Witch's Soul

by Emma L. Adams

  “What do you mean, for the same reason he couldn’t take over me? I’m not a vampire.”

  “No,” said Cordelia. “You’re a shade.”

  I kept moving through the tangled trees, my heart thundering in my chest. I couldn’t be a shade. Shades were evil spirits bound to living people. I’d still been alive when Evelyn had been bound to me. She was the shade.

  “A shade is a spirit that survived death, bound to a mortal body,” whispered Evelyn. “You did.”

  “Er, so did you,” I said. “By way of being bound to me. The nine lives thing Lloyd talked about was a joke.”

  “All human sayings have their roots in truth,” Cordelia commented.

  “You’re the one who told me she was the shade,” I said to her. “Or you’re saying you lied to me all along and Lady Harper had it right?”

  “Lady Harper was human. She had her limitations.”

  “What does that mean? The Ancients aren’t human, and you have more in common with them than you do with us.”

  “You’re mistaken, Jas,” growled Cordelia. “Both of you are shades, according to your limited definitions. But you’re stronger than both.”

  “I don’t want to be stronger. I want the Ancients to stop trying to kill my friends. Tell me I didn’t make things worse with what I did.”

  “I cannot say that,” said Cordelia. “But you did succeed in sending the Soul Collector to a fate worse than death.”

  Yeah. I did. “There are a lot of fates worse than death.” And the Ancients… if they were all so dangerous, and all-powerful, and cruel, they could never be allowed to return to the world.

  Abruptly, the forest warped before my eyes, trees turning into mud-caked walls, ceilings closing in as it turned into a mirror image of the tunnels beneath the vampire king’s house.

  Fury cries ripped through the air, and one of them lunged over my head. I ducked, a cold breeze buffeting my head. Whoa. My surroundings looked exactly like the underground tunnels, without a tree in sight. The forest must have thrown Keir into an illusion of the place where the furies had stalked his fellow vampires to death.

  “Keir!” I shouted, running forwards.

  The tunnel opened up, to a cave ending at a steep cliff. Keir stood at the very edge, over the abyss, and didn’t turn around when I approached.

  “He’s here somewhere,” he murmured. “He’s close—”

  My heart gave a sickening dive. His brother—he thought he was chasing his brother.

  “This isn’t real,” I said, catching his arm. “Keir. Look at me. I killed the Soul Collector. He’s gone.”

  He turned on me, his gaze wild and distant. “Then why can I sense him here?”

  “Because—we’re close to the Ancients’ realm. I’m sorry, Keir, but we can’t—we can’t follow him. This is an illusion. A cruel trick. Cordelia, this is low, even for you.”

  “The forest merely reflects the thoughts of those who enter, Jacinda,” said Cordelia’s voice. “He created this trap himself.”

  “You did.” I tightened my grip on Keir’s arm.. “Keir, he’s not here. The witches’ forest is just screwing with you. Come with me.”

  Hemlock magic buzzed within me, through my body. I can control this, too.

  I concentrated on the image of trees crowding overhead, and the cliff disappeared. We were in the forest once more.

  “Uh. Keir. Talk to me.”

  The distant look faded from Keir’s eyes, and he stared at me, his face pale. “Jas.”

  “Keir.” I wrapped my arms tight around him. His skin was icy cold and he was shivering, and so was I. I pressed my lips to his cheek. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  Light swarmed from me to him as he gripped my shoulders, taking my spirit—my life force, or one of them—into him. As he glowed, I saw the truth.

  It wasn’t Evelyn who’d damaged him, but me.

  I had to fix this.

  24

  “Go beyond the veil,” Mackie spoke in triumphant tones, waving a hand over her first summoning circle. The ghost within vanished in a spark of white light, disappearing from the spirit realm.

  The four of us—Ilsa, Morgan, Lloyd and me—watched her check the circle for any gaps. Technically we could check ourselves, but as we’d learned the hard way, it was best to let Mackie do it herself. Mackie had made real progress with her guild training in the last few weeks, which was a relief to the rest of us. For some reason, the holiday season brought out all the ghosts, and it was only a couple of weeks until Christmas. Not that any of us were in a particularly festive frame of mind.

