“Who’s Nigel?” Amaya asked.
“A weakling,” Yale spat. “A mistake born out of loneliness.”
“A mistake from before you figured out you could make stronger children out of the Adept,” Kett said, piecing Yale’s history together with confidence. “How did I miss you when I purged your maker, along with the rogues he’d gathered to slaughter the Garricks?”
Yale didn’t answer. Amaya gripped his shoulder, but he shook her off.
“Teresa’s family?” I asked quietly.
Kett nodded.
The necromancer, Ben’s mother, had been the lone survivor of a family of vampire hunters who’d been wiped out over twenty years ago. When she demanded vengeance for their murders last October, Kett revealed that he’d first been appointed the executioner of the Conclave in order to destroy those rogues.
“Were you out of the country then, Yale, sire of the weak?” Kett asked. “Perhaps banished by your own maker for your mistake with Nigel? Or did you flee the confrontation afterward? Ecuador, was it? Where you happened upon the necromancer, and turned her before she could figure out how to control you?”
“Lies!” Mania blurted. Then, gripping Amaya’s arm, she repeated it. “Lies …” As if trying to convince herself.
“I have another talent,” Yale said defiantly. “Besides remaking children who retain a goodly portion of their magic.”
“Show me,” Kett said, amused. “If I’m impressed, I’ll take you to London. My grandsire delights in breaking the unbreakable.”
Magic erupted without warning in the clearing, whirling around me, blinding me to whatever was happening. I cried out, reaching for Jasmine but crashing into Kett instead.
He swept me behind him.
The magic died.
Across from us, Amaya held Declan pinned to the ground by the neck. Mania held Jasmine limp in her arms. Yale stood between them, arms crossed, eyeing us smugly.
I gripped Kett’s shoulder, my gaze glued to Jasmine until I saw her chest rise and fall.
“Can you take all three of them?” I asked. I was tired of playing games.
“Yes,” Kett said. “Easily.”
Yale’s jaw dropped with disbelief.
“But not without possibly losing Jasmine or Declan in the process,” Kett continued. “I assume you aren’t interested in trading one for the other.”
“No,” I whispered, stepping out from behind him.
“Finally,” Yale said. “I have demands.”
I lifted my hands to the air, calling the magic of the Fairchild estate toward me. I reached out across every square foot of the two hundred and eighty acres, calling for the wards on the manor and the protective wards that edged the property.
“There will be no bargain, vampire,” I said. “No one, not even my own blood, threatens either of the two your brood now hold. The time to talk has passed.”
“If it isn’t clear to you already, witch,” Yale snarled. “I control my progeny, mind to mind. Act against me, and they will snap the necks of your companions. No matter how many doubts the executioner thinks he’s sown in their minds.”
I didn’t bother answering. I didn’t have time to answer, because the energy buried deep within the land around me had come to my call eagerly. As if it had been biding its time. It rose up from the ground beneath my feet, filling me as if I was an empty vessel and it was my blood and air. My soul.
“What …!” Mania tried to scream.
The air shifted around us. The trees along the edges of the clearing bowed toward me. The vampires clustered together, glancing around in panic.
I closed my eyes, building the power up and around me. Pulling more and more out of the estate while I threw my own magic out to meet it. Acting in desperation, seeking Declan and Jasmine’s salvation in the very thing I’d rejected.
I’d break every promise I ever made to myself if it gave me any chance to save them.
I opened my eyes. The earth rumbled underneath my feet. Magic swirled around me in a vibrant tornado of blue-streaked energy. I’d lost sight of the vampires, of Jasmine and Declan. The magic I’d called forth, heedless of set boundaries and proper casting, grew impatient. It tore from my grasp, churning all around me.
And suddenly, it was too much to hold. Too much to command.
I’d gambled, acting instinctively and rashly. And I was going to lose. It was too much magic to wield. It was going to consume me.
