“What are my duties?”
“You will come whenever you are summoned. Otherwise, we meet once a week to listen to the petitions of witches across the country. In our group of thirteen, we have three senior members and you, our youngest, will be a junior member. Your duties will be to primarily observe how we operate, help in spell casting, and within a year, you may start hearing and voting upon issues brought in front of the Council. We will assess your current skills and powers and teach you to amplify them so that we may discover why you have been chosen by prophecy to be a leader in our world. We will visit places that require the Council’s advice and guidance which means traveling frequently across the country, and sometimes across the world. You will be on call, as the humans say.”
The other Council members surrounded him, sharing smiles of welcome and words of congratulations, but Malcolm couldn’t find it in his heart to care. He didn’t belong here. He didn’t belong anywhere. Not anymore. Hades whined softly at his side, but Malcolm ignored his familiar.
One of the witches crowded closer. “Is it true you have almost witch-locked with a hedge witch?”
Before he could answer, a silver-haired warlock said, “A hedge witch, you say?” His brows then drew together in thought. “Quite unusual.”
All around him, Malcolm winced at the rising voices, the crush of the bodies crowding too close when he needed space to think. Now that his father was safe, his thoughts had gone back to Calli, and that tormented look on her face before he’d left. The pain she must still be in. How could he possibly make things right with her?
The answer was he couldn’t. He couldn’t undo her parents’ deaths, nor could he change the role he’d played. It was a burden he’d have to live with for the rest of his life.
He tried to reach out to Calli within his heart, the way he’d been able to do in the last few days as their bond had strengthened, but was met with cold silence. Whatever bond had been forming between them had been severed. Possibly forever.
With a sinking heart, he faced the fact that he might have truly lost her.
I will serve my thirty years. And when that ends… nothing else will matter to me, nothing. That was the only vow that mattered to him now, and the only vow he thought he could keep. The one thing he wanted to matter… hurt too much to think about. His heart could only shatter so many times before he’d never be able to piece it back together again.
The scar on his palm from the night of the accident that had changed everything suddenly itched, and a flash of pain cut across it like he’d been cut with a dagger. He swallowed down the blinding agony, burying it so deep it would take a century to claw back to the surface.
Hades nudged his other hand and whined again.
“Enough, Hades! Go away!” he shouted. His loyal familiar, the one creature who’d been his dearest friend in all the world for so long, looked at him with a hurt expression in his eyes. Then, the giant schnauzer vanished in a swirl of dark and silver smoke.
“Hades?” he gasped, but the dog didn’t appear. “Hades! Come back!” He yelled more desperately, startling the nearby Council members.
But the dog was gone.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Even after a week, the cuts from Persephone’s claws hadn’t healed.
Calli’s sweater caught on the bandages on her arms and tugged at her painfully whenever she moved as she stood behind the checkout desk at Pages & Potions. The wounds hadn’t been the only damage to come from the horrible night. Something had been triggered within her after she’d lost Malcolm. Her world had fallen apart all over again, and now her magic was behaving erratically in a way it never had before.
Most of the spells she used every day were faltering or failing completely, like the one she’d tried to use to repair the smashed windows, which she’d had to board up. Her other spells hadn’t prevented the cold drafts, and now her plants were suffering. Their leaves were withering and their stems were turning brittle. The flower garden beside her vegetable patch that usually bloomed all year, and usually won every prize at the Halloween Festival, suffered the most. That garden had been her private sanctuary. It had never been affected by the encroaching winter before, but now it was as dead and lifeless as any normal garden this time of year.
Only her grandmother’s archway seemed to have survived the early frost that Calli’s spell had set off. It was still bright green, its magic still faintly glowing at the edges, as if calling to her.
Now she sat in her grandmother’s bookstore, missing her more than ever.
I wish you were here, Gran… you’d know what to do.
Celestine Skycaster had always known what to do.
“You okay?” Sage asked as she placed a hot cocoa in front of Calli who still stood at her checkout desk at Pages & Potions. Calli must have been staring off into space again.
“The truth?” Calli asked, her tone weak.
Sage put a hand on Calli’s shoulder. “Always.” Her touch and presence soothed Calli’s soul the way only a good friend could.
“I forgot what it felt like,” Calli finally whispered.
“What what felt like, hon?” Sage leaned against the counter, her blue eyes filled with concern.
“Losing everything.” Calli could barely breathe right now. It was as though her heart had given up, and each beat wanted to be its last.
Sage pulled her into a tight hug. “I know, hon. I know. The pain will hurt less… someday. Trust me.”
