The Broken Witch

by Chandelle LaVaun

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Tennessee

  For all of my father’s talk about not being that injured and how he was fine… It was three whole days later before I was finally bringing him home. I’d taken the top off my Jeep and was somehow missing a piece, so I borrowed his truck to go pick him up. Katherine didn’t want him driving yet. Apparently, he had a pretty nasty blow to the head, which he naturally hadn’t described to me accurately.

  “Son?”

  I jumped and glanced over to him in the passenger seat. “Yeah? You okay?”

  “I was going to ask you the same. You haven’t spoken since we left the infirmary.”

  I haven’t? I blinked and looked back at the road. “Oh…um…yeah?” It was a blatant lie. I was definitely far from okay. My stomach was in knots, my magic kept slipping out of me without my approval, and my mind was a complete disaster.

  “Are you angry with me?” His voice was softer than I’d ever heard it.

  I frowned. “Why would— Oh, because you told me you were fine and not that injured, but it took three days to heal you and you’re still not allowed to drive or do anything strenuous? You mean because of that?”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, because of that.”

  “Are you usually mad at me when I pull the same stunt?”

  “No, just worried.” He sighed. “For two people who aren’t related by blood, we sure are a lot alike.”

  That made me smile. “I’m okay with that. It works for us.”

  I turned right onto our street, and my thoughts drifted to Tegan as we passed the Redd’s house. I wondered where she was and what she was doing. I wondered if she was okay. But more than anything, I wondered what she was planning. She knew the prophecy we were supposed to complete, and she knew the deadline was less than twelve hours away. Would she try and sabotage it? I hated that the thought had even occurred to me.

  Then again, we were no closer to solving it than the day the prophecy had arrived. We’d scoured every beach within an hour of us. We’d even searched the surrounding islands—yet we still found nothing. A fresh wave of crippling anxiety rolled through me. I gripped the steering wheel until my fingers throbbed…then I tried to think. Which beach haven’t we checked?

  It wasn’t until we were passing Tegan’s house that I realized my father was speaking to me. I grimaced and looked over to him. “Uh…”

  He shook his head. “I said, are things better with Cooper yet?”

  “He hasn’t attacked me again, so there’s that.”

  “It was just bad timing for him to find out…”

  I frowned and pulled into our driveway. “Wait, do you think I should’ve told?”

  “No. No, I don’t. I’m just saying the timing isn’t helping. He’s scared.” He unbuckled his seatbelt as I put the car in park, but he made no move to get out. “Which brings me back to you. Every time I ask, you brush it off, but I know you’re not okay. I’ve never seen you this much of a disaster.”

  I groaned and took off my seatbelt. “Come on, Dad. How would you feel? How would anyone feel if their soulmate turned out to be Darth Vader?”

  “Tennessee…”

  “No, I’m serious. I’m in love with someone who might start the apocalypse. Please tell me how I’m supposed to handle that. Tell me how I look my Coven-mates in the eyes?” I sighed and leaned back against my seat. It was silent a long moment, so I looked over at him only to find him staring at me with a weird expression. “What?”

  “I just…” He blinked and shook his head. “I’ve never heard you say that… You’re in love with her.”

  “Oh. Well…it’s the truth.” My cheeks filled with heat. I scrubbed my face with my hands to hide my blush, though I was sure he saw it. I cursed. “And I can’t help but think my feelings for her clouded my vision. I knew she was wild and a bit reckless. Did I encourage her too much and she went dark? Or maybe she was always that way, and I just freaking missed it and—”

  “Whoa, whoa. Easy, son. Breathe.” He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, the same way he did the day he found me alone in the mountains. When I looked over, his smile was as warm as the sun on a summer day. “You can’t do that to yourself. Those kinds of thoughts will tear a person apart.”

  “But she—”

  “Is your soulmate,” he cut in. “Yours. A person who is good down to his core. A person who puts himself last. A person who would go to his grave to save someone else. There is a reason she is your soulmate, so cling to that. When you arrived at the Garden of Eden, only the two of you were worthy enough to enter, by the Angel Gabriel’s words even. The Book of Shadows was confiscated as punishment for our ancestors’ wrongdoing. Tegan had to have been worthy at the time Gabriel returned it to her.”