I threw my arms out, screaming my frustration and pain into the ravaging tornado.
I lost my footing. I was being pulled into the storm I’d created in my ignorance and fear.
Then Kett was behind me, wrapping one arm around my shoulders and one around my waist, anchoring my bare feet to the ground. And thus shielded, I came to understand that the magic just wanted me to command it. It wanted my control.
I was its instrument, its vessel. But it was mine to wield.
My sight cleared.
Declan and Jasmine were sprawled on the ground at the center of the cyclone, as if they’d been dropped when the magic first hit their captors. Both appeared to be unconscious. Still breathing.
The other three vampires were struggling against the magic that bound them, Mania and Amaya too far away to reach their targets. But then Yale hunkered down, clawing his fingers into the ground and pulling himself forward. Close enough to brush his fingertips against Jasmine’s outstretched arm.
I whispered to the energy eager to do my bidding. “Protect Jasmine and Declan.”
The magic shifted, wrapping around the two of them. It pulled them out of harm’s way even as it pressed against the vampires. Yale grimaced against the onslaught. Mania and Amaya flailed. Their mouths moved as if they were shouting, or perhaps even screaming. But I couldn’t hear anything but the triumphant song of my ancestral magic.
Jasmine and Declan were lifted, held aloft out of the vampires’ reach and cushioned by the magic of the estate.
My footing slipped again. Kett’s grip intensified. The magic tugged at me insistently. I was going to be pulled apart if I didn’t get everything under control. But the energy was overwhelming. Incalculably strong.
And some part of me wanted to let go. To simply be swept away, to be consumed.
Kett pressed his lips against my throat. My skin felt as though it was aflame. I was burning up, but his cool touch focused me.
He was asking to bite me. But why?
The torrential magic was tugging at him, trying to pull him away from me. Just as it had pulled Declan and Jasmine from the grasp of the other vampires.
But Kett and I were keeping each other grounded. Without him, I would have been lost. I was certain of that.
The magic of the estate and the wards had heeded me, protecting Jasmine and Declan because of the blood in our veins. It was most likely that the vampires had gained access to the property and the cottage wards because Valko had likewise bitten Jasmine.
I understood without asking that Kett hoped my blood would do the same for him. I wrapped my left hand up and around his head, tilting my head to the right and exposing my neck to him.
Kett’s fangs slid into my skin with a sharp pinch of pain.
Yale appeared suddenly only a few feet away, continuing to close the space between us despite the storm of magic around him.
Kett drank from me, keeping me grounded and clearheaded within the steel cage of his arms.
I raised my right hand, palm facing Yale. The magic I’d called forth had coalesced around the bracelet on my wrist, manifesting in a hurricane of blue witch magic swirling around my forearm and hand.
Yale latched on to my other arm, trying to use me to anchor himself as Kett was doing. His grip was bruising.
Without raising his head, Kett reached through the whirlwind of magic surrounding the three of us to grab Yale’s wrist.
But before he could do anything more, I spoke, intoning my own doom and binding myself to the Fairchild coven irrevocably.
�
��Every sliver of darkness shall be stripped from this land. We Fairchilds will walk in the light.”
Then I slammed the ancestral magic I was wielding into Yale’s chest. He flew backward and was ensnared by the whirlwind — which promptly ejected him across the boundaries of the estate. I felt, rather than saw, the moment he passed through the wards.
Mania and Amaya weren’t so fortunate.
Backed by the power that resided in my bracelet — Vampire’s Bane, as I’d named it to Yale — the magic at my command completely consumed them until they were nothing but ash whirling around us.
Kett licked my neck, murmuring in my ear, “You are magnificent. You are everything I thought you would be, my chosen one.”
Then he released me, walking into the magic. The power of the estate didn’t touch him.
His voice sounded in my head. I’ll make certain that he stays away.
Without Kett to anchor me — or perhaps because I’d simply wielded too much power too quickly, exhausting my reserves — I began to lose my hold on the ancestral magic.
