Page 95 of Rewitched

“And if that story just so happens to involve saving your magic and righting a few wrongs along the way for others, then all the better for it,” Alvina added, turning to kiss her granddaughter on the forehead. “Tell Artorius I’m sorry, will you?”

“He won’t want you to say that.”

“Tell him, anyway,” Alvina said softly. “I loved him dearly before it all.” She smiled at Belle fondly. “You’re doing so well, love.”

Belle felt a swell in her chest that could only be described as a burst of sunbeams, of all-consuming, binding love. She revelled in it, like sunlight on her face. Then the feeling of a tangible, solid presence next to her slipped away like shadow in a changing light. The hands around hers faded away.

The spell unravelled, and the wisps of a delicate, cloudy figure, of starlight and silver, drifted across the candles, carried away on a breeze that took the flames along with it.

31

Loose Ends

IT WAS WITH great trepidation and an extensive phone call explaining that everything was fine, except not actually that fine, that Belle reluctantly agreed to bring her mother back to Quill Lane by transference.

She would have much preferred for Bonnie to drive for safety, but they had only a handful of hours to put a plan together before the moon of All Hallow’s Eve. And, like most aspects of life, she couldn’t settle on anything without her mum’s verdict on the matter.

It had been a long conversation, a convoluted one. Belle attempted to explain what exactly the matter was in a roundabout way, wary of upsetting her mother with the shocking details—including the small matter of a visit from her long passed maternal grandmother. Bonnie, in her usual fashion, kept swinging the conversation off-kilter to something else entirely—dog updates, the restaurant she’d been to last week, gossip from her allotment. The phone was promptly passed to Artorius, who made slightly better progress. He only stumbled when Bonnie, still not having taken on the gravity of the situation, remembered that she’d meant to ask him for his scone recipe. When Belle heard mention of sultanas, she seized the phone and shoved it towards Rune as a last resort. Surprisingly, he did the best job of the three.

“So you see, Mrs. Blackthorn, that’s why we could really do with you making your way down to London when you get a moment,” Rune said, simultaneously trying to remain polite and attentive while Belle mouthed various other snippets of information for him to interpret as and when they popped into her head.

“Get her to come here as soon as possible,” Belle stage-whispered. “Actually, no. There’s something I have to do before we go and effectively unleash chaos on the magical structure of this country.”

Rune pulled an indignant face and rolled his eyes but began to pass on the message.

“Actually, no,” she began again, thinking out loud. “Could she meet us here, but tonight? So we can travel to Hecate House together? How are we going to know where it’s incarnated for Halloween? We’re more likely to run into problems if we’re split up.”

Rune took a deep breath but nodded again and mouthed “fair point” in response, suggesting the new plan in between Bonnie relaying something or other about needing to walk Wolfie. But yes, that would work.

“Hang on. New plan. Rune, as far as they know, you don’t know anything that we know. You know?” Belle’s eyes were so wide, it was as though the speed at which her brain was operating was causing some kind of inflating friction against her skull.

“What are you…Excuse me, Mrs. Blackthorn, one moment.” He covered the end of the receiver with his palm. “Sorry, what are you talking about?”

“The Gowdens. They’re none the wiser to the fact that you were with us for the scrying. And the Necromancy spell was private magic. What if you go to Hecate House, act like everything’s peachy ahead of my retrial and get the new incarnate location for us to meet you there? Tonight, at sundown.”

Rune rubbed a thumb over his forehead, trying his best to keep up. “I think I follow. But you won’t be able to take the main entry into Hecate House, anyway. They’ll know as soon as you walk through the door.” He pondered for a moment. “Leave it to me.”

He handed the phone to Belle to take over. His hands took hold of her upper arms as he navigated her out of the way, and she felt him give an almost imperceptible squeeze as he did so. He transferred himself away with the promise to be in touch with answers as soon as he could.

The plan—or as much of a plan as a highly unqualified witch, a banished elderly warlock and a witch dithering somewhere up north could have in place without entirely knowing what it was they were hoping to achieve—was vague. All that they knew was that Selcouth needed to know the truth and that the Gowden sisters had landed their positions of power through treacherous means. Not to mention, it was highly likely that they were behind the sabotage of Belle’s mentorship, therefore controlling coven admissions for their own gain. They could have been manipulating prospective members of Selcouth, the future of magic itself, for decades.

But there was another crucial matter that she had to tackle first, before she could even consider the possibility of Hecate House.

She explained to Artorius that Rune or Bonnie would transfer with him to wherever it was they needed to be that night once Rune had gathered the facts. Artorius pointed out that it was a loose plan—barely a plan at all, in fact—to which Belle politely encouraged him to suggest his own if he had anything better.

“Well, it is something,” he replied brightly. “And that is a start.”

“ALL RIGHT?” ARIADNE grunted, picking at a plate of fish fingers while she flipped through a magazine, having returned from her sister’s the previous night. Belle suspected she’d grabbed it hastily the moment she heard the door opening, because it was upside down while she read, and Ariadne didn’t seem to have noticed.

“You’re back. Good.” Belle slammed the door behind her and marched towards her friend at the table.

“Seems that way,” Ariadne said, peering determinedly at an upside-down page as though it were the most fascinating piece of journalism ever written.

“Look, I haven’t got time for us to be shirty with one another anymore,” Belle said, snatching the magazine away and chucking it over her shoulder. “I love you. I love you to death.” She pulled the other chair from the table and sat herself directly in front of Ariadne. “I would play Scrabble with you every day in an old people’s home in like fifty years’ time, until we’ve lost the plot enough to think we’re somewhere else. I would genuinely live on a DIY barge with you if you so wished. I would do anything for us to be okay again.”

Ariadne snorted, then promptly rearranged her face back to lofty and disinterested.

Belle sighed. “I am a horrible, rotten crone for how I’ve treated you.”