“Is that where we’re going?” I ask, nodding toward a large stone building at the top of the hill.
“Yes.”
“Take my arm.”
Maybe this witch already knows about demons’ ability to travel through portals, because she doesn’t hesitate before laying her palm on my forearm.
With effort, I open a portal that takes us right to the manor’s front gate.
The witch stumbles out, clutching at her chest, blazing curls tumbling around her face as she finds her feet again.
“Fuck,” she mutters. “They really weren’t kidding about those portals. Come on, it’s just through here.”
She cracks open the gate, but instead of leading me up the cobbled drive, we head around the side of the palatial estate, to a set of stairs leading down into the earth.
They bring us to a cellar door, heavy wood pitted with age.
“We’re almost there,” I whisper to Seren, but the slight rise and fall of her chest—still with that horrible wheezing—is her only reply.
The witch beside me raps hard on the door, and with each passing second it doesn’t open, I’m more and more ready to portal back to the Veil, to hells with all of this, and get Seren help back in my own realm.
“Who is it?” A voice calls from inside.
“Open up, Soleil. I’ve got someone here for you.”
The door swings open and a harried-looking, black-haired witch—Soleil, presumably—stands there. She opens her mouthto speak before all the color drains from her face, her bright green eyes widening when she sees the woman in my arms.
“Bring her in here.”
In an instant, Soleil regains her composure and leads us inside. Down another set of stairs, then another, the air growing cooler with each floor descended and flaming torches burning on the walls to light our way.
We reach a set of double doors, also heavy and wooden and obviously as old as the rest of the manor, if not older. Inside, a circular chamber filled with work tables in the center and shelves built into the walls. Stacked high with bottles of tinctures and dried plants, ancient tomes and witch’s tools, the air in the chamber is filled with the scent of herbs and sorcery.
“Put her here,” Soleil commands, tapping her hand on one of the tables before she turns her attention to a tall cabinet at the back of the room, rifling through its contents.
I lay Seren gently down and take off my cloak, rolling it into a makeshift pillow to put beneath her head. Almost as soon as I’ve got her settled, the other witch is back with some strange contraption in her hand.
A narrow glass tube with a stopper at one end, a wickedly sharp-looking metal needle at the other.
“What magick is this?” I ask, restraining myself from stopping her as she lowers the tip to Seren’s arm.
My mate asked me to bring her here. She trusts these witches, this coven. I can only hope that trust wasn’t misplaced.
“Not magick.” The tip pierces Seren’s skin, and the witch presses down on the stopper, emptying the cylinder’s contents. “Medicine. Human medicine. It should help her breathe.”
For a few agonizing moments, nothing happens. Seren’s shallow wheezing continues, the rise and fall of her chest so slight that it might stop at any moment.
I take her hand, and Soleil’s keen green eyes follow the movement.
Familiar eyes.
Eyes I’ve been dreaming of incessantly these past weeks.
A slightly different shape, set in a face that’s a bit smoother, rounder, but undeniably the same shade that caught me in its snare that night in the Middle.
This witch must be Seren’s sister.
Before I can ask, Seren’s tight breathing eases. She pulls in a deeper breath than she’s taken since I found her in Faerie, and I do, too.
