Fight. Fuss. Mess.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Divine blinked. Saph ducked, narrowly avoiding the horizontal arc of the boradain’s right-handed blade.

“Ha! Missed me again, you ninny.”

Divine opened her mouth then closed it, not wanting to take Saph’s attention from the boradain-turned-Elder. The woman spun away, putting distance between her assailant, her eye narrowed at her foe.

But Divine couldn’t speak. It felt like her body was tossed in a sea squall, magic spinning out of control and tugging every part of her in a different direction. Her ears felt clogged and she wanted to simultaneously retch and wrap her arms around Saph. She dropped the Iguion’s object into her pocket and searched for another item she could anchor her power to.

“Your kissable lips are a welcomed sight.” Saph nodded in Divine’s direction as she continued. “I’ve been staring at this ugly for too long.” She shoved the shaft of her axe up into the boradain’s nose with a resounding crunch. “Love that flushed look to your cheeks, too, darlin’.”

The boradain grabbed his nose with his free pair of hands.

“Saph, this is serious. Leafy’s helping keep her but—”

“Where’s your locket? Oh no.” Saph’s head dropped to the side. “Madeline’s here, isn’t she?”

“She wants him.” Divine pointed with a ringed finger. “But I’m not going to let her.”

Divine’s rainbow bangles clinked. She lowered her arm, clasping the bracelets with her free hand and focused on funneling all of the whirling, invisible energy into them. She focused on what she wanted. Freedom from lies. Freedom to be what she wanted to be. And to help those she cared for. Someone her mother would be proud of. A Sword of the Goddess.

Saph swung her axe at the demon’s legs. He jumped back, a cut appearing on his calf as blue blood trickled down.

“Seems you cleared his magical connection,” Saph grunted through clenched teeth. “He’s slower, at least.”

Divine’s ears popped and she focused on his axes; lightning flickered on the blades but it was no longer blue as he swiped at Saph’s chest and waist simultaneously. The soul gem would have his remaining power. Past the fighting pair, the windows were unbarred.

Windows. Not portholes.

Divine surveyed the room. They were right-side-up in the front part of the house. She hadn’t noticed before, the creature was no longer in the arched roof of the boat’s hull above them. She had no time to figure out how the puddles worked.

“Ah, he’s already freed himself,” a sickly sweet voice intoned from behind them.

Divine spun to find Madeline standing just beyond the door’s threshold, rocking back on her heels.

“He’s going back,” Divine spat, searching the floor for the puddle, but it and its portal to his prison was gone.

“Step aside. You can have the bar wench”—her hand waved dismissively then she pointed—“and I’ll take him. We’ll each have what we want. No fight. No fuss. No mess…unlike outside.”

Divine tightened her fists. Narrowing her eyes, she stayed silent. What had she done to Leafy?

Madeline strained her eyes up and blew out a breath. “Even if you have the lineage, I don’t know what you think you can do, since I have your talisman. Again.” She swung the locket by the chain, the charcoal around her eyes creasing with her smirk.

A laugh bubbled from Divine’s stomach to her lips. Sweet florals filled the air: roses and honeysuckle, irises and daffodils. Flowers of all seasons at once. Her chest swelled. She felt confident. Powerful.

“How does it feel to be on the other end of a false narrative, Madeline? You hold nothing more than a pendant.”

The woman’s smile faded as her gaze transferred to the locket. She shook it, then yelled, fingers prying at the clasp as if she could find out if Divine’s magic was inside.

Divine plunged into her new well, deeper and deeper, until her vision clouded with water like the depths of the lake.

You needed the separation to know how deep you could drink. That voice again. She sent a surge at the boradain as she drew out a sequence of buckets and as if they were there, Divine saw them hovering. As with Saph’s hand, Divine created the images she wanted to have transpire.

She saw the wave strike the creature and knock him to the floor. Saw the buckets pour a wave behind him that folded on itself to create a tunnel stretching through and beyond the room, halfway to her Goddess’s realm. In it, she saw dots of life, souls that belonged to buds yet to be bloomed, eggs yet to be hatched. She saw Leafy, a gash smoldering in his trunk and knew that Madeline’s accomplice from the farm had arrived. She tossed healing energy through the column; a poultice that wrapped around the Elder, regenerating the natural deep fissures of his bark.

Divine pressed magical energy into each palm of the boradain, forcing them together and fusing them useless.

“Take its soul gem!” Divine cried to Saph.

Saph tore open the demon’s shirt. In the center of his chest glowed a black gem like Leafy’s had been. She used the edge of her axe’s blade to pry the gem lose.

“Now get back,” Divine commanded.

She released the creature’s hands—for that is what it was now, just a boradain—and Madeline dashed, crossing the distance to the fallen boradain as Divine collapsed the tunnel on itself in a burst of foam.

Divine blinked.

The demon and Madeline were gone. Where they had been was a small puddle. Divine’s chest heaved and she realized she’d fallen to one knee.

“How did you do that?”

“I…I don’t know. I think I just guided living souls. To a place between here and after.”

And Madeline was gone. She couldn’t hurt her anymore. Divine’s shoulders shuddered as she fought back a sob.

She stood and approached the puddle. Within was an image of a boat and a figure with sand-toned skin gesturing wildly, as if yelling at the creature with pink and orange hair approaching her. Divine snickered, then covered her mouth as tremors coursed through her extremities. Her body was catching up to the volume of magic she had just wielded.

She glanced at Saph.

The raven-haired woman bent her chin toward the scrying puddle and shook her head. “Guess we aren’t getting a reward.”