  At least Evelyn hadn’t graced me with her presence lately. She’d been nice enough to withdraw to give me space to get over the shock—of Lady Harper’s death, of the Soul Collector’s attack, even the fact that I still hadn’t told Keir what I’d inadvertently done to both of us when I’d let him feed on me. Nor had I found a way to undo it. We’d seen each other only briefly since the battle. He needed to feed on me every couple of days, but he could do that through the spirit realm as easily as the waking world, and didn’t often stick around to chat.

  Mackie picked up the candles, smiling to herself. While she hadn’t completely managed to get her psychic powers under control, not having the Soul Collector anywhere near her thoughts helped a lot.

  “Nice one,” Lloyd said. “See, you’re a natural at this.”

  She shrugged. “I could have screamed the ghost out of the spirit realm and saved a lot of time and energy, but sure.”

  “Not on my watch, you won’t,” said Morgan.

  “You have to admit I did a better job than you did,” Mackie said.

  “Yeah, if I was blindfolded.”

  “Morgan,” Ilsa warned, poking him in the shoulder.

  “What? She knows if I shout meaningless encouragement, it’s bullshit, right?”

  “Obviously,” said Mackie, passing the last of the candles to Lloyd. “So does the boss.”

  Lady Montgomery also knew that my old mentor had died—I’d told her that much—but not the exact circumstances. She could forgive me for being spaced out, up to a point, but avoiding the subject hadn’t entirely banished her suspicions about what’d really gone down in the battle with the Soul Collector. Helping Mackie with lessons got me out of my own head, and weirdly, knowing she’d been in my head kind of helped. I didn’t have to explain I wanted to avoid certain subjects, like I did with other well-meaning people—even Lloyd. She just knew.

  Morgan sidled up to me. “Hey, Jas,” he said, in a low voice. “Thanks for the spell. It worked.”

  I turned to him. “Which… oh. The unlocking charm.” I’d put my plans to steal from the boss’s office on hold, not wanting to rock the boat when I’d come so close to losing my freedom, but I’d figured the guild’s resident troublemaker might have time to try.

  He nodded, passing me a stack of papers. “Ilsa and photocopied the book. Reckoned you’d be less likely to get caught that way.”

  “Reluctantly,” Ilsa said dryly. “I’m not sure how much help it’ll be, but I dug out all the info on shades.”

  My gaze flicked to the pages. I skipped over the details of the rituals required to attach a shade to a person. The Hemlocks had as good as said they’d used their own magic in the ritual and that was why Evelyn and I were so much stronger… but it didn’t mean I needed to know all the gruesome details. Yet.

  I kept reading. To summon a shade and bind it required a blood sacrifice… one body died, and the spirit was immediately transferred to the other body during the binding. And to undo the spell… the only way to undo it was for both spirits to perish at the same time.

  “No,” I muttered. “Come on. That’s not fair.”

  “What is it?” asked Lloyd.

  I looked up from the pages. “There’s got to be a way to detach two bound souls without killing them both.”

  “Ah, crap, really?” said Morgan. “I didn’t know… I mean, shades aren’t my strong point, but I th
ought they were like fetches. They can hop between bodies.”

  “Nope, that’s more a vampire thing,” I said. “And the Soul Collector, to some degree.”

  “Sorry,” Ilsa said, her mouth pulling into a frown. “I thought it would help. The other spirit… is she likely to take control?”

  “I haven’t heard from her lately,” I said. “But right now I’d say we’re at an impasse.”

  Cordelia had said I was a shade, and the page did list the definition of a shade as someone who’d thwarted death by means of a ritual… but not someone who’d survived death because they already had another person sharing their body. Maybe even the writers of the top-secret annals of the necromancer guild had never encountered anything like that before.

  I skipped over the page, wondering if I was more likely to find the solution in the ‘vampires’ section or the ‘shade’ one. Most shades, the author insisted, did not survive for long in their host. Smothering a sigh, I flicked to the vampire section instead.

