Witch's Secret

by Emma L. Adams

  “Nice for you to join us again, Jas,” said Evelyn. She must have taken off as soon as the blast struck because she’d managed to make me run halfway to the disused train station.

  “Can you close the line?” I looked down, disorientated by the sudden change of scenery.

  “With you?” she said. “Yes, I can.”

  “All right.” I broke into a run, towards Waverley Bridge, and deep into the heart of the breaking spirit line. Hemlock power seared my hands, mingling with the currents of energy rippling overhead.

  “Ready?” Evelyn asked.

  “Ready.”

  Together, we directed our magic at the spirit line, twin currents of white light. From a crack in the line, a fury sprang into being, diving over the city with an ear-splitting screech. It’s not working. We’re too late.

  “Try harder!” she yelled. “Give it everything you have, Jas.”

  I called on the amplifying rune, demanding it turn my magic up to max. My blood hummed with power, igniting, reacting.

  The enemy wanted to destroy the spirit line and my coven along with it. This time, permanently.

  I won’t let them do it.

  Evelyn and I combined our power, fusing two currents of energy together. Then the line began to fuse, too. I swayed on the spot, my vision flickering, but somehow, I kept going, the same way I’d sealed the Soul Collector outside of this world. Gritting my teeth, I gave one final tug, and the currents of power became a single rippling line once again.

  “Now the other one,” said Evelyn.

  “Right.” I took a step forwards, alarmed when a rush of dizziness nearly brought me to my knees. “I thought you wanted to open the spirit lines yourself. Why close them now?”

  “Not as long as that Mage Lord is working with the Ancients,” Evelyn said. “He has no place in this conflict, and we will vanquish him before we take on the betrayers.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” Ignoring the screaming pain in my legs, I broke into a sprint. “Did you leave Isabel and Lady Montgomery behind with the Mage Lord?”

  “Your friend will be fine,” she said dismissively. “I think Lord Sutherland was a little stunned by that blast.”

  I hope they got out. The necromancer guild didn’t need to lose their leader at a time like this, however little Evelyn cared. Still, I didn’t like to think what might have happened if Evelyn hadn’t added her strength to mine to seal the broken spirit line.

  Now the question remained… could we pull it off a second time?

  Above, the flickering hint of red in the sky indicated the crack between worlds was widening. The last time it had looked like that, a dragon had got loose, and only Ivy had been able to convince it to leave. Now it was down to Evelyn and me, and it was probably a bad sign when my dead relative who’d been a ghost for twenty-something years was in better shape than I was.

  The spirit line drew closer, and so did the furies circling above the threads of energy unravelling in mid-air and forming rifts above the peaked roofs. Pitying the poor people living below, I careened around a corner—and stopped.

  A line of mages greeted me, standing below the spirit line as though to welcome the flood of monsters into the street.

  “Get her,” snarled Lord Sutherland.

  The cloaked mages advanced on me. I called my magic, but it’d died to a flicker. I’d given everything I had to close the first spirit line and had nothing left to fight with.

  No. I can’t let it end here.

  “I wouldn’t,” I warned him. “If you kill me, that line is going to stay open, and people will die.”

  “People die every day,” he said. “The world is in ruins. If someone doesn’t take control, all will crumble to ashes.”

  “Is that how you’re spinning it?” I recalled what Asher had said. “You’re terrified, aren’t you? You’re so scared that you’ll burn half the world down to gain the other half’s favour rather than admitting you’re going to die and be forgotten.”

  His eyes darkened with anger. Three mages closed in, trapping me between them.

  “Hold her still,” he said. “Give her to the monsters.”

  A fury descended, claws outstretched. Above my head, currents of energy tore through the sky. If I used my magic to save my life, it would tear open the gap wider, and the world would pay the price.

  The fury’s claws dug into my back. I cried out as it lifted me off the ground, into the air. The world rapidly fell away, and the roaring wind battered at me.

  Then my spirit came loose from my body.

  No. Not now. Please…

  Evelyn’s hand caught mine, steadying me. Her magic and mine intermingled, directed towards the gap in the sky. A gap that was suddenly all around us, cutting off all my senses, even the spirit sight.

