by Mindy Klasky
“No!” The bellow was loud enough to be heard over the flame. A hand joined Neko’s, iron fingers clamping down so hard I could not resist. I was tugged back a full step. Another. One more.
David gripped me with his right hand, biting through muscle to bone.
He was my warder, and we were bound mind to mind. I could have fought him. I could have ripped away, using my witchy power as a lever.
But he was more than my warder. He was the man I loved. He loved me, and he was determined to drag me to safety, even if I was willing to pass through the wall of fire.
I was sobbing in earnest now, fighting for words. I could cast a spell. I could break free from David’s grip, hurting him in the process, maybe destroying him, destroying us. I could offer up the power of my mind, my heart, my voice, and I could use it to break everything I valued.
But I already knew the truth. There was no hope on the other side of the harpy. The fire had caught too well. The walls were involved now, and the ceiling too. The couch was a mound of flame.
And the candle, the pillar of wax that we witches had chanted around for days, for weeks on end, it burned too. Part of me knew that was impossible. The candle should have already melted away, sacrificed in the first burst of the harpy’s fury. But another part of me understood that all the rules I’d always known were gone now, incinerated like so much else I’d valued.
Neko shoved his shoulder under my left arm. David yanked even harder on my right. Together, the two men pulled me out of the living room, through the warded doorway, into a protective tunnel of safety bolstered by the warder’s energy David had poured into the farmhouse for ages.
We were sheltered on that fiery porch. We were protected down the flaming steps. The wards held despite the blazing onslaught, despite the magic that scorched around us. I barely noted the other witches, gathered in a tight circle a scant safe distance from the house. I scarcely took note of their familiars and warders, all pressed close to the women they served. I hardly realized Spot was leaning toward us, straining to break free from Caleb’s restraining hand, howling like a black-coated banshee.
I could not tear my attention from the farmhouse.
I saw the moment the fire reached the curtains in David’s office. I watched it stalk into our bedroom. I saw the attic kindle, watched the conflagration in the perfect round window that looked out like a solitary eye. The shingles smoked before they burst into flame.
And then the entire house was bathed in a rain of sparks. There was a roar as the roof caved in, and another as the second floor collapsed. Wooden bones reached to the sky, grasping fingers enrobed in fire.
Out of the destruction, out of the fire and heat and utter devastation rose the harpy. Her wings fanned the flames beneath her, and her voice cried out another shriek of perfect victory and loss.
We crouched beneath her, all of us covering our heads, crying, begging, pleading to escape as the harpy climbed into the sky. She flew toward the garage, toward the witches’ dormitory, where she circled three times. Each loop brought her closer to the roof, and each passage shed another handful of feathers, flaming teeth that chewed into the building.
One more time she rose, pumping to gain height in the midnight sky. This time, she stroked toward the barn. We could not see her as she circled that structure. We could not see the feathers drop, could not see the roofline kindle. But we watched her rise above the dip in the land, and we saw her head into the stratosphere like a reverse meteor, fading into a distant golden star.
Before I had a chance to speak, I was confronted with yet another disaster. There was a flash of darkness in the center of the driveway, in the precise spot that was halfway between the burning dormitory and the engulfed house. I blinked, and the darkness dissipated. In its place stood three human figures. A crouching woman, shielding her face from the light and heat of the flames. A man, feet planted, already surveying the landscape for threats. And another woman, a witch, standing tall in a crepe wool suit.
This time, Teresa Alison Sidney was too late to save me from the ravenous beast my magicarium had released. This time, she wasn’t here to match my powers, to speak a spell that would drain my energy and make me question my very worthiness to serve as magistrix.
This time, Teresa was claiming the spoils of war.
CHAPTER 11
David took three strides toward Ethan, curling his fingers into fists. “Get the hell off my property!” He raised his voice to be heard over the crackling flames.
