Witching You Wouldn't Go

by Constance Barker

  “Such is the nature of time,” Itaja agreed. She touched Bailey’s face, and turned it toward hers. “Do you know why the Deceivers crave our world?”

  “We have lots of stuff?” Bailey asked, and smiled.

  Itaja chuckled, and shook her head slowly. “It is not so far from the truth. Our world gives their world shape. When first I stepped foot in their realm, it was pristinely unformed.” She waved a hand, and the landscape changed. Color flowed, shapes became diffused, until it was like a swirl of paint that never quite mixed into one color. “When I arrived, I brought with me the shape of our world.” The colors that flowed into one another began to become more distinct, singular. There was space between them, and the space gave each color a non-descript shape.

  “The mortal world is a place of separateness,” Itaja went on. “Something the Dreaming Place did not have. Separateness gave rise to pleasure, and to pain. To envy, and to charity. Things the Deceivers had never touched.”

  Bailey pondered that as she saw the now separate colors shift and churn, twisting around one another without ever going back to the way they had been before, and all the while sprouting more defined shapes—mountains, clouds, plains, creatures of painful beauty and terrible ugliness. “You... created them?”

  “No,” Itaja said, “I merely corrupted them. It was my folly. Our worlds were not meant to be shared. Theirs was to be a world of wholeness, ours of separateness. Instead, our world became infused with theirs, and theirs with ours. They gained shape, distinction... what did ours gain, do you think?”

  “Magic,” Bailey breathed. “But... there was magic here already, wasn’t there? You said it yourself, you walked to another world.”

  Itaja gave the world a sad wave of her hand, and the colors and shapes rained down, resolving themselves into the world Bailey had first awoken in. “A different kind,” she said. “Primal, and creative. You know it.”

  Bailey did. She looked at her hands—they were made of the same stuff as the rest of Itaja’s world, the color moving under her skin—and recalled the strange feeling of the new magic that had gradually begun to grow in her.

  “One magic,” Itaja said. “Maga, the first power; the first word. The first shape. The first people.”

  For a long time, Bailey simply stood, peaceful, watching Itaja’s world evolve and devolve. If this was to be her afterlife, she supposed it could have been worse.

  But, there were still lingering worries that broke the still waters of her heart. “This is all... interesting, Itaja. But please... can you tell me what happened to my friends? Or... is it some cosmic afterlife rule that I can’t know?”

  “This is not the afterlife,” Itaja said.

  The first hint of fear broke through the veneer of calm. “It’s... not?” Bailey asked. “Then, where am I going? What comes next?”

  “Next,” Itaja said, her voice thick with sadness, “is the most difficult part. Take heart, daughter. Be courageous, and wise. Your sacrifices have not yet been tallied. What you seek is creation itself. All magic must be paid for; as you would seek to create, so must you allow for destruction. As we gain, so do we lose. Where the tree would grow, so the ground must give way.”

  “I don’t understand,” Bailey said. “No riddles, Itaja, I need answers. Please!”

  The world was slipping from her. Itaja gave her a final look, a sad smile, before she turned back and began placing stars in her empty sky.

  And then Bailey was falling through worlds, the peace that she’d been wrapped in before peeling away, layer after layer, like blankets torn away by the wind as it whipped around her with more and more solid force until, at last, she struck the ground, hard, and gasped air into heavy lungs—real, solid lungs, that hurt.

  She reached up to her chest, and found it whole; there was no knife. There was no Medea. There was nothing but the sky above her, and the panicked faces of Aiden and Avery as they knelt at her side, saying things that her brain couldn’t turn into intelligible words.

  All she could hear was her own heart beating, reminding her steadily that she was alive.

  Chapter 26

  “Eat,” Suraj said as he passed Bailey a loaf of bread. The tent he’d moved them into was small, and warm, and once she was no longer freezing she realized just how ravenous she was.

  “How long?” She asked, glancing at Aiden. He hadn’t stopped staring at her since she woke up. Neither had Avery, for that matter. Gideon hadn’t been able to look at her at all, and she didn’t know why yet but she had some ideas.