  I opened my mouth then closed it. He made a valid point. I refused to suspect the angels to be working on the side of demons. That kind of thought was too terrifying to consider.

  “And remember…” He squeezed my shoulder tighter and ducked down to meet my eyes. “Darth Vader came back to the light side in the end. So hope is not lost.”

  There they are again. Those words followed me everywhere I went.

  “Something’s wrong,” he said suddenly and jumped out of the truck.

  I looked up and found Willow jogging up the walkway from my house toward the driveway. Her energy was anxious and nervous. Our front door stood wide open.

  I was out of the truck before she made it to us. “What happened?”

  At the same time, my father said, “What’s wrong?”

  She stopped and waved her hands wildly. “Cooper knows where the shells are. He and Bentley just showed up. Come, come, come!” She spun and ran back for the house.

  My father cursed and shook his head. “Goddess, I thought someone was hurt.”

  “She needs to work on her delivery.” I chuckled, though it wasn’t funny. I patted my father on the shoulder, then followed after Willow into my house.

  When I crossed over the threshold, I noticed with a start that the entire Coven was in my living room. They looked up at me and smiled. I nodded my head in greeting. I moved to join them when a big, burly man in a red and black flannel shirt stepped out in front of me. I flinched and took a step back. Timothy. I’d known he was coming. Hell, I was the one who’d said to call him, but I hadn’t been mentally prepared for him right that minute.

  Not after my father tore me open in the car. I needed a moment to get my emotions in check and my head back in the game. Constance and Kenneth had arrived two days ago, but apparently our Judgment Card needed to handle something first. Whatever that meant. My pulse quickened and my palms grew sweaty. I braced myself for confrontation.

  Timothy looked me up and down, then smiled. Not like a full, showing-teeth kind of smile, but at least half of his mouth curved upward. There was something oddly, and eerily, familiar about his expression, but I couldn’t place it.

  He held his hand out for me to shake. “Tennessee, I’m happy to see you back on your feet.”

  I took his hand and shook it...because I was so very confused. “Thank you.”

  “I bet you’re thrilled that glyph is pink.” He chuckled and shook his head. “Don’t look at me like that. Come on now. Cooper has some information to share.”

  I had no idea how I was looking at him, but I followed him into the living room anyway. When I glanced over my shoulder, my father just smiled and gestured for me to lead the way.

  Cooper sat in the middle of one of the sofas, perched on the edge with his elbows on his knees. His skin was flushed, and he had lines on his face, like he’d fallen asleep on something other than his pillow.

  Bentley jumped up from the ground and smiled. He may have inherited his eye color from his father, but his grin was just like his older brother’s. “Hey, guys, glad you’re back. We finally have a lead.”

  I tried to force a smile for Bentley, but my heart was pounding in my chest. This was it, our last chance to solve the prophecy. We’
d looked everywhere else we could think of. Everything was on the line. Even if they had a lead, I was afraid to get too excited.

  My father strolled over to the couch and sat down beside his nephews. “All right, fill us in.”

  Cooper sighed and ran his hand through his short blond hair. “Since we got back from the Old Lands, I’ve been dreaming of standing on the same beach, but I haven’t been able to figure out where it was. Then last night I realized the only people who I’d never seen the dreams of were Tennessee and Tegan.”

  “Wait…” Deacon sat up straight. His blond eyebrows were raised and his purple eyes wide. There were definitely things he didn’t want people to see in his dreams. “You’ve seen all of our dreams?”

  “I started scanning through them once we got back.” He held his palms up to stop everyone from talking. “But only for dreams that included beaches.”

  Deacon narrowed his eyes at Cooper. “So why not theirs?”

  “Because I asked him not to.”

