess me and kill me because I have two souls, I don’t know, but he’ll go after you again and this time Lady Harper won’t be around to die for us. I can’t lose anyone else.”

  Not when Keir might already be dead for all I knew.

  “I’ll go,” said Isabel shakily. “But if you die, the Hemlocks—”

  “They’ll die when he gets into the forest anyway,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “He’s already there,” Evelyn whispered. “I told you…we’re too late.”

  My hands tingled with Hemlock magic. I didn’t believe a word she said. She’d betrayed us—taken the Ether Converter from the forest and handed it over to the enemy. Leaving a path into the forest wide open.

  “Go!” I said to Isabel, then turned on the spot, feeling my way through to the forest. Though I didn’t sense Evelyn trying to take control, I wouldn’t let her. Not this time.

  “He’s already here. I’m not the traitor, Jas.”

  Tangled trees appeared, surrounding me. Evelyn floated at my side, glowing in the dimness. There were no other witches in sight, but a furred body lay sprawled across a tree root. The half-faerie servant of the Hemlocks.

  Evelyn made a low, disgusted noise. “He’s here.”

  “Cordelia!” I snapped. “Get out here and tell me who the traitor is.”

  But—Evelyn had been at my side for every second I’d been in here before. Unless he’d already come into the forest, but Cordelia would have sensed him. The forest missed nothing.

  Something is wrong.

  Blood on the ground. Trees tight, quiet, free of the usual whispering magic. I focused on the spirit realm, seeking for a trace of Keir’s presence, but I couldn’t track people in a realm not bound by the usual rules of reality. My hands clenched, my throat constricting.

  “Cordelia!” I shouted. “Answer me.”

  “She’s been temporarily subdued,” said a female voice.

  Not Cordelia. “Leila,” I whispered.

  Leila Hemlock’s ghostly form appeared, floating between the trees. Oh, god. I should have known. She must have passed into the forest and not over the veil when she’d died. Being a Hemlock witch, even a dead one, must have allowed her to hide even from the other witches. The forest could instantly track anyone who came in, but ghosts… I’d bet ghosts were an exception.

  “It was you who stole the Ether Converter,” I said. “You led the Soul Collector here, didn’t you?”

  “He still cannot pass within,” she said. “The Hemlocks made sure of that.”

  Damn. That meant he was still in the waking world. I really, really hoped Isabel had made it to the guild in time.

  “So you decided you hate your coven enough that you’d willingly side with one of their enemies?”

  “Our goals aren’t entirely in alignment, but close enough,” she said. “He desires your two souls, and I desire to make you pay for what you did.”

  “Does that include Evelyn?” Despite myself, I couldn’t help wondering… had Evelyn been right this time? Lady Harper had believed she was the traitor, but it was Leila who’d lurked in the forest, surviving beyond death.

  “I know of her desire to betray me,” Leila answered. “I will not be destroyed.”

  Tangled tree roots rose and knotted around my legs, fixing me in place.

  “How are you doing that?” I snarled, fighting against the bonds. I scrambled to get a grip on my power, but pain burned through my legs.

  “It’s not me,” she said.

  The dead faerie lifted its head. “Hello, Jacinda,” a male voice rasped. “It’s harder for me to possess a creature that isn’t human, much less one with such a warped soul as the poor foolish inhabitants of this forest… but not impossible. She carries the Hemlocks’ magic, and through her, so do I. But I would much prefer a stronger vessel.”

  Damn. He’d managed to use the Hemlock magic by taking temporary control over someone who wasn’t even the heir. What would he be able to do if he took over me—over Evelyn?

  He can’t. He can’t possess either of us. That’s why he’s doing this.

  Small comfort. The forest was hostile territory now.

  The tree roots twisted, revealing a gaping hole in the ground. A roaring wind whipped at my hair, and the knotting tree roots moved, dangling me over the edge of the crumbling path. Even my Hemlock magic wouldn’t save me if I fell to my death.

  “Is this what you wanted, Leila?” I said loudly. “Your own magic, turned against your fellow witches?”

