Authors: B. Kristin McMichael
“Both stories sound plausible, but how can you tell which is the witch?” Cassie asked. She didn’t have a clue as to which one was it, either.
“If you help me out and take our hands apart, I will prove to you it’s the old man,” Rolf said to Cassie’s assessment.
“And when they do that, you will just attack them with your magic. Whatever you do, don’t peel our hands apart. My hand is the only thing keeping spells from flying around the room right now,” Old Man Winters grunted out.
Devin raised his eyebrows at Cassie to see if that could be true.
“Some magic users do it with their hands. They both could be right. If the younger man is the one, when you take their hands apart you’ll see the magic. If the old man is right, then when you take their hands apart the other guy will start blasting us. While it might tell us who it is, I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Cassie still stared at the two men as if she was trying to see which to trust.
That was the problem. Devin trusted both of them, but one had to be lying.
“How do you know who’s telling the truth?” Cassie asked the exact question to the problem.
He really didn’t want to get Keaton involved in it. While his power to see the truth was great to use, Devin knew that Keaton wasn’t a fighter, he was a charmer. There was no way to charm either of the men that were staring daggers at each other now. Yet he didn’t have much of a choice.
“I suppose I’ll bring in Keaton,” Devin replied.
Both men faltered at Devin’s words. He noticed the opportunity to jump in at the same time that Ronan burst through the door. Ronan aimed his bow at the old man to save his father, but Old Man Winters raised his hand, and the arrow veered away with a puff of dust. That was their answer. Devin’s heart broke to see the old man wielding magic that wasn’t from the sidhe.
Nessa sat as
patiently as she could on the couch in Devin’s house. It wasn’t that the piece of furniture was uncomfortable, but something bugged her. He had said they were trailing the sidhe, and she was to stay put in the outcast camp, but she hadn’t heard anything from him. It would have been fine if he hadn’t closed everything off to her. She couldn’t even feel an ounce of emotion from him.
Nessa stood and went over to where Maria was working. She had forced Turner to help, and he sat pulverizing herbs with a stone pestle. He didn’t even look out of place, nor did he ever, and Nessa envied that about Turner.
Maria mixed in a few more ingredients and then placed the goop on Liam’s face. The skin started to knit back together before another fire started on Lele’s face. Turner doused the girl with the water at the table, and the wounds spread back to Liam’s head, but no longer healed his face.
Maria rubbed her head in frustration. It was her second attempt. She had tried a salve on Lele only to have Liam burn more, and now it was the same in reverse. How was she going to fix them when one thing made the other worse?
Nessa paced back over to the couch. Devin was still silent. She hated how it felt. Not that it was fun to have everything that crossed her mind accessible to Devin; it had been that way long enough for it to seem like something was broken without him there. Nessa wished she was strong enough to force her way into his mind to know what was going on. At the moment, she felt useless. She couldn’t help Maria, who was certainly stuck without finding a way to heal Liam. Within the outcast camp, she wasn’t able to help find the witch sidhe. And by now her uncle was back calming all her people, which was a job she should have been doing. Everything was a mess, and there was nothing she could do.
“Maybe if we place it on both of them at the same time,” Turner suggested. Maria looked closely at the two patients. At least her sleeping spell kept them unconscious and unknowing to the pain they kept going through.
“And your best healers know nothing about witch magic?” Maria asked for a second time of Nessa.
“No, it’s illegal to practice any type of magic beyond sidhe magic. If anyone did so, they would be thrown out,” Nessa explained again. She now was wishing the sidhe were a bit more open-minded.
Maria went back to mixing herbs. Once her bowl was filled, she handed it to Turner who began to crush them together. They started the process again, but it wouldn’t work. Something deep down inside her told her why. The one thing she dreaded. Their bond wouldn’t let them heal, just as life would be if someone attacked Devin.
“It is the bond, isn’t it?” Nessa asked. The bond could be very helpful—it had gotten Devin and Nessa out of trouble on more than one occasion—but this time it wasn’t good. Their bond made the magic work. “So they would be cured by now if they weren’t bonded?”
Maria’s head snapped up. She nodded vigorously. “That’s exactly it.”
