Escape to Witch City

by E. Latimer

  “Alexandria, you are my kind.” Lenore’s face grew sad. “You’re my sister, and you’re a witch. Our mother—”

  “Don’t you dare speak of her!” Queen Alexandria’s face twisted with disgust and rage. “She is dead to me, and to Isolde. She betrayed her real family for that filthy witch scum and she got what she deserved when they double-crossed her.” She took a step forward, fists clenched. “She let them into the palace that night! How could you have joined them after what they did, Lenore? How can you still be on their side? What’s the matter with you?”

  “Our mother made a mistake. As did I.” Lenore’s eyes were filling with tears. “But I have paid for that mistake many times over now.”

  Emma pressed her lips together, struggling to stay silent. She’d seen it all in the vision from the crystal, of course, but to hear Lenore admit to being one of the rebel witches was still shocking.

  Lenore continued, her voice soft. “How I wish you could see that there are no sides anymore. There are just witches and non-witches. The witches who destroyed our family don’t exist now, Lexa—”

  “Shut up!” Queen Alexandria cried. Her eyes were huge and glittering in her pale face. “You don’t get to call me that. You’re just as bad as she was. You let yourself become a monster. A filthy, unnatural magic user.” She was practically spitting the words now, her face growing more and more red.

  “Please.” Lenore had to raise her voice to be heard over the queen’s shouting. “Alexandria, I don’t know how many times I can apologize for what I did. I was young and foolish—”

  The queen didn’t seem to hear her. “You have no idea what I’m capable of. What I’m willing to do in order to destroy all of you.”

  Emma tensed, frowning, as the queen turned to stare at her once again, black eyes glittering. Instinctively, Emma took a step back. Her heels bumped the base of the well.

  The queen smiled, a thin, horrible expression, and her gaze dropped down to the posters clutched in Emma’s hand. Emma knew she should do something. Throw herself forward, cast the posters away from her, tear them up, maybe. But before she could even begin to move, a loud crack echoed through the room, and Emma’s fingers began to burn. She dropped the posters with a cry of terror, stumbling backward as the queen materialized directly beside her.

  Alexandria didn’t even look at her. Instead, she spun around and plunged a hand directly into the depths of the well. There were shrieks from around the room, and more than one witch started forward and then stopped, pulled up short by Lenore’s warning cry.

  The moment the queen’s hand hit the blue fire her body went stiff, her face white and slack. She trembled all over, so violently that Emma thought she could hear the woman’s teeth clacking in her jaws. For a moment, it looked as though she were merely having some sort of fit, and then the blue flame in the basin began to flicker lower and lower, and the queen shook harder. Her entire body convulsed in wild spasms, and sparks began to zip along the surface of her skin. Little zaps of electricity, like miniature streaks of lightning.

  Beside her now, Lenore reached out and grabbed Emma’s arm. “I need you to run—” she began to say, and then the queen screamed, the sound so high-pitched and raw that Emma’s hands flew to her ears automatically. The noise drowned out everything, filling the room with shrill, keening echoes, bouncing off the walls and ceiling until the entire, massive hall was filled with the horrible chorus.

  The queen’s eyes fluttered open, and Emma saw with horror that her pupils and irises had been fully taken over by glowing blue light, as if she were burning from the inside out.

  “Run!” Lenore cried. “Everyone, get out now.”

  Her aunt seized her arm, tugging her backward, but Emma was frozen to the spot. Not just because of the horrifying sight, but because of what she was hearing.

  Even over the bloodcurdling screams it was there—the familiar low, thrumming thud, thud, thud—and it was simultaneously the same as any regular heartbeat and also radically different. It started out normal, perhaps a bit fast due to fear and excitement, but as the blue fire filled the queen’s eyes, her heartbeat sped up, faster and louder, until it was like the frantic banging of drums in Emma’s ears.

  Not only that, but she could hear the beating of the city’s heart again, that low, deep rumble. Slowly, it was speeding up to keep pace with the queen’s heart—faster and higher, almost frenetic.