  Mackie leaned over my shoulder. “Vampires?” she said. “Thought you were looking up shades. Unless you’re still letting that vampire walk around with your essence?”

  “Your what?” asked Lloyd, Morgan and Ilsa simultaneously.

  “Is there anything you didn’t swipe out of my thoughts?” I asked. “What do you mean, essence?”

  “Is that the word?” Mackie pointed at the page. “Vampires feed on spirit essence. You’re worried because that Keir has some of yours…”

  My face heated. “He’s fed on a lot of people.”

  Mackie jabbed her finger at the page again, and I read the section more carefully. Shades were named as spirits who’d survived death. That made them stronger. And if a vampire fed on them…

  “Holy shit,” I breathed.

  “What?” said Lloyd, staring at me. “What the bloody hell did you do?”

  I looked at the page, at Mackie, and then at Lloyd. “You had it right. I did have nine lives. And I think I accidentally gave one of them to Keir.”

  Lloyd’s jaw unhinged. Mackie burst out laughing, while the Lynn siblings both looked bewildered.

  “It’s not funny.” I lowered the page. “When my soul was bound to Evelyn’s, it made both of us twice as strong. I can die, and then come back unharmed. When Keir fed on me, I think it passed on the same ability to him. I’m not sure if that means we’re the same…”

  “It does,” said Mackie, still snickering. “If anything, it’s good news. Don’t people keep trying to kill both of you?”

  Jesus. She might well be right. But as long as he had my spirit essence inside him, he’d be forced to feed on me. How was I even supposed to tell him that?

  “I’ll get back to this later,” I said. “Come on, let’s report in before the boss comes to check up on us again.”

  I didn’t blame Lady Montgomery for being a little paranoid. The guild had remained safe throughout the Soul Collector’s rampage, but the humans were rightly terrified. While Keir had told me that his fellow vampires had begun to return to the city, it’d take a long while for everyone to recover.

  Lines of cloaked guards moved aside at the guild’s entrance, allowing us to pass through. The boss, to nobody’s surprise, stood in the lobby alongside her son, River. She’d insisted that I add her to the rota, and came on as many patrols as the rest of us these days.

  River smiled at Ilsa. “No issues?”

  “None,” she confirmed. “Mackie did all the work.”

  “Good,” said Lady Montgomery. “Jas, a word, please. Alone.”

  Crap. What had I done now? She hadn’t found out about my little spirit-related trouble, right? If anything, I’d been on my best behaviour lately, considering the circumstances.

  As we moved away from the others, I said, “She did do it all on her own.”

  “I don’t doubt that, Jas,” said Lady Montgomery. “Your guardian contacted me before her death to explain that she suspected she’d be forced to sacrifice her life to destroy the Soul Collector and his weapon, and that you were his captive.”

  My mouth dropped open. “I—she did? How?” I’d thought Lady Harper had acted in the moment. I also hadn’t known she had the guild’s phone number, but in hindsight, it was obvious. And… she’d covered for me. The story I’d told the boss had been filled with holes, and I’d been so sure the council would see through it. Grief could only be used as an excuse for so long. I’d mentioned that I’d gone after the Soul Collector alone to find Keir, but as for the forest, the weapon, Evelyn Hemlock… she hadn’t asked the details. Now I knew why.

  “She explained to me that the weapon he had was not of this world,” said the boss. “And that she intended to give you the means of destroying it and him.”

  She knows? I supposed it was too risky to keep the Ether Converter’s existence a secret when it was such a dangerous weapon. So Lady Harper had tipped her off that it was a talisman, and now… it was out of my hands.

  Someday I’d blow that geas wide open, but with the Hemlocks close to being wiped out at the hands of Leila and the Soul Collector, now was not the time to start trying to expose their secrets. Especially with the Mage Lords closely watching the guild.

  “You’ll have to write a report on what exactly you experienced, which I can give to both the necromancer council and the Mage Lords,” she said. “I won’t deny that you were put in a precarious position and that it’s unfair for us to pressure you when you so recently lost your guardian, but we need to ensure it never happens again.”