“Exactly what?” Nessa asked.
Maria crushed the herbs with a new fury. Turner noticed and tried to keep pace so that his was done at the same time as Maria. Luckily he was strong enough to mix his herbs in half the time as her, and they both stopped within seconds of each other. Turner waited for Maria to explain more, but she set her bowl down. Reaching over to the pile of magic supplies, Cassie had been working with, she found a bottle that was unlabeled and said a silent prayer.
“I hope she got this right,” Maria muttered more to herself than anyone.
Nessa wanted to ask what was going on, but she trusted the older witch. Something about the woman screamed that she was trustworthy.
Maria bent down and carefully opened Lele’s mouth. Two drops of the golden liquid were placed in her mouth. Nessa gasped as the female sidhe glowed a bit brighter. She had no clue what was going on. Maria waited with expectant eyes, as did Nessa and Turner, who were both completely confused by the situation.
“What is that to do with?” Nessa finally asked.
Maria seemed to be holding her breath. Soon the glow faded, and Nessa saw the string that bonded Lele to Liam start to retract. Nessa watched in wonder as it pulled back further and got thinner. Then suddenly, it broke.
“Now quickly put that on her,” Maria told Turner, picking her bowl back up and slathering the salve on Liam’s face.
Nessa stared in shock. She wasn’t completely sure what she had just seen, but it looked like the bond had been broken.
Liam’s skin grew back quickly, as did Lele’s. Soon their faces were completely back to normal as they both lay on their respective tables, peacefully sleeping.
“Did you just break their bond?” Nessa asked. Her grandfather told Devin it wasn’t possible. He would have known that. He could do just about anything with sidhe magic … except break a bond. It wasn’t possible.
“Not me. Cassie. She made this spell,” Maria explained. Happiness lined her face as she spoke. Liam and Lele were fine now. They had been saved, even though the witch had tried to keep them hurt.
“Do you need to break the bond often in your night human world?” Nessa asked.
It seemed like a funny thing, to break a bond. Why even be able to form a bond if you were just going to break it? She had spent a long time wanting the bond gone with Devin, but once she realized that it was permanent, she was happy.
“Cassie didn’t make this for us. The bond we use is different, and can’t be broken with a spell. Well, at least not a witch spell. Maybe that’s the key,” Maria seemed to be off thinking in her own world now that the pressure to save Liam and Lele was gone.
“Why would she make that for the sidhe?” Nessa was still confused.
“Oh, he hasn’t spoken to you yet?” Maria asked like she just realized she let out a secret.
“Spoke to me? Who?” Nessa had a clue as to who, but she didn’t want it to be true. There was only one “he” who would want to talk about breaking bonds with her, and who would have had the chance to ask Cassie to make the spell.
“Devin wanted you to be able to choose who you would marry without the bond making you feel like you had to choose him. He asked Cassie to make a spell to break your bond. I thought he talked to you. I really did. I’m sorry. I really thought you had spoken,” Maria apologized.
“Why?” Nessa asked in shock.
“Well, some of it’s gone. I thought he used it already,” Maria answered the why she thought she had been asked.
Nessa’s world came crashing down. Maybe there was more to why she couldn’t feel Devin.
Cassie grabbed Devin
and pulled him to the ground as another spell flew over their head from the other direction. It didn’t take long to realize that they didn’t want to be in the barn. Way too much magic was bouncing around, and Devin had no clue how to counter it. The only thing that seemed to stop the spells were the swords each man was swinging. Cassie grunted as a spell hit the ground only inches from them, and she didn’t complain when Devin started to drag her outside the barn to protect her. They paused behind some stacks of hay. It would make a barrier before they could get out.
“I didn’t know magic could bounce around like that,” Devin told her as he stared at the open doors. The three men continued to fight inside the barn. In fact, if they hadn’t just come from inside the barn, Devin would have walked right by without knowing there was a magic fight going on inside it.
“Neither did I, but I don’t really have that much experience with it,” Cassie added. “I really didn’t know you could use it for combat like that.”
