Devil's Frost, Spellspinners Series #3 (The Spellspinners of Melas County) (2 page)

“The wound is healing.” My mother stood and stepped toward me.

As earlier with Logan, air rushed from my lungs in relief. “Thank you. I—I wasn’t trying to hurt her
.
I had no idea she was my doppelganger...” Anger seized up within me, momentarily erasing my relief. “Why would she do this? Betray me like this?”

“I have no idea. I don’t understand how this could happen.” Mom looked accusingly at Camellia, who was chanting over Orchid’s still body.

“She’s my—was my—best friend.”

“I know, Lily. We’re going to find out what happened. When she’s better.”

Nodding, I shrank under Mom’s newly aged features and asked carefully, “Are
you
going to be okay, Mom?”

She frowned. “I’ll be fine.”

“The aging will stop, won’t it?”

She touched her forehead as if just remembering the sacrifice she’d made. “I hope so,” she said uncertainly.

Sure, age is only an illusion, and looks don’t matter, but I didn’t want my mom to look like a great-grandmother, or worse, take to an early grave because she used extreme magic to save my and Logan’s amulet from Jacob. Besides, the Hundred-Year Curse dividing the female and male Spellspinners was clear and cruel: warlocks aged prematurely—Jacob looked to be in his nineties though he was probably the same age as Iris—and witches remained beautiful. The result was that warlocks always yearned for what they couldn’t have while witches had to watch their magical equals rot away without ever being able to fall in love with them.

“For now we need to focus on Orchid.”

“You healed the wound from my sword. Why does she still look like that?” I asked.

“I’m not sure how to help her,” Camellia announced finally, finishing her chant, her fingers stuck together with the muck dripping from Orchid. “The magic she practiced to simulate your form was not from the light, and I’m afraid the repercussions from spinning such a dangerous spell are taking their toll on her.”

I fought back tears of disgust, then anger, then sadness.
She was practicing dark magic?
This wasn’t how anything was supposed to play out.

My first Solstice Stones.

I’d been working so hard to prepare for this very special day. Training my body, mind, and spirit for the moment when I would exchange energies with my warlock component in an effort to both regain and balance out my magic.

My sisters should have been waiting to prep me. My back to the ring, cloaked in velvet, I would face them and they would surround me, stroke my arms and face with their petal-soft touches and bless me with low-eyed chants until Iris unsheathed the sword and I’d clutch the helm—feel the weight of it, heavy and solid in my hand. But Orchid had stolen my identity. Stolen my place in this ritual. Stolen my fight.

“Mistress of Light, please stand before Congression. We need to speak with you about the events that have unfolded here this evening.” An intimidatingly tall woman cloaked in dark silver, one of the three masked voices from earlier, her shadowed features and luminescent eyes no longer covered by a mask, but still hooded, beckoned from outside the ring of stones.

“Yes, mistress.” Camellia stood and bowed. Then she turned to Iris and me, her eyes flashing with concern for her foster daughter, Orchid. “Are you okay here?”

“Yes,” I responded, though I wasn’t sure. I bent over, checking Orchid’s dainty wrist for a pulse. It was there, but barely.

“Camellia?” Mom’s voice was worried. “Shouldn’t Congression take Orchid to be healed instead of questioning you about her?”

“Try to stabilize her as best you can,” Camellia whispered in response, then walked toward the tall, beckoning Congression member.

Suddenly, I realized where my mother and I were. There were crowds outside the Stones, watching us, and they were at the brink of chaos. The witches looked like they didn’t know what to do, while, on the opposite side of the circle, warlocks argued about breaking rules and playing with dark magic. Only Jacob was quiet and still, staring at me from across the ring, his wrinkled face void of understandable expression. I remembered what Iris had said moments before the Gleaning:
“Avoid Jacob’s eyes. I can’t protect you from him anymore,”
and lowered my eyes.

Protect me from what? His attempts to get my amulet?

“Don’t think about that now,” Iris commanded, reading my thoughts. “Help me with Orchid.”

I blinked. Mind reading was certainly a bother when a girl was trying to have a private moment. “Why aren’t the other witches coming to help us?”

“They are frightened.”

“Of what?”

Her eyes flared with concern. “The dark magic within her.”

