Page 78 of Uncharmed

The prospect, hanging dangerously over them all now, was enough to make Maeve pause her struggle. Annie could practically hear the thoughts that were fighting each other in the girl’s mind. A chance to save herself. Powerful people, who acknowledged that her magic was special, could maybe even compound it further. Annie had seen how much Maeve’s confidence had improved over their weeks together. She couldn’t blame her if the temptation of more was enough to sway her fifteen-year-old decisions. Maeve’s gaze turned decidedly to Glory. Her mouth was set into a firm line before a smirk started tugging at the edges of her lips. Annie stilled, barely able to watch as her precious girl sold her soul to belong, just as she had.

But then she noticed the flex of Maeve’s left wrist, the tinder-like sparks that glittered at her fingertips. The slow, secretive motion of the tree withdrawing its hold, followed by more crackles of the girl’s magic. The branches loosened, the roots slithered back underground. Glory had been unwise to think that nature would be on her side, when it had always been so adoringly drawn to Maeve. The purest type of magic would always choose to protect that girl.

‘Didn’t you hear? I’m the weirdo of all weirdos.’ Maeve jutted out her chin. ‘Thanks for the offer, but unfortunately I would rather eat my own head than live a single day like you miserable lot.’

With that, Maeve shoved Glory. Hard, with both fists, followed by a blast of fiery gold magic and bright blue flames. The streams rebounded like firecrackers between all of the trees, splintering and sparking off in hundreds of different directions across the clearing. It all happened so quickly that Annie could barely process how it all unfolded, the scene in fragments that she couldn’t put back together quickly enough.

She saw Romily lunge in an attempt to catch her mother from falling. But she wasn’t fast enough. Instead, Glory savagely pushed Romily into the firing line of Maeve’s magic, using her own daughter as a shield, as her right hand sent a cannon of power into Maeve’s chest, so forceful and livid that the whole brutal motion looked impossibly, unknowably wrong. Something in Annie snapped at that moment and her powers seemed to act of their own accord. Jets of magic flew from her own fingers towards Glory. Blazing sparks exploded across the clearing, frantic as Annie and Maeve, Glory and Romily’s magic rebounded between trees over and over in a glittering rain.

She saw Maeve fall to the ground, battered from all sides by magic, her small body curling inwards around the base of the tree trunk, dark hair tumbling and hiding her face from view.

She saw Romily waver, a red gash across her forehead and raw scrapes down her arms, caught horribly off guard by the merciless, reflex decision from her own mother. Yet she still managed to blast back again at Annie before taking cover, in an effort to protect herself where Glory had failed. Magic flew as attack and defence tangled together.

She saw Karma leap straight into action, pouncing from the witches’ ring and directly onto Harmony’s head to break her focus and block her attacking magic at Annie. Harmony was sent flying, stumbling around blindly with a shriek.

She saw Harmony’s father yell and each of the Heralds falter. Furious, confused glances passed between them, uncertain of their next move and reluctant to go against what must have been Glory’s strict original instruction. It was evident, in their hesitation, that they had intended to keep Maeve for their own gain after all – perhaps recognizing her value as much as Annie had, but in a very different way. At least they were occupied for now, each throwing arms up to protect themselves from the barrage of rebounding spells as they attempted to figure out how best to hone in on their target without entangling those on their own side.

Forgetting all about the incentive of protective charms, supernatural aids, promises of staying where she was supposed to, Annie bolted out of the circle. Nothing else mattered. She had to get to Maeve.

The moment she stepped out of the witches’ ring, thick, choking ropes of magic whipped themselves with a biting sting around her wrists and tugged her arms back painfully. The shock caught her off guard. Where had they come from, these strange binds?

Battering the flying reams of magic away, Glory approached Annie with a fixed, sinister stare and a grin that seemed wild.

‘This isn’t you, Annie,’ Glory hissed, sending a cold wash of fright down Annie’s back. Her voice was different – or perhaps Annie was just hearing it accurately for the first time: cruel and unforgiving. She struggled to break away, determined to remove Maeve from the madness, but the binds held her rigidly. Glory’s eyes narrowed as she realized that Annie wasn’t going to bend to her whim this time.

‘After everything I’ve done for you,’ Glory said, a marvel to her tone like she couldn’t quite believe her loss of control. She raised a hand and Annie squeezed her eyes shut, waiting to feel pain. But she stiffened when the hand only cradled her face.