  There was something horribly wrong about the sound. Something that felt dangerous. It sent prickles of dread over Emma’s skin.

  It wasn’t supposed to sound like that.

  She forced the feeling of dread aside, trying to concentrate on the queen’s pulse, on the nearness of her heartbeat. The Noise felt different somehow, it was more…present. Now it felt like she could reach out and touch it. The idea scared her more than anything else had so far. It made her bones feel as if they were made out of ice. But what if she, Emma, could stop this?

  If the queen’s heartbeat continued on like this, she was going to die. And from the sounds of it, she was going to take all of them with her.

  Emma wasn’t exactly sure what she could do, but she knew she had to try something.

  Lenore cried out as Emma wrenched her arm away and sprinted forward, straight toward the queen. Alexandria was still trembling all over; her eyes had rolled back in her head, and her body was stiffening in multiple spasms per second. Something was happening to her skin. The sparkling electricity was branching out, lighting underneath her flesh, until the queen’s entire body seemed to glow.

  Emma dashed forward, breathing hard, terrified but sure of what she had to do. It felt like noise exploded all around her then—screams from Eliza and Lenore, commands to stop, her own boots pounding on the tiles and the sound of people running for her. And then she was no more than a foot away from the well, from the twitching form of the queen, and she reached out and seized the woman’s arms.

  Touching her felt like being struck by lightning, and Emma gasped as searing heat blazed through her. She ground her teeth and held on, closing her eyes, forcing herself to ease the door open wider, to let more of her power out.

  There it was: the frantic drumming heartbeat, growing louder and louder, until it felt like something was pounding on the inside of her skull. She just wanted it to stop. It had to stop.

  She reached out with her senses, grasping at the connection, tentatively at first, and then more firmly, until at last she had it. Somehow she could feel the queen’s heart in her chest, the organ squeezing and contracting, on the edge of bursting, and beyond that, she could feel the magic flooding through it, the ebb and flow of the fire, the power that surged through the queen’s heart.

  Just as Lenore had said: a witch’s magic was all in her heart.

  Now what? She could sense the heart, sense the magic. But she’d simply acted on impulse, with only the vaguest idea of what to do next. It only made sense that the next logical step would be to fully unleash her power, like she’d done in the In-Between in order to find Edgar.

  But this was different. This was bigger. More dangerous.

  What would happen if she used her magic now? She could picture all sorts of horrible outcomes, both for her and the queen. Or…what if she simply made it worse? Made the queen’s heart explode faster?

  She couldn’t think like this, couldn’t doubt herself, not after everything she’d gone through in the In-Between, not when she and her friends had come all this way.

  It was just like in the In-Between. Eliza had taught her to trust herself, Maddie had helped her learn to unleash her power, and in Edgar, she’d finally found her true family. Family that had been willing to stand up to his awful mother.

  Emma could do it too. She just needed to trust her magic.

  Trust herself.

  She took a deep breath and pictured herself opening the door fully, letting the Noise out…firs
t a trickle, and then a flood as she released her magic fully. It took a few long seconds for it to happen, but finally she felt it. The queen’s heart stuttered in her ears—not the heart, she realized suddenly, but the magic inside the heart. Alexandria sucked in a shuddering breath, though she continued to shake and twitch, and her eyes were still shut tightly.

  Emma frowned, concentrating hard. She could feel her own magic inside the queen now, drifting like a thin cobweb between them, creating a connection. At first she was frozen, knowing what she needed to do but not sure how to do it.

  She pictured the door—the grain of the wood, the brass handle, the squeaky hinges—now flung open wide to let her power out. Then she pictured the queen’s heart, thrumming with power, and the magic pulsing inside it. Finally, she pictured her own magic like a hand reaching out for that heart, fingers closing around it.

  A second later, the queen’s eyes fluttered open. Emma nearly drew back, but then the queen went limp again, and she gritted her teeth and made herself hold on. She had to force the magic out somehow, to drain it back into the air around them.

