Return Of The Witch (The Witch Next Door Book 6)

by Judith Berens

  “Only when we agree on something,” her companion replied, perfectly happy to answer for himself.

  The Royal’s gaze roamed the curve of the dome over their heads, then settled on the young witch once more. “This precious thing that was stolen from us rests in a temple miles from our home. We cannot travel above as none of our people are strong enough to endure the sun and the winds in the way that gigni endure them. We wish for an Optatus to retrieve that which has been taken from our loving arms—that which is rightfully our own and of the Vátra. When you bring the Varelos to us, we offer safe and swift diávra through the la-lass.”

  Lily forced herself not to frown. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand what that means.”

  “Travel across this Mediterranean Sea.”

  There we go. The young witch pretended to consider the offer, though she already knew she’d take it. I have no problem enduring the sun and wind. It should be easy to retrieve an extra artifact after a literal treasure hunt across three continents.

  Romeo glanced sharply at her and frowned. “You know, our new friend who likes to kick people said all we had to do was come down here for a talk. Now we have to run an errand?”

  She drew her gaze slowly away from the Royal and leaned toward the werewolf before she lowered her voice. “I know. This is the actual deal now. It could really help us.”

  “It could also turn out to be a huge waste of time and get us into trouble we honestly don’t need, Lil.” He widened his eyes and nodded anyway.

  “Is this a binding agreement?” she asked the Royal.

  “We offer an invitation to aid one another, Optatus. We both receive what we desire, or neither of us is satisfied.”

  That doesn’t sound like a trick to me. “How quickly would you be able to get us across the sea?”

  The Royal closed his eyes again and a bright pink light pulsed on his closed eyelids. “What the gigni mark as one half of an hour.”

  When she glanced at her friend again, he seemed nonplussed but definitely more cheerful. “Okay, that’s definitely an improvement.”

  “I accept your invitation,” she told the Royal. “I’ll bring you this…item in return for safe passage across the Mediterranean Sea to Libya.” I can’t be too careful when laying out the terms.

  The Royal’s eyes opened again slowly, and his gaze drifted away from her toward the far wall of the dome behind her. His thin arm extended to the side and gestured toward one of the colorful pools in the throne room. The rest of the Vátra’s body remained perfectly still.

  The water in the closest pool bubbled and flashed brilliantly between pink, orange, and silver, and a shape took form within the water rising from its center. “The Varelos,” the Royal said in his multiple voices echoing as one. “Precious to the Vátra. To us.” The extra water dripped away from the image of a staff floating above the pool and rippling in place. At the top of it, a rounded tip took the shape of an inverted U. Three sharp tines protruded from each side of the U and all six of them pulsed with golden light. “We have felt it in the temples of Oneiroi above the waters, in the land across which you have been traveling, Optatus. You will find it there, as many others have failed to do. And when you return the Varelos to us, where it belongs, we shall deliver you to your destination.”

  “Okay.” She nodded. “If there’s anything else I should know about how to retrieve it, I’d appreciate whatever information you have.”

  “It is precious to the heart and necessary to calm the unseen storms.”

  Lily paused. She had no idea what that meant but realized the Royal would have explained further if it was necessary. “Thank you,” she said instead of her initial urge to ask for more.

  “Is there a time limit on this?” Romeo asked.

  The Royal lowered his arm from the pool, and the water-formed Varelos returned to the stone basin with a whispering sigh. Not a drop spilled over the edge. “The only limitation is that which one places on oneself.”

  When she caught the confusion behind her friend’s frown, she leaned toward him and whispered, “That means no.”

  “I didn’t wanna assume—”

  “We must take our silence now.” Without another word, the Vátra Royal uncrossed his legs and lay back on the massive cushion. He lowered himself one vertebra at a time as his arms sank into the fabric. The pulsing pink light in his chest and abdomen quickened until he’d stretched out fully on his back and stared up at the ceiling of the dome, unmoving. The lights slowed until only the pulsing glow remained and surrounded his body, and nothing else moved.

