Joy of Witchcraft (17 page)

And for just a heartbeat, the wick of the candle lit. I stared at the flame. I saw it appear out of nothing, coalesce into a perfect teardrop of color, indigo at its core, saffron at the edge. I blinked, and it was gone. But we had done it. We had lit the candle.

From the cheers around the room, you would have thought we’d cured world hunger.

We lit the candle again, all six of us, pouring in our power equally. Then, the familiars shifted around the circle, each one teaming with a new witch, and we worked the magic again. Emma started the harvest of power, asking each to offer up a share, until all were brought into the circle. Skyler lit the candle alone and we practiced dimming it with a controlled touch. Alex led us in an illumination, drawing from all of us to kindle the flame before she poured her own unique signature into the fire, darkening the light until it was almost black. She passed control to Cassie, who let the flame flicker into the pale green of new leaves, then to Raven who surged it back to violet.

With each working, I felt a little more power draw from my store. Even with all of our familiars, with seven witches to share the burden, with a simple candle-lighting spell, there was a cost to the work we did.

I knew I should rein in my students. I should congratulate them on a job well done. I should thank them for having held their faith, for having offered up the very best they had to give. I should be grateful they had saved the Jane Madison Academy, pushing back Hecate’s Court for a while more.

But it was too much fun. It was too much of a relief to watch the wick kindle again and again, to feel the give and take of our energy soaring across the circle.

“All right,” I finally said, fully intending to put a stop to the waste of energy. But I saw the disappointment on their faces, like children who were about to be deprived of a Christmas-morning toy. I glanced at David. I knew he wanted me to wrap things up, but he nodded once, giving me permission. “One last time,” I said. “Let’s work the spell together, and then we’ll break for supper.”

I glanced to my right, to where Neko curled by Raven’s feet. I settled my hand on Tupa’s shoulder. I watched each of the other witches make contact with the familiar closest to her. Everyone was comfortable. Everyone was confident that this spell would be the best.

“
Dark shies
,” I began.

Immediately, I knew this time was different. There was more power here than all the force we’d spent that afternoon. That made sense—my witches were celebrating their success. They were gathering their energy, prepared to let loose one last joyful blaze.

“
Light vies
.” The others felt it too. I saw it in their faces, in the sudden electric lines of their bodies.

“
Clear eyes
.” We were hurtling down a steep hill, rolling in a tire as if we had some death wish. I should stop us. I should bail out. I had to keep us safe, keep us sound.

But we were going too fast. I wasn’t in charge any more. We were a collective, working together. We were a tangle of witches, a storm of familiars. We were all of us and none of us and I could no more stop those last two words from ringing out than I could stop the Earth from rotating on its axis.

“Fire rise
.”

Another flash of darkness, deeper and longer than any we’d seen that afternoon. My heart stopped. My eyes were blind. My ears were deaf. Every muscle in my body was paralyzed, and I knew I could never say anything, never do anything, never take action again.

Out of the darkness, a torch lit. Not a candle flame, not a simple flicker of wick against wax. An inferno. Great gouts of fire roared toward the ceiling.

And born out of the heart of that holocaust, wrapped in burning wings and sheathed in molten robes of pure white heat, was a woman. A woman with the body and wings of an eagle, with vicious talons where her feet should have been. She shrieked a wordless cry of incandescent rage and started to sail around the room.

A harpy.

That was the word my stunned brain supplied, the name for the creature born of fire. I could see it as if I were reading a page from Brighton’s
Magickal Beasts and the Spells That Bind Them
. I could make out every letter set in cold, dispassionate ink.

Harpies were ancient beings, sired by the winds upon daughters of hoary kings. Originally, they were handmaidens to women in labor; they brought newborn babes into the world. But as centuries passed and they could not bear their own young, harpies turned bitter and vengeful. They stole infants. They murdered women in the prime of life, women who were capable of giving birth to their own healthy children. And the entire time they worked their vengeance they sang—clear, strong notes that were their birthright from their fathers.

