26. Bee Pollen

twenty-six

“And what were they doing there?” Lou crossed her arms and leaned against Milla’s kitchen counter.

“It was a campout,” Milla explained for the third time. At Tobias’ call, the witches gathered at the duplex to discuss what she had learned, and she had insisted they meet in her half. Being in Darkly’s half was too unsettling, and Milla had more chairs. “They do them a couple of times a year.”

“They drive from city to city in search of magick?” Lou shook her head. “Unbelievable, even for cultists, and I refuse to believe they stumbled upon the ritual in Valdosta by coincidence.”

“Which would imply a degree of collusion,” Darkly added, blowing a thick vapor plume from his mouth. “Fits with our rogue witches theory.”

“But what would they need with cultists?” Rai asked. She had been mostly quiet, arriving with a teak box under her arm and immediately setting to work grinding herbs and weed together for Darkly before starting on Milla’s tea. “There are, what, six signatures on the E.R.I.E.? That’s more than enough to perform a ritual.”

“Seven,” Diego corrected. He hovered behind Cyrus, who had set up his laptop and tablets on Milla’s kitchen table, enthralled by the technology and readouts. The pair had been in their technomantic world, tweaking Cyrus’ reports and discussing the E.R.I.E. while Lou interrogated Darkly, Tobias, and Milla. “And it is about the power.”

“How do you think?” Lou asked.

Diego straightened and studied her, his mouth a tight line and eyes sharp behind his glasses. Milla knew that look well. He was trying to determine if Lou was goading him, teasing the witch out of time, and trying to trap him in a misstep or if she was serious. He had made that same face often in their early days until his growing trust in Milla surpassed suspicion.

And then he laughed, a surprised little chuckle that had her longing to know whatever thoughts had just passed through his mind.

“Ustedes, brujas tontas, estarían perdidas sin nosotros.” He shook his head, still laughing. Milla bit her lips to keep from joining in as she mentally translated the rapid muttering.

You dumb witches would be lost without us.

“Care to share?” Lou asked.

“The cultists do more than hunt magick for the high,” Diego explained, unable to keep the mirth from his voice. “They can be used to strengthen rituals. It is how Morgen maintains her barrier wards around Key West.”

“How in the nine rings do you know that?” Milla blurted. Even she had not been trusted with Morgen’s secrets regarding her demesne, and wow, had she asked. Fresh off a resurrection ritual and terrified that C.R.O.W. was going to bust down her door any second, she had begged her foster mother for advice on how to tend the demesne she’d accidented herself into.

Morgen had replied that this was a moment of growth, and trial and error were the only way forward. So Milla had gone for a walk to clear her head. And again the next day and the next until the walks became her morning run—a centering exercise to ground the witch and tend the demesne.

“I have a source,” Diego answered.

“Goddess, that’s right. I forgot you befriended the drunks.” She was being unfair, and worst of all, she knew it, but he was being so damn cagey about Key West, and she had missed so much. Like, when the hell did Diego learn so much about the cultists?

He sent her a cold look and continued. “The cult leader in Key West explained it as … an agitation. Of the molecules.”

“Molecular agitation?” Cyrus looked up from his laptop. “How so?”

“Think of the demesne as an empty glass,” he answered. “The witch or witches in charge may fill the glass with magick, but without agitation, it does not do much.”

“Way to discredit all the work we do.” Milla crossed her arms. “Tending a demesne is more than just ‘filling a glass.’”

“Sí, of course, but for the purpose of this discussion, let us listen to the witch who actually speaks to the mortals in question.” The look he gave her was withering. The same one he’d worn when she sassed the wrong Karen and got their store review bombed. Milla shrank back. Unable to hold his stare, she dropped her gaze to the tile.

“As I was saying, when the cult runs, they are agitating the magick in the demesne.” He picked up a half-full cup of water and circled his wrist, spinning the liquid inside. “If the pack were directed to run in a particular area, it would create a funnel.”

“A positive feedback loop,” Tobias said as he entered the kitchen, stopping beside Milla. “If this is correct, it would explain why they have not yet succeeded in their ritual.”

“How so?” Rai looked up from her mortar and pestle.

“The energy needs somewhere to go,” Darkly answered. “Otherwise, it will destroy itself.”

“?Exactamente!” Diego nodded fervently, hair getting in his face. He gathered the mass in his hands and tied it back as he spoke. “That is why Josh and Morgen work so closely.” A ghost of a smile crossed his lips as though he had just made a clever joke. “She would charge certain wards around the demesne, and Josh would design a trail for the cult to run and double the charge, but always with a disturbance to keep the magick from destroying itself.”

“They rarely start and end in the same place,” Darkly said. He wore a dazed smile as if a long-standing mystery in his life had just been solved. “The Glasgow cult always warned against doing so, but I never knew the why. And the pack here tends to run on the outskirts.”

“St. Augustine is a notoriously powerful demesne,” Tobias added. “Even before Milla arrived, this territory has been a magickal hub since it was settled.”

Diego shuddered. “Recuerdo.”