  “And so did your girl.” Cooper’s pale green eyes looked up at me. Some of the animosity had faded, but it was far from gone. “Guess you two think alike. I didn’t tap into yours last night because, well, honestly I’m afraid of what I might see.”

  Easton chuckled. “And you thought Tegan’s would be safer?”

  “I thought Willow was right. Tegan usually figures stuff out.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “What did you find?”

  Cooper shook his head. “It wasn’t easy. She’s got some kind of blocking spell to keep me out. Bentley had to help me break through. In the dream, she was talking to Henley—like actual blue-eyed Henley.”

  Royce gasped. “You saw her? What did she say?”

  “I think Henley was trying to talk to Tegan through her dreams, since she can’t while awake.” Cooper leaned forward until he was barely on the couch. “She was dragging Tegan along the water and pointing to an island. Then Henley said Do you see it? Remember every detail of it. Read the stars so you can find it later. You must find it later. Tegan looked out at the island and everything, but when she turned back around, Henley had red eyes again. Then in that demon’s voice, it said Now that we found it, can we get there without your friends seeing? If they find it, they’ll use it to close the Gap before we can get my father in.”

  My stomach turned. I clenched my teeth and tried to stay calm.

  Royce shivered then tugged at his hair. Deacon patted his back and mumbled something.

  “What did Tegan say to that, in the dream?” Timothy asked.

  Cooper stared at the ground for a long moment before he raised his gaze to mine. “She looked down at her right arm, and the lines of her glyph spread farther down past her elbow. Then she whispered, Well, we can’t have that.”

  Kenneth pulled a massive book off the coffee table and started flipping through pages. He shook his head. “I don’t like the sound of this father at all. It must be a greater demon, which means the one inhabiting Henley’s body is more powerful than we realized.”

  “I know this goes without saying, but we can’t let a greater demon get through.” Timothy looked around at each of us. “That’s a battle we have no hope of winning.”

  Constance walked to the middle of the room. Her eyes were locked on the floor, and she chewed on her thumbnail, like she was lost in thought. Finally she looked up to Cooper. “Can you find this island?”

  Cooper nodded. “Yes, and I already got our boat ready.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Tennessee

  “I just don’t understand.” Willow spun around to face me from up at the front of our sailboat. “Why did we split up? Why didn’t we bring everyone? Isn’t that why we called the Elders down here?”

  “Because this feels like a trick,” I said.

  “A trick?”

  Ah, shit. I said that out loud. I licked my lips and shrugged. There was no point in lying now. “There is a chance this is a trap, or at the very least a distraction. That is why we separated.”

  Because Tegan was smart. It was the night of the First Quarter Moon, the night of the prophecy, the night they apparently planned on bringing a greater demon through the Gap. If I were them, I’d send us on a decoy mission to get us out of their way. And if I thought that way, I knew Tegan already had. It hurt deep down in my soul to think about my soulmate that way, but she left me no choice.

  So even if this was a trap, a devious trick of some kind, we had to be prepared. We sent Deacon, Emersyn, and Royce to Hidden Kingdom with Timothy and Constance. Easton and Lily were stationed at the infirmary. Bentley and Kenneth were also at the infirmary, but they were doing more research on greater demons just in case. Kessler, Hunter, and Devon were patrolling the neighborhood to keep the civilians safe—all of whom were ordered to stay indoors all night as a precaution. We had our bases covered, or at least we hoped.

  “I don’t like being separated. It makes me nervous,” Willow whispered and sat down.

  Paulina walked over and sat down beside her. She wrapped her arm around our Magician Card. “You’re not alone there. But he knows her better than us, so we have to go with it.”

  “THERE!” Cooper shouted from the very front of the sailboat. He pointed off to the left. “Right there. Go that way.”

  I frowned. I didn’t see an island. In fact, all I saw was thick, white fog seeping up from the ocean’s surface. The Gulf of Mexico was flat and calm in every direction. The First Quarter Moon hung low in the black sky, reflecting a narrow path across the water. Stars twinkled like diamonds above us. It was beautiful and eerie, but I saw no island. I turned the wheel and followed his finger anyway.