  Leila’s ghostly form appeared, her face grim. “There is no punishment great enough for what you did to me,” she said. “You took my rightful position, then you took my life.”

  “You tried to kill me.” The wind snatched the words from my mouth as I spoke, but I raised my voice. “You tortured people. There’s no reason to kill innocents over a grudge, just because the Hemlock magic passed you by.”

  “This is more than a grudge to me, Jacinda,” said Leila. “Your family betrayed me, kicked me out of the bloodline, left me to ruin. As they did to you, Evelyn.”

  Evelyn’s voice spoke through my mouth. “So you wish to destroy me along with Jacinda?”

  “You cannot be separated,” she said. “So yes… I think the Hemlock bloodline should end here. It’s only right.”

  “Then join with me,” croaked the fae, the Soul Collector’s presence still possessing its half-dead form. “Join me, Leila. And we will be one.”

  Leila’s mouth twisted, traces of fear rippling across her features. “No. I will not be caged—I won’t be trapped again.”

  “Pity,” said the Soul Collector.

  There was a flash of white light—and Leila Hemlock vanished.

  Another soul, sucked into the Ether Converter.

  “I have a Hemlock soul,” he said. “Unfortunately, she has no power of her own, so I still need your help, Jacinda.”

  “I’m not helping you. And I won’t let Evelyn, either.” Blood rushed to my head as the roots trapping my feet tipped me over the edge. Even my Hemlock magic… it couldn’t turn against itself. Dammit. I should be able to break this spell.

  “No, I suppose not,” he said. “Evelyn’s ingratitude for my helping her escape your prison comes as no surprise, but I hoped for better from you, Jacinda.”

  “What are you talking about?” I didn’t have a damn clue what was going through Evelyn’s head at the moment, let alone whose side she was on, but his words made no sense. “You’ve done nothing but torture my friends and kill innocent people.”

  “You misunderstand, Jacinda,” he said. “I can do so much for you… I can set you free from that curse that binds you. The curse your own ancestors cruelly used to capture your soul.”

  “Yeah fucking right.” I struggled against the bonds, Evelyn’s magic sparking to my hands. Go on. Break its hold.

  “And in return, I need you,” he said, “to get back the life the Hemlocks stole from me.”

  Magic burst from my hands, the tree roots released me, and I fell into blackness.

  23

  I tumbled into the dark, and kept falling. For a heart-stopping moment, I thought I’d fallen off the edge of the world—then I landed on my knees amongst leaves strewn at the roots of another mass of trees.

  I was still in the forest.

  “Hello?” The word burst from my mouth, in a high frightened voice that wasn’t mine. “Hello. C… Cordelia?”

  Evelyn?

  Silence.

  I scrambled to my knees, looking up at trees which suddenly seemed much taller than before. And the hands I held out in front of me weren’t mine.

  Oh, damn. I’d fallen into a memory. The forest read the thoughts and impressions from every person who entered its depths. And once it started, breaking out was another story entirely. Especially wh
en I didn’t know who I was. A child, I’d guess by the high-pitched voice and the tallness of the trees. A child who knew Cordelia.

  The trees were thick enough to block out the sun as I ran, as helpless as I’d been when the net had held me captive.

  “You should leave, child,” said Cordelia, her face appearing in the tree.

  “The world is burning.” My voice cracked. “They’re dead. They’re all dead. Please, please give me the magic and I’ll save them.”

  “I cannot do that. This forest can only preserve time, not reverse it. And we cannot give our magic to another. You have none, and you never will.”

  Oh, god. Leila. I was Leila Hemlock.

  And I felt it—her rage, her grief. She’d run into the forest to save her own skin, and lost her family, the same as me. And the Hemlocks had spurned her.

  I looked Cordelia in the eyes. “I don’t trust you.” My voice sounded like mine again. “If you’re on my side, help me find Keir and defeat that Soul Collector before he claims your souls, too.”

  Cordelia’s face vanished. An illusion, nothing more.

  I swore and kicked at the nearest tree. “Dammit, Evelyn. What does he need me for and not you? You’re the one bound to me, and working for the villain.”

