Page 102 of Rewitched

“Give it up, Belladonna. You’re nothing.” Bronwyn looked possessed, a madness dictating her every move as she edged forwards. “There is only one magic that deserves to survive this night, and that is mine. You will not ruin this when I have waited so long.”

“You can’t, you can’t…” Tears were coming as she willed the elements to do something, anything, at her call.

“You shouldn’t have survived this long, the unremarkable disappointment that you are. It’s a miracle you’ve beaten any of it—my protection block, astral manipulations, my Subfuror Incantare, even the poison, and taking that damned stone of yours…Do you know the lengths I’ve gone to, the ways I have pushed the boundaries of my powers to prevent us from getting to this point?” Bronwyn wandered closer, beating crashes of magic away as she walked. “I only set out to make you see that none of this is really for you. To scare you enough that it nudged you into giving up this world for good. Only the inevitable, I thought, to prove to you in black and white that you don’t deserve this. That magic isn’t meant for you.”

She spat those last words. Without taking her eyes off Belle, Bronwyn sent the Sagittarius centaur ricocheting into the wall, smashing its bow and arrow from its grasp. Belle’s arms flew to cover her face as bronze shards splintered through the air.

“I should have just left you to fail your EquiWitch and be done with it, like Morena wanted. Trusted that her silly little spell to send your summoning letter awry would be enough to ensure you didn’t show. But I couldn’t take the risk. Then your early manifests showed dangerous promise, memories of power and ability that could have been enough to convince you one day that you were worthy. That’s when it occurred to me that I could kill two birds with one stone. Setting you up for failure with my halfwit brother would ensure there could be no doubt the second time around. An unprecedented second failed EquiWitch could never be contested, you would no longer be a threat to our leadership. And it would guarantee no possible future debate regarding Arty’s past, present or future.

“But you just kept passing the challenges, the grimoire was supposed to ensure you couldn’t…” Bronwyn’s disbelief was audible. “It wasn’t supposed to come to this. The stupid pair of you refusing to acknowledge the warning signs. I had to escalate…I had no choice.” Belle thought she saw the sage witch waver in conviction, just barely.

“You’ve caused me great trouble, girl. And where does that leave us? What more will it take? With all of your loved ones trapped here, just moments from death. In fact, silly me”—she laughed, her usual chuckle now something sinister and twisted—“not all of your loved ones, my mistake. In all of the excitement, how could I forget? There’s one missing out on the party, isn’t there?”

With a mere flick of her palm, Bronwyn spun a vortex of magic towards the centre of the room.

Through the blurred whirlwind, Ariadne materialised, dressed in her pyjamas behind the sparks, brought directly into the middle of a battlefield she had no business being in. She squinted against the blinding forces of magic, gazing around in utter bemusement before catching sight of her best friend.

“Belle?”

“Ari!”

“What more will it take, Belle? Who else are you going to endanger? Surrender your magic,” Bronwyn yelled over the pandemonium that filled the atrium.

“Stop it! Send her back, this isn’t fair! She’s not a part of this.”

“Let your magic go!”

“I can’t! I—”

“Then know that this is your fault. I told you all those weeks ago, love only leaves you vulnerable—if you allow it to endure.”

Bronwyn moved so quickly that it took Belle a moment to even realise where the blast of magic had come from. The ground beneath Ariadne’s feet, the point where the astrological sun wove together with the whimsical moon in the dazzling mosaic, surrounded by the stars and gilded with gold. It slipped from beneath her, erupting into pieces as Bronwyn cast a final, enormous barrage of stolen magic, exhorting everything she had, whatever it cost. In the fury, Ariadne was thrown up high above them, tossed like a rag doll to the very top of the domed ceiling. She came tumbling down in a rush.

Belle watched her in slow motion.

Her twin flame, the mirror soul that she would always swear was splintered from her own. She saw it all as Ariadne fell. The moments that they’d laughed until their faces ached with joy, the moments that she’d missed before they’d even ended, because she knew they were too impossibly precious to last long enough. It was all that she could see.

Her arms flung open, as though her insides were being ripped from her by something invisible, every sinew and muscle strand aching at the effort to feel it all, feel everything all at once. To be enough for everyone she loved. There it was again. It felt like her bones would snap. Like her skin would burst.

Then came magic.

First, the rush of a tidal wave which sent them all flying apart at such a speed that Belle struggled to catch her breath, drowning in gulps of foamed, frothed sea whipped to white. With it, a wind that ripped through the room in a tornado vortex, sweeping everyone and everything up in its wake with rubble and dust. A projection of fire from the ends of her fingertips that singed her skin, the sensation so raw that she could barely even register it. The ground beneath her feet, the walls and the ceiling shook violently, tremors vibrating everything in their wake as the earth itself moved under her magic.

But finally, a blinding burst of sunshine. So great that it consumed everything else. Golden and warm on her face. The sun had come. The clouds had gone.

Her final thought was Ariadne. How it wasn’t fair. How she couldn’t suffer here amidst all of the dark and dismal chaos created by something that she was powerless against, that she was too good for, that Belle couldn’t possibly associate with her best friend.

Belle’s skull was reverberating, her shoulders were torn, her spine shouted and her limbs felt like lead. But somewhere in the back of her subconscious magic instinct, she summoned her. Transferred Ariadne to her arms so that she knew she was as safe as she could make her.

And then it all stopped. The sun disappeared and everything turned black.

33

Magic

THROUGH HER THIRTY years (plus thirty-something moons on top now, but she didn’t need to count them anymore) Belle had experienced some mighty hangovers. Particularly past the age of around twenty-six, when her body had decided that more than one or two glasses of wine was a terrible idea and that dancing in heels was not the natural art form it had once been. But this one beat them all. The hangover from a witches’ battle was something else.

“You have got to stop calling it a hangover, you fool,” Rune said, biting down on his lip to stop himself from laughing. “You’re doing yourself somewhat of a disservice.”