  Oh, damn. The mages and the necromancers? And—I’d forgotten that Lady Harper hadn’t just been a former mage council member. She’d also once been the Hemlocks’ ambassador to the former Council of Twelve.

  Without her, if they chose to elect another ambassador… I was the only remaining candidate. Assuming they don’t arrest me first.

  I looked away. “Talk to Mage Lord Colton. I don’t know how much he knows about Lady Harper’s final wishes, but—she never told them to me.”

  “And it’s not the guild’s business, naturally, if she wished to keep it to herself,” said Lady Montgomery. “I’ll call him. Take care, Jas.”

  Lady Harper would have been outraged that so many people showed up for her funeral when she’d made it her life’s mission to make scores of enemies. A large number of supernaturals filled the town hall, including every mage who’d ever served on the council with her during both her stints as head mage. Most witch covens sent a representative, even the ones she’d argued with, and the local necromancers also made a showing.

  The only people not here were the Hemlocks, for obvious reasons. Cordelia hadn’t even talked to me on my brief trip through the forest. Maybe she was mad at me and Lady Harper for thinking the worst about Evelyn. I didn’t trust any of them, not at all, but Evelyn maintained her silence. Lady Harper’s death left me with no living allies who’d known the Hemlocks before the invasion. She’d literally taken her secrets to the other side of the grave, never to be retrieved. The idea of her death being final refused to hit home, and part of me kept expecting her to hobble into the hall at any moment, waving her stick at us and demanding to know why we were all being so morbid. My eyes stung unexpectedly, and I dug my hands into the cold metal bench.

  As Lady Harper’s only surviving close relative who’d shown up to the funeral, it was on Wanda to greet everyone who entered the town hall. While she looked a little nervous in the spotlight, Vance joined her on the stage, and the two of them summarised Lady Harper’s life and accomplishments. It was a long list, and not for the first time, I felt like I’d never known the woman at all. Granted, she’d lost nearly her entire family in the faerie invasion and I’d been told she’d never been the same person since, but still…

  I jumped when Vance said my name. Ah, crap. They didn’t expect me to speak, did they? I guess we were related, distantly, but I could probably claim a connection with half the mages here.

  Evelyn’s presence whispered in m
y ear, urging me to my feet. “Go on.”

  “Look, I’m done fighting with you,” I whispered, too low for anyone to hear. “Just leave me be.”

  “I knew her, too,” said Evelyn. “I’d like to say my piece.”

  I don’t think so. Even if she was on her best behaviour, everyone would get suspicious if she said things I wasn’t supposed to know.

  “I’m not an idiot,” said Evelyn, as I reluctantly began to walk to the stage. “Trust me.”

  I took the stage, preparing to push Evelyn aside if she tried anything, but she simply listed several more of the former Mage Lord’s accomplishments as a council member, finishing with, “Lady Alice Harper was brave in the face of adversity and terrible loss.”

  I hadn’t known she and Lady Harper were remotely close. But it wasn’t like I’d asked.

  When I checked back into my body and sat down, I touched my hands to my face and found dampness on my cheeks. Why was I crying over my former mentor who’d utterly failed at any kind of mentoring and had insulted me almost every time we’d spoken in the last thirteen years? Maybe because I’d been to countless funerals, wakes, and other death-related events as a necromancer, but never—never for anyone I’d been close to. I’d been lucky, or unlucky, in that I’d lost my entire family in the invasion. That was the only explanation I could think of for how weirdly it’d affected me. That, or Evelyn had control over my tear ducts now.

  I rubbed my eyes. Okay, I regretted our argument, and the fact that Lady Harper and the Hemlocks had fundamentally disagreed made me worry that there was more she might have known about the nature of my bond with Evelyn. But a force greater than death separated us now.

  After the main event drew to a close, several mages converged on me before I could make my escape.

  “Hey, Jas,” said Drake, waving at me. “I’m impressed. I didn’t know you had so much to say. You didn’t even mention her ‘encouraging’ magical lessons.”