‘What?’ whispers Isobelle.
‘Something like a hope witch,’ Gwen whispers back, her eyes never leaving Isobelle’s.
Isobelle looks around helplessly at the endless darkness that surrounds their small pool of torchlight. ‘But we’re still inside her spell. Back in the tower, in the real world, we’re still asleep.’
Gwen straightens, and slides her arms down Isobelle’s until she’s grasping Isobelle’s hands. Then, deliberately, she lets go so she can pluck something from the waves of Isobelle’s hair: a single thread of shadow, shed as the dragon screamed past in its last, fatal fall.
Gwen holds it up between her fingertips – as they watch, it crumbles and blows away into dust. Isobelle refocuses past Gwen’s fingers, on her face.
‘You are so much stronger than you know, Isobelle,’ Gwen whispers. ‘You vanquished a creature that’s been hunting me in my mind for months. You broke a curse far, far older and stronger than Tabitha’s. Do you really think a spell of hers can stop you?’
Isobelle’s heart begins to pound. Her fingers tingle against Gwen’s. Her whole body tingles, aglow with the light that connects them and illuminated the path for her to enter Gwen’s nightmare.
And she can feel that light, leading all the way back to their bodies.
Gwen sees her expression shift, as understanding, hope, intention come flooding back. When she blinks and meets Gwen’s gaze again, Gwen squeezes her hand, and says, ‘Tell me what to do.’
‘Right. Come with me.’
Together they clear a space in the darkness, marking out a circle with the light of the torch. Isobelle pulls Gwen down to sit across from her, their legs crossed, their knees touching. Isobelle doesn’t know any incantations, so instead she focuses on the warmth of Gwen as their hands curl together.
Somewhere, in the real world, her body lies unconscious across Gwen’s. They rest on the very stones where once walked the witches of Galanty-Uponne-the-Sea when the Order of the Evening Star sought to purge all magic from this land. Stones that Tabitha invoked and linked to her spell. The weight of her mother’s fury and anguish is there – but hers is not the only spirit bound to these stones.
Isobelle can feel them – the witches. The weight of their last moments, held by the stone, whispering to her things her heart understands without the need of words.
Energy surges up into her body, so strongly that she feels Gwen jump as she senses it too, squeezing Isobelle’s hands more tightly. A wisp of memory floats by, ghostlike – a line of women being marched into the hall. One of them turns, her eyes meeting Isobelle’s. She nods a greeting, and Isobelle nods back.
The vision fades, but she can feel their energy rising in her like a salty tide with nowhere to go, filling her, an ocean of force awaiting her direction.How do I break a curse?she asked wildly of the shadows.How do I wake us from this sleep?
For a moment, she can see herself and Gwen, as if from a very long way. Just the two of them, suspended in abyssal night, gleaming like a single star in their pool of light.
Her eyes are closed, but Gwen’s aren’t. Gwen is looking straight at Isobelle, whose face is beatific, tilted back, shining. Gwen’s watching her with her heart in her eyes.
She’s so beautiful.
Whether the thought is hers or Gwen’s, Isobelle doesn’t know. With a gasp, and a rush, she pulls all that energy back in, lets it fill her, and then leans forward to bring her lips to Gwen’s.
The darkness around them shatters into blazing, glorious light. The world seems to tilt, with a disorienting wrench that makes Isobelle feel as if she is falling … falling …
Isobelle landed with a thump and a squeak and a flailing of limbs. There were arms around her – Gwen’s arms. She was sitting up, eyes wide and flooded with tears, holding Isobelle, her breath coming quickly, but no sign of the shaking she was prone to after a nightmare.
Beneath them was the chilly, polished stone floor of the tower, a huge crack now marking the place where Gwenhad lain. Isobelle could feel her knees and hips aching from throwing herself down. The puffed barley scattered across the floor threw long shadows from the firelight.
‘It worked,’ she gasped, sitting up a little, discovering that her body felt as wobbly as if she’d just run all the way here from Darkhaven without a rest. She gazed at Gwen in wonder, and then whispered, ‘True love’s kiss.’
‘What?’ Gwen blinked at her. She looked a bit dazed, disoriented – Isobelle wondered, with a stab of regret, whether Gwen even remembered what had taken place in her dream.
Isobelle bit her lip. ‘Just something Tabitha told me once,’ she replied. Then she started. ‘Tabitha!’
‘Where did she go?’ Gwen asked, looking around at the shadowy hall.
‘She went after Olivia.’ Isobelle scanned the room – the fire was still burning, not yet suffering from a lack of new logs to consume. The spilled water from the spell jar was still, slowly, making its way along the seams in the floor.
No time has passed.
The thought shot through Isobelle like lightning. She scrambled up onto her knees.
‘No time has passed! Gwen, she’s still here, she can’t have got far. Listen, I know we don’t know what to make of Olivia and her secrets, but she doesn’t deserve to have Tabitha—’