Teresa slashed her hand, forbidding Ethan to respond in kind. Before David could follow through on his threat, the Washington Coven Mother turned to me and said, “Curb your warder.”
My fury was as hot as the fire raging behind me. She had no right to insult David on his own front lawn. And she certainly had no right to order me to do her dirty work. Neko glided up beside me, quivering as he leaned close, ready to lend support. I settled a hand on his shoulder and prepared to work whatever spell I needed to get Teresa to leave. I started with staring her down and saying, “Get the hell off my property.” I matched David’s tone precisely.
Teresa laughed, offering up her palms in an elaborate shrug, throwing her head back in an exaggerated gesture that merely emphasized the long line of her neck. “Careful, magistrix,” she said. “I come to offer succor. You don’t want me to leave now.”
I snorted. “Succor? Is that what they’re calling total and complete destruction these days?”
“I had nothing to do with the harpy.”
“The mere fact that you know—”
With a flash of her accustomed authority, she interrupted me. “Means that I have a familiar. Connie learned the truth from Neko.”
I tightened my grip on my own familiar’s shoulder.
Teresa’s new laugh was a throaty chuckle, her amusement so confident that my blood started to boil as hot as the paint on the remaining farmhouse walls. “Calm yourself, magistrix. Your familiar did not betray you. He issued a challenge to my Connie. He accused us of summoning the harpy.”
I sent an apologetic flash to Neko along our shared line of communication. “But that doesn’t explain why you came. What do you want from me?”
“I’m here as Coven Mother.”
“You’re not my Coven Mother.”
“Not any more,” she agreed. “But you laid the centerstone for our safehold. Your power infuses our coven every time we meet. We know you, sister, and we mourn your loss. I, for one, cannot ignore another witch in need as great as yours.”
I didn’t believe for one moment that Teresa offered me sympathy or support. But she was right. My need was great.
I needed a place to regroup, to gather my thoughts and my astral energy. I needed to identify the traitor who had brought the harpy into our midst. I needed to go after Pitt. But before any of that could happen, I needed a place to shelter my students, to protect them and their familiars and their warders.
A joist burned through behind me, and part of the farmhouse roof collapsed into the conflagration. The fire roared higher, like an angry bear poked out of hibernation.
Teresa raised her voice to close the distance between us. “You need me, magistrix. You need what only I can offer.”
“And what is that?”
“A refuge. A place for you to live with your students. Their warders. Their familiars.”
“Where?” My voice curled up in incredulity. Who had instant housing for nearly two dozen people?
“Blanton House.”
The two words shocked me into silence. Blanton House was a mansion in downtown Washington. Any DC librarian knew that. “How can you offer a treasure like Blanton House?”
“I own it. Or rather, the Washington Coven does. It’s mine to use as I see fit.”
Of course it was. Some of the richest matrons in Washington had belonged to the Washington Coven at times in the past. I could only imagine the tangle of paperwork that gave Teresa title. “What’s your price?” I asked. Because with Te
resa, there was always a price.
“Ah, ah, ah,” she said, waving a finger as if I were a naughty toddler. “I’ve offered up my property. You make the first bid.”
Another joist burned through the ruins at my back, and sparks soared into the night-time sky, creating new constellations before they flickered and died. Despite the blast furnace behind me, a shiver crept down my spine. I had nothing to bid, nothing to trade. There was no way the Osgood collection could survive the conflagration. Its ancient books were already charred to dust, along with all my wands and runes and herbs. Whatever crystals we eventually dug from the ashes would be clouded and cracked. Even the iron cauldrons and silver flasks would turn to slag.
I had a few thousand dollars in a bank account. The clothes on my back. My skills as a librarian. Nothing of value to the Coven Mother. Nothing worth trading for a home.
Except…
“I’ll serve the coven. I’ll work whatever spells you desire. You saw me set your centerstone. You know what I can do.”
Teresa’s pout was pretty as she shook her head. “Our safehold has been built for two full years. The coven can handle its own witchcraft.”