  “Three days,” Aiden said, his voice raw. His eyes were bloodshot. “We were going to... ah, bury you. Suraj wouldn’t allow it. He said no one had ever come back.”

  Bailey stopped chewing for a moment, her eyes wide. It hadn’t seemed that long to her, but she remembered Itaja’s words about time in her world. Maybe it didn’t matter. Bailey was lucky it had only been three days.

  “You came back from the dead,” Avery said quietly. He licked his lips. “Are you... okay?”

  She swallowed the bite. “I’m hungry. Thirsty, too.”

  Suraj passed her a water skin, and she took it eagerly.

  “For regular food?” Avery asked.

  After Bailey slaked some of her thirst she eyed him critically. “I don’t think I’m undead, Ave.”

  “Would you know?” He asked. He looked around. “Would she know?”

  “The lords of the night no longer make children,” Suraj said. “They sleep eternally in the depths of mountains, and only they have the power to pass on the curse.”

  “That’s... not comforting at all, actually,” Avery sighed.

  “I thought I’d lost you,” Aiden breathed, as if no one else was in the room with them. He reached for her hand, and she took it.

  It hurt. Not pain, exactly, but a kind of hardness that seem grating on her nerves. The same was true of the bread, and even the water. But she held onto his hand anyway. “I’m sorry,” she told him.

  “What did you see?” Suraj asked. There was a note of awe in his voice. “Where did you go?”

  Bailey shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry, Suraj. I can’t say. I... don’t think I’m supposed to.”

  “What happens now?” Gideon asked. He looked at Suraj, rather than Bailey.

  Suraj’s face turned sour as he turned toward Gideon. “For you, thief? Judgment.”

  Bailey’s eyes took in Gideon’s state more thoroughly. He hadn’t touched anything, she realized, and she saw why—his hands were bound with some black rope, threaded with silver. “Leave us alone,” she said.

  The centurion glowered at her, but uncertainly. “Whatever tests you have passed, you are not—”

  Her magic came roaring up, hot and howling in her veins. She didn’t use it, didn’t call any spell. It wasn’t even clear to her how she might have used it or if she could yet. Suraj, though, sensed it, and his face paled. He inclined his head. “As you wish.”

  Bailey looked to her left to see Aiden and Avery both staring at her, wide eyed. “I’m still me,” she said. “I just need to speak with Gideon.”

  “Call us if you need us,” Aiden said. He kissed her hand, and then left with Avery, who gave her a last long look at the opening of the tent before he left through it as well.

  For a long moment neither Gideon nor Bailey spoke. She ate more bread, drank more water. Being dead apparently took a lot out of a person. When she felt like the ache in her stomach was ebbing, she turned her attention to him.

  “Your magic,” Gideon said quietly. “It’s different now.”

  “I know who you are,” Bailey said. “Do you know who I am?”

  Gideon studied the walls of the tent, and the ceiling, and the table between them before he answered. “I have some... intuition, yes.”

  “I have questions.” She shifted so that she was more comfortable; or at least she tried to. The ground was too hard, but so were the rugs that filled the tent, and the cushions, and even the air around them.
/>   The wizard bobbed his head. “You must have many. It appears that I’m not going anywhere soon.” He held up his bound wrists. “Ask.”

  She looked at him until he met her gaze, and then asked the question. “Chloe Minds is my mother,” she said. “I’m twenty one years old. Are you my father? Are you Leander Swift?”

  His expression faltered. She knew that he’d been expecting it; but hearing it was apparently something altogether different. When he answered, she could barely hear him. “I believe so. Yes.”

  Bailey nodded once. At least he’d admitted that much. The next, though, she wasn’t so sure about. “Was I planned?”

  “Planned?” Gideon—or, Leander, or whatever his name really was—asked, frowning.

  “Did you go to Coven Grove so that you could get my mother pregnant,” she clarified, “so that I would be born with both bloodlines. Medea and Lucius. Or, Itaja and Belor; whoever.”