  For a few seconds she was at a loss, not sure what to picture, what to visualize in order to make it work. Then she remembered what Lenore had said about the crystals, about how they were a conduit for magic. She tried her best to picture the wineskin Lenore had mentioned, tried to imagine tipping it over and emptying the contents back out.

  There was a murmur of excitement in the room as soon as she started, and Emma heard the shuffling of feet on the stone floor. She could feel the magic being collected, and she realized that the other witches had gone to work right away, returning the raw magic back to the well. She wanted so badly to open her eyes and watch what they were doing—to learn—but she was afraid to lose her hold on the queen’s heart, and on the power steadily draining out of it.

  The queen’s skin was hot under Emma’s fingers. At first Alexandria didn’t seem to realize what was happening. Her body relaxed and went limp as she leaned against the edge of the well. But after a minute, her eyes snapped open and she pulled herself back, trying to tug her arms out of Emma’s grip, even as the tremors still shook her body. But Emma held on, wrapping her fingers more tightly around the queen’s arms.

  She felt the others hovering nearby, ready to knock the queen back if she managed to escape. But she couldn’t let that happen. Somehow, she knew that if anyone but her touched the queen right now they would be just as overcome by magic, and equally at risk of combusting right on the spot.

  The more magic Emma drained out of the queen, the more the woman seemed to realize what was happening. As her struggling grew more desperate, Emma’s hands slid a few inches down her arms. Emma ground her teeth and gripped the queen’s wrists tightly. They were so close now that she was looking up into the woman’s face. She could see how lined Alexandria’s skin was, how pale she’d become from the years of drinking thistle wine. It was the same thing that had made her mother sick. An entire kingdom was slowly poisoning itself, driven by fear and hatred.

  She found herself suddenly, fiercely angry, and she tightened her grip all the more, growling up at Queen Alexandria as the woman struggled against her. “I know you left your own sister to die. She made a mistake when she joined the rebels, but she’s family. You and my mother are both monsters. If people knew what was beneath your palace, they would know what a wicked, vile creature you are. If you see my mother, tell her I said the same goes for her.”

  Slowly, painfully, and after what seemed like an eternity—in which Emma’s hands began to shake and she could feel her own power begin to weaken—the tides shifted. Queen Alexandria’s heartbeat leveled out, growing quieter as each pulse of magic was released into the air around her. At last, the queen gave a wail of dismay, and as Emma felt the last electric spark of magic drain away, she let her grip on the heart relax.

  She spent a full moment searching for more, her fingers aching with the effort of clinging so hard to the queen.

  Then came a warm draft of air and the scent of vanilla, and someone said softly from overhead, “Emma? It’s alright now. It’s done.”

  Slowly, she let her eyes flutter open. She and the queen had both sunk down onto the floor beside the well, and she found herself on her knees beside a prone Alexandria, still holding tight to the queen’s wrists.

  Lenore was standing over her, brow creased with concern. When Emma made eye contact, she smiled, clearly relieved. “Alright?”

  “I…yes, I think so.” Emma released the queen’s wrists and climbed unsteadily to her feet, glancing down. Alexandria was lying on her back on the floor, staring blankly up at the ceiling. She was breathing hard—long, ragged breaths.

  It took a long moment for Emma to gather herself. She glanced around the room, feeling as though she were waking from some strange dream. Near one of the doors, she spotted the small, still form of Maddie, with Eliza and Edgar hovering over her.

  Ignoring the surge of dizziness that came when she moved, she hurried over to her friends.

  “Maddie?” she said softly, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. “Can you hear me?”

  Maddie’s lashes flickered, and then her eyes fluttered open. A second later she groaned and squeezed them shut again. “It hurts.”

  “You’ve fetched up against the wall rather hard. Let me have a look at you.”

  Emma moved back as Lenore knelt down beside Maddie.

  “Perhaps a minor concussion. I’ll get you down to the infirmary and into a bed. Can you stand?”

  Maddie climbed to her feet, very slowly, with the help of Lenore and the others, and Emma could have cried with relief. She reached out and took Maddie’s arm, sliding it around her waist, before turning to look back at the scene by the well.

