We reached out again, plucked the first thread free, and began to spell, the words falling silently from my lips, foreign and unknown. The initial layers were easy enough to detach and weave back through the threads lower down, but the deeper into the spell we got, the harder and more delicate the process became. Sweat trickled down the side of my face, but I didn’t dare swipe at it. One wrong movement—hell, even breathing the wrong way right now—could prove disastrous.
Thankfully, the hum of the overall spell never altered, but by the time the initial trigger points had been dealt with, the little men with the hot pokers were back in business inside my head.
“Done,” we said and pushed upright. “But let us go first, just in case.”
I carefully stepped over the still-pulsing alarm spell, my breath catching deep in my throat and my heart galloping along so fast I swore it was about to tear out of my chest. Thankfully, the warning spell didn’t so much as flicker. I glanced back at Monty. He followed me over the spell, echoing my movements precisely.
Again, no reaction.
Relief stirred, but it was Gabe’s more than mine. Obviously, despite his outward confidence, he hadn’t been one hundred percent sure the partial detachment would work.
And that relief might yet be misplaced. We were—magically and physically—a long way from being out of the woods just yet.
We continued on, our pace by necessity slow and careful. Only a few minutes further on, we came across a second alarm spell. I repeated the rerouting process, then swiped at the sweat stinging my eyes.
“I hope that’s the last of them, because at this rate, I’m not going to have the strength to raise my own protection circle.”
“You will,” Monty said. “I have complete faith.”
As have we, came Gabe’s comment. And you forget, I am with you, and I see what you cannot.
Are we talking physical strength? Magic? Or something else entirely?
All. But now is not the time.
That was Katie, and, as before, she sounded altogether too much like her brother. Again the sadness stirred, but I ignored it and pushed on cautiously. There were no further alarm spells and nothing in the way of traps. Which didn’t mean they wouldn’t be here; we just hadn’t sprung them yet.
The altar is fifty yards ahead, in a small clearing, Gabe said. I suggest Monty create an outer protection circle while you do an inner one.
Why not the other way around?
Because your circle will be the stronger of the two, thanks to the wild magic, Gabe said. Let her waste time and energy dismantling Monty’s circle before she gets to yours.
But will the infusion of wild magic be enough to stop her?
That is an unknown, simply because up until now, no witch has ever been able to use the wild magic in the way you can.
As far as we knew, anyway. It was possible, given the title of the book Eli was currently reading, that they had in the past. For reasons unknown, they’d not only stopped the practice but basically buried the knowledge.
I repeated Gabe’s suggestion to Monty. He nodded and said, “Are there any more spells layered between us and the clearing?”
“There is one protecting the altar,” we said. “But that’s it.”
“Then we’d better pick up the pace before she gets wise that something is happening.”
“It’ll take her time to get through this forest,” I said.
“She’s a dark witch. She can use a demonic form of transport. Or just send her creature.”
Of the two, instinct suggested the second option was probably the safer. Instinct was obviously a little high on something.
The clearing was something of a mini amphitheater, with the steep but grassy sides running down to a flat, stony base. The altar had been placed in the middle of this and was very simply constructed—the two tall sturdy stones at either end supporting the black altar stone.
The stone isn’t naturally black came Gabe’s comment. It’s been stained that way over countless years by her sacrifices.
Why on earth would she be dragging a heavy stone altar around with her? Why wouldn’t she just create a new one at each location?
It may have some special significance to her. Perhaps after years of use, it has a resonance and power of its own, he replied. Moving it would not be all that much of a problem to someone as powerful magically as she.
I shivered and rubbed my arms, but it did little against the ice now gathering in my veins. The night was bitterly cold, but that ice was born from the fear that the three of us would not be enough to stop this witch.
Monty stopped beside me and swung off his backpack. Once he’d retrieved his spell stones, he said, “I’ll run my circle around the edge of the clearing, as suggested. Do you want to start yours ten feet in and work in the opposite direction?”
I nodded, swung off my backpack, and tugged the small silk bag containing my spell stones free from the front pocket. These particular ones were rough-cut clear quartz; while Monty and most royal witches tended to use diamonds, quartz was cheaper and yet possessed very similar properties.
I tipped the stones into my palm and began the careful process of creating a protection circle. While Ashworth had taught me to make one without using these stones as an anchor, it wasn’t one of my stronger spells and probably wouldn’t last three seconds against this witch.
I placed each stone carefully, attached a multi-layered protection spell onto it, and then looped it back to the previous two stones—something I hadn’t done before simply because I hadn’t thought of it. I was only doing so now thanks to Eli saying during a conversation on protection circles that it helped strengthen the circle while stopping the possibility of breakage due to one stone being kicked out of line.
Once all the stones were lashed together, I added a glimmer spell to ensure I could find them all again, then stepped back and waited for Monty. He completed his circle a few seconds later and then activated it; the wave of his magic was so fierce and strong, it briefly burned my skin. He nodded in obvious satisfaction and moved down the hill toward me. Once he’d passed the line of my stones, I activated my circle but didn’t entirely close it off, as Monty had his. I had a bad feeling I’d need to throw more strength into it before this nightmare was over.
Good circle came Gabe’s comment. It’ll be interesting just how well the infusion of your personal wild magic copes against the power of a dark witch.
If it doesn’t cope, we’re all going to be in deep shit.
Well, Monty and I were, at any rate. It wasn’t like the witch could actually harm either of them.
I turned and followed Monty down the hill. The circle around the altar was visible and fairly simple looking, which had all sorts of alarms going off. After the complexity of the boundary alarms, why wouldn’t she throw every spell in her armory at protecting the one item she could not afford to lose?
Monty obviously had come to the same conclusion, because he stopped a few meters short of the circle and crossed his arms.
“I’m not liking the look of that.”
“No.” I followed the line of threads around the island of stone. At the back of the altar—where she would have stood to bleed her sacrifice—there was a vague shimmer. It wasn’t magic. It was something else.
An imp, Gabe commented.
Imps—or sprites, as they were commonly known—were lesser demons and were generally more mischievous than dangerous. They did have a tendency to throw things around, but there wasn’t much in the way of debris around here for them to pick up and use.