‘I know you, darling. What’s gotten into you?’ Glory said, her quietly unassuming, motherly words so jarring against the chaotic scene behind her.

All Annie could register was the desperate need to get to her own girl, to Maeve – an overwhelming feeling that she would give anything for it. Her own life, if needed. She supposed that was what a pure soul connection with someone other than her familiar was meant to feel like – true friendship or true love or the true feeling of family – and it had risen up so unexpectedly in her life, like a forgotten spring bud desperately determined to survive through any winter frost, through anything, all-consuming in its aim to carry on. A kind of love that was incomparable. Annie had no intention of letting that love leave this realm or any other.

‘You belong with us, Annie,’ Glory said, her smile fading. ‘Nothing can change that.’

There was a ripple between the densely packed trees, a shiver that spread its way through the notches of Annie’s spine. Because she knew, before the branches parted, before she saw him come tearing into the clearing.

Annie smiled. ‘She already has. And so has he.’

Chapter Thirty

DRAW YOUR SWORD

There was Hal, breathing heavily, shoulders heaving as though he’d been running for dear life to get to them. He scanned the wild scene for a moment, taking in the blazing magic that flew between the trees, before his eyes found hers. Mage gave a frantic whinny and cantered to his side as Hal threw up a hand to grab his saddle, swing a leg over and mount his loyal familiar. Rearing Mage onto his hind legs, Hal backed him up several steps. Moments later, a stampede of billowing cloaks and furious, complex spellwork, aimed directly at every Sorciety member, came careering in from behind him.

Hal had very good reason for his late arrival. Not only had he brought a hearty contingent of Selcouth coven with him – a crowd of familiar faces spilling out through the trees not a moment too soon, pushing their way out of the bracken to get to the fight – but he was also accompanied by what appeared to be every animal that had ever graced the depths of Arden Place. Flanking him, among maybe a hundred creatures, Annie spotted the family of wolves that had scampered through the meadow all those weeks ago, the cubs still only half grown but baring razor-sharp teeth. Stags armoured with towering antlers pawed their hooves at the ground, poised to descend at Hal’s whim. An army of bats swooped and loomed among the treetops, already disorientating the Sorciety as they struggled to retain composure against the swarm of wings. What must have been twenty foxes, screeching a battle cry, prowled between Mage’s legs. And there were many more, too, all of whom Annie and Maeve had welcomed in during the storm – badgers, owls, lynx, red squirrels, stoats, weasels, wild boar and so many woodland mice that it looked and sounded as though the floor of the woods was beginning to crumble.

Every creature was charged with a protective energy, prowling around Hal and waiting for their favourite warlock to give the signal, so that they could rush to his defence.

‘Don’t get hurt, you lot,’ he said gruffly. The warlock gave his one-fingered salute towards the Heralds. Hal’s gang descended in a crush on the Sorciety, who tried to turn on their heels and run, but were met by a wall of coven members poised to fight. The last thing Annie noted before she turned back to Hal was a pair of antlers already lifting the trail of a cloak as they stampeded after Vivienne’s father.

It had taken Hal a moment to register what was happening to Annie: Glory breathing down her neck, wrists and magic locked in her grasp.

‘I would think very, very carefully about your next move,’ he called calmly to Glory, although Annie could see a fire behind his eyes that felt foreign to his usual unshakeable calm. Mage picked up his hooves in a stutter, enough to make Glory falter, and, with a quick flick of Hal’s wrist, a burst of bronze magic flew straight to the ties that Annie was bound in. They split and crashed to the forest floor like irons and she stumbled away as quickly as she could, shaking out her wrists so fiercely that sparks of her power exploded.

‘Grab her!’ Glory shrieked to the Heralds, all now locked in their own battles of ricocheting coven magic and the brunt of watchful wild animals. It was Barnaby Morningstar who was unfortunate enough to be nearest. Annie saw him hesitantly break his own fight to follow Glory’s command. He sprinted towards Annie, wand outstretched menacingly in her direction, and smiled smugly as his hand closed around the trail of her cloak.

Hal had already galloped over. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

‘Or what, you common brute? You’ll set your little pony on me?’ Barnaby shouted back, throwing up his pointed chin as he simultaneously sent out a blast of magic. Hal easily bent it away, sending it to the ground as he spun the horse around.