  But not my magic.

  I called the energy of the line itself to fuel my spell. Magic spiralled from my hands, repairing the spirit line. The roaring wind stopped, the raging currents died to a flicker. A burning sensation on my wrist jolted me back into my body in time for the fury’s grip on my coat to slip.

  I’d done it. I’d sealed the spirit line… but I was on the wrong side. Below, emptiness beckoned. Above, the same empty grey fog.

  My cloak tore. I grabbed for a hand-hold, but nothing remained but cloud and fog.

  Emptiness swallowed me up, sending me cascading down into endless space.

  I kept falling, the wind buffeting me on either side. This wasn’t Death, and for all I knew, it had no end at all. Would I pop out of existence, or keep falling into nothingness for an eternity?

  The air rushed past, getting colder by the second. Then suddenly there was solid ground, coming at my face at an alarming speed.

  Shit.

  Magic flooded me, surrounded me. Numb terror took hold, then true darkness carried me away me on its wing.

  My head throbbed with pain. Softness brushed against my cheek, and when I opened my eyes, the world turned itself the right way up. It also felt solid. Definitely not Death, or even the realm beyond the gates. A firm, grassy surface lay beneath me, soft enough not to hurt, hard enough to be real. I lay on the edge of a hillside wreathed in thick fog. I grabbed a handful of grass, tugging it loose from the mud. Real, solid—and familiar.

  I’d been here before, or somewhere very similar, when I’d stepped through the mirror into the mages’ secret bolt hole.

  The hillside stretched in all directions, covered in so much fog that it was impossible to make out any landmarks. I sat up, eyeing the rolling hills. Unless I’d somehow teleported to the Highlands, this place couldn’t be our realm. It was way too quiet. And there were too few rogue fae, come to that. No signs of life. A jagged hillside ran parallel to where I stood, almost close enough to reach out and touch it.

  Wait. That wasn’t a hill. The jaggedness moved, opening an eye. Wings extended, revealing that it was not, in fact, a small hill, but a dragon, covered in blue-white scales.

  Oh… my god.

  I half-fell backwards down the hill. The dragon’s eye blinked. Then he turned his head around, eyeing me like I was a tasty snack.

  I stiffened. “Nice dragon…”

  The dragon stretched out, revealing that he was at least seven feet long, not counting his wings, which were bunched up against his long, scaled back. How I knew he was a he, I wasn’t quite sure, but he looked bigger than the dragon Evelyn had let out to take down the zombie army.

  Speaking of whom… Evelyn had gone quiet again. I’d bet she didn’t fancy her chances against a dragon, shifter or not. Thanks a lot.

  “Hi.” I gave a weak smile. “I’m not that tasty, you know. I’m covered in the smell of dead bodies and fury blood, and this cloak will probably choke you to death. So, uh, please don’t eat me.”

  Not my best line, but they didn’t teach ‘negotiating with bloodthirsty giant reptiles’ in necromancer training. I couldn’t stand here having a staring contest with the big scaly monster forever, so I tentatively ro
se to my feet. The dragon’s eye followed the movement, but he didn’t attack.

  Okay. The dragon wasn’t going to eat me. Now all I had to do was find a way out.

  “I don’t suppose you know how I can get back to Earth from here? I assume you know the dragon shifter who came to Edinburgh before?” My words rang out into the silence. Even in the spirit realm, there was the constant background hum of spirits moving on to the afterlife. This place was a dead zone.

  The dragon didn’t respond.

  “Not a talker, then,” I said. “I’m not from around here. I’m a necromancer. I deal with dead people. What do you do? Do you have a spirit realm here?”

  The dragon remained silent. Okay, then. Looked like I was on my own.

  The spirit lines connected this realm with Edinburgh, so all I had to do was find a spirit line, and then…

  Then what? Tear it open? Who knew where I’d end up if I did? I couldn’t be that far from the line I’d fallen through, so if I found a point where I could cross over, I should end up back where I came from. If it was possible to do that without ripping open the spirit lines and undoing all the magic I’d used to fix it. Considering the power I’d expended, I might not have the energy to so much as touch the spirit lines for a long while.

