Avery frowned, and glanced at the witches. “Your grandmother? Thomas, they couldn’t have known your grandmother, they’re—”
“Not them,” Thomas snapped. “The old ones. The crones.”
It rang in Avery’s mind like a bell, clear and loud and terribly sad. “You… you’re grandmother was Esme? The third crone?”
“She was pregnant when they threw her out,” Thomas said. “When they crammed her magic so far down she could never get to it again. Esme didn’t go insane while she was in Faerie—she lost her mind because they took away what made her who she was.” His face twisted with anger. The veins of his neck stood out. “And they did the same to my mother before she was even born. A generational curse. One that my mother spent her whole life trying to beat. She was almost sixty before she gave up. Before she finally settled down, and had me. I should have known her longer; it wasn’t fair—I never did anything wrong.
“But me? I figured it out. My mother gave me more than just her spark—she gave me a head start. She knew where to look, but she could never make it there.” His eyes brightened, and he smiled. “They could only whisper at first, and only when I reached out to them. But whispers were enough. Bit by bit they taught me how to make the most of what I had. And then they told me to come here. They had a plan, and when I help them, they’ll be here and they can take the binding off me entirely. I’ll finally have what I was meant to have. I’ll be the first enchanter to walk the earth in a thousand years.”
Avery’s phone went off. The timer he’d set. About now, the children would be syncing up. The air grew tense, taut as though something were pressing against the fabric of the world.
He had to do something. Thomas was bigger than him, but maybe if he could at least disrupt his concentration, the coven ladies would be freed.
Moving slowly, carefully, Avery bent his knees a bit and dug his heels down slightly into the soft ground.
Thomas, though, noticed. He sighed, and shook his head slowly. “I didn’t want this, just so you know.”
This time, Avery didn’t really hear the sound that Thomas made. Instead, he felt a pressure in his head, and his legs became leaden, growing heavier and heavier until they buckled, his knees slamming into the ground as he fell.
It was hard to breathe, and his sight was starting to go. The background sounds of the forest began to grow distant.
He groped for anything—any object that was roughly wand shaped. It probably wouldn’t matter, but he had to try something. He knew, in theory, a few things he could try if he could just keep his thoughts straight—but thinking was beginning to get hard. All the gears felt gummed up, and he was so, so tired.
Bailey was out there still. And Aiden. He couldn’t let them down, couldn’t let them return to a world he’d screwed up by being blind and incompetent. He felt himself falling forward, and braced himself on his hands. His vision narrowed until his fingers clawing at the earth were all he could see.
His fingers…
With a monumental effort, Avery heaved himself backward, forefinger rigid as he fell onto his back. He jerked his hand this way and that, drawing out a series of platonic solids in his mind’s eye as he muttered with a numb tongue and slack lips, summoning every ounce of will he had left even as it ebbed away.
He’d practiced Leiman’s Inverted Dispel so many times in just this way that once he got into the feel of it, it seemed to flow almost on it’s own. He felt the tip of his finger heat, and then sting, and then blister but the pain only served to draw some of his will back to him to complete the spell.
It clicked into place, sending a ripple of jagged, disruptive magic through the area. The enchantment cracked at the edges and then fell away, allowing Avery to surge to his feet gasping for air. His fingertip throbbed painfully—but he still had nine more not yet injured.
Thomas raised an eyebrow. He was sweating, his shoulders heaving. “Well now,” he said, “that is impressive. Unfortunately, you’re too late.”
In the distance, Avery heard the peal of a horn.
Chapter 21
“I’m glad you all came,” Bailey said to the assembled group. Ara and Fran didn’t seem happy about being dragged into the bakery after closing up, but they’d come none the less. The Sheriff had called them personally, and he was here now, along with Seamus, and Ryan.
The only person still missing was Braley, but Ryan had been the one to invite her by suggesting that there was important bakery business being discussed in light of Cleo’s death. Just vague enough that she was more or less assured to show up, he told them.
And, sure enough, she did. Once she saw who all was there, she paused and looked like she might leave. Instead, though she closed the door quietly behind her. “Alright,” she said, “I’m here. What’s going on?”
“I’m glad you ask,” Bailey said. “There have been some new developments regarding Cleo’s death that you’ll want to know about.”
Braley folded her arms, and leaned against the wall near the door. “So? What more is there to know?”
Bailey wandered across the floor toward the glass case, and tapped the cracked glass there where it radiated from a particular point. “Cleo didn’t have an injury on the back of her head,” she said. “My first thought when I saw it was that she must have struck it during the struggle and that maybe that was how she was overcome. Then, my other theory was that whoever killed Cleo miscalculated the strength of the murder weapon—the chain from the pocket watch—and fell backwards when it broke. Except, of course, the chain on the watch they pulled off of Carson wasn’t broken, was it?”
“No,” the Sheriff said. “It wasn’t.”
Bailey fished the broken link out of her pocket. “Which makes me wonder, then, where this link came from.” She held it up.
“Let me see that,” Seamus said, and accepted it from her when he placed it on his hand. He looked at it closely, turning it over on his palm. “It’s the same style. But the watch chain isn’t broken.”
