“Ready.” I nodded.
Caleb looked up at the sky, filled with witches on broomsticks, and let out a long-suffering breath. “Keegan is going to kill me.”
“I guess I forgot to mention to him how we were getting there.” I eyed Caleb, silently pleading that he wouldn't mention it.
Bella grinned. “He'll only kill you if we come back without Maeve.”
Caleb rolled his eyes. “Comforting.”
“This is either going to become legendary history or a deeply cautionary tale,” Twobble announced.
“Why not both?” Stella teased.
Honestly, she was probably right.
I tightened my grip on the broom and lifted my gaze eastward, where the distant horizon seemed darker than the rest of the night.
Twobble hopped on as the pendant at my throat pulsed once like a heartbeat, and the broom launched upward.
Behind me, the witches of Stonewick rose into the sky together, and I knew the Priestess didn't have a chance.
Chapter Eighteen
Twobble clutched my waist as Skonk hopped on Stella's broom. The night air felt like ice against my skin as the broom carried me higher in the sky towards the blanket of twinkling stars. Stonewick Village looked so tiny with the buildings and glowing street lamps so far beneath us.
And to think, somewhere below, Keegan was tracing my daughters’ footsteps as orcs, goblins, and shifters canvassed the land below together. My only hope was that the Priestess had no idea what unity looked like, or that we would be arriving at her doorstep.
It was hard to believe I'd been to the Priestess' compound before in the pursuit of helping Gideon, and now I was flying in to save my mom and daughter from the Priestess' thirst for power.
“How much further?” Twobble asked.
“Not too long,”
He was sitting behind me with his knobby knees digging into my kidneys.
Even though we hadn't reached Shadowick’s borders and the compound sat far beyond, broomstick transportation seemed to be much quicker than most methods.
As my hands held the broomstick handle tightly, I glanced over my shoulder to see a large group of midlife witches ready to take on the world.
It was enough to steal my breath, even if the wind had already done a remarkable job of trying to shove it back down my throat.
Lady Limora glided at the left flank with Vivian, Mara, and Opal behind her, all of them looking as if they’d been born in the night sky and simply tolerated the ground for social reasons.
Stella flew nearby, with one hand on her broom and the other clutching the front of her shawl, which fluttered dramatically around her shoulders. But Skonk sat behind her with his eyes squeezed shut and a hand held to his chest like he was in a state of constant sorcery…or fear.
“I regret everything,” Skonk shouted.
Twobble’s grip tightened around my waist. “For the record, I also regret several things, but I’m saving my full list for after we survive.”
“Wonderful,” I muttered. “Something to look forward to.”
Below us, the land moved in dark waves. The outer edges of Stonewick slipped away first, with the last warm glimmers of the village vanishing behind us. It felt almost wrong to leave it. The tea shop. The Academy. The cottage. The Wards that had held us together through more than any place should be asked to endure.
The farther we flew, the colder the air became.
The moon hung high above us, and it felt watchful, with every star sharper than it had looked from the ground.
But the broom knew the way.
