The window Lunabrokethrough. I smile down at my sweet, overgrown dog and make a mental note to never let Braxton live down the fact that this dog is about to save his life.
“Luna,” I say her name with stern urgency. My plan continues to form as I look around at what I can use to my advantage. I need something I can throw. My eyes spot a slivered chair leg, courtesy of some of the debris from Dianthus throwing her temper tantrum around the house. Grabbing it, I wave it in front of Luna’s face.
Her eyes sparkle, and her tongue wags out of her mouth as she follows the chair leg while I swing it back and forth in the air.
“Okay, Luna, are you ready?” I pull my arm back, and I watch as Luna bows her body so that she prepares herself to launch.
“Fetch!” I yell, hurtling the stick across the room where it smacks against the cabinet with a dull thud.
Luna launches herself, running for the glorified stick at full speed. She’s not even attempting to slow herself as she approaches the cabinet. Upon hearing all the noise, Dianthusspins around. Her eyes flash with recognition as she watches Luna’s body slam into her precious cabinet, which immediately goes hurtling to the floor. Even if Dianthus wanted to, she couldn’t have stopped this. We did it. We caught her by surprise.
I swear I can feel the reverberations of the cabinet hitting the ground as it finally lands on its side with a loud crash. More importantly, just as I hoped, the movement and pressure of the solid wood slamming against the stone floor causes the doors to the cabinet to burst open, and the object carrying all of Dianthus’ magic, the object that is our ticket out of here, comes tumbling out.
I can’t make out what it is as it keeps rolling swiftly past Luna, past the table, past Dianthus, until it comes to a stop right at Braxton’s feet.
65
Braxton
It’saskull.Theacid in my stomach rises to my throat as I momentarily stare frozen at the ivory skull glowing in lavender magic. The longer I look into the empty abyss where eyes used to be, the more everything seems to fall into place. It doesn’t take long for me to realize exactly whose skull is resting at my feet.
“This is why your magic has been so much weaker? You retethered it?” It’s the only thing that makes sense, and the moment I look into Dianthus’s eyes, I know I’m right. “You rebound your magic to something fragile, knowing the risk? Why?”
“You know why,” she spits.
And she’s right. I know exactly why she did it, just as I know whose skull this is. “It’s your daughter, isn’t it?”
I can see the hairline cracks already forming in the skull from where fragments of the bone have started decomposing. When I look back at Dianthus, I see that the practically imperceptible grey hairs that started sprouting and blending within her platinum locks formed at the same places as the fractures.
“It was the last piece of her I had,” Dianthus admits.
She’s making no attempt to try and get the skull away from me. She knows she wont make it in time, even with her magic. “She was decaying.”
While Dianthus’ daughter’s bones would have long since turned to dust, it takes much longer for a skull to decompose. Even so, after nearly a century, I can see that it too has started to wither away.
“So, you tethered your magic to what was left of her to reinforce its strength. The magic would help slow the process of decomposition for the skull as long as no one touches or destroys it.”
Of course. It all goes back to the balance of magic. Dianthus sacrificed the strength of her magic to be able to hold onto this piece of her daughter. However, bones, much like flowers or any other organic material someone might tether their magic to, break down over time. The magic can reinforce the object to make it stronger, but at the cost of the mage’s strength of their magic and spells.
Nodding my head, I look back at Dianthus. “Then, I want to say I’m sorry.”
Dianthus’ brows pull together.
“But you’ve left me no other options.” Quickly bringing my foot up, I smash it down on top of the skull, watching it splinter under my boot. The magic bound to it comes shooting out in bursts of lilac with such force that it knocks me on my back.
Dianthus’s piercing screams fill the chaos swirling in the air around us as her magic is released back into the world. With streams of purple smoke continuing to leak out of it, the fragments of the skull continue to grind themselves to dust in front of me.
Azalea runs over to me. Gripping my arm, she helps to pull me back up to a sitting position before her hands start roaming my face and body, assessing me for any injuries.
“Braxton, we should get out of here,” Azalea urges, linking her fingers through mine.
We both turn to look at the crumpled witch in the corner. Seeing her now that her glowing aura of magic has been ripped away from her, she looks so plain and almost fragile. The silk train of her deep plum dress pools around her. Though only moments ago the dress hugged her figure perfectly, it now seems to be overpowering her bony frame. Her hair is limp, and her face colorless. Her once feline like eyes are dimmed from any light and have a sheen coating them. She’s so painfully ordinary. Someone you would never look twice at.
“Let’s go,” I agree, slowly getting to my feet.
“You’re going to leave?” Dianthus scoffs, and her voice sounds maniacal. “No revenge then?”
I turn to her with stiff shoulders. “My revenge for you is that I’m letting you live. You will slowly continue to age and decay until you finally wither away, just like any normal human does. You’ll live the rest of your days alone, and then you’ll die alone. I think that’s fair payment for what you’ve put me through.”
