It’s a repelling spell, I told myself. It’s designed to keep you out. But there’s nothing really behind it. I willed the spell to show itself to me. There was a moment of resistance before I saw a glimmering on the winter air. The rune Is—the rune of obstacles, of things frozen and delayed—repeated again and again, like a series of crystalline icicles. I visualized the warmth of fire melting the runes of the warding spell, and within seconds I felt their power weaken.
The spell snapped, and I reached the top step. I found another spell on the door itself. I felt a surge of exhilaration as I realized I knew exactly what to do. It seemed so clear. Either the binding spells weren’t all that complicated, or I was stronger than I realized.
This time I drew power up from the earth, from the roots of the wisteria, from the bedrock below. I gathered all the energy poured into the city streets by the myriad inhabitants of New York City. A boisterous, defiant power swelled inside me. I let it build, then flung it at the spell that guarded the door. The spell shattered. The one bolt that had been shut on the other side of the door shot open. And I stepped into the house, nearly surfing on the wave of my own magick.
I stood in a high-ceilinged foyer. The floor was inlaid marble, patterned in black and gray. A staircase led to the upper floors. I sent a witch message to Killian. Where are you? Lead me.
The next instant I was flat on my back, hit with a binding spell stronger than anything I’d ever experienced. It forced my arms flat against my sides, clamped my legs together, pressed down on my throat so I couldn’t utter a sound, compressed my chest so that I fought for every breath. Oh, Goddess. Maybe I wasn’t as strong as I’d thought.
Quickly I cast a spell to loosen all bindings.
It did nothing. My mind reeled in panic.
I tried the spell that had worked so brilliantly just a few minutes ago. I extended my senses out and down, searching for a connection with the ground beneath me. The hollow echo that came back was mystifying. It was as if the earth itself was empty, flat, drained of anything to give. And I was left in a place where waves of dark magick swirled around me.
Alyce, I thought. Surely Alyce knew something that would help. A spell came to me then for bringing light in the midst of darkness. I began to visualize a single white flame, growing brighter, hotter, blazing through all the dark energy, consuming it, purifying the space around me.
I almost blacked out as something that felt like a blade of jagged ice plunged into my stomach. It’s an illusion, I told myself, remembering how Selene had attacked me with pain. I willed myself to go beyond it, to keep picturing the flame devouring the darkness.
Another blade drove into my back. “Aaagh!” My own strangled cry panicked me. I felt the icy blade cut through skin, muscle, bone, and the flame in my mind guttered out.
As if to reward me for losing the spell, the pain stopped.
I glanced down at my body. There were no bloody knife wounds. They had been an illusion. But the binding was real. I couldn’t move. I glanced around me, searching for the source of the power that was holding me prisoner. There—I felt magick like a dark, oily cloud swirling across the town house’s pristine floor. The magick of several witches, working together.
Nausea rose in the back of my throat. I was completely overpowered. What had I done? How could I have been naive and stupid enough to believe I could go up against an entire coven of Woodbanes? The second I’d walked into the house, I’d walked into their trap.
A slight figure in a black robe and a mask walked toward me. The mask showed a jackal’s face, carved out of some sort of dark wood and horribly exaggerated, with an enormous snarling mouth. My fear ratcheted up another notch. Other masked figures appeared: an owl, a cougar, a viper, an eagle.
“We’ve got her,” the jackal said, in a voice so perfectly neutral, I couldn’t tell if it was male or female.
“Where’s Killian?” I demanded. “What have you done with him?”
“Killian?” the witch in the owl mask repeated. The voice was distinctly female. “Killian isn’t here.”
“But you’re going to drain him of his power!” I said stupidly.
A giddy, high-pitched laugh erupted from the jackal’s mouth. “Oh, no, we’re not.”
“We never wanted Killian,” the owl said.
“You’ve been misled,” the viper agreed, and all of them burst out laughing. The viper’s narrow golden eyes glittered as it stared at me. “You’re the one we’re going to drain.”
12. Ciaran
February 28, 1984
The beginning of spring is a time to sow the seeds of dreams for the coming year. Here in a tiny village called Meshomah Falls, I am a boy again, full of fantasies and dreams, eager to welcome the promise of spring. I found her. Today Maeve and I saw each other for the first time since I left Ballynigel. I knew in that instant that she still loved me. That nothing had changed, that it had all been worth the wait. Goddess, I see the universe every time I gaze into her eyes.
We waited until evening, for she insisted on making some excuse to poor, pathetic Angus. Then she led me out beyond the town, through a narrow band of woods, across a meadow, and up a hill to a field. “No one will see us here,” she said.
“Of course not. One of us will work a spell of invisibility,” I said.
That was when Maeve told me she’d given up her magick. I couldn’t believe it. Ever since she left Ireland, she’s led a half life, her senses shut down, a prisoner of her own terror. “You never have to fear again,” I told her. Bit by bit I coaxed her open. Oh, the joy that was in her eyes as she let herself sense the seeds in the earth beneath us, the tender green shoots waiting to break the surface. Then she opened herself to the skies, the stars, the pull of the incandescent spring moon, and we gave ourselves to pleasure and to each other.
Goddess, I have finally known true joy. All the pain I have gone through, it was all worth it for this.
— Neimhidh
“You’re the one we’re going to drain.” The words echoed in my ears, and I suddenly saw it all with sick clarity.
My dreams and visions—they had all been premonitions of what was to be my own ordeal in this house. Not Killian’s. Somehow the council got that one key detail wrong when they interpreted the dream. The wolf cub on the table wasn’t Killian. It was me.
Some rational part of my mind wondered why I’d appeared as a wolf cub, but before I could make sense of it, the jackal said, “You will come with us.”
I stared up defiantly. “No.”
The figure waved a hand over me, and I was suddenly on my feet, the bindings loosened just enough to allow me to follow like an automaton. Fury at my own traitorous body swept through me, but I could no more resist the spell to follow than I could break the binding spell.
I followed through a parlor and a dining room, through a kitchen to another staircase, this one leading down.
We descended the stairs into a cellar. How could I possibly escape? The cellar door would close, and terrible things would be done to me.
The cellar was lit by a few black candles set in wall sconces. The owl held out a robe made of a thin, shiny brown fabric. “Take off your clothes and put this on,” she said.
The robe spooked me. I flashed on an old movie where they burned witches at the stake and made them wear robes like this for their execution. “What’s it for?” I asked.
The witch in the hawk mask drew a sign in the air, and I doubled over again in agony.
“Do as you’re told,” the jackal said.
They watched me change, and I felt the dull burn of shame over my terror as I took off my clothes and put on the robe. Then I was forced down into a chair, and two more masked figures—a weasel and a jaguar—came into the cellar with a steaming cup. They forced me to drink its contents. It was some sort of hideous herb tea—I recognized henbane, valerian, belladonna, foxglove. The smell was so revolting, I gagged with every sip.