  “I’m on your side, Jas,” she said. “They played both of us for fools. And you’re the bigger fool if you go after your vampire friend instead of chasing down that bastard before he figures out how to take the Hemlocks’ power.”

  “It’s not like I fell into that illusion on purpose,” I shot at her. “Besides, the Soul Collector can’t possess the other Hemlocks. They’re not really alive.”

  “Do you want to chance that?”

  My heart sank. For all their power, the Hemlocks never did explain to me the exact nature of their curse. For all I knew… their souls could be taken by the Ether Converter. They certainly weren’t dead, even if they weren’t alive in the usual sense.

  “Oh, Jacinda…”

  I spun around. The fae creature—or the Soul Collector—stood there looking at me, eyes aglow. And behind him was the door leading into the Hemlocks’ cave.

  My heart jumped into my throat. The cave was sealed—that much was obvious. New glyphs formed thick patterns covering the symbol on the door, wrapping around the trees. He needed a Hemlock to undo it… and Evelyn rose to the surface, magic glowing in my own palms.

  Magic blazed from him, too, only recognisable because it was out of sync with the hum of the Hemlocks’ magic in the forest. A vibration, like a ripple on a spirit line, the sound of a thousand voices crying out.

  Souls. He carried the power of all the souls he’d stolen.

  The talisman needed to be destroyed before he used it to tear the world apart.

  He jerked his head at the cave’s door. “They sealed themselves off, the crafty witches,” he said. “But you can undo their magical boundaries, Jacinda.”

  “I don’t think so.” I clenched my fists, pushing Evelyn aside. “They can stay there for quite a long time, you know. Years, even. It must be driving you out of your mind, being stuck in here without a body and with that weapon of yours useless against me.”

  Anger flared in his eyes. “You know nothing of us, Hemlock.”

  “I know you’ve been hiding in Edinburgh terrorising vampires and psychics for years. I know you’ve been stuck without a body for so long that you’re desperate enough to try to claim one that already belongs to two people.”

  “Your ancestors chose to save their own skins by pushing us out of reach,” he said. “The walls between the worlds will come down one way or another, and I will be there to see it.”

  A shimmering stick-like shape appeared in his hands, glowing with pure blue-white energy. The Ether Converter.

  “Give me your magic,” he said. “Join me, and we will make these worlds anew.”

  Evelyn stepped in. “Yeah, I’m going to have to say no. Your move, Jas.”

  Whips of magic burst from my hands, lashing at him. The fae’s body fell, cut in two. I shuddered, despite knowing she’d died long before I struck her—but the Soul Collector had gone.

  To claim his next soul.

  The Hemlock magic continued to buzz in my palms, and I clenched my hands tight, looking away from the glowing door. Take me to the enemy, I ordered the forest. Now.

  The trees went transparent, to be replaced with damp grass. Not Edinburgh. I’d landed in the middle of a deserted field.

  A tall man on the path ahead turned and smiled at me, his eyes glowing.

  “Get back here!” I snarled, lashing him around the ankles with a whip of magical energy.

  “Catch me if you can, Jas…” The Soul Collector’s voice faded, the light went out of the man’s eyes, and he fell into the dirt, dead.

  In the distance, lights blazed. My blood ran cold. I knew where I was… close to where the forest actually existed in the real world. Near my former home.

  He must have learned my past… hell, the forest itself would have shown him, if he’d looked hard enough. And the mind-link would have taken care of the rest. He was going after the mages, and Isabel’s coven—everyone I’d grown up with. Drake. Wanda. They had no idea he was coming.

  “Evelyn,” I hissed. “Now would be a really good time to tell me you have a way to beat him.”

  “You know how,” she said. “Let him in.”

  “I can’t—what? You know he can’t possess us. We’re two people in one body. Right?”

  “Not if one of us leaves,” she said.

  I stared at her, hovering on the spirit line on the muddy grass. “You have got to be kidding me. You’re saying I have to leave you at the wheel so he can possess you?”

  “No, you don’t have to,” she said calmly. “But if you do, I’ll be able to wrest that weapon out of his hands and turn it on him.”