Glancing back at the witches, I saw she might be right. Their expressions were pale and scared. Like Orchid was contaminated. “Should we be wearing gloves or something?”

“You’ll be fine,” Iris said to me in a soothing voice. “We’ll keep her stable, like Camellia said.”

I took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure how she knew we’d be okay, but she’d never given me a reason to doubt her before.
Focus, Lily.

I assisted Mom in flipping Orchid onto her side and then pounded her back to force the thick liquid from her throat. Nothing came out. Both Iris and I hit her again. “Come on, Orchid. Stay with us,” I coached. Finally, there was a choking sound as she sputtered out some of the goo. I scooped the gunk from her inner cheeks while Iris held her up. Orchid choked up more of the substance. “Breathe.” I hit her back again. She sputtered, gasped.

My fingers, covered in slime, tingled with dark magic. I wiped them on my uniform pants, watching as the gunk spread and burned a hole in the fabric. Quickly, I spun a cooling spell and froze the ooze, flicking it off my pants and onto the dirt, where it continued to wiggle like a leech on skin.

“That is nasty,” I said, wincing. What price had Orchid paid for dabbling with this forbidden magic? Her bony chest sank and didn’t rise again. I screamed, “I don’t think she’s breathing anymore!”

Iris pressed a palm on her lungs and another against her back as she cradled her, rocking her slowly back and forth. Above us, the sky cleared of rain, and a stray bolt of lightning touched down as Orchid jerked up stiffly to her knees and coughed up a huge wad of poison onto the ground. It quivered like Jell-O or something from an alien film.

“Blood,” Iris says. “A dark-magic-produced clot. Oh, Orchid,” she said softly in a tone both disgusted and heartbroken. Orchid’s body began to convulse. Iris shouted, “Camellia! We need you.”

Camellia was halfway across the circle, defensively arguing with members of the Congression, who glared at us but didn’t interrupt our intervention. Camellia quickly excused herself and rushed over.

“We need to clear her,” Iris said.

Camellia stood tall, surveying the situation. Mouth pursed in stubborn determination, she crouched down behind Orchid’s shaking body, pulling her to her chest. Iris took up position on Orchid’s front side, and the two of them started chanting. At first nothing happened, but as the chanting grew louder, stronger, Orchid stopped sputtering. Stopped choking. She slumped over, finally still.

I reached for Orchid’s fragile wrist. It dangled limply in my hand. “She doesn’t have a pulse.” Hot tears poured down my cheeks, mirroring the rain that had once again begun to fall.

I pleaded with the Seven Sisters:
Please, help me. Show me what to do.

Please.

A flush of magic poured down my back, flooding my veins as if with liquid gold, and then rose through my pores. “Let me in. I know what to do.”

“What?” Camellia asked.

“Trust me.”

I stretched one hand toward Camellia and the other to my mother, and before our fingers clasped together, I dropped the amulet between Iris’s and my palms. I closed my eyes and mumbled a chant that came to me from somewhere else. Someone else. A voice I didn’t recognize yet somehow knew intimately; it was both wise and knowing.

Body broken bitter bones

Refuse the darkness light be shown

After a few rounds of my chant, Camellia and Iris mumbled along. Together, we willed Orchid’s eyes open. Willed her breath to flow. Willed her life force to take over her broken bones, her spirit to overcome her torn soul. My body turned to wind, cold and forceful. Like harboring a storm, I shook. Something deep within wanted to flow from my body to Orchid’s.

In a gush, I pushed the power from my mouth into Orchid’s. With a thrust, her body jerked. Her eyes popped open.

Only they weren’t cerulean anymore. They weren’t fire either. Or jade.

They were completely void of color, a blank canvas, white as newly fallen snow. But she sat up, stiff as stone, and spoke. “Where am I?” Her eyes were creepy, absent and white. “What happened?”

“We’re in the Gleaning, Orchid,” Mom explained, patting her back.

Camellia wasn’t as gentle. “You entered the ring as Lily and were injured after almost killing Logan.”

“I…what?” she asked. “I entered as Lily?”

We all exchanged a look.

“You don’t remember?” Iris asked.

“Lily?” She craned her neck around frantically. “I can’t see.”

“Is that why her eyes are white?” I asked Camellia. “Is she blind?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps it’s temporary, an effect of the dark magic.”

