5. Ritual

five

The world bottomed out, crumbling beneath Milla’s feet and dragging her down with it. She heard Darkly shouting her name. Heard him ranting and cursing in unintelligible Scottish, pleading with Milla to believe him, to trust him. Even now, trying to walk her back from the razor’s edge of panic.

She couldn’t stand, couldn’t breathe. Lou was gripping both of her arms now, struggling to keep Milla from curling into a ball on the ground in her fucking bathing suit , which was so beyond unfair at this point.

“Milla, listen to me, Milla. Five things!” And Darkly, Horned God damn him, even now, despite all of his bullshit, was trying to help her. “Five things you can see, l eannán , three you can touch, Milla. Lou, please! Dinnae do this!”

None of it made sense. None of it and all of it. The world was a sinking black pit, and she drunkenly teetered on the edge, ready to swan dive into that abyss.

Lou hoisted her up, which was ridiculous, considering the Simmons siblings were stupidly tall and Milla was barefoot. She let herself be dragged along, sand and grit shredding her soles, fitting, considering what was happening internally.

She didn’t want to believe it; didn’t want to think for a fraction of an iota of a second that Darkly had told C.R.O.W. where she was. It was too much, too fast, and she had to pack it down, down, down if she was going to survive what came next.

Lou propped her against a silver Land Rover, shouting in her face as Milla stared across the lot, seeing and not seeing, her reactions slow in a world muted by a funereal clanging in her ears.

Five things you can see , Darkly advised, weeks ago in the foyer of a suburban home. Five things, Milla.

One: Darkly pounded against the barrier. Shades clawed, scraped, and heaved as a living mass of midnight, seeking entry through the barrier to reach the Death Witch.

Two: an Enforcer appeared from the dense wall of cloud, hand raised in a hex aimed at Darkly.

Someone shrieked his name, the sound tearing over the soft tissue of her throat like razor blades. At the same time, the Enforcer barked something in a language Milla did not know. Darkly whipped around, deflecting whatever hex had been thrown with a flurry of shadows.

Three: The Enforcer staggered back, clawing at the shadows swallowing his face. He crashed into another Enforcer, who tripped into another, creating a toppling line of woolly-pully-clad dominoes.

Four: Lou’s eyes, wide and bright as she screamed in Milla’s face. Her perfect features were twisted into a panicked mask, and the explosive slap of her palm against Milla’s cheek ripped her from her Waydrunk haze.

“—just like you, Ludmilla,” she hissed. “Forbidden and Foule, they cannot see—”

“Keir, no!” Donmar dropped the fog he had raised and grabbed Lou’s arm. “Stop him, zhanym.”

She snapped her head around, face falling as Darkly tipped headlong into his Way. Churning black clouds frothed around him, his eyes darkening to pitch black as his features harshened. He seemed to swell with the Shades, larger than life, terrifying, and Other as he held his arms out wide, fingers working graceful sigils Milla had never seen. All around him, the Enforcers groaned, clutching their chests and staggering to a halt. Those pitch-black eyes found Milla, his face a cold, unfeeling mask, and Lou said, “Please, Ludmilla.”

Five: Darkly didn’t deserve this.

Milla stared back at the Dark Witch, letting him see her anger and her hurt. Shades pressed in on Lou’s barrier, the bubbled dome groaning against the weight of his magick, and Milla knew.

This would never end. If she somehow made it out of this, if she let Darkly plummet into his Way, let him damn himself to save her, this would never end. C.R.O.W. would keep coming, sending their Enforcers to chase them to the furthest reaches of the earth, and Milla was so tired of running. Of hiding. She’d spent so much of the last few years doing just that, and for what? To end up arrested and taking another witch down with her?

Darkly didn’t deserve that, despite the lies and the betrayal. He didn’t deserve to fall with her when he’d been navigating his own way as a Forbidden and Foule witch. She saw the truth of that as clearly as if Lou had cast it.

Darkly didn’t deserve her fate. Liar, he may be, but he was a good witch. And Milla?

Milla was wicked.

“Darkly.” She stepped forward, holding that stygian gaze. “No.”

He staggered back as though her words had been a direct hit. The Shades receded, sucked into the Dark Witch like the man was a living vacuum, and the black winked out, revealing an over-wide, horrified green gaze.

Late winter sun painted the parking lot beyond the barrier ward in warm yellows, and Milla sank to the ground, one elbow gripped at a painful angle by Lou. On the other side of the shimmering opaque shield, three Enforcers tackled Darkly to the ground. Milla lowered her gaze, unable to watch what happened next or process anything beyond how utterly fucked she was.

She was done fighting, done running, done hiding and if this was her end, hadn’t she earned it?

“Which coven will try me?”