“I would venture a guess,” Aiden said, “that the killer had it repaired afterward.”
“Why?” Braley asked. “That’s stupid. That link could belong to any chain.”
“Yes,” Bailey agreed, “it absolutely could. That would be kind of a wild coincidence though, wouldn’t it?”
“We clean the floor every day,” Fran said darkly. “That broken link was recent.”
“So let me get this straight,” Braley sighed. “Carson comes in here, strangles Cleo with the watch chain, and in the process it breaks and he falls backwards and hits his head on the glass, and then he goes to get his watch chain repaired?” She snorted. “He could have just thrown it out.”
“That would have been the smart thing to do,” Aiden agreed. “Except he didn’t realize the chain had been broken. The killer took it to an expert to have it repaired before it was given back to him.”
The room was quiet, and all eyes were on Braley.
“The other part that was wrong,” Bailey said, “is that Carson didn’t have an injury on the back of his head. Not like you do, Braley.”
Braley’s hand moved, and then stilled. She looked around at them. “Carson’s prints were on the watch,” she said. “He did it. Carson killed Cleo. Why would I even—”
“Because you were hoping that Carson would buy the bakery and cut you in for a bigger share of the sale,” Fran said sadly. “The first thing you did when Cleo died was come in here to talk about the sale, Braley.”
“You got upset when Fran had changed her mind,” Ara added. “You should have been upset about losing your mother, but all you cared about was the money.”
The scene made Bailey’s stomach sour. Being hungry as she was didn’t help. “You left Carson after he gave you the watch,” she said. “We saw you leave in the direction of the bakery. And we saw Carson arguing with Fran before he was with you.”
“Right,” Braley said, getting frantic, her eyes flicking from one face to the other. “Right, exac
tly! Fran makes more sense than me—she wanted to sell, and Cleo didn’t and she knew I would want to if I inherited Cleo’s part of the business!”
Fran shook her head slowly. “That’s not the point, girl.”
“The point is,” Aiden said finally, “Carson was in sight continuously until Cleo was found. But you weren’t. And you had the watch.”
Braley stared at them.
And then, she smiled.
Everyone smiled.
Ryan began to clap, and soon the others followed them, while Bailey and Aiden closed some of the distance between them. Bailey had a bad feeling growing in her gut—different, now; nervous.
Cleo stepped out from behind the counter, clapping as well, her too-wide smile making her face seem stretched.
“Very good!” Ryan said. “Very good! Well done, both of you.”
Bailey had to center herself to keep the confusion from dulling her wits. “There was no murder,” she said. “This was the game, then?”
“And you won!” Ryan said. Another round of cheers. “You may choose your boon, though I imagine I know what it is.”
“Naturally,” Aiden said, “we want the… we ask that you return the girl, Isabelle, who was taken from our world.”
Ryan winked, and tapped the side of his nose before he pointed approvingly at Aiden. “Clever boy. And of course, we are obligated to oblige.” He snapped his fingers.
The world sneezed. It was the only comparable sensation Bailey could give the sudden shudder that took place in the very skin of the world around them, and the violent jerk she felt on her senses. When it was over, the Bakery was gone. As were the disguises worn by the faeries gathered in the space around them.
Where the playing board of Coven Grove had been before, now there was a forest—once of ancient, alien trees as big around as houses, towering above them. Motes of light hung in the air, drifting like dandelion fluff. That wasn’t the only illumination, though. Each of the faerie creatures around them gave off a weak, glittering light as well. They weren’t so alien as Bailey imagined they would be—many looked like the denizens that had populated the fair. Sprites, and trolls, and pixies, and a few tall, sinewy beings that she imagined were the elder fae—the sidhe of the old stories, each of them blindingly gorgeous and delicate as glass work.
At the belt of several of them, there were whip thin blades hung in loops of gold that looked as though they were made of spun glass.
From behind one of those armed individuals, a little girl emerged. Isabelle. She didn’t look terribly frightened, but it was clear that she was nervous. In her tiny arms was clutched a ragdoll made of flowers and vines and shiny stones for buttons and eyes.
Bailey knelt slowly, and extended her arms toward the girl while Aiden attempted to keep an eye on every being in sight. “Isabelle?” Bailey asked.
The little girl nodded, uncertain what she should do.
“I’m Bailey Robinson,” Bailey said. “Your mother sent me to find you. She misses you. If you come with me, I can take you back to her. Would you like that?”
Isabelle shuffled her feet, and glanced up at one of the fae, who only shrugged, its narrow face disinterested as it looked down at her. After another nervous hesitation, she took a few steps toward Bailey and then, finally, closed the distance and let Bailey take her hand.
“That’s all?” Aiden said. “We win, you give us the girl? We’re free to go?”
“You are free to go, Aiden Rivers,” one of the tall fae said, fingering the handle of its sword. It was difficult to tell just by looking, or even hearing its voice, whether it was a man or a woman. Maybe Faeries didn’t have such distinctions. All of the sidhe among them were equally stunning, with long hair adorned with flowers and vines and small, shiny stones. Even their clothing looked somehow grown onto them; an extension of their bodies more so than any kind of garment.