David stepped forward. “Then I’ll serve the coven.”
“No!” I cried, even as Teresa’s lips curled into a satisfied smile.
This was the reason she’d come to the farm, the reason she’d offered up Blanton House. This bid for David was the logical extension of the benefaction she’d demanded the night she banished the satyr. Then, she was satisfied with a book about warders. Now, she wouldn’t leave without the man.
“One year of service,” she said. “Bound directly to me and—”
“Never,” I interrupted, and for one sharp moment, my vehemence soared even hotter than the flames at my back.
“One day,” David countered calmly. “For every year the Jane Madison Academy occupies Blanton House.”
Teresa shrugged her acceptance.
I clutched at his arm. “You can’t agree to this. This is exactly what she wants.”
But David had started this mad bidding seven years ago. Seven years ago, he had reported one of Teresa’s witches for improper workings, leaving the Coven Mother to answer to Hecate’s Court. Certainly he’d been punished for his own role in the fiasco, cashiered from the coven, relegated to working for Pitt. But he’d embarrassed the famed Teresa Alison Sidney. He’d called her power into question.
And she’d waited all this time to make him pay.
David said to me, “This is exactly what we need.”
He looked over my shoulder, to the clutch of my students huddling on the driveway. Most were staring at the flames in sick fascination, hypnotized by the fiery dance of destruction. Raven had planted her feet, leaning into her familiar, Hani, as if she intended to blast the fire into submission by the sheer power of her rage. Bree stood tall, shaking her head at the chaos, studying the ruins as if she were already calculating what could be salvaged.
And Cassie huddled on the ground, sobbing against Zach’s sling as if her heart would break. Tupa looked on helplessly, only able to offer comfort by petting one of her braids. The poor thing had passed her breaking point—satyr and orthros and harpy had pushed her beyond any endurance.
Zach needed to get her away from here. He needed a roof over her head, a place where she could sleep for days if necessary, for weeks, however long it took for her to heal.
Cassie was only the most vulnerable of my students. She had broken, but the others had to be teetering on the edge as well. They’d all been dragged through chaos. They’d all witnessed the brutal attacks. They’d all been exposed to danger, and their bodies, minds, and magic had to be disintegrating under the constant barrage of adrenaline.
David waited for me to look back at him before he asked, “What other option do we have?”
The farmhouse seemed to hear that desperate question. The back wall collapsed forward, falling into the fiery pit that had once been the basement, that had once held the Osgood collection.
I turned back to Teresa. “I choose the day.”
“Absolutely not.”
I had to challenge her, make the deal hurt her as much as it could hurt us. “Then we’ll sign a lease. Ninety-nine years. Rent-free.”
Her eyebrows quirked, as if she were questioning David’s longevity. But she humored me. “Ninety-nine years. Rent-free.”
This was too easy. One day of warder’s service in exchange for a year in a mansion? She had to be planning something, plotting something terrible.
I whirled to David. “We’ll rent some place. We can take out a loan. We can sell more of the woods, the lake, something…”
But he only shook his head. We weren’t going to find a rental property for two dozen people overnight. Our credit history wasn’t that good. And there wasn’t time to negotiate the destruction of more of the woods, the ripping apart of the natural landscape we’d sworn to protect.
He set his hand against my cheek. “All will be well,” he said.
I pulled away. “It won’t be!”
“I’m your warder,” he said, grabbing for my hand. “And I tell you all will be well.”
He couldn’t promise me that. I could keep him from sealing the bargain with Teresa. I could restrain him, apply magical bonds, embarrass him in front of my students, Teresa, and Ethan. I could keep him from making himself a sacrificial lamb.
But David wasn’t a lamb. He was a warder with decades of experience, swaddled in his own brand of masculine magic. He recognized the danger. He accepted the risk Teresa offered.
I closed my free hand over his. I bowed my head, and whispered, “So mote it be.”