If the Panhandle Coven still held her in their jurisdiction, she would be tried locally. If they chose to defer to the rulings of the American Oversight Coven, she would be extradited to New Bedford. That might be best, she supposed. The Panhandle wasn’t fond of Milla and her history, but the Whaler’s Wives were a fair coven, one of the oldest existing stateside. They had seen their fair share of shit.

“No coven,” Lou announced, and Milla’s heart blackened further. “Not for a witch like you.”

Tires rumbled over the worn brickwork of the Old Dixie Highway, bouncing Milla in her seat every time they hit a patch of sand. She sat back and watched the blur of palmetto green and shrub brown rush by, her Waydrunk eyes unable to bring the world into full focus. Only when they passed the historical marker did she realize how weird their route was.

The freeway was a straight shot to Jacksonville, where she would be shoved onto an airplane and shipped off to ?esky-Krumlov. Even Highway 1 and Highway 17 made more sense than taking the Old Dixie Highway. The road was unkempt, un-trafficked, and paved with thousands of bricks cast from southern red clay. Even Waybound, she could feel the energy radiating from the century-old road, the history of the witches who had tended this specific demesne, casting their Ways and performing rituals to charge the earth.

“Why this way?” Milla asked, nudging the back of Lou’s chair with a foot.

She glanced in the rearview mirror and frowned, perfect brows dropping low. “You didn’t think I was daft enough to drive the Witch of the Demesne through the heart of her actual demesne, did you?” When Milla didn’t answer, she glanced in the mirror again, gaze falling to her wrists. “How is the binding?”

“Good.” She turned her hands over, scanning the scars on her palms as she reached for her Way. It was there, a faint warmth in her veins like the heat of sore muscles after a workout. “Weird.”

“Let us know if it begins to chafe. Keir mentioned you use tea to manage things. We can arrange to have some brought to you if the burn gets too much.”

Milla jerked her face up, startled by the plain way Lou stated such intimate knowledge. No one knew the purpose of her tea beyond herself, Diego, and Ezra. No one but Darkly, who apparently couldn’t keep his ginger mouth shut. “He told you?”

“There isn’t much Keir keeps from me.” Lou turned up the volume, blasting twangy country music throughout the Land Rover and ending their conversation. The sun warming the window and the rumble of the brick road sent a weariness crawling through Milla’s limbs, dragging her back into the seat and anchoring her eyelids. She dropped her forehead against the glass, her Waydrunk mind lulled into something like sleep, only to half topple out of the car when Lou yanked the door open.

“Only you could fall asleep on the way to your own arrest.”

“I thought I was already arrested,” Milla mumbled. Sunlight glinted off the windows of a tall building to the east, making her squint. She scanned the parking lot and surrounding structures, recognizing the charming white brick antebellum manse on the corner of West Duval and Hogan in the heart of Jacksonville. The Confluence of the Panhandle Coven was situated as most coven headquarters were: in a bustling downtown sandwiched between government buildings. Surrounded by the US District Court Clerks, City Hall, and a charming downtown greenspace, the coven headquarters was absolutely riddled with wards, sigils, and look-away hexes applied to any scrap of organic matter that could tolerate the magick.

Milla frowned.

“I also thought you’d be taking me to the airport.”

“In your bathing suit?” Lou sniffed again. “The Panhandle Coven will process you as a Witch of a Demesne within their jurisdiction. At which point I will file for extradition to ?esky-Krumlov as is within my rights as a Tribunal-sanctioned Enforcer.”

“Lotta paperwork for little ol’ me.”

“You haven’t the slightest.” Lou gripped her by the elbow, escorting Milla barefoot across the asphalt.

“How long is this going to take?” Milla asked again. She adjusted her seat, peeling bare legs off of sickly green plastic as she scanned the rows of identical desks and uncomfortable chairs.

Around them, Enforcers worked on laptops and chatted in low voices, going about their day while ignoring Milla to an intentional degree. She had imagined, being a Death Witch and all, that her eventual arrest would come with some fanfare. Perhaps an escort into the coven headquarters under the cover of darkness with a bag over her head. Anything other than this indifference.

Lou kept her eyes on her laptop, punching a few keys before replying, “Have somewhere to be?”

“A cell?” Milla prompted. “A scouring?”

“All in due time.”

“What will happen to Darkly?”

That earned a glance. Lou’s fingers stilled, and the stoic expression slipped as her lower lip pinched between perfect white teeth. “None of your concern.”

“Beg to differ,” Milla retorted, “considering he gave you my location.”

Lou danced her eyes over Milla’s face before returning to plucking out her report. Milla waited, attention drifting from Lou to the witches coming and going from the large room.