Bailey didn’t trust them, and she knew that Aiden didn’t, either. Bailey tried to focus on the presence of one of the Faeries and open her mind to read its thoughts—but it was as though the being simply wasn’t there.
“Though,” the fae warrior said, its thin lips curling into a wicked grin, “getting back home could prove… challenging.”
A tinkling, high pitched laughter came from several of them, and was joined by hooting, babbling, and guffawing from the rest in short order.
Still laughing, one of the sidhe put a hand to its ear dramatically and tilted its head as though listening for a sound.
A sound came. The clarion call of a great horn being blown far, far away.
Aiden stiffened, and grabbed Bailey’s arm. “We can’t stay,” he said. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”
“What is that?” Bailey asked as she pulled Isabelle along to stagger after Aiden, recapturing the balance she lost when he pulled at her.
Aiden glanced over his shoulder as he led them away from the laughing faeries. His eyes were strained and worried. “Bad news, is what it is,” he said.
“That horn is the call of the wild hunt. If we don’t get out of here quickly…” He glanced at Isabelle.
He didn’t need to say. Bailey knelt, picked the girl up, and took off after Aiden at a dead run.
Chapter 22
What Avery lacked in raw power, he managed to make up for with some judicious ingenuity and intuition. If it had been anyone else—Aiden, or one of the elder witches—there was no chance he could hold his own.
As it was, Thomas was distracted, his attention split among the witches, and he clearly didn’t have that much raw ability to begin with. They were more or less evenly matched.
One finger at a time, Avery wove shapes and figures in the air before him, muttering formulae furiously. His middle finger singed to the second knuckle when Collier’s Ephemeral Chains fizzled and produced yarn-thin chains of pale green that Thomas broke with barely an effort. He spent his ring finger and Collier’s Ephemeral Shackles, which should have been his first choice but it wasn’t as though he had ample time to strategize.
Thomas fought back when the shackles materialized around his ankles and wrists, his eyes going wide when he realized that he was potentially well matched. He whistled and warbled, hands contorting into unnatural positions as though playing a complicated instrument, and the shackles burst into multi-colored flower petals and blew away on the breeze.
He raised his fingers as though to play a flute, and the wind picked up, howling through the trees like a ghostly orchestra that joined in with his whistling. Avery felt a spasm in his leg, and a moment later it began to jerk wildly in time with the music. The other leg followed, and he had to give into movement and let his lower body begin to dance while he focused his attention on casting Ergi’s Acoustic Disruption with his pinkie finger.
White noise filled the area when he was done, and a blister covered most of his pinkie. That was all for his right hand. Working with his left hand was a great deal more difficult, but as his feet stilled he raised his left forefinger and began to sketch out the shape of Radigan’s Unfortunate Stumble.
Thomas snarled at him, and charged, intent on making this fight physical if he couldn’t employ his magic. Halfway across the distance between them, however, Avery finished the spell and spoke the final segment of the formula. Thomas stumbled.
It didn’t stop there, of course. Radigan’s Unfortunate Stumble grabbed the reigns of entropy and jerked them sharply to the left, and the soil under Thomas’ bracing foot gave way, sending him into a face first dive which he attempted to save himself from by catching the fall on his hands. It just so happened that there was a small, pointed stone where one of his hands met the ground, and he howled as he fell sideways and onto his side.
Avery was already weaving Orson’s Entrapment with his left middle finger, eyes streaming with tears now from the throbbing of his right hand and the growing pain in his left. But he spoke the formula and drew the forms with precision and when the last equation left his lips bands of air grew thick enough ar
ound Thomas’ form that they distorted what little light there was to see by.
Thomas’ body stiffened, and he opened his mouth to try some kind of magic; but couldn’t. The air in front of his mouth caught and muffled the sound. Moreover, three angry witches stood over him, freed from the enchantment when he lost his concentration in the fall.
Avery sighed relief, and fell to his knees, clutching his burned hand to his chest. When he looked up from it, the three women were watching him with a mix of shock and approval. While Frances and Chloe began to mutter some spell over Thomas, Aria came and knelt beside him.
“What happened?” She asked him, gently prying Avery’s hand from his chest to examine it.
“I didn’t have a wand,” he said, wincing from the pain of contact, “so I used my fingers instead. I guess there’s a good reason for a wand.”
“That’s quite a feat, Avery,” she said as she fished around in her bag. “And very brave. Thank you.”
“I still have two good fingers left,” he said. “We have to break the enchantment still.”
“You let us deal with that,” Aria chided, and whispered something as she sprinkled a powder over his injuries.
The pain did recede, but the injury wasn’t healed. Still, it was a great deal less distracting now. “Thank you,” he told her.
She kissed his forehead, and rose with him to check on Thomas.
Thomas stared at the sky, his face slack, his breath even. Already Orson’s Entrapment was beginning to weaken; sustaining spells like that was still beyond Avery’s ability. But it had done the job it needed to do. Frances and Chloe both muttered spells continuously.
That left only Aria and Avery to deal with the enchantment. Whatever psychic magic was in play to bind Thomas was beyond Avery’s knowledge to replace.
Witching There's Another Way: A Cozy Mystery (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 4) Page 14