  For a few seconds, she wondered if they would have to show themselves out of the Vátra city and back to the surface. As if on cue, Watcher turned quickly and looked at her. “Out now, friends.” He gestured toward the tunnel through which they’d first entered and moved swiftly across the throne room again, still careful to make as little noise as possible with his huge, webbed feet. Lily nodded at the Royal, knowing he couldn’t see the movement but guessing that he probably felt it anyway. She nodded for Romeo to do the same, and the werewolf ducked his head in an awkward half-bow before they both turned to follow their guide.

  Seven

  Their return journey was far less painful and uncomfortable in the magical breathing suits but they were both relieved to breathe fresh air again. The couple surfaced on the other side of the cliffs where the sun glinted off the water, and Watcher came up quickly behind them.

  Romeo glanced at the tall, jagged face of pale rock and chewed the inside of his cheek. “Do you think we should get rid of these squeaky suits first? I don’t think they’ll be too helpful for climbing all the way back up.”

  “I can try.” Lily raised her hand to glance at the thin substance still coating her but had to lower it again to keep her afloat while she tread water. “I don’t know if my spells will work through this stuff.”

  “No spells yet.” Watcher studied them and his wide eyes creased at the corners when he smiled. “Gigni need to get back up first, yes?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find a way to do.” Romeo nodded at their green-skinned guide. “Do you have any suggestions?”

  “I will get you up. Lily witch, you remember where these cliffs are. That is a promise. Come back with the Varelos for Royal, and I will come back for you. Helping and helping, yes?”

  “I can do that.” She glanced at the towering cliffs. “Assuming we can get up there at a reasonable time.”

  “You can!” With a cackle, Watcher raised a webbed green hand and smacked it on the surface of the sea. A green light flared to life before a column of water burst from beneath both Lily and Romeo and hurled them upward dozens of feet and toward the land above the cliffs. She had barely enough time before the dry grasses rushed toward her to fling both hands out and cast a physical compulsion spell on herself. It was meant to slow her ascent but acted as a giant crash pad instead, which made her landing easier than it could have been but still not quite pleasant. She tucked her head and legs and rolled across the dirt and sparse grasses as Romeo skidded face-first across the ground.

  “Oh, come on.” He grunted annoyance and pulled his hands beneath him to roll and flop onto his back. The geyser of seawater that had launched them back to land fell into the Mediterranean again, the splash only a little louder than the crash of waves against the cliffs. He thumped a hand against his chest and the Vátran diving suit vibrated at the contact. “I’m not saying I’m okay with being shot out of a vertical cannon, but this stuff makes fairly good armor.” He studied his hand and turned it from side to side and the translucent green film shimmered in the sunlight.

  “Yeah, if you’re okay with not being able to cast effective spells or hold a weapon. I don’t know if that stuff would hold through a shift, either.” She sat and stared absently at the sky as she rubbed the shoulder that had hit the ground first.

  “Good point. We’ll call it good armor for someone who doesn’t know how to protect themselves, then.”
r />   “That was definitely us in the Vátran city.”

  Romeo sighed. “True.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Physically? Yeah.” The werewolf pushed himself up to sit with his legs stretched out in front of him and raised his eyebrows. “I still don’t feel too enthusiastic about this little side quest, though.”

  “I know. We’ll simply have to see how it plays out. If it’s more trouble than finding a ship to take us across, then no deal.” She shrugged and glanced out across the Mediterranean, nothing but glistening waves and blue sky on the horizon.

  “Friends!” Watcher’s voice barely rose above the constant crash of waves and the few gulls that screeched overhead. Lily glanced at Romeo, and they both struggled to their feet, fighting for balance against the film that still coated their bodies and vibrated with a little bounce against everything they touched.

  When they reached the edge of the cliffs, she peered over and cupped her hands around her mouth to shout, “I’ll remember.”