A pair of Enforcers escorted a rangy-looking youth through a pair of double doors. Dirt smudged his cheeks and forehead, and the tips of his fingers were stained the deep, rich earthen brown of a Green Witch while red eyes and a hazy expression announced the cause for his arrest. Further down the row of desks, an Ink Witch was being questioned by a female Enforcer, pointing at a stack of photographs and nodding fervently. It was so mundane and dull that Milla was tempted to drop her head on the desk and fall asleep.

More than tempted, truthfully. She was exhausted . It was almost a relief to be sitting in this room with her magick bound, unable to fight, to run, to hide. Almost a relief to have all choices, all options taken from her hands, leaving Milla free for the first time in years to do nothing .

Almost.

She was still arrested. She would be taken before the Tribunal in ?esky-Krumlov and found guilty of being a Death Witch, likely to be cleaved—

Lou’s phone chirped—a sharp, staccato alarm that had the Light Witch jerking her attention away from the laptop to read the screen. It chirped again, and a line formed between her brows. Further down the row of desks, another phone pinged an alarm.

And another and another. The room filled with a discordant medley of chirps, whistles, and rings. Enforcers pulled their phones free from pockets and pouches, all activity stopping as they read an alert that had the entirety of the Panhandle Coven screeching to a silent, bewildered halt.

“Whatever that is”—Milla raised her hands in mock surrender—“at least you know it isn’t me.”

Lou ignored her, grabbing her phone and jumping to her feet. The silence in the room burst at the sudden movement, exploding into a flurry of activity. Magick crackled as fingers worked in rapid sigils, forming wards of protection and defense. Sparks danced from the hands of svítilna lamplighters, technomantics shoved cylinders of conductive metal into their pockets, and hippocromantics rushed from desk to desk, handing out tubes and flasks of vinefica made potions, while the chatter rose to an alarmed roar.

“Another one?”

“Who keeps summoning these things?”

“Wait, what’s going on?” Milla sat up, calling after Lou as she stalked down the row of desks. She stopped behind a technomantic hunched in front of a computer, her eyes narrowed behind thick-lensed glasses. Lou gripped the back of her chair, bending low to read the screen. “Where is it?”

“Calibrating.” The witch’s fingers flew over the keys. “Just give me one second—”

“We need a heading.”

“I know.”

“Now, Agent,” Lou barked. “Give us a heading, we can redirect en route.”

“I just … I need … it’s not—”

Milla scooted to the edge of her seat. “What in the nine rings is happening?”

“ Agent .” Lou’s eyes began to glow with a foglamp brightness as the witch tapped into her Way. “What are we looking at?”

“A Dullahan.” The technomantic slammed the device closed and whisked it away, twisting around Lou as she rose and shouted directions at the Enforcers. “Flagler Estates. All teams south on I-95, head east on county road two-oh-four.”

“Whose demesne is that?” Another witch asked.

“St. Augustine,” the technomantic answered. “Someone inform the Witch of the Demesne, there’s an old cemetery—”

“Pellicer Creek.” Milla jumped up, immediately sandwiched between two overly large witches. “It’s me! I’m the Witch of the Demesne; the cemetery is Pellicer Creek.”

“Sit down.” A meaty hand shoved her into the chair. “The steward will take care of it.”

“The what? No. It’s my demesne ,” she argued, scanning the room and seeking out Lou. “You have to let me help; that’s my demesne.”

“Not a chance.” Lou scanned the tablet in her hand, nodding as she handed it off to a witch. “C.R.O.W. already has a steward in place; he’ll handle it.”

“Who—what is a steward?” Milla shrieked, wincing at her shrill panic. But seriously, it was her demesne, her home, her responsibility. Just because she was arrested didn’t mean they could cut her off from doing her job. She had done so much, given so much of herself. They could not just hand her demesne over to a steward. “St. Augustine is mine. Whatever a Dullahan is, Lou, you have to let me help.”

“I don’t have to let you do anything,” the witch replied. “You are a witch guilty of the Forbidden and Foule. What guarantee do we have that this isn’t part of some ploy?”

“It’s not, I promise, it’s not.” She twisted in her seat, clocking the Enforcers gearing up to fight whatever a Dullahan was. “Let me help, Lou. It’s my demesne; I’ve fed it with my Way, please!” Another hand came down on her shoulder, leather-soft fingers digging into her skin. She looked down at the gloved hand, following the long line of an arm up to the face of an all-too-familiar witch. “You.”

Agent Sterne, the witch from the beach, glared down at her, all high cheekbones and a cold, blue-eyed stare. He’d changed out of the swim trunks she had last seen him in, donning C.R.O.W. issued Enforcer blacks fitted to his frame. The fabric clung to his torso and arms, cutting his musculature into sharp relief and making him seem three times larger than he was. He worked his jaw, his frown deepening. “Come.”

And for the first time, Milla was afraid.