  “Oh,” he sighed, and bowed his head. “Of course... it must seem that way, mustn’t it? Bailey, I...” he swallowed, and rubbed his face awkwardly with his hands. “I... did go to Coven Grove to find your mother. I believed that once I told her I had stolen the spell for the Throne, she would want to come here. To go through the trials, and that together we could... right the wrongs of the past. Build a new world together. Fight back the Fae, make our world safe. You must believe me. When she sent me away... I had no idea.”

  “Did you find out?” She asked. “Did... Aiden tell you?”

  “No,” he said quickly, “of course not. Aiden doesn’t know who I am, what my relation is to you, or to Coven Grove.”

  “Did you send him to Coven Grove?”

  Gideon hesitated.

  Bailey’s chest tightened. “I see.”

  “No, you don’t,” her father said. “I only suggested that Aiden go to Coven Grove and buy the property on which the Caves are located so that they didn’t fall into the hands of another Patrick Winters, or his spoiled daughter. I’ve kept tabs on Coven Grove for years as I explored the other Caves and hunted for the Throne. When I saw that it had come up for sale, I sent Aiden to bid on it. He didn’t even want to go, but I...”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “What did you do?”

  “I couldn’t return to Coven Grove myself,” he said. “Your mother, she... drove me away. I can’t return until or unless she lifts the compulsion she laid on me in a moment of upset. The Caves were too important to risk, you see—”

  “Thank you for looking out for them,” Bailey said flatly. “What did you do to make Aiden buy them?”

  “I suggested to him,” Gideon said slowly, “that Martha Tells may have been his mother.”

  Bailey’s hand moved to her stomach, which was unsteady. “Does he know you lied to him?”

  Gideon shook his head, and stared at his hands. “You have to understand, Bailey... I’ve spent most of my life searching for the Throne.” He lifted his wrists to show the ropes around them. “It isn’t just about the discovery—it’s about our world. About fixing it. Imagine it, Bailey. What we could do—”

  Bailey stood, cutting him off. “We won’t be doing anything,” she said. “I know that I can’t wield the Throne’s power on my own. But it won’t be you beside me.”

  “You plan to leave me to the Centurions then,” he said, only half a question. Mostly he sounded resigned.

  She couldn’t be certain, of course, but Suraj had made it sound like he would be punished, maybe even executed, for having stolen from them. Whatever she felt or didn’t feel about her father—and that was a complicated nest of vipers at the moment—she couldn’t just leave him to their version of justice, whatever it was. Besides, at this point it didn’t matter that he’d stolen the spell for the Throne from them—she’d need it anyway, and suspected that it was their job to give it to her now.

  “No,” she said, and sighed. “I’m not leaving you here. We’re all going home. I’ll talk to the Centurions, make them see reason.”

  “You don’t owe that to me,” he said.

  Bailey picked her way across the tent to the flap. “I know. It’s not for you.”

  Outside, Aiden and Avery sat some distance away, waiting with the Centurions. The grim faced wizards had their hoods down now, one and all, maybe a dozen in total. Suraj was the only one that stood, and he dipped his head as she approached.

  “We’re going home,” Bailey said. “I need whatever else you have or know about the Throne.”

  Suraj’s eyes narrowed slightly, and his lips curled down, but after a moment he gave her a respectful nod. “As you wish.”

  “Gideon is coming with us,” she went on. “What he took from you is moot, now.”

  Some of the other Centurions muttered disapproval, and Suraj had to raise a hand to quiet them. He gave a heavy sigh, and shook his head as he lowered the hand. “He has broken our laws. He is in our land. His fate is not in your hands.”

  Bailey looked around at the Centurions, each of them scarred in some way, and battle worn. These were experienced battle wizards, and she had no idea what they were capable of. But each and every one of them avoided her gaze, which meant that they were almost certainly worried about what she was capable of. She steadied her nerves and stepped up to Suraj. “If I have to fight to take him, I will.”

  Someone moved, and she saw Aiden and Avery both standing up. They moved to stand on either side of her and a step behind. They didn’t need to say anything, only stand with her. Suraj met her eyes, stony and impassive for a long moment. Bailey held his gaze until her eyes began to burn.