The creature in my living room swooped over our heads, her wicked claws slicing the air with a sharp whistle. She opened her mouth to cry again, a song that broke my heart. It wove together the pride of an eagle surveying her domain and the wail of a devastated mother watching over the shell of her stillborn babe.

I could not tear my eyes from her. I dared not look away, for fear that those vicious talons would rake across my head, would tear through the hopeless, helpless flesh of the students I had placed in mortal danger. But even as I ducked when the harpy completed her next circuit, I recognized the true threat of the beast we had set free.

Because there was one thing Brighton didn’t get right in his treatise, one thing the book failed to mention: This harpy was on fire.

In the split second when she burst from the candle flame, I’d thought she was clothed in molten robes. Now, when I stared into her burning heart, I could make out a shimmering image of Norville Pitt. This was an idealized version of the man—taller and slimmer and blessed with better hair than the real Pitt could ever hope to have. I was staring at the harpy’s glorified vision of her maker.

Even so, Pitt’s body was obscured by a shadow, a dark spot the size and shape of a woman. The harpy had seen someone else when she was created. The harpy had seen a woman. One of my students. I squinted against the heat shimmering off the monstrous creature, but I could not make out any details in the shadow. I could not tell who had betrayed us.

The harpy spread her wings and cried, a shattering wail that made my heart stutter. She was draped in feathers, white-hot plumes that covered her body, all the way down to her cruel, clawed feet. Each of those feathers was a separate burning flame, hot enough to ignite whatever it touched.

The curtains were the first thing to kindle. The harpy launched herself from the table and flew around the room, beating her wings with the fury of an unjustly caged prisoner. Tongues of fire licked their way from ceiling to floor, tasting the wall beside the windows. The harpy completed another circuit, shedding a feather that started to chew its way through the hardwood floor. She swooped low and brushed the couch, starting a slow smolder that was no match for whatever fire-retardant chemicals were supposed to keep us safe.

“Out!” David shouted. “Now!”

And once I heard his voice, I realized everyone was shouting. Witches were calling for their familiars. Zach was bellowing at Cassie. Familiars were bleating, howling, crying to be free. David was trying to usher us all to the front door, through the wards that were designed to keep evil out, to keep us safe.

“Spot!” he called. “Come!” And then to all of us, he repeated, “Now!”

I understood what he was saying. I knew what I was supposed to do. But I could not yield to the harpy without a fight. I could not give up this house I had come to love, this home where David and I had discovered our life together. I could not yield the treasures in my basement, the Osgood collection that had been entrusted to my care by whatever magical forces had set me on this journey years before.

I lunged toward the arch that led to the kitchen. I had to reach the basement. I had to raise some sort of spell, some type of shield, anything, everything to keep my arcane possessions safe.

The harpy screamed again, a terrible, perfect song of devastation. Her claws brushed above my hair, and my skin was immediately parched by the downdraft of her wings. A feather drifted clear of her body, a bright white curl no longer than my thumb, and it burned like lava when it caressed my cheek.

I brushed the feather free, grinding it into the floor so it could wreak no further harm. That action cost me a second, maybe two. But that was enough time for the harpy to round on me. She hovered in the archway, slowly flapping her wings and blocking my way. The motion fanned the flames around her body, feeding them, magnifying them.

Despite the heat, despite the white-hot wall before me, I stumbled forward. One step. Another.

The paint kindled on the smooth walls beside the arch, bubbling up, turning into thousands of gaping black mouths. “No!” I cried, trying to ignore the heat, to push past the pain, but the harpy threw back her wings and thrust forward with her full avian force, nearly knocking me off my feet. My eyes burned and my throat closed on a sob. I realized I was crying, but no tears made their way down my cheeks; they evaporated in the brutal wind of the harpy’s wings.

“Jane!” Neko’s fingers closed on my arm.

