There were so many familiars darting around that it was hard to walk in places. If Bex hadn’t still had most of her speed, she would’ve tripped straight into someone’s display of artisanallocal honey. Iggs had been nearly incapacitated by the sheer number of pettable cats before Bex had ordered him out to the pumpkin patch. She still felt the move had been necessary to save her demon’s sanity, but it was coming back to bite her since, with Iggs in cat-based exile, there was no one around who could tell her where Lys was.
Bex had never realized how much she’d relied on Drox to locate her demons until he was gone. It’d been a week since they’d been forced to flee the destroyed Seattle Anchor for the Blackwood, but she was still discovering all the things she’d lost. For example, she used to be able to recognize Lys no matter what form they took. Now, though, Bex couldn’t say which of the hundreds of disguised lust demons working the crowd was hers. To add insult to injury, she was too short for Lys to spot now that she no longer had a foot-tall pair of horns serving as a flagpole.
It was sofrustrating. She’d thought she was in the clear after Nemini had helped her climb out of the void left by the loss of her name, but every day brought challenges Bex felt completely unequipped to deal with. She couldn’t even get one of the random demons’ attention to ask for help since, with no horns and no name to give her magical presence, they all assumed she was human and steered clear. She was digging for her cellphone to just call Lys and ask when someone tapped her on the shoulder.
Bex nearly jumped out of her skin. The fact that people could sneak up on her so easily now was another new vulnerability she hated. If she’d still had her sword, she would’ve pulled it on instinct and probably killed someone. Fortunately for everybody in a ten-foot radius, Bex couldn’t do stuff like that anymore. A fact the person who’d tapped her definitely knew and was taking advantage of, because when Bex whirled around to face her attacker, Adrian’s youngest aunt was smiling right behind her.
“Hello, no-longer-Queen of Wrath,” said the fresh-faced Witch of the Future. “I brought you the apple fritter you’re going to want in five seconds.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when the delicious smell of fried sugary dough hit Bex’s nose. This was followed by a loud growl from her stomach, and the black-haired witch’s smile turned into a grin.
“Here,” she said, pressing an absolutely beautiful slab of golden-fried, apple-stuffed pastry into Bex’s sole remaining hand. “You eat while I talk.”
“Okay, but what are we talking about?” Bex asked nervously as she took a bite of the piping hot fritter, which tasted even better than it smelled.
“That depends,” Muriel replied as she nibbled the corner off her own fritter, which was even prettier than Bex’s. “My sisters are always telling me to be more mindful of others, so why don’t we start with how you’re doing.”
“Better than we should be,” Bex reported at once, taking a step back so she could bow her head without hitting the wide brim of the witch’s enormous pointed hat. “Thank you again for taking us in, and for letting us help with your festival. Large concentrations of human emotion are hard to come by out here in the countryside. A big, chaotic event like this is a feast for my demons.”
“I’m happy to hear it,” the Old Wife of the Future replied as she licked the sticky cinnamon off her fingers. “But that second one wasn’t actually my doing. We hold the festival at the same time every year. Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence.”
“Well, I’m still grateful,” Bex said stubbornly. “My people would be dead right now without your coven’s help.”
“That is true,” Muriel agreed around a mouth full of fritter. “But I didn’t ask how your demons were doing. I asked aboutyou.”
She looked pointedly down at the stump on the end of Bex’s right wrist, and the former Queen of Wrath sighed.
“There’s nothing new to report,” she muttered, trying hard not to sound as bitter as she felt. “My hand’s not coming back. Nemini and Lys both tell me I’ve regenerated limbs in the past, but this time…” She shook her hornless head. “I don’t know if it was losing my crown or my name or what, but I haven’t recovered any more of my power than I had when you rescued us from the collapsed Seattle Anchor.”
“I see,” Muriel said as she led Bex around the long line for the cider tent. “But you’re still leaving tonight.”
Bex jumped. She hadn’t told anyone about that yet. She’d barely made the decision herself, though she really shouldn’t have been surprised. What was the point of being the Witch of the Future if you didn’t know what was going to happen before everyone else?
“Will I be successful?” she asked instead.
Adrian’s aunt didn’t reply. She just stared off into the distance, her blue eyes locked on the wall of trees that loomed over the village’s eastern edge like a cliff.
Bex stared at it, too. When the witches had first brought them in, she couldn’t believe that the Great Blackwood was justthere. Even way out here in the boonies where trees were expected to be big, how could the scalies not notice oaks the size of skyscrapers?Especiallyright now, when the giant forest was decked out in its autumn splendor. Most of the crowd clogging the festival tents were leaf watchers who’d driven out here specifically to stare at the scenery. How was it possible that shutterbugs with gigs of leaf photos on their cameras could walkright by the giant forest rising like an ancient city not three feet beyond Hemlock Bend’s final building and not freak out?
“The same way the good people of Bainbridge never noticed Adrian’s lovely witchwood,” Muriel said, answering Bex’s question before she could even consider asking it out loud. “Gilgamesh’s scales steal from all of us, including those who have no idea they’re being robbed.”
“All the more reason to bring him down,” Bex growled, turning away from the glorious red-and-gold forest to glare at the witch. “You never answered my question. Will my mission tonight succeed?”
The Witch of the Future sighed and ate the rest of her fritter.
“Parts of it will and parts of it won’t,” she said when she’d finally finished chewing. “Sadly, I can’t tell you which parts because the future isn’t actually mine to control. It’s more like pruning a sapling. You do your best to coax the branches into the shape you want, but only the tree itself knows what its final form will be.”
She flashed Bex a cryptic smile. “You’re one of my sharpest pruning cuts yet. The reason I voted to allow Adrian to go to Seattle was to make sure that he met you. I have great faith in both of your potential, but when it comes to the specific twists and turns of what is yet to come…” She shrugged. “Part of mastering soul magic is learning to live with uncertainty.”
Bex was starting to see why soul magic was Adrian’s least favorite school of witchcraft. “So you can’t give me any hints? Nothing at all?”
“I can tell you that Lys is at the Brew Ha Ha,” Muriel said, pointing down the busy street at the largest of Hemlock Bend’s perfectly maintained colonial buildings. “The other thing you were waiting for is there as well.”
“Really?” Bex whistled. “That was fast.”
“You’re not the only one in a hurry,” the witch replied, reaching into the pocket of her simple but beautifully sewn black linen dress. “I suspect this will be the last time we talk for a while, so I’m going to give you this now. If you see my nephew before I do, would you do me the favor of passing it on?”
The mention of Adrian made Bex’s stomach clench. She’d been trying her best not to think about what was happening to him in Heaven, but she knew it had to be horrible. What flavor of horrible was still up for debate since she still didn’t know why Gilgamesh had kidnapped him in the first place, but his family was being no help at all. They refused to even discuss Adrian in her presence, but Bex hadn’t forgotten that the first princess who’d come to Bainbridge had also tried to take Adrian away. She didn’t know if that was because of the Spider or if Adrian Blackwood had always been part of Gilgamesh’s long game, but Bex was determined to get him back.