  Braison walked up beside me then sighed. “Coop, I don’t see a damn thing.”

  “Except fog,” Larissa said with a deep scowl on her face. “Unless that’s you, Willow?”

  She shook her head. Her eyes were wide. “Which way is land again?

  Chutney leaned over the rail and narrowed her eyes. “The fish… They’re saying to turn around. Maybe we should listen?”

  I cocked my head to the side. “Actually, that’s a fairly good indication we’re headed the right way.” After almost eight hours on the water, it was a relief to hear we weren’t wasting our time. Or lost. I could find our way back home to mainland easily enough, but I just didn’t know it off the top of my head at this point. We’d gone too far out.

  Cooper glanced over his shoulder to me. “Go through the fog.”

  Braison looked at me with one eyebrow raised. I shrugged and followed Cooper’s order. He was, after all, the Star Card. If there was anyone who could navigate simply by looking at them, it was him. And since he was the one who’d seen the island in his dreams, we had to trust him.

  I summoned the ocean to carry us forward at a faster speed than we’d been going. Waves rolled beside us as we moved through the current. The fog loomed before us, swaying and pulsing with energy. It reminded me of the runes in the balefire back in the Old Lands, like there was something living inside it. Those flames had sucked Tegan in. We’d almost lost her. A cold chill slid down my spine.

  Chutney spun around from the railing with wide light-blue eyes. “The fish say the fog has magic!”

  I cursed. I’d just been thinking of that. Then I remembered Deacon’s trick with the balefire. “Everyone come to me. Now.”

  No one hesitated. I waited until they were all by my side, then I pushed with my magic and called out a spell I’d learned long ago. “I call upon thy Water’s power, bind us for this trying hour.”

  Thick ropes shot out from around the ship and raced toward us like snakes. They wrapped around our ankles and wrists, securing us to the boat. It was a strange piece of magic Cassandra had taught me when I was a child. She’d said with my Water powers, I could control any ship or boat at will—all I had to do was ask. I’d used it randomly over the years for fun and practice, but never for safety. Guess she’d seen this, too.

  We were tied down n
ice and tight, and all in a group, so I knew there was no getting out. Not unless I instructed my magic to release us—or unless I died.

  “Willow, blind everyone but Cooper so we can’t see anything the fog shows us, including yourself. Cooper, tap my arm when we’re in the clear. Willow, wait for my command to release our vision—and only my command.”

  Cooper wrapped one hand around my bicep. “Got it.”

  Willow took a deep breath and held her palms up. Blue lightning cracked around her fingers. The fog crept over the tip of the boat. It was so thick and dense I couldn’t see through it. Willow’s energy tickled against my skin. Her power poured out of her in a blue wave of mist. It seeped up from the wooden planks of the boat, coiling around our feet and raising up inch by inch until I couldn’t see past my hips. Goose bumps spread across my arms. My stomach tightened into knots. The fog was only two feet away now. I hated the idea of being robbed of my vision, but I couldn’t risk losing myself.

  I gripped the steering wheel and braced myself. “Cooper, those ropes will hold you, okay? But if you tap my arm three times, I’ll have the water pull us back to mainland in an instant. Got it?”

  “Yeah, but if I let go of your arm, you get us the hell out of here, okay?”

  “Got it.”

  I looked to my left to gauge his emotions, but I only saw the flash of his light green eyes, and then everything went black.

  Larissa, Braison, and Paulina gasped. Their energies surged with fear. I felt them move closer to me. The others’ energies hardened, like they were bracing themselves for impact. Given what happened in the Old Lands, I understood. They were both calm and expecting a battle.

  The air turned ice cold, and it stung my exposed skin. I shivered and my teeth chattered together. I took deep breaths until my energy steadied. No matter how many times I blinked or how hard I tried, I couldn’t see anything but darkness. It was a black hole. The fog brushed across my face and through my hair. It smelled like an old garage. It felt like feathers and tickled everywhere it touched. But not the good kind that made you laugh— the creepy kind that made you shiver.