The Witch with No Name

“Prepare for what? I’m not leaving Trent to do this alone. We could do this if the rest of you would help,” I accused, glad we were out of earshot of Trent’s hut.

Al reached for my arm, his hand falling back before it touched me. “No, we can’t,” he said with an infuriating sureness. “Trent has overestimated himself, and you won’t come out of this alive if you bind your fate to his.”

My brow furrowed. “I didn’t know you cared.”

Fire exploded against my cheek, and I stumbled back, hand pressed to my face as I reeled. Al caught me by the shoulder, jerking me back upright. He’d slapped me?

“Don’t toy with me,” Al whispered. “Trying to shift the elven curse will get you killed!”

He’d slapped me! “Hey!” I exclaimed, almost afraid. He had struck me because I’d used his pain to hurt him. “You walked away from me. You don’t have any say in what I do anymore, and if you hit me again, I’m going to smack you back!”

Al let me go. I tensed, but he turned away, his back bowed as he went to a cement bench. I hadn’t even known it was there, so covered in a rambling rose vine it was. Head down, Al waved his hand, brushing aside the vines to find a clear spot to sit. The scent of disturbed roses wafted out—one last bid for beauty before the autumn chill pinched the petals free.

He looked broken as he sat there with his elbows on his knees and stared at nothing. My cheek throbbed, and guilt swam up. I deserved to have been slapped. Using his own pain against him was cruel.

“We need your help,” I said, and he looked at me from under lowered eyebrows. My boots scuffed through the leaf mold to find paving as I shifted closer. There’d been a clearing here once—a patio maybe—and I went to sit on a broken statue. It looked as if it might have been a witches’ garden, though admittedly not a very sunny one.

“Why do you care about the undead souls? The demons? Me?”

His last word held a painful vulnerability, and I tried to find a more comfortable position. “Because everyone deserves a chance to come back from their mistakes.” My roving eyes returned to find him sitting among the roses. “I should know.”

“You won’t come back from this one,” he said. “The elves are massed for destruction. Our destruction. The undead souls were the lure and the way. The elimination of the aged undead is a bonus, but it’s us they’re after. We couldn’t beat them when we were forty thousand strong. We are four hundred and thirteen now.”

His head dropped, and I frowned. Four hundred and thirteen? It had always seemed more than that, but perhaps it was the familiars who filled the shops and parties. “Trent stands with us,” I said, and Al sighed heavily.

“It cannot be done,” he said solemnly. “Come with me. We’re weaving a wall.”

“A wall,” I said flatly.

The lift of Al’s shoulders gave away his disdain for their own cowardice, but his jaw was set. “A wall to keep from being pulled back when they dissolve the lines.”

“A wall,” I said again, and he bared his teeth at me, daring me to call them cowards. “Al, walls are prisons. You need to break the original curse.”

“With four hundred of us?” he protested. “It can’t be done.”

I leaned forward, trying to cross the distance with my words. “That’s why you need the elves’ help.”

Al looked at me as if I was crazy, and maybe I was, but I stood, unable to sit any longer. “The elves are modifying an old curse, not making a new one,” I said, words rushing over themselves. “You told me yourself that was dangerous. All we have to do is end it!”

“And in the doing, we put ourselves in the stream itself,” he said sourly. “We will flounder and be lost.”

“You don’t know that!”

“We do!” he thundered, and I stiffened as I heard Jenks’s wings. He was somewhere close, but I said nothing as Al slumped, clearly frustrated.

“We know Landon will be the fulcrum,” I said, pacing now. “He’s in downtown Cincinnati, right by the square. We know his damn room number, Al! Ivy and Jenks can get us in—”

Al sat up, waving a hand disparagingly. “Why do I even try?”

“If we’re with him, we can shift the focus of the charm!” I protested. “Al!” I complained, my feet stopping as he frowned at me.

“There can be only one weaver in a spell that complex—”

“Then Trent and I will be a fulcrum and slant it the direction we want,” I pleaded.

“Rachel.” Al slumped. “We tried that. Their magic . . . It’s too strong.”

“Then we can try it again,” I insisted.

“Their magic is too strong!” he shouted, and I shut my mouth. Sighing, Al held a hand out to me, inviting me to sit down. “It can’t be done,” he said softly, never letting his hand fall, extending it for me.

Frustrated, I stomped over and sat down. “Cowards,” I accused.

“Realists,” he countered, but his anger was gone. The silence stretched. “What do you hope to get out of this?” Al asked, startling me.

“To end the war between you. To bring you home!” I said, and he actually smiled.

“No, I mean what do you want from the world? From everything?”