Blackness encroached on my vision. The magic I called forth was demanding more from me than I had to give.
I fell to my knees, crawling across to Jasmine and Declan. They appeared to be sleeping peacefully just beneath the still-churning storm. I pressed a hand to each of their chests, feeling their hearts beating soundly against my palms. Relief flooded through me.
They would survive, even if I didn’t. They would go on.
The magic abruptly settled around us, as if I’d satisfied it somehow.
The sky cleared. Stars were beginning to appear. A light coating of ash fell across my outstretched arms and hands.
Then everything went dark.
Chapter 12
I woke to the sound of murmuring voices. Blinking rapidly, I attempted to bring the bright day around me into focus. I was staring up at a cloudless light-blue sky. The ground was warm underneath my back, though I could see the mist of my own breath.
A shadow moved across my face. A person was hunched over me, peering down with deep concern etched across her olive skin and dark-green eyes.
No. She wasn’t hunching. She was simply leaning over to block the sun from my face.
A brownie.
On Fairchild land.
I closed my eyes.
The murmuring intensified.
The day was cold, the temperature easily below freezing. Based on the amount of light in the sky, I’d been on the ground for at least twelve hours. At minimum, I should have had hypothermia, or even have died from exposure. But I felt cozy, well rested. And … somehow … whole.
I opened my eyes again, reaching out to the sides and feeling for Declan and Jasmine. They were curled to either side of me, warm and still slumbering.
I sat up.
Three brownies were standing vigil over us. Two females, one younger than the other. And a male to judge by his shorter hair, along with the overalls he wore as opposed to the sleeveless A-line burlap dresses the females wore. They stood less than three feet tall but were exceedingly stout. Their large feet were bare, and their overly large hands were primly folded. They regarded me without blinking.
“Good morning,” I said. I should have been sore, completely drained, but I wasn’t.
“We heeded your call, mistress,” the younger of the females said. Her voice was deep and full of gravel. “We’ve removed every object of dark magic from the property.”
“Oh.” Completely baffled by their appearance, I couldn’t remember demanding anything of the sort about dark magic.
“I told you we should have clarified,” the male whispered. His voice was so husky I felt as though I could feel it reverberate through the ground.
He caught me looking at him, and his deep-brown eyes widened. He murmured as he nodded his head in a gesture that looked suspiciously like a bow. “The Fairchild.”
“We’ve been awaiting your return,” the young female said. “I’m Lark. This is my grandmere Tulip and my nephew Jim. We have taken the items we’ve confiscated to our cousin Blossom, who attends the alchemist, the treasure keeper, and the far seer.”
Disbelief rolled through me — followed by intense panic. I pressed my hands to my face.
The brownies had reclaimed Fairchild Manor.
At my command, they had stripped Jasper’s dark artifacts from the estate. Then, as far as I could figure from the titles Lark had listed and those titles’ connection to Jade — aka the dowser, aka the alchemist — the brownies had given those dark artifacts to the guardian dragons. The consequences of that action were unquantifiable. Or at least they were for me in that moment.
I forced my hands into my lap. “That … that … thank you.”
Lark placed her hands at her hips proudly. “It’s our pleasure to serve the real Fairchild.”
I nodded. Then I continued nodding, as if I understood what they were saying. Which I wasn’t completely certain that I did. “But … but … Bluebell,” I whispered. “She’s dead because of us. Because of me.”
Tulip nodded sagely. “Bluebell made her choice. As we have.”
Lark patted my shoulder awkwardly. “You are the Fairchild now. I will serve you.”
Declan groaned.
The three brownies disappeared.
He sat up abruptly. With a pained expression, he pressed his hand against his head. “Wisteria. What the hell have you done now?”
Ignoring him, I knelt beside Jasmine, touching her cheek lightly. As her eyes fluttered open, I let out a relieved breath.
Declan swore.
