“Anything,” I said, the words bursting out of me. “Whatever you need.”
“A lobster dinner, twenty-ounce wagyu ribeye, baked potato with a lot of bacon and sour cream… oh, and cheesecake. That will be a start.”
“Are you serious?” I wasn’t sure whether she was joking. Sometimes she was hard to read.
“I most certainly am. As I said, that’s only a start.”
A massive grin spread across my face. “Sounds great. Hell, once this is all over, I’ll fly to Maine to get the damned lobster.”
Maddy patted my chest. “Sinthy, are you sure this is possible? What about the wards?”
Sinthy bobbed her eyebrows up once. “That is a conundrum. But there is a way to keep them in place. The longer I’m gone, however, the less powerful they’ll be. There’s a sort of kinetic spell I can cast. It’s very powerful, and it can be used to continually feed energy into another spell, even when the witch is gone. The problem is that it isverydifficult to get right. I’m not worried about that. The issue will be getting the wards back to their full strength once the other packs are here.
“It will have to be done quickly. I’ll be weak when it’s all over, and the wards will be susceptible to tampering. Don’t forget. We saw Viola had some kind of magic at her facility. They have a magical being on their side, most likely being forced to help them, but either way, if the royals get any inkling that the wards around your pack have weakened even a bit, they could come. I have confidence in my ability to fight another witch, but that will take my attention away from protecting everyone here. Do you see what I’m saying?”
I did. We could bring our friends here, but it had to be done fast—and preferably under the cover of darkness. If any royal spies outside the gates saw a huge mass of shifters appear out of thin air, Viola would be informed. She’d pounce. I could save my friends, but it would be dangerous.
Nodding solemnly, I said, “I understand. I’m okay with the risks if you are.”
Sinthy put one hand on my shoulder and her other on Maddy’s. “I’m your witch. This ismypack,myfamily. I’ll do whatever I can to help. I don’t think I could stomach another massacre.” She lifted one hand and punched me playfully in the chest. “You better not forget my lobster, though.”
Maddy and I laughed in unison. Rubbing at the spot she’d punched, I said, “When can we start?”
“Now, actually,” Sinthy said. “I need to grab a few things. I’ll be right back.”
The witch ran inside, leaving me with Maddy. The day looked even brighter than it had before.
“I’ll go with her,” I said. “Will you go find the guys and tell them the plan? My dad and my brothers, too?”
Maddy nodded. “I will. You know, we really don’t deserve her,” she said, nodding toward the door through which Sinthy had vanished.
“You’re telling me. But at least she’s on our side.”
Maddy went inside, and Sinthy reappeared not long after. She held what looked like a pewter or silver tub with a small lid. She pocketed the cap and walked toward me.
I peeked into the tub. It held some kind of wax or grease. It was a pale yellow and looked thick. Sinthy held it with reverence.
“What’s that?” I gestured to the container.
“This is one of the most precious things in all of Wiccan culture. It was legendary even a thousand years ago. Isme was considered the greatest witch ever to live, and part of that reputation stems from her having this.”
I stared at her for a few seconds, then said, “You, uh, still haven’t told me what that is.”
Sinthy blinked and shook her head. “Shit, sorry. I was being too mysterious. It’s a reliquary embrocation. Created and strengthened over hundreds of centuries. This”—she held the jar up toward my face— “is basically the emulsification of dozens of legendary magical figures throughout history. The blood of Odin, a snippet of the hair of Samson, a piece of the mummified remains of the sun god Ra?— ”
“Hang on,” I interrupted. “Odin? Ra? Those… they were real?”
She arched an eyebrow. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
The implications were astounding and made me dizzy. I stared down at the strange yellowish gel. “What about… you know?”
“Oh, Mr. Christmas-time himself? There’s a bit of the cross that bore him in this as well. Like I said, very powerful.”
“Holy shit,” I murmured in awe.
“Literally,” Sinthy said with a grin. “Shall we begin?”
I spent the next two hours with her walking around the boundaries of the wards she’d created. Every ten or twenty feet, she stopped, dabbed an almost minuscule amount of the substance on a finger, and touched it to a tree. As she muttered an incantation under her breath, I could actually sense the change to the wards—like a weird pulse that rattled my eardrums.