  In the end, Suraj blinked first, and then turned away from her. “Is this the queen you choose to be? One that turns her back on the ancient laws?”

  “Gideon has other debts to pay,” she said. “Other wrongs to atone for.”

  Suraj waved a hand, and then other Centurions stood slowly, and began to peel away from the place. He turned back to her when they had gone, and produced a small leather tube about a foot long, only a few inches across. He held it out for her to take. “There is much work that must be done yet. Be wary of that man, whoever he is to you. There is hunger in him, for power and for other things. Do not be blinded. None of us can afford it.”

  “I won’t be,” Bailey assured him, and held the tube tight in both hands. “Thank you, Suraj.”

  “Do not thank me,” he told her. “I have not delivered you. I have given you a burden; one that you will regret seeking. Be well, Daughter of Itaja; and be just. Our law is not only to protect such magic as this. Pray we have no need to meet again.”

  The black clad wizard turned away from her, and strode to the edge of the light. In a moment, he was gone.

  Bailey took a long breath, and then faced her friends.

  “That was a gamble,” Aiden said. “Could you really have fought them?”

  She shrugged. “Who knows? But I wasn’t bluffing about Gideon. We have to take him back to Coven Grove.”

  “Of course,” Aiden said, nodding. “He has the spell, we’ll need—”

  “That’s not all,” Bailey said. Part of her wanted to say everything, to tell Aiden what Gideon had told her. How he’d lied to his pupil to position him in Coven Grove—whether the reasons for it were the truth or not. That wasn’t Bailey’s right, though. Not until she gave her father a chance to come clean on his own. “Gideon is... my father,” she said instead.

  Avery whistled, his eyes wide, and then snapped his fingers. “That’s what bothered me about him,” he muttered. “I knew there was something.”

  Aiden stared at her. “Leander Swift,” he breathed. “If that’s so, then... when he apprised me of the sale...”

  “Yeah,” Bailey said. She touched Aiden’s arm, and her fingers ultimately found his and held them. “But we can sort all of that out later. We need to leave this place. It’s time to go home.”

  Chapter 27

  Piper woke up gasping for air. Beside her, Gavin stirred, and blearily reached for her.

/>   “Okay, baby?”

  She was. Bailey was back. Piper’s heart nearly burst, and she almost hurled herself onto Gavin to cry; but he hadn’t even known she was gone. “I’m fine,” she said, “just had a bad dream. I’ll be back.”

  “Kay,” Gavin slurred, almost back to sleep already.

  Piper pulled a bathrobe off the back of the door and slipped into it, then took her phone from the nightstand table and dialed Chloe before she even managed to close the door to the bedroom behind her. The phone rang as she made her way to the front door and slipped quietly out onto the stoop.

  “Piper?” Chloe answered after several rings. It was nearly two in the morning; Aria was with Ryan overnight, which meant Chloe had probably been asleep, if she’d been able. The last few nights, she’d had a hard time of it, getting conflicting messages about her daughter from Piper and from Anita. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Chloe,” she said, her voice taut. “It’s Bailey. She’s... back. Something’s very, very different. I can almost feel her like she’s here, standing right beside me.”

  She heard cloth shuffling around as Chloe likely scrambled out of bed. “Are you certain? Absolutely? It can’t be anything or anyone else?”

  “Each of you is unique,” Piper said, “and consistent. It’s like I’m looking at her face to face; I know that it’s Bailey.”

  Chloe was quiet for a long moment. “Have you... tried to call her?”

  “I haven’t,” Piper admitted, “I called you first thing.”

  “Thank you,” Chloe said. “See if you can get in touch, and find out what happened. I’ll get dressed, and go to the Bakery. Can you meet me there? Aria could probably use a break, too. Now that I’m up, I may go relieve her.”

  Piper bit her lip and almost declined; it was late. But on the other hand, she didn’t imagine she’d be able to get back to sleep, and it would be hours before the children woke up and wanted their mother. “I can meet you there,” she said. “And I’ll see if I can get in touch with anyone.”