29. Chapter 29

When we stepped into the clearing in a dense forest in a remote corner of Magea, I knew we had finally reached our destination. It had taken nearly an hour of following clues and activating portals to reach the rebel meeting place. My hand curled into a fist, fingers covering the small mark Dyre had left on my skin. The bond between us was weak and hastily cast, but he assured me it was enough for him or Sunny to make a small link to my aura and cast stronger protective magic around me if the need arose.

I was worried about this situation with Dyre. The others made it very clear that they thought he was stupid for dissolving our life bond, and they reminded the necromancer of their strong connections to me—and our romantic relationships—whenever possible. But I didn"t want him to be pressured and coerced into anything. I wanted Dyre to be happy. I just wished he could be happy with me. But I shoved all of that aside, as usual, to focus on more important things.

We were about to figure out whether the pamphlets we"d been receiving were actually coming from my sister, or if it was all just an elaborate trap set by the SA or the witch supremacists to catch themselves a Lovell and a pack of powerful magic users.

The clearing was ringed in ancient trees with trunks wider than a car, their towering branches trailing tendrils of leaves and flowers, like massive weeping willows. The center of the space was carpeted with short, glossy-leafed ground cover. It didn"t look completely natural, as if someone with a strong earth affinity or other connection to plants had created the forest sanctuary. Maybe a fae. Night was falling, and fireflies blinked at us in the gray-purple dusk around us. No one jumped out at us, SA or otherwise. The clearing was completely empty, despite our being a few minutes late.

I took the opportunity to refill my magic reserves, glorying in the sensation of connection with actual nature, rather than the weak imitation I had access to back in the pocket world.

"It"s an illusion," Ambrose said from right behind me, his dark velvet voice nearly a whisper, sending shivers down my spine.

I nodded. I thought I could sense the magic that was concealing whoever was hiding here. But I wasn"t as skilled in detecting these things as the rest of my companions. "Any clue who"s watching us right now?" I murmured.

I thought I could sense a familiar strain of magic in the illusion spell, but I couldn"t be certain. Dyre"s deep voice spoke from several paces away. He was keen on protecting me, it seemed, but not so keen on standing too close. "There"s Lovell blood woven into the spell."

If the necromancer said so. He would know all about blood magic, I supposed. "So, Bella"s here," I said, planting my hands on my hips and stepping forward.

But Niamh grabbed my arm and yanked me back beside her. "Just because they used her blood doesn"t mean she"s alive or willing," she hissed.

Of course she was right.

"Junaid is here too," Aahil murmured, his hot touch landing on my low back.

"I do not sense duress," Hasumi said with a tilt of their head, as if tasting the flavors of emotion around them. "There is some fear. But if anything, there is more… anticipation."

"It"s hard to describe," Zhong pipped up, shrugging his broad shoulders, "but my sense of the energies is that there is no threat to you here, master."

I nodded. Disentangling myself from Niamh"s grip, I stepped forward again. "Okay, asshats," I called to the empty clearing. "We didn"t waste our time following your dumb directions just to stand around with our thumbs in our asses. If you want to play hide and seek, we can just go home."

Nothing.

"Perhaps it is some sort of test," Hasumi said as they glanced around the empty space.

I sighed. Of course it was. I just wasn"t up to playing games tonight.

"Reveal," Dyre said quietly as he stepped up beside me, reminding me of a spell he had taught me to help see and understand foreign magic. "And if you really want to give them a reason not to toy with us, we have a boogeyman with us. I"m sure he"d like the opportunity to feed."

I didn"t like the idea of terrorizing people. But Dyre was right. There were a hundred and one ways we could fuck shit up. If they wanted a demonstration, then they were going to get one.

"Fine," I said tiredly. Holding out a hand on each side of me, I readied my magic, pulling it up from the deep well inside me. Dyre and Ambrose stepped up on either side of me. "Go ahead, Ambrose," I said softly. "Let them know we don"t have to see them to kick their asses for wasting our time."

My boogeyman smiled a wicked, shark-toothed smile. His dark power flowed out around us. Even I got goosebumps, and it wasn"t aimed at me. A heartbeat later, the screaming and whimpering started. Ambrose shuddered in delight. "Oh, that"s delicious."

I shook my head at him. Then I started muttering the spell to reveal what was behind the illusion. Dyre hardly even had to correct me. I was damned proud of myself.

The illusion shimmered and fell away like it was nothing, revealing a crowd of assorted magical beings in the clearing before us. Some of them stood stock-still, rooted to the spot as whatever dreams Ambrose had given them played out in their minds. Others knelt or writhed on the ground. At the front of the group, my sister was on her knees, her head bowed and breathing hard, but somehow maintaining some awareness of the world around her.

She lifted her head, tears streaming down her face. Her gray eyes met mine, and she grinned.

I waved a hand at Ambrose. "Okay, stop before you fry their little brains."

Ambrose sighed and pulled his power back into himself, releasing the crowd in the clearing. I glanced around, taking in the various beings before us. This wasn"t exactly how I liked to meet new people. But what could you do?

"So?" I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "I thought there was going to be some special meeting or something."

Bella pushed herself to her feet and took a shaky breath. Wiping the tears from her face, she shoved her hair back out of her eyes and came over to join us, Junaid trailing behind. If I had any doubt that this woman was related to me, it would have been banished in that moment. Because only a Lovell could shake off horror like that and just keep moving. She had seen far worse. "It"s good to see you," she told me, stopping just in front of me. I was glad she didn"t try to hug me or something. For all we had been through, my sister was still basically a stranger to me.