“Huh.” Milla examined her running shoes, still tightly laced from their run. She had never given much thought to the cultists, not after Ezra and Morgen’s repeated warnings. Still, she had also never seen evidence of their trails and strange markings in the Colonial Quarter—or anywhere along her normal route, for that matter. Yet even knowing this, it did not answer the question of coincidence. “So it’s a chicken-egg problem.”

“A what?” Donmar laughed, looking to Lou for clarification.

“Which came first?” Milla raised her hands like she was weighing two separate items. “The cultist campout in Valdosta?” She bounced her right palm, then the other. “Or the ritual?” Donmar frowned, his lower lip thrusting in a slight pout that was charming on the massive witch. “Either the cultists planned their campout and the rogue witches took advantage of their run to use it as a magick boost”—she waggled the fingers on her right hand— “ or the cultists are working with the rogue witches, and they knew when and where to stage their campout.”

“How do they source their information?” Lou bounced her gaze from witch to witch.

“Morgen works directly with hers,” Diego said. “Or, at least, with the two in charge.”

“Keir?” She looked at her brother.

“Glasgow is blanketed in magick.” He fiddled with the vape pen, raised it to his lips, then scowled and vanished it away. “The pack I worked with said they’d nae worries about where to find their next hit. It was how the obfuscari we hunted kept hidden—couldnae get a clean reading with the older E.R.I.E.”

“Wouldn’t that much magick put the city at risk?” asked Milla.

Darkly shook his head. “They never start and end at the same place, and the Clyde flows east to west. The water acts as a disruptor, so there’s nae worry of a feedback loop.” He scratched the side of his neck, eyes unfocused as he thought. “And the cultists here run on the outskirts of the demesne to avoid the same issue.”

“So none of us know how the cultists gain their information or even find the magick in the first place?” Lou massaged her temples. “This is why I argued for the database a decade ago. If C.R.O.W. had kept better track of the bloody fools, we needn’t suffer these issues.”

“And what, chip them like animals?” The kettle cracked against the counter, and Rai spun around, her usually calm expression twisted with anger. “Should we dock their ears, too?” Cheeks flushed, she pointed a trembling finger at Lou. “The cultists do not deserve to be treated as second-class citizens.”

Lou’s eyes widened, the effervescent blush fading from her cheeks. “Yes, of course, you’re right.” She swept a hand through her hair. “I misspoke.”

Rai’s expression shuttered. She nodded tersely, spinning around and sweeping up the kettle. Clove and the nauseating medicinal bite of juniper filled the air as she poured Milla’s tea, clogging the kitchen and deadening the silence that followed her tiny eruption.

“Rai was a part of the Walled City Coven,” Tobias whispered in Milla’s ear. She angled her face to catch him in the corner of her eye.

“In Hong Kong?”

He nodded. “She defected to C.R.O.W., seeking asylum, and they placed her on Lou’s team. It had something to do with the cultists they kept within the city walls.”

Milla eyed Rai’s back. The witch held herself straight and poised, her hair a silken black sheet cascading down her shoulders. Darkly had moved beside her, resting his hip on the counter and a hand lightly on her arm, whispering in her ear. Rai nodded once and turned her head to smile at him.

“Thank you,” she murmured. Darkly’s answering grin made his eyes crinkle, and though she could not see it, Milla knew the dimple would be on display.

“So what next?” Cyrus asked. His hands floated above his laptop, fingers flexing over the keys. “The E.R.I.E. does not account for cult activity; all my reports from Valdosta are useless if we think they hold some sort of answer.” He swiveled in the seat, gripping the chairback to direct his next comment at Lou. “I could try to grab a reading, but adjusting the database to account for their signatures will take me weeks.”

“Do we have weeks?” Milla asked.

“Maybe,” Donmar shrugged. “Maybe not. The rituals recorded at the end of last year coincided with sabbats, but the three recent events have not followed any timeline.”

“They are getting closer,” Darkly pointed out. “Seven weeks ago, then four.”

“Then three, and last night,” Lou finished. “So whatever they are doing, they’re nearing their objective.”

“Or they are growing desperate.” Tobias crossed the kitchen and gestured to the teacup. At Rai’s nod, he brought it to Milla. “And desperate witches make mistakes.”

He held her eye as he said this, pressing the tea into her hands.

“Obviously, someone ought to ask the cult directly,” Darkly said after a quiet moment. He looked at Diego. “If anyone here has someone they can trust to answer plainly.”

“Sí.” Diego swallowed and shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Sí, claro. I could make a few calls to my … acquaintance in Key West. He—” Diego paused, eyes rounding. “He mentioned an event in Tallahassee.”

“What?” Lou snapped, voice ricocheting off the ceiling. “When?”

“A month ago, when he was in town. Several cult leaders were meeting to arrange an event.” He glanced from witch to witch, landing on Lou. “I do not think it has happened yet.”

