“I don’t know if I’m strong enough to make a portal back to Earth. That fight took everything out of me. We might be stuck here,” I said.
“Pull the magic from me. I have strength yet to make the portal home,” Ethan said.
I channeled Ethan’s power through our bond. I felt his energy surge into my magic, giving me a boost.
Still, it took every reserve of our power for me to open the portal. Once it was formed, the portal itself shook and twisted, as if struggling to maintain the connection between the two worlds.
“We need to go through it now,” I said, giving a wince. Ethan wasted no time. He used his teeth to grab me by the back of the cloak and pull me through. The portal snapped shut behind us immediately once we emerged on the other side.
We were very lucky we weren’t caught in the middle of it. We could’ve been lost, drifting in the middle of the portal’s bridgeway forever. It really was becoming impossible for us to get to Edinmyre and back. We had to reunite the stones as soon as we could.
I’d transported us in front of the estate. I looked around, and found things eerily similar to how they’d been the morning we’d left. We’d spent nearly two days in Edinmyre, but here on Earth, only a few hours had passed.
Ethan changed back and put his hand on my shoulder. “Should we tell everyone the good news?”
“Yes! Right away.” I rushed inside. I found our friends sitting at the dining room table, having waffles. Everyone looked up immediately when we entered, faces expectant.
I smiled, then reached into my bag. I lifted the dark necklace into the air and waved it around.
The room burst into a monumental explosion of cheers, applause, and victory. I felt Kiara and Odette rush to embrace me while Stefan, Theo and Alexei piled on Ethan.
“You got it!” Stefan cried out. “You got the Unseelie stone!”
“We have all of them now!” Kiara wiped tears away from her eyes. “I— I can’t believe it’s nearly done.”
“Told you we could do it without you,” I teased Arthur.
He shrugged, but he couldn’t hide the grin that was ebbing over his face. “Might’ve been here an hour earlier if I had come along.”
“I’ll put this in the vault for safe keeping with the others,” Babcia said, and she held out her hand. I gave her the dark necklace, and she and Bapa hobbled out of the room. I took a seat in the nearest chair, because I didn’t think I could stand for another moment longer.
“Yay for Emma!” Ozzie said as he loaded a couple of waffles in front of me, covered in strawberry syrup. “I added extra raspberries for you, because you deserve them!”
“Finally,” Jasper muttered, an expression of relief on his face. “This can be over with.”
“I agree,” Mom said shortly as she took a sip of her mimosa. “I don’t want to deal with this anymore.”
Lucien’s face was warm and bright as he approached me, bringing me into a tender hug. “Well done,dzika.Well done.”
“Well, let’s get on with it,” I said. “Once we’re done eating, we can go to the Sacred Gathering and—”
“Emma, we can’t go today,” Ethan protested. “It’s been a rough journey.”
“So?” I pressed— though I wavered in my seat. “Let’s just get it done.”
“You need time to rest,” Ethan insisted. “I can feel through your bond that your magic is weak. You’re about to pass out. You need time to recover.”
I scowled. Okay, so the fight with the Unseelie stonehadbeen hard. The sorceress had drained a lot of my energy, both magical and physical. But honestly, was now the time to relax?
“Yeah, and tomorrow’s your birthday!” Odette piped up. “You can’t miss your party.”
“I don’t care about my stupid birthday! I care about uniting the stones!” I said, throwing my hands up.
“Emma, you’re weak from your journey. Reuniting the stones at the Sacred Gathering and opening the portal to Edinmyre is going to require a great amount of magical energy, and we can’t afford for the ritual to go wrong because you’re too tired to perform it,” Lucien scolded. “Once you’ve recovered your strength, we’ll head out at once.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled. Lucien was right, but damn. We had the stones in our grasp. I didn’t want to wait, and it seemed stupid to do so, no matter how tired I was.
But I guess if I did fuck it up, the portal to Edinmyre could collapse completely, and then there’d be no fixing it, because we’d all be dead. If I didn’t have enough strength to complete the ceremony, it would kill me, and everyone else. It was better to listen to what Lucien said.