I felt a swish of wind and shivered as tall shadows spread over our little group in the dirt. “How is she?” The woman from before, the tall one who had commanded Camellia, spoke from under her crimson hood.

Iris bowed her head in reverence. “She cannot see and is very weak. Her lungs have been cleared of the dark magic, however.”

The hooded woman nodded. “We’d like to take her to answer some questions.”

“I’m not sure she’s ready to be questioned. It may be better—”

“I’m afraid we can’t afford to wait,” a male member interjected. I realized what an enormously important moment this was; these were actual members of Congression speaking directly to us. Normally, they’d send a messenger, even when among the rank and file at events like the Gleaning. The Congression was an elected panel made of the most powerful Spellspinners. There were always seven members, and this year, they were male dominated. (Next year there would be four witches and three warlocks, but now the men outnumbered the women.) Jacob and Camellia answered directly to them. Members of Congression were not used to being argued with. Iris nodded at the man who had just spoken, avoiding eye contact, giving in to the pressure of all seven of their poisonous stares.

“Lily?” Orchid’s hand shot out to find mine.

Wincing, I let her take it. Had she really forgotten she had betrayed me, or was she faking it to get out of the mess she’d caused? I guessed the latter, but then again, she looked so panicked…It was possible this entire trauma had caused her to lose her memories.

“It’s okay,” my mom soothed. “We’ll come with you.” She turned to the cloaked female member of Congression again, lowering her eyes. “If that’s all right with you, mistress.”

I could see teeth under the hood and an unreadable smile. “Of course.”

Camellia and Mom rose, each lifting Orchid up by flailing arms.

“Lily?” Orchid cried again, her voice rising in panic. “If I did what they say I did, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Chilling white eyes stared in my general direction, unable to focus on any one thing. I swallowed panic. This was all too much. “Lily, you have to believe me!” she screamed, desperation heavy in her voice as they dragged her away. In a wisp of swirling silver robes, they disappeared from the circle and into the woods surrounding the Stones.

Before I had time to register what had happened to Orchid, a voice behind me, dark and ominous spoke. “We’re going to need to take Logan, too.”

Long slivery fingers snaked across the back of my neck. I ducked out of the way, spinning around to face Jacob, remembering at the last second to avoid his eyes. “Why?” I asked his bony shoulder.

“After what your little witch friend did to him, Logan needs a stint in the infirmary.” Jacob’s aged lower jaw morphed from angry to sorrowful—it reminded me of how Iris had looked at Orchid—except with Jacob, I knew his fatherly feelings were completely insincere. “My poor, poor boy.” Jacob gestured back toward the opposite end of the ring, where I’d reluctantly left Logan’s side.

Better to play his game. “Yes. It is
terrible
. I’ll come along, too,” I said, pulling a page from the Iris handbook. No way was I going to let him take Logan to his so-called infirmary. Who knew what he’d do to him there. The “infirmary” was, more likely, part of the dungeon, crawling with rats and medieval torture devices.

“
Tsk
,
tsk
,
tsk
.” Jacob shook his head and wiggled his finger in my face, while again, I carefully avoided his prying, cursed eyes. “You know the rules about witches and warlocks fraternizing,
dear
Lily Rose.”

I held my ground, keeping my gaze firmly focused below his eyes. “He’d want me with him.”

“Don’t we have a full sense of self?” Jacob oozed sarcasm. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about him. My N’anga will ward off evil spirits brought on by your witch friend and attempt to heal Logan’s magical afflictions. If he recovers, we’ll discuss how to proceed with all of this.”

This
. Me and Logan. It was a thinly veiled threat, but I wouldn’t be intimidated. Jacob’s other statement was more worrisome.

“
If
he recovers? I healed him! He doesn’t need further healing from your N’anga!”

N’angas were witch doctors from Africa. I had studied them in elementary (magic) school. They painted white circles under their eyes, red across their foreheads and yellow down their cheeks, and they dressed in animal skins and danced around their patients, attempting to locate evil spirits.

“Then why isn’t he awake, walking and talking?” Jacob pressed me, almost teasingly.

I wasn’t sure. “He’s been through a lot and needs time. If you just let him rest and don’t mess with him, he’ll wake up.”

“I’m not leaving that to chance, child. If you care about him like you say, you’ll want the best treatment for him, yes?”