“Make your calls.” She clapped her hands, an annoying habit Milla had noticed the Light Witch performed whenever she was issuing orders. “Find out everything you can: the when, the where, how many are involved. And I want a list of registered witches in Tallahassee.” Lou snapped her fingers at Cyrus, already clacking away on the keyboard. “Cross reference the Ways of every missing witch against that list. I want them all accounted for. And you,” she said to Milla, jerking her chin at the tea in her hands. “Drink that tea and rest up.”

“That necessary?” Darkly called out. “C.R.O.W. kens she’s a bloody Death Witch; we can do away with the poison.”

“It is a term of her conditional release,” Lou answered her brother, though her eyes remained firmly on Milla. “She drinks her tea until she can be trusted with her Way.”

“I thought it was about building a tolerance,” Milla muttered.

“It is about being ready.” She wheeled around and addressed the room. “That goes for everyone. We’re at the casting range early; I want this coven in prime shape before we have to deal with the cultists.”

“Believe in me, Milla.”

His voice, those words warm in her ear. She braced her feet, widening her stance on the ritual platform to fight against the waves now crashing against her legs.

“Just a little longer, and we’re through.” Lips pressed against her temple, and the heat cloaking her back vanished as Ezra put himself between Milla and the hole she’d torn in the world. Just a little longer, just a little further. Further than they had ever gone before.

Tongues of black smoke lashed at the water, bilious clouds roiling and teeming in the dark. He took a step, the water rising to his knees. And another. An invisible tug at Milla’s arm jerked her forward. And again, harder now, pinching down to the viscera in her gut.

“Ezra …”

“No matter what you see, Milla, believe in me.”

I will , she promised. Or did she shout it? She was screaming; that much was certain. Her throat was torn raw, the muscles in her abdomen tight and stabbing with cramps. With every step he took, more of Milla unspooled, feeding the tether between them until she was stretched tight enough to snap and fray.

A gust of freezing wind blew from the nothing, pommeling into her. She stepped back to keep her balance, and the tether snapped, a sharp twang that bit into her very Soul and left her gasping for air.

Nononono.

She squinted against the gale, blinking to clear the water spray from her eyes. Her vision blurred; one Ezra became three. The stars multiplied behind a triple moon, and the tear in the world stretched wider, swallowing the lake and Ezra in its gaping maw.

A hundred potentials flashed before her eyes, the flickering montage showing Milla what could be and what would come. Desecrants and domovoi. Sleeping gods and roused goddesses. Every terror, every horror from every culture in the world, and at the center of the maelstrom was a witch, small against their fury and screaming a name.

“Ezra!”

Goddess, she couldn’t do this; she couldn’t hold on and watch him walk into the dark. With every inch he gained, she lost more of herself, and where would this end?

Would it end?

“Hold tight, Milla!” His voice carried across the distance, ringing with pride. But not of her, never of her. The smile coloring those words, the faith and belief were all for himself, and Milla was merely the tool he would use until all her sharp edges were dull. She saw it now, as clearly as she Saw the horror this ritual would bring to the thousands of witches stretched across the waterfront and the countless stars multiplying again and again until they were brilliant white spots burned at the edges of her vision.

Twenty-seven Ezras stepped into the dark, reaching that impossible place no living witch had crossed, where no living witch could survive , and still Milla held on, summoning all of that shadowed wind and teeming dark to herself. Clearing a path because to stop now would be unthinkable.

There was no one to catch her. No witch to pick up whatever pieces might remain. But she held on—just a little longer. Just until he was far enough away, then maybe …

The tether snapped again, whipping into Milla. And again. She threw both arms forward, grasping onto the invisible thread. Horned God, she couldn’t even do this. All of that preparation and work, and she was going to fail on multiple fronts.

“Ezra, come back!”

No matter what you see.

His voice rang in her head as clearly as if he still stood beside her, behind her, guiding Milla’s movements.

Blood poured from the wound on her arm, and with his next step, her bone shattered, severing the last connection Ezra held to the living. The visions collapsed into one as Milla sagged back and sobbed over her shattered arm. She tore her eyes away from the gore, and her screaming intensified at the sight of what awaited him.

A deep, crimson bloom unfurled in the dark, impossibly far away and all too close. It beat with Milla’s own pulse as it grew larger and louder, thrumming deep enough to rattle the chips of bone floating in her arm.

Bile rose and choked in her throat, hot tears streamed from her eyes, and Ezra kept fucking walking. Deeper into the dark, toward the destiny he demanded for himself. An arm formed in the heart of that dread star. A leg, the suggestion of a head and shoulders haloed by prismatic rings as the Baron she summoned stepped through the Gates.

“No.” Milla choked on her vomit, spitting a sour mouthful into the lake. She raised her broken arm, supporting the elbow and crying against the pain as she formed a weak sigil.

This couldn’t happen. She could not let it. If they succeeded tonight, if he brought that Baron through the Gate, they would destroy everything. But the tether between them was broken. There was no calling Ezra back, not now, so she would destroy herself instead.

“ Zav?ete. ”

Close.

She forced the intent through clenched teeth and in that last moment, as her final casting echoed down the corridor of nothing, Ezra finally looked back and saw the witch he had made. “ Zav?ete bránu. ”

Close the gate.