“I suppose not. You’re what, a junior? Just starting out your training?” Devin replied. He knew a little bit about the system of how the witches were trained, and he figured her knowledge was limited.
“Actually, Maria’s been training me on the side for a couple of years. I plan to go for my apprentice test when I go back to school in the fall,” Cassie explained, keeping one eye on the other side of a barn. “So what are we going to do about that?” Cassie nodded to the guys.
They were all standing, staring at each other. It was still silent, but too many spells blocked their exit for now. They’d have to either look for another way out, or chance running through the spells while hoping they didn’t get hit by one.
“You are going to stay here, and I’m going to see if Ronan needs any help,” Devin stated.
He stayed low to the ground and kept up to the one opening in the hay. Peering through, he saw that the fight was still going on. Ronan hadn’t done much beyond disrupting the fight momentarily and then starting things back up. He now was unconscious on the ground on the edge of the circle as the two men continued to where they must have been before they came to a standstill. Old Man Winters was surprisingly agile for his apparent age. He dodged everything Rolf was throwing his way before countering with his own spells. Cassie gasped as she looked on the other side of the barn. Devin froze and watched. Winters would throw a spell, and Rolf would react in turn.
“That’s why the place looked like it had been hit by a spell war. It had,” Cassie exclaimed.
Old Man Winters wasn’t the only one throwing spells. Rolf was doing the exact same thing. Cassie couldn’t tell which sidhe was the witch because they both were. Things had just gotten messier, and Devin was just as confused. Did that mean that all they thought was wrong? Who was the bad guy? Were they both in on it? It didn’t seem so, but he couldn’t be sure. Was there a way to tell one witch from another? And what was he to do with them if he could get them both under control? Witch magic in the sidhe village was illegal, even if one of them wasn’t the one trying to kill everyone.
They continued to fight. Neither one paid any attention to Ronan, who was passed out on the ground. As spells came awfully close to him, Devin knew that before he stopped the two men in their battle he needed to get Ronan to safety. It was possible Ronan was involved, but he didn’t have time to worry about that. If he left him in the barn, Ronan would more than likely get killed in the middle whether he was a witch or not.
“You’re going in to get him,” Cassie told Devin as she scooted closer. Devin nodded. “What can I do to help?”
“Stay right here,” he answered, slowly moving toward the opening of the hay bales. Cassie shifted to join him.
“I’m serious. Stay right here. I don’t know what sidhe magic works against witch magic, and we don’t need to test your combat skills. I’m pretty sure you don’t learn anything like that until after you’re an apprentice, so stay back and stay safe. Maria would kill me if anything happened to you,” Devin told her.
He could use the help, but he wasn’t confident Cassie even could. She was naïve about everything, and he highly doubted Maria trained her to fight. All knowledge was great when you were sheltered, but it wasn’t great for Devin right now. The only people that could stand by him at this point were battle-tested, like Turner, but he didn’t have his wing man.
Cassie reluctantly nodded and moved to the opening to watch.
Devin peered around the hay. Rolf and Winters were going at it hard, attacking and blocking each other. Neither even looked his direction. Devin slid around near the door and into the dark shadows that lined the walls. Luckily for him, Ronan was on the right side of the barn opposite the stacked hay, but not so far away that Devin would have to completely go around the barn to get him.
Devin inched his way forward as the room shook from the spells. He had no clue what sort of spells Winters put on the place, but he was sure that it was well hidden. If they’d been causing even an ounce of the same noise only ten minutes ago, Devin would have been able to track the witch sidhe as easy as Cassie. They hadn’t heard a thing in the silent village. Devin needed to get Ronan out now, and then get help. No one would be coming as the battle was well contained.
Devin reached Ronan, and he stirred only a little. He bent down while keeping his eye on the fighting, pulling Ronan’s arm over his shoulder. Ronan was heavier than Devin expected, but he kept his grunt to himself. So far neither man noticed Devin was there and taking Ronan out. The trek back around the barn was even slower. Now he had to look out for both himself and Ronan. A few spells ricocheted off the walls and came close, but he was sure he could make it. As he neared the opening of the door, he realized the spells had stopped. Devin froze in his tracks and turned slowly to face the two men.