I glanced back.
He was pressing his hand to the frozen ground on which he was now kneeling. He looked up, catching my eye. “Tell me you didn’t tie all three of us to Fairchild land.”
I opened my senses to the magic embedded in the earth beneath me. It hummed sleepily, almost as though it was utterly content. I swallowed, feeling a little ill as the ramifications of what I’d done hit me. That was why the magic had settled after I’d laid hands on Declan and Jasmine.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Damn you, Wisteria,” Declan hissed. “If I wanted to be a Fairchild, I would have stayed.”
“Shut the hell up, Declan,” Jasmine snapped. “Wisteria just saved both our asses. Again.” She struggled to prop herself up, glaring at her brother. “You going to whine about it for another twelve years?”
Declan opened his mouth to make some angry retort, but then stopped himself. Instead, he cast his gaze my way. “That depends.”
Jasmine sighed, shaking her head. Then she grabbed my shoulder, beckoning to Declan with her other hand. “All right, Mr. Grumpy Pants, care to help me up?”
Declan swept Jasmine into his arms as he stood. Then he strode off toward the manor without another word.
I stood, following Declan and Jasmine at a more sedate pace. Glancing around as I crossed through the gardens, I realized that the vibrancy that had felt like it had been missing had returned to the property.
I trailed behind Declan as he carried Jasmine through the back door to the kitchen, feeling the wards of the house slide across me like a caress.
“Did you feel that?” Jasmine murmured.
Declan grunted in response.
Previously, the magic tied to the estate had felt as though it was trying to connect with me. To cajole me and guide me. But now it felt settled. Present, but content.
Jasmine dropped her hand from Declan’s shoulder, trailing it across the well-worn wood-block kitchen counter as they brushed past it. Then she rubbed her fingers together.
So I wasn’t the only one who could feel the shift in the estate’s magic.
Declan strode forward into the dining room, then the parlor beyond, leaving a trail of dirt and other debris behind him. His leather jacket and work boots were streaked with dried mud.
I paused by the dark oak table in the dining room, glancing down to note that every item I was current
ly wearing was smeared with ground-in dirt as well. My sweater and pants were ripped. I’d left my coat and my bag somewhere in the clearing, along with my socks and shoes.
I reached up and brushed my fingers against my neck, remembering where Kett had bitten me. The skin there was smooth and didn’t feel bruised.
Through the open doors to the front parlor, Declan settled Jasmine down on the green chaise, then looked back at me. His gaze settled on my hand still touching my neck.
He frowned as he reached up to touch his face. The wound he’d sustained in his struggle with Amaya had healed. He shook his head as if trying to wake himself or recall a memory. “Was it the estate’s magic that healed us?” he asked. “And what the hell happened with the vampires?”
I dropped my hand. “Kett went after Yale,” I said. “The estate’s magic … consumed Amaya and Mania, then healed us.”
Declan muttered something under his breath. It sounded like vicious satisfaction.
“Or the brownies, maybe.” I continued through into the parlor. “Bluebell used to heal our minor cuts and bruises.”
“Against Jasper’s orders,” Jasmine said, settling her head back against the arm of the chaise with her eyes closed.
“What brownies?” Declan asked.
I brushed my fingers against Jasmine’s curls as I crossed around the chaise. Not even thinking about it, I flicked my fingers toward the stack of logs in the fireplace as I sank down in the chair across from my cousin. A fire I shouldn’t have been able to summon so effortlessly flickered to life.
Apparently, claiming the estate’s magic came with side benefits. I just didn’t want to think about the unfortunate consequences yet.
Jasmine laughed, quietly pleased.
“So you’re back to not answering questions,” Declan said.
I smiled at Jasmine, simply wanting to sit by the fire with my best friend for a moment of respite. “No,” I said. “I’ll answer anything you wish to ask me.”
Declan nodded. But then he stayed silent, apparently satisfied for the moment.
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