  I walked down the hillside, and the dragon’s gaze followed me. It was a little unnerving, to say the least. If I got too close, maybe he’d change his mind about not attacking me.

  “Have you seen a giant stone construction anywhere around here?” I asked the dragon. “Or—some pieces of shattered white stone? They’re pretty noticeable.”

  Did dragons know what the Moonbeam was? Perhaps. One of them might have broken it to begin with. Given how even my Hemlock magic had been unable to break through the stone surface, that made the dragon someone I did not want to make an enemy of.

  The dragon’s wings bunched. Then it leapt, claws outstretched. I cringed as a claw wrapped around my body, lifting me into the air.

  For the second time that day, I flew upwards into the foggy sky. Swallowing a scream, I gritted my teeth and released a breath when the dragon put me down on the hillside. “Thanks.”

  For all I knew, the dragon couldn’t understand English. But he’d got my message, and he’d brought me right where I wanted to be. Limbs trembling, I walked towards the towering construction. It was the same place where I’d found Wanda and Keir’s brother held hostage. The dragon had put me on the hall’s opposite side, so I had to climb over a heap of jagged stones to get to the front of the hall. This place seemed quieter, too, but of course, the Whisper had gone.

  Was his realm where the mages were trying to get to? Perhaps the dragon was their ally, but the one who’d come into Edinburgh before hadn’t seemed to be on Lord Sutherland’s side. And I would have thought the mages liked their home comforts too much to set up a base on a desolate realm like this one.

  I skirted the hall, peering through the entrance. Last time, there’d been barrier spells blocking the way in, but there was no such resistance now. I trod over the cracked stones, approaching the pillars where I’d found Wanda and Keir’s brother tied up as hostages. Maybe I should have asked the dragon if he’d seen a vampire’s soul floating around, but I doubted I’d be that lucky.

  The pillars were bare, but lines of text were carved into them. It didn’t look like any language I’d ever seen before, and the text had an odd shimmering effect. I tried turning on my spirit sight, but not a soul was within reach, despite the thick fog surrounding the cathedral-like space.

  I left the empty hall and picked my way down to the heap of shattered pieces of broken white stone. A dazzling stream of light reflected off every fragment. Maybe sunlight, though the clouds made it hard to tell if a sun existed in this realm.

  It’s been a nice trip, but I think I’ve overstayed my welcome.

  I trod closer to the Moonbeam pieces, my heart beating faster. I didn’t know where the mirror was, but I had to trust that it was in the hands of my allies.

  Crossing my fingers that I wasn’t about to fall into another trap, I walked onto the pieces of Moonbeam.

  A dazzling white flash swallowed up my body, and once again, I fell into emptiness.

  Then I tumbled out of the mirror, and a blast of air hit me in the face, pinning me in a web of red lines.

  A trapping spell… a witch trapping spell. My knees buckled in mid-air, suspended inside a room filled with expensive furniture.

  I knew this place. It was a hotel room Vance and the mages had rented out as a bolt hole. I’d never seen what it looked like on the outside, so I wouldn’t have been able to find it in the real world.

  Carefully, I used my Hemlock magic to find the strands of the trapping spell and pulled them undone. The spell released me, and I wriggled free.

  As my feet hit the carpet, someone ran into the room. “Stop right there!” boomed a voice, and fire exploded overhead.

  13

  I ducked the stream of fire, which dissipated as it hit the mirror head-on. My attacker summoned another flame to his hand. He was tall, thin, and wore a knee-length cloak. He lowered his hood, revealing coppery hair and a long, thin scar on one side of his face.

  “Ow,” I said. “Hey—Drake, it’s me!”

  Drake’s hand stilled, a flame dancing on his palm. “Jas? You’re supposed to be dead.”

  “Takes more than a hole in the sky to bring me down.” I turned back to the mirror, which glittered with faint white light rather than showing my reflection. “I didn’t know the mirror was here.”

  “I didn’t know you knew how to dimension-hop,” he said. “Wanda’s going to throw a fit. And Isabel.”