“Help me!” I commanded. He resisted, though, pulling back, trying to drag me toward the front door. I reached out on the channel that bound us together, the tightly linked line of witch to familiar. I had to compel him. I had to force him through the wall of fire, to the basement stairs, to the treasure we had to protect.

“No!” The bellow was loud enough to be heard over the flame. A hand joined Neko’s, iron fingers clamping down so hard I could not resist. I was tugged back a full step. Another. One more.

David gripped me with his right hand, biting through muscle to bone.

He was my warder, and we were bound mind to mind. I could have fought him. I could have ripped away, using my witchy power as a lever.

But he was more than my warder. He was the man I loved. He loved me, and he was determined to drag me to safety, even if I was willing to pass through the wall of fire.

I was sobbing in earnest now, fighting for words. I could cast a spell. I could break free from David’s grip, hurting him in the process, maybe destroying him, destroying us. I could offer up the power of my mind, my heart, my voice, and I could use it to break everything I valued.

But I already knew the truth. There was no hope on the other side of the harpy. The fire had caught too well. The walls were involved now, and the ceiling too. The couch was a mound of flame.

And the candle, the pillar of wax that we witches had chanted around for days, for weeks on end, it burned too. Part of me knew that was impossible. The candle should have already melted away, sacrificed in the first burst of the harpy’s fury. But another part of me understood that all the rules I’d always known were gone now, incinerated like so much else I’d valued.

Neko shoved his shoulder under my left arm. David yanked even harder on my right. Together, the two men pulled me out of the living room, through the warded doorway, into a protective tunnel of safety bolstered by the warder’s energy David had poured into the farmhouse for ages.

We were sheltered on that fiery porch. We were protected down the flaming steps. The wards held despite the blazing onslaught, despite the magic that scorched around us. I barely noted the other witches, gathered in a tight circle a scant safe distance from the house. I scarcely took note of their familiars and warders, all pressed close to the women they served. I hardly realized Spot was leaning toward us, straining to break free from Caleb’s restraining hand, howling like a black-coated banshee.

I could not tear my attention from the farmhouse.

I saw the moment the fire reached the curtains in David’s office. I watched it stalk into our bedroom. I saw the attic kindle, watched the conflagration in the perfect round window that looked out like a solitary eye. The shingles smoked before they burst into flame.

And then the entire house was bathed in a rain of sparks. There was a roar as the roof caved in, and another as the second floor collapsed. Wooden bones reached to the sky, grasping fingers enrobed in fire.

Out of the destruction, out of the fire and heat and utter devastation rose the harpy. Her wings fanned the flames beneath her, and her voice cried out another shriek of perfect victory and loss.

We crouched beneath her, all of us covering our heads, crying, begging, pleading to escape as the harpy climbed into the sky. She flew toward the garage, toward the witches’ dormitory, where she circled three times. Each loop brought her closer to the roof, and each passage shed another handful of feathers, flaming teeth that chewed into the building.

One more time she rose, pumping to gain height in the midnight sky. This time, she stroked toward the barn. We could not see her as she circled that structure. We could not see the feathers drop, could not see the roofline kindle. But we watched her rise above the dip in the land, and we saw her head into the stratosphere like a reverse meteor, fading into a distant golden star.

Before I had a chance to speak, I was confronted with yet another disaster. There was a flash of darkness in the center of the driveway, in the precise spot that was halfway between the burning dormitory and the engulfed house. I blinked, and the darkness dissipated. In its place stood three human figures. A crouching woman, shielding her face from the light and heat of the flames. A man, feet planted, already surveying the landscape for threats. And another woman, a witch, standing tall in a crepe wool suit.

This time, Teresa Alison Sidney was too late to save me from the ravenous beast my magicarium had released. This time, she wasn’t here to match my powers, to speak a spell that would drain my energy and make me question my very worthiness to serve as magistrix.

This time, Teresa was claiming the spoils of war.

David took three strides toward Ethan, curling his fingers into fists. “Get the hell off my property!” He raised his voice to be heard over the crackling flames.