  “Yes, yes. Good! I hope you have all fortune in what you will do, Lily and Romeo friends.”

  “Thank you.”

  The werewolf raised his hand for a hesitant wave, confused by why he felt the need to make the gesture to the Vátra anyway. “It’s been real, man.”

  Watcher threw his head back and cackled until a spray of foamy seawater arced into his mouth and made him gurgle. The green-skinned creature seemed completely unfazed by it. “Always real. Always now. For most of it. Do not start dreaming!” He returned the wave, flashed them his wide, gummy, sharp-toothed grin, and dove beneath the water and disappeared.

  Romeo shook his head. “There seriously is a gap in the translation spell. He thought I was being literal.”

  “Well, you both got the general point across. And the Royal didn’t seem to have any difficulty at all with vocabulary.”

  “Yeah, that was a little weird. Do you have any guesses about that?”

  Lily shrugged and took a few steps away from the edge of the cliff. “His eyes changed colors right before he spoke to us. You saw that, right?”

  “Superdome-blue. Yep.”

  “I think he either added to my translation spell to make our conversation perfectly clear, or he channeled a similar spell of his own to speak English.”

  “Huh.” Her companion paused a moment in thought. “The little guys didn’t seem to think there was anything weird about it.”

  “Well, they probably didn’t understand a word of it. Or the Royal uses unexpected magic like that more than I thought.”

  “Option three. They’ve been brainwashed and couldn’t have reacted even if they wanted to.”

  She clicked her tongue and shot him a playful frown. “Come on. Yeah, it was a little weird that none of them spoke or looked at anything but the wall. But I wouldn’t go as far as brainwashing.” Studying the film on her hands, she walked slowly across the short, scruffy grasses and salty dirt and each step made her bounce a little. “They’re a completely different race so it makes sense that they’d have a completely different culture. And I don’t know exactly how their magic works. But Watcher didn’t seem scared taking us into that throne room or whatever they call it. I think that’s simply the way things are with the Vátra.”

  “Well, to each his own.” Romeo nodded at her hands. “Do you think you can get this stuff off? Our green friend forgot to leave an instruction manual.”

  She smirked. “I don’t think there is one, but…” Her hand twisted one way, then the other, and she grinned. “I get to experiment with something completely new.”

  “Not on me first, I hope.”

  With a low chuckle, she met his gaze and tried to put her hands on her hips. Her palms, of course, simply bounced off, and he snorted. “My magic comes from me and out of this suit. By default, I have to be the guinea pig.” She stared at her hand and summoned the sharp, slicing attack spell she’d used only a handful of times—the same one that had almost gutted Romeo in an underground speakeasy for magicals in Montreal. You gotta love werewolf healing. And practice.

  The yellow light flared to life at the tip of her finger but didn’t pierce through the Vátran film. Instead, it flared around the edges of her hand and wavered there, caught inside the breathing suit with her.

  “That doesn’t look right.”

  “It’s not.” Lily hadn’t had to focus this hard on directing a relatively simple spell since she’d learned how to conjure flames. They’re all relatively simple compared to the black cloud and my raven totem. “But magic always finds a way to do what needs to be done.” Pressing her lips together, she focused on bringing all the yellow, dangerously sharp light back toward the tip of her finger. It fought her for only a few seconds until it sliced through the film covering her hand. At the last second, she pointed her finger at the ground and released the spell fully. The yellow light struck the soil in front of her and kicked up a spray of dirt and pebbles and a few clumps of dry plant matter. She looked at her companion and blew on the tip of her finger.

  He raised his hands. “Easy, killer.”

  She laughed and studied the split in the film at her fingertip, teased it open a little more, and frowned. “This stuff is way too weird.” Thankfully, it peeled off fairly easily once she’d torn the hole large enough to get more than one finger through.

  Romeo stared at her as she dragged the Vátran bodysuit away and stepped out of the pile of green film on the ground. “Have you ever watched a snake shed its skin?”