  “Sorry I worried everyone,” I said. “I found my way back, after a fashion.”

  “No shit,” he said. “You’ve been gone two weeks. Everyone thinks you died.”

  “Two weeks?” I stared at him. “That can’t be right.”

  “It is,” he said. “You disappeared fifteen days ago. You’ve been gone so long that even the mages have stopped looking for you.”

  I sank into an armchair. “It’s been less than an hour for me. How is that even possible?”

  “Did you go to Faerie?” he said. “Time passes weirdly there. That’s what Ivy says, anyway.”

  “Not Faerie.” For all the weird things I’d seen in that realm, faerie magic hadn’t been one of them. “How are the others? Isabel?”

  “She’s fine,” he said. “At least, she was when I saw her yesterday. I don’t know about your other friends, though, sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m the one who took an unintended holiday.” I rubbed my forehead. “I guess Lord Sutherland and his people think I’m gone for good, right?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “They do. But they haven’t dropped the charges against you.”

  “At this point it’s easier for them to assume I’m still alive, given the number of times I’ve walked back from the other side.” Not that I’d died this time, but still.

  Drake tapped his phone. “Vance and Wanda will be here in five minutes. Are you sure it wasn’t Faerie? I’ve been to the weird part of it and it doesn’t all look shiny and new.”

  “Are there dragons in Faerie?”

  A rush of air blew through the room, and a tall dark-haired man wearing a knee-length coat appeared from thin air. At his side stood a woman my age, tall and willowy with long brown hair.

  “Hey, Wanda.” I waved at her. “And you too, Vance.”

  “Jas?” Vance’s eyes widened. “It really is you.”

  “Do you think I’d lie about something like that, Vance?” Drake said, putting on a mock-hurt tone. “You know Jas is special.”

  “That’s one way of putting it.” I stifled a yawn, exhaustion tugging at my bones. It seemed surreal that days had passed here in the blink of an eye and I hadn’t even known it.

  “Jas!” Wanda ran to me and hugged me. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  “Me too, believe me.” I hu
gged her back, surprised to find tears stinging my eyes. Wanda and I had been best friends as teenagers before the universe had sent us lurching on entirely separate paths. I’d nearly lost her. Nearly lost everyone I knew.

  “Tell me everything,” said Vance, when she released me.

  “Don’t pressure her, Vance,” said Drake. “Jas just came back from the dead—granted, it seems to be a hobby of hers, but you might want to offer her a drink first.”

  “Got any liquor?” I asked. “I’m joking. I need a caffeine hit, if anything. I’ll start on the wine later.”

  The hotel room appeared unreal to my tired eyes, as though the fog of the dimension I’d come out of was about to smother the place and reveal it for the illusion it really was. I accepted Vance’s offer of coffee, while Wanda pulled out a bag of Isabel’s cookies. I munched one gratefully as I told them about my experiences on the other side of the mirror.

  Vance wore a calm expression, but I could see his mind ticking as he took in every word. He was descended from the Ancients himself, through his shifter bloodline, and had come close to falling under the Moonbeam’s influence. Now I knew the link between the mirror and the Moonbeam pieces remained open, it seemed doubly important that Lord Sutherland never learn that the mages had kept the mirror hidden within the city.

  “Did the spirit lines definitely close?” I asked the others. “Because I saw furies spawning everywhere.”

  “We’re still hunting the bastards down,” Drake said. “That’s why we’re up here. They appeared all over England, too, but Edinburgh got hit the worst because it’s on top of where both spirit lines broke open. The local mages weren’t thrilled that we showed up, but they were too polite to turn us away.”

  “Guess they hoped the former Council of Twelve would leave them alone, huh,” I said.

  “There’s still a Council of Twelve,” said Vance. “The cooperation of Lord Sutherland isn’t necessary for us to continue doing our jobs. What concerns me is his treatment of the other supernatural leaders.”

  “He doesn’t care about burning bridges,” I said. “What do the rest of your people think about him claiming the Ley Line? Have the faeries thrown a tantrum yet?”