  “Then why can’t I do the same?”

  “He seems to think you’re different to me.” She looked directly at me, her blue-black eyes shimmering. “Him or me. Your choice.”

  Some choice. “Dammit, Evelyn.” I cast a panicked glance at the distant town. I’d never reach it in time no matter how fast I ran. “He already killed dozens of people, and so help me, if I leave you to it, you’ll be one of them.”

  Her presence vanished so abruptly, the sudden lightness in my head made me dizzy. “Evelyn?”

  Silence. She’d gone. The pressure on the back of my mind, that had been there ever since she’d woken up… it’d disappeared.

  Which meant I was open to being possessed by the god.

  “Hey.” I walked on, my head still swimming. “Hey. Soul Collector. Surprise. I’m here, alone. Nobody else needs to die.”

  “Well, well.” My head pounded as he pushed against my skull, his thoughts dark and slippery and impossible to grasp. I swallowed down bile as violent images exploded before my eyes.

  He was going to make me kill my family.

  Hemlock magic seared my hands, whipcords of light zig-zagging across the ground. If I pulled the seams of the realms apart, that power would fracture cities and topple worlds. And now—thanks to me—he had that power.

  The spirit realm formed a grey film over my vision. He’d been using that realm to get around between hosts, but he belonged to all the worlds at once. Nothing was off limits to him.

  “Yes…” His voice purred in my ear, so close. My hands glowed as the Ether Converter appeared in my hands, silver-white, its magic sparking against the lingering remnants of Hemlock power. “Tear the worlds apart.”

  I directed my magic into the device, gripping tight, willing it to break open like the other one had. But nothing happened.

  “Nice try,” he whispered. “It won’t break. But you will.”

  Burning magic seared my palms. Beneath my hands, the air tore in two, a rift opening, and a fury flew out, slamming me to the ground. With a wrenching scream, it took flight, talons out. Dammit.

  “Was that your plan!” I yelled at
him, still gripping the Ether Converter. “Damn, those things don’t even have souls, do they?”

  The rift I’d torn open lay wide, a gaping slash in the air with seemingly nothing on the other side. A ferocious wind current tore at me, threatening to pull both of us into the void.

  “Don’t,” he warned. “Jacinda Hemlock, I command you to close that hole.”

  I remained still. He didn’t have complete control. The wind tore at me, at the weapon in my hands.

  “No!” He screamed, wildly, and I smiled.

  “Evelyn,” I said. “Wipe him out.”

  The Ether Converter left my hands at the same time as Evelyn slid into the back of my mind again. The Soul Collector screamed, momentarily floating free of my body, his hands reaching out desperately for his weapon—

  Magic flared from my palms, pulling the rift’s edges closed as the Ether Convertor disappeared from sight. With a last desperate motion, the Soul Collector reached out a hand—and Evelyn took it, pushing him through the rift. With a final tug, I closed the rift, and the void disappeared, taking the Soul Collector along with it.

  A scream resounded, and the fury dove at me. I called my magic once more, its whip-like shape yanking the beast out of the sky. Twisting the whip, I severed the beast’s head.

  Breathless, I turned to the side, seeing Evelyn Hemlock watching the spot where the rift had vanished with an unreadable expression on her face. Then in a blink, she was gone. I felt her presence settle back into place and closed my eyes, too relieved to care.

  I opened my eyes again to see trees all around me. The forest… I was back in the forest.

  “Cordelia,” said Evelyn, through my mouth. “We won.”

  We won… we’re alive. Except…

  “Keir,” I said, alarmed. “Where is he?”

  My whole body ached, but I broke into a sprint through the trees, the forest’s magic in my control once again.

  “You live.” Cordelia’s voice croaked. “Where is that abomination?”

  “Gone. I threw him into the place where the furies live.” I gasped, my breath coming in short pants. “Is Keir still alive?”

  “He lives,” said Cordelia. “The Ancient was unable to finish the job, for the same reason he couldn’t take possession of your soul, so he abandoned the vampire here to finish off later.”