Page 101 of Rewitched

The pendulum came crashing down, tearing chunks of the room with it. Belle chanced one last look at Rune, which she hoped said everything she hadn’t managed to. Then she grabbed her mother’s cloak and ran with all her strength out of the courtroom doors and into the atrium. As they’d suspected, Bronwyn and Morena immediately shot after them, without so much as a glance at one another. The Blackthorns were their main targets, that much was clear.

“It’s because it’s ours, if you’re a stickler for the rules,” Bonnie called to her daughter across the huge celestial floor as they held their stance, thick clouds of dust from the ruined courtroom already spilling out and filling the atrium.

“What is?”

“The coven should have gone to your nan when Savaric was killed. Artorius wasn’t old enough for endarkenment, so it would have gone to her next. Luckily for the Gowdens, she had absolutely no interest in claiming it,” Bonnie explained.

“That unanimous vote from the coven when they showed up years later…seems rather convenient, thinking about it now,” Belle added.

Bronwyn and Morena came bursting through the enormous Libra door, clambering through the rubble, the bronze scales above ricocheting against the stone with a deafening metallic clang.

“You’re making this much more difficult than it needs to be, Bonnie,” Bronwyn called, raising her hands to drag out the magic from the courtroom behind her in an enormous train of stars. “Rune will not survive in there, returning so many witches back to their full form. They’ve all been drained of their magic. The effect will drain his own before he can revive even a handful. What a terrible waste.”

Belle felt ablaze with anger and fear for Rune. Bronwyn swept towering, deep walls of the magic back around herself and Morena as they took their place opposite the Blackthorns.

“And you’ll both be dead in a matter of minutes,” she said casually.

“So, what’s even your plan?” Belle shouted. “Bump off every single member of this coven? Don’t you think that looks a little suspicious?”

“Freak accidents happen at the hands of magic. Granted, one of this scale hasn’t been seen for quite some time, but—”

“And then what? Start all over again, rebuild a coven only of witches that you consider worthy? Or keep it all to yourself? Because where are you planning on finding anybody good enough, if it’s not Bonnie Blackthorn, Rune Dunstan, Caspar Strix, Artorius Day—any number of the good people you’re currently sacrificing just behind you?” Belle was screaming now, a passion so rapidly swelling between her veins that she could feel its temperature physically changing under her skin. “Who are you to tell anybody whether their version of magic is worthy?”

“I am the sole worthy witch!” Bronwyn screamed at such a pitch that Belle startled.

She saw Morena falter again, too, dropping her half of the magic, shooting her sister an uncertain look.

Bronwyn screeched. “Thirty years of age, and you don’t know the first thing about magic. You know nothing, girl. You are nothing.”

“Not anymore,” Belle roared, her voice strained and hoarse, anger turning to certainty. “My magic is mine. It’s greater than you’ll ever know.”

She wasn’t certain that this would even work or what would really happen if it did. But she was certain of herself in that moment. That she was worthy of it. That she was good enough to those who mattered. And it was worth a try.

“Vividus Animo.” One of her earliest lessons.

Bonnie glanced sideways at her daughter, eyebrows knitted together, immediately understanding. “Vividus Animo,” she echoed, laying both of her palms onto Belle’s outstretched hands to make their magics join together, to double them in strength. The room rumbled. An earthquake beneath their feet, the walls trembling as though Hecate House itself was fearful of what was to happen next.

It couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t have worked for her, magic like this. Could it? From the corner of her eye, Belle noticed Taurus first. The giant bronze bull kicked a front leg against its back one, scuffing its impossibly sharp horns against its hindquarters. The bull leapt to the floor, as real as any other animal that Belle had ever witnessed but five times the size.

Then came the huge pincered Cancer crab, its pointed claws like impossible razor blades as they scraped down the stone walls of the atrium, clicking its way under Blackthorn magic towards the Gowden sisters. All twelve of the horoscopes above each door of Hecate House followed suit, each one animating to life, instantly drawn in a fury to the two witches currently in charge of a cascading force of magic that was bringing their ancient home to the ground.

The scorpion’s acutely sword-like tail. The lion’s vicious jaw. The aimed arrow of the Sagittarius centaur swinging directly towards Bronwyn, ruthless in its defence. Even the Gemini sister witches turned against their human counterparts. Together, the whole zodiac descended on the sisters in a frenzy. The Gowdens, with frantic looks passing between them, had no choice but to turn their attention away from the Blackthorns. They tried in vain to blast the zodiac away quick enough. But while one creature was sent reeling backwards, another took its place, battering them relentlessly with unbridled acrimony.

But it wasn’t enough. Belle and Bonnie glanced at each other nervously, straining to keep the spell knitted. For now, they were separated by the destruction, but the sisters would outwit the zodiac. It was only a matter of time before their seemingly endless supply of stolen magic, surplus to their own natural strength, would overpower Belle and Bonnie. There had to be something more, with everything that Hecate House held within its walls. Residing on the ley lines, the very nexus itself.

“Fire to earth, earth to fire,” Belle muttered to herself. “Create that which thy most admire.” The allegory for Earth Sorcery.

“What, love?” Bonnie struggled to hear over the chaos.

“Water to air, air to water. Powers for the firstborn daughter. Mum, that’s it!” Belle shouted in disbelief. “My challenge, the elements. This is it.” The elements had all been present for her manifests. They were all present at the nexus, the point where all came together. Artorius had been right, the grimoire had been trailing clues like breadcrumbs all along.

She started small. That palm-sized glow of warm sunshine that she’d practiced in the greenhouse. The tiny bursts of rain that she’d made pour from her fingertips. The breath of air that she’d managed to manipulate and control, just enough so that it cascaded across the garden to bend the blades of grass at her will. Fire was easy enough, a witch’s bread and butter. And they were so, so far underground. Earth was all around her. She just had to summon it, all at once. It had happened in the entryway tunnel, when her heart had needed it, but she had no idea how she’d made it happen. It had been within her all along, and Hecate House would answer her.

Against the cacophony surrounding them, Belle closed her eyes and tried to summon just the smallest moment of focus and peace while Bonnie and the zodiac shielded her as best they could. Remembering everything she’d learned for so many moons. Needing, more than ever, to trust herself, trust her instincts, trust her magic.

But nothing came. The air, water, earth and fire all stayed small within her palms.

Bonnie stayed locked in combat with Morena, but Bronwyn burst through the gloomy warfare like a thunderbolt, sending two solid flashes of magic directly at the enormous Pisces fish, both the size of a whale, thrashing violently. It hit them both square in the torso, and the bronze creatures emitted a strangled dying-animal noise that Belle hurried to protect her ears from.