"I knew it was you," I said with a huff.

She smirked at me. "I would say how could you doubt it," she said in a wry tone of voice. "But it"s good to see that you have the common sense to be cautious. At least sometimes."

I shrugged. "Healthy caution is cool and all, but I"m sick of… well, everything at the moment." I hiked a thumb at the powerful beings who flanked me. "And I"m not exactly helpless."

She nodded. "Oh, I know. Which is why I wanted you here. But some," she raised her voice and turned slightly toward the people behind her, who were still getting back to their feet and shaking off Ambrose"s nightmare, "didn"t believe that one untrained witch and her slaves would be of much help in the fight against injustice." She smirked again. "They required a demonstration."

Turning fully to address the surrounding people, she asked, "Well? Are you still convinced that the benefits of bringing in an untrained witch won"t outweigh the risks? I told you we needed her."

An uncomfortable silence and a few mumbles met her statement, but it seemed she had made her point. Whatever that point was.

Gesturing toward the clearing, she herded me and my companions to the center. We were surrounded by an interesting mix of people. There were the expected magical creatures—centaurs, harpies, fauns, and all the not-so-human looking people who would suffer most from the poisonous rule of witches who thought they were the supreme race. But there were also more humanoid looking races amongst them. And quite a few witches as well.

It made sense. Not every witch agreed with the toxic nonsense that the supremacists spouted. But it was hard for people to stand up to their own kind, even when they knew they were in the wrong. These witches risked even more than the hated creatures around them. By siding with the non-witches, they made themselves targets of the supremacists" wrath. They wouldn"t be subjugated like the others if the evil witches got control of the world. They would be tortured and executed as traitors. Wiped from the face of the planet. In both realms.

"Tell me what"s going on," I said to Bella, sparing a glance at the others around us to include them in our conversation. "I got your letters and pamphlets, and the newspapers, but that"s just bits and pieces. What the hell is going on out here in the real world?"

She heaved a sigh. "It"s hard to even know where to begin, little sister. Come have a seat and I"ll explain the best I can."

Everyone formed a rough circle, sitting on the ground or leaning against the towering trees that sheltered this space. I suspected there were dryads involved, because the trees seemed to be more than decorative. They were woven into a protective barrier that was more than physical. Once everyone was settled, Bella launched into the story of how she, a powerful witch, became the leader of the anti-witch rebellion.

Most of her story wasn"t new to me. When I created the pocket world and escaped there with the others, we had been caught up in some weird thing between the Supernatural Alliance and a cult of witches who were gathering powerful magical artifacts so they could re-start the witch supremacist movement my parents had been involved in years before. The two factions had appeared to be fighting against one another. But our friends who worked at the SA insisted that there was something rotten going on within the organization. That seemed to be a legitimate fear, considering that after we helped them get rid of the O"Leary coven and obtain a magical artifact, the SA had turned on us and tried to frame us for a bunch of shit we didn"t do. And they confiscated the magical artifacts involved at the same time.

"The members of the O"Leary coven who were arrested during that raid on the coven house weren"t punished the way they should have been," Bella said flatly. "The SA made deals with them for information. Many of them then joined the SA. And now it"s anyone"s best guess whether they have actually defected to the SA side, or whether they are just waiting for a good chance to take over the organization from the inside." She scowled. "I know they already have agents inside the SA who are helping to sabotage any efforts to curb the witch supremacists" grab for power. But the question is whether the SA knows it and they are all actually on the same side, or whether there is some faction at the SA that really believes they are still fighting on the right side of justice."

I shook my head. I felt a headache coming on. "Great."

She shrugged. "Whether or not the SA is completely rotten is the least of our worries out here right now," she informed me.

A nearby centaur woman nodded her head, her hazel eyes meeting mine. "The anti-creature movement is getting stronger. They"re like a street gang that has grown out of control. It"s not safe for those of us who don"t look like witches to go out at night, or to travel alone. People are disappearing. And everyone knows they are being enslaved or killed for rituals. But the SA will only help us in exchange for full loyalty. They keep pressing to pass more and more restrictive laws. They are using the excuse to give themselves more power and take away our freedoms." She snorted. "They phrase it as if it"s all for our own good. But if we want protection from the witch supremacists, entire clans of people are forced to first swear loyalty to the SA or give them some other new power over them in whatever city, or village, or grove where they live."

Bella scowled. "The SA is benefitting from the atrocities the other faction is committing. Which is what makes me think they are only so invested in eliminating them, at least for now. They don"t want the supremacists to fully take over. But they also don"t want to really eliminate them, because then they couldn"t keep enacting new laws and grabbing up more power."

"It has to stop," an older man piped up. Werewolf, I thought, based on the furry tufts on his ears and the wild feeling of his aura. Not one of the rare shifters who could completely take on animal form, but close enough. It was odd to see one of his kind out socializing. "We"re losing all of our basic rights, our freedom, and our safety. No matter which faction wins, if you"re not a witch, you"re fucked."

An older witch beside him patted his knee, her eyes on us. "And if you"re a witch who dares to care for someone who isn"t like you… then you"re worse than fucked." She met my eyes. "There have been rumors of burnings. Only, I"m not so sure they"re just rumors."

I felt sick. This was far, far worse than I had imagined. While we hid away, the entire world had gone mad.