  A few of the witches had gone to work on the posters, and the guards, Tobias McCraw, and his mother were now free. The ex-witch hunter clung to his mother’s arm, looking angry and disheveled. Other witches had gathered around the prone form of the queen, who was still lying flat on her back, her face slack with shock. As they moved Maddie toward the exit, Lenore broke away for a moment and hurried over to the well. She leaned down to press a hand to the queen’s shoulder and then straightened quickly and moved to rejoin the group. She gave Emma a startled look before masking her expression and waving at the other witches.

  “Escort her to the cells. I suppose our jail will have its first permanent guest at last.”

  The witches moved to obey, but before they could reach her Tobias McCraw was there, hooking his arms beneath the queen’s, hauling her to her feet.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll take her down myself.” He glanced over at Lenore, his face serious. “And I’d be happy to volunteer my services as a guard, if you’ll have me.”

  Lenore considered this for a moment, and then nodded slowly. “Welcome aboard, Tobias.”

  At this, something seemed to snap in the queen. She burst into motion, thrashing against Tobias, her face twisted in rage and fear. “No, no! It’s gone! I can feel it! It’s gone!” As he tried to drag her out of the room, she dug in her heels, much like a child having a tantrum would, and tried to beat Tobias off of her.

  “It can’t be gone!” She froze abruptly, and Emma felt a chill as the woman’s dark eyes fixed on her. Then the queen lunged for her, screaming, nearly tearing herself away from the ex-captain. “She did this to me! She did it! I’ll kill you!”

  Emma watched, mouth hanging open, as Tobias McCraw dragged her away, Alexandria screaming and lunging at Emma the entire time. It took the ex-captain and several witches to haul her out of the room.

  Lenore glanced down at Emma, voice low. “Don’t worry. They have her well in hand. Let’s get Maddie to the infirmary, shall we?”

  Emma only nodded and turned her attention back to Maddie, who was currently being propped up by Edgar and Eliza.

  “Emma?” Ma
ddie blinked around the room, frowning deeply, as if she were trying hard to remember something. “Everything was a bit blurry and it all seemed to happen really fast, but…did we beat her? Did we win?”

  She stared at Maddie, who looked decidedly dazed, and then at Eliza—tired but fiercely triumphant—and finally at Edgar. He was propping Maddie up on the other side, but the expression on his face was one of utter relief. She smiled.

  “Yes, Mads, we won. Now let’s get you to bed.”

  The infirmary was a tiny wooden cabin down a side road just off the street that housed the Push Broom Inn. The place was decorated with tartan-patterned wallpaper, and someone had lit the hurricane lanterns that lined the walls, filling the room with flickering light.

  Narrow wooden dressers stood between the beds, each with a glass mason jar on top, full of tiny blue lights that Emma found very interesting to watch as they buzzed back and forth and bumped into one another, casting a faint silvery-blue light over the surroundings.

  There were three cots along each side of the room, all empty save for Maddie’s. She’d picked the one nearest to the tall stone fireplace in the corner, and Emma, Edgar, and Eliza had made themselves a terrible nuisance by camping out overnight after Maddie had been admitted and nearly all of the next day. The nurse had given them strict instructions that they were only to stay until lights out, and that Maddie would need a proper sleep to recover from her concussion.

  “I hope you don’t have to stay in too many more days.” Edgar settled himself on one arm of the squishy chair Eliza was sitting in, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why can’t they just magic you better?”

  “Apparently they are.” Maddie leaned over to show them the chain she was wearing around her neck, which was set with a cloudy quartz crystal. “But it takes a few days.”

  “I think I have something to help while you wait.”

  They all turned to look at Lenore, who was standing in the doorway, laden down with a huge wicker basket of food. “The council put together a bit of a picnic for you lot. We figured you’d all stay here with her through dinner again. And I’ve brought you some school books. I thought you might like to explore the intermediate spell books, things you’ll be learning at Candlewick later.”