As if on cue, a long wail sounded in the distance. For a heartbeat, I thought it was at the harpy, coming back in vengeance and pride, returning to complete the work she’d begun, burning us all to charcoal strips.
But the cry faded away, only to rise again, and I realized I was listening to sirens. Not the ancient Greek monsters, the songstresses who lured sailors onto rocks. Rather, the Parkersville Fire Department was responding. I glanced at Raven, then at Skyler. Either of them could have summoned the rescuers with her phone.
David took his hand from me and knelt before the Coven Mother. He bowed his head, barely shuddering as she set her palms upon his shoulders. “Well met, Warder Montrose,” she said. “So mote it be.”
After the ritual words, he was free to rise, free to grip my wrist and drag me toward the approaching firefighters. The men were already shaking their heads, patently admitting they could do nothing to save the home I’d loved, the school I’d founded, the burning shell of all my worldly possessions.
When I looked back, Teresa had disappeared, spirited away with Connie, escaped through the power of her own sworn warder.
~~~
I sank onto the steps in Blanton House, running both hands through my hair before I shrugged my shoulders up to my ears. Trying to force myself to relax, I said, “I still don’t like it.” I directed my words to the carpet runner that covered the oak planks beneath my feet.
David sighed. “We’ve gone over this a hundred times. I don’t like it either. But what other option did we have?”
I didn’t answer, because there wasn’t anything to say. We’d paid to put everyone up at the Parkersville Motor Lodge, but that was obviously a temporary solution. As the sun rose after a sleepless night, we’d agreed to take advantage of the mundane calendar, to announce a week of Thanksgiving vacation for everyone.
They all needed a chance to recover, to shop for everything from aspirin to underwear. And even Hecate’s Court couldn’t fault us for giving the time off, not when we’d met their most recent deadline. Lighting the candle communally would have been “substantial progress” even if we hadn’t raised enough power to burn the farmhouse to the ground.
So now we were alone in Blanton House. The mansion was actually five joined townhouses, occupying a city block in downtown DC. They’d been built by f
amed architect Henry Blanton. Each had originally been designed as a separate home—one for the avowed bachelor Blanton, another for his widowed mother, a third for his spinster sister. A fourth house had been dedicated to the Thanatopsis Society, one of Blanton’s pet projects, bringing together intellectuals of the day to discuss art, literature, and philosophy. The fifth had been reserved for Mimi Breton, Blanton’s mistress. The basements and attics of all five buildings were connected. According to Blanton, the arrangement facilitated care for his aging mother. According to social wags of the day, the arrangement facilitated Blanton having his mistress close enough, but not too close.
I could only hope I’d be keeping Pitt’s traitor close enough. But not too close.
The real reason I’d given my students a break was because I didn’t want the mole nipping at my heels as I set up our new home. Once again, my thoughts flashed around the circle of suspects: Alex. Bree. Cassie. Skyler. I’d felt sheer joy from every one of them when we’d successfully lit the candle. Each of my students had thrown herself into that working, offering up her own powers without limitation. How could someone who had shared herself so intimately be a traitor?
I could ask the question all day, but the fact remained: someone had done precisely that. And I was left with the haunting Greek chorus: Who? Who? Who?
“We have to make this work,” I said, yielding the argument over David’s indenture to Teresa, the same way I had every other time we’d fought about it. “We have to catch Pitt’s pawn in action.”
“Much more action, and we’ll all be dead.”
I didn’t have an answer to that.
Despite our grim expectations upon arriving at our new home that morning, we’d found Blanton House completely clean. Either Teresa knew housekeeping spells I’d never heard of or she’d hired an army of housekeepers to get the place ready overnight. The floors gleamed as if they were newly waxed, and the windows sparkled like sun-struck lakes. Couches, armchairs, beds—all were dust-free and ready for occupation.
But the immaculate physical premises were not our primary concern.
