“Is that the house from your vision, Ena?” Ty asked her seriously. The other two waited with bated breath for her confirmation.
“Yes,” Ena said, trying to hide the shaking in her voice. “That’s it.”
Ty nodded and looked back at the house, studying it intensely from afar. “It looks like all three of them are on the first floor. I see two in front of the hearth in a sitting room knitting and mending clothes, and the third is in the kitchen. If we go in through the cellar door, Ena and I can take care of the one in thekitchen first while you two subdue the ones in the sitting room until we get there.”
Steig and Turner nodded silently in understanding. Despite her internal pep talk, Ena was quickly crossing the line from nervous into panic. Her breath was coming in short gasps and she couldn’t feel her fingertips. She knew she’d agreed to this, but Gaia, it felt like there was no turning back from this. What if it all went wrong and they were captured? What if she accidentally hurt someone with her Gift? What if she couldn’t get to the amulet first and the daemons got it anyway?
Ty grabbed her hand and hooked his finger under her chin, raising her face until she looked at him. “Ena, breathe,” he said calmly, those green eyes boring into hers. “You can do this.”
She met his gaze, finding solace in those eyes—finding strength. She forced her body to mirror the calm, steady breaths rising in his chest. She felt his grip on her hand, the rough calluses on his palm familiar and grounding.
He didn’t know what she planned, that she intended to betray him, but she took his strength anyway, and she felt her body calm slightly as she nodded at him.
Then he released her chin, and they started moving.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Theywalkedasquicklyand quietly as possible, keeping to the sides of houses and avoiding open spaces, trying not to attract attention as they entered the village.
They saw a few other folks outside, closing up their garden gates or wrangling children inside, but no one seemed to pay them any mind, likely thinking they were travelers returning to their camps for the night.
As they approached the large house from her vision, Ena started to reach down into her Knowing in earnest, listening and watching for any signs that might give them away. She felt her Gift there, too, waiting inside her, but she didn’t reach for it yet.
They’d debated at length whether the Occidens witches’ Knowing would alert them to Ena’s presence. But, deciding there was no way around that, the daemons hoped that being with them would mask Ena’s intentions somewhat. This thought occurred to her again as they entered the back gate of the garden surrounding the house. What if they sensed her coming and were prepared? What if they attacked her?
Turner walked up to the wide cellar door at the base of the house and opened it, revealing a steep staircase leading down into darkness.
He slipped inside, and Ena, Ty, and Steig followed him wordlessly, Steig closing the door silently behind them.
Once they reached the bottom, Ena found herself in a dark, cold storage room filled with potatoes, onions, baskets of freshly cut herbs, and other foodstuffs. It smelled like earth and rosemary, and the familiarity of it all calmed her a bit.
Then, coming from up the short set of stairs that connected the cellar to the rest of the house, she heard the muffled sounds of talking and laughter. That was where they needed to go.
Holding Ena’s hand protectively, Ty led her quietly up the stairs and through the door at the top. It opened into a dark hallway, but there was a doorway to the left through which she could see light and heard the sounds of chopping. Ty clearly heard that, too, indicating silently with his head that they should follow that sound into the kitchen. Steig and Turner would be on their own finding their way to the sitting room.
Ena’s heart was pounding and she had to swallow the saliva that pooled in her mouth several times, keeping herself in check. She felt her Gift on the tip of her tongue, begging for her to reach for it, all the way, to unleash it, butnot yet.
They pushed through the doorway into the kitchen to find the space was sparsely lit with a few candles, illuminating a large cooking hearth, a dining table with chairs, and extensive wooden counters cluttered with dishes and jars. Ena’s eyes scanned over these elements only briefly before they went to the middle-aged woman with dark-blonde hair piled high on her head. Her back was to them as she stood at the counter chopping garlic, but upon their entry into the room, her head turned to them. Just as her eyes widened slightly in alarm, Ena reached for her Gift,letting it flow through her, and like slipping instantly into a long-neglected instinct, she spoke.
{Do not move.}
She heard her voice emerge in the same eerie way it had in the woods when the bandits had attacked. It sounded like her and not like her at the same time.
{Put down the knife and lay on the floor.}
The woman did as she was told, putting the knife down on the counter, and laying on her back right there on the dirty floor of the kitchen.
{Sleep until the sun rises.}
Ty looked over at her. His eyes were filled with some mixture of admiration and horror, but Ena couldn’t focus on that right now. Hervisaniswas surging through her and she felt powerful—completely lost and utterly in control at the same time. Her nerves had been replaced with clarity as she gave herself over to the magic, and with every beat of her heart, she felt the warmth of her Gift tingling through her. She wasn’t done.
Barely glancing behind her, she abandoned the woman she’d forced into sleep on the floor and strode calmly back into the hallway, looking around for the sitting room. Ty was forced to follow her now, and he did so without a word.
The voices she’d heard from the cellar had stopped talking, replaced with the minor noises of a struggle—feet shuffling and a small squeak of fear. She walked down the hallway, following the sounds and the dim light of the fireplace, to find Steig and Turner holding the two other witches in the sitting room. Their eyes were wide with fear as they struggled against their captors, the daemons’ hands covering their mouths and preventing them from using any spellwords.
Ena vaguely registered how young they were—both were in their early or mid-teens, and clearly didn’t have their Gifts yet. They were most likely sisters, given the way they resembled oneanother. She saw the panic in their eyes, but it barely impacted her; she was too caught up in the flow of her magic. She focused on them and spoke.
{Stop moving.}