  “Not as it’s actually doing it, no.”

  He nodded. “That’s exactly what that looked like.”

  Lily stuck her tongue out at him and uttered a playful hiss. “You’re next.” She approached him and caught his hand, feeling for the first time the rubbery, slightly sticky substance that had swallowed them as a bright-green bubble and then became an underwater diving suit for land-dwelling magicals. “Crazy.” With a grin, she cast the razor spell again and brought the bright yellow light to the tip of her finger. She glanced at him. “Hold still.”

  “That is a completely unnecessary warning.” He swallowed. “I already told you I trust you with my life, right?”

  “And that is a completely unnecessary reminder.” She brought her glowing yellow finger toward the back of his hand, found the right angle, and slid the light of her spell across the surface of the Vátran film. “It’s like cheese shavings.”

  Romeo chuckled. “What?”

  “You know. It’s hard to cut a whole block of cheese in half with a butter knife, but you can shave off thin slices if you find the right angle.”

  “Lily, in no situation whatsoever is that even close to a butter knife.”

  She shrugged and released his hand. “And I’m not actually a snake.” She nodded at the hole in the film on his hand. “You’re free. Shed away.”

  He grimaced when he managed to get two of his other fingers into the hole, and his nostrils flared as he peeled the suit from his body inch by inch. “If we actually find that thing the Royal wants, I know we’ll probably have to do this all over again. But honestly…”

  “Does it really gross you out that much?”

  Romeo yanked the film off his shoulders and drew his hands out as if he were taking off dishwashing gloves. He stepped away from the rubbery substance and wrinkled his nose at it. “My Aunt Kristine paid me five dollars to help her peel the skin off her sunburns during the summer.”

  “Ew.”

  “Five dollars a day. I made a pile of money in fourth grade.”

  Lily laughed and glanced at the piles of Vátran magical residue caught on the pebbles and the dry grasses. The faint green glow they’d held since they’d fitted around their bodies had vanished completely now that the film had served its purpose. “Yeah, that does look like snakeskin.” She stooped to gather the sticky, rubbery stuff in her arms and headed toward the cliffs again.

  “What are you doing?”

  “There’s a reason I’ve never
heard of the Vátra,” she called over her shoulder.

  Romeo glanced at his own pile of frog-people skin. “Yeah, ʼcause your mom never told you about them.”

  “Twenty bucks says that’s because even she didn’t know they existed.”

  “Lily, you don’t have twenty bucks.”

  “Twenty gold coins, then. That sounds much cooler anyway.” She grinned at him and nodded toward the cliffs.

  With a sigh, he scooped up the flopping, jiggling remains of his suit and joined her at the edge. “Back to the sea, huh?”

  “It feels right.” They glanced at each other and dumped the remains over the cliff and into the frothing waves below them. The Vátran suits vanished instantly, and she dusted her hands off. “One more thing.” She knelt at the cliff’s edge and pressed her hand to the hard earth. A blue pulse of light moved from her palm into the dirt, and when she stepped back, a tiny handprint remained.

  “Someone’s gonna find that easily.”

  She smiled at him and didn’t have to say a word when the blue handprint faded into nothing but soil. “Only me. I’ll call it up when we bring the Varelos and need another trip through the cliffs and caves.” She turned and looked up on their left toward where they’d parked the Winnie at the side of the road. “Now it’s time to do what we do on land.”

  Eight

  When Lily pulled her hands apart after about ten minutes of walking, the sheet of faint pink light grew between her palms and she cast the rest of the spell for detecting illusions. The pink light burst from her hands in a huge wave in front of them, making the air a few feet away shimmer against it before the Winnie blinked into existence.

  Romeo shook his head and made his way toward the side door. “I’m not even surprised anymore by what you can do with magic.” He held the door open for her as she skipped up the two steps into the RV. “But you have a serious knack for judging distances.”