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Normal—it was all too normal. Victoriya had been taken. Or worse, had given herself over like a sacrifice, so she could get revenge. In between bouts of fear that had sweat sliding down her spine, Joy was struck with disbelief and anger at Victoriya’s naivety. To think she could take on a witch like the killer by herself…
“I should warn you,” Gabi said in a tight voice as she unlocked her car and the others climbed in.
Joy hovered, her eyes on the straight line of Gabi’s shoulders, the shadows in her eyes.
“I called for backup. He’s meeting us at Town Hall in twenty minutes, along with my dad.”
“Oh,” Joy said, relief unwinding a tiny knot in her chest. “Good. Thank you.”
She didn’t know what to make of Gabi dancing around talking about them, but she had to admit the most severe of her panic lessened at the idea of having Bo with them.
Gabi nodded and opened the driver’s side door, but Joy stopped her with a hand on her wrist. It was too easy to touch her, even now with the world going to hell around them, with one of Joy’s best friends in mortal danger.
“Are you alright?” she asked, quietly enough that her coven wouldn’t overhear.
“Ask me when Victoriya is safe,” she replied, ducking into the front seat.
She knew the urgency in Gabi, the anxiety twitching her fingers, clenching her jaw. It was quickening Joy’s own heartbeat, telling her that even wasting these precious seconds asking if Gabi was okay was endangering her best friend.
Joy froze while Gabi tore away from Gus’s flat, pain arrowing through her heart. She’d never thought of Victoriya that way before. Her best friend…
Joy swallowed, straightened her spine, and marched around to the passenger side, slamming the door behind her.
There was no time to think about Gabi’s backup, no time to think of all the terrible things that could be happening to Victoriya. The car thundered to life, and before Joy could go over the plan one final time, they were racing down the high street towards the beach.
Before she’d fully prepared herself, they were there.
Town hall loomed beside them, elegant and square, the columns out front shining in the pale light. People milled from one end of the high street to the other, shopping or socialising, and a woman darted out of the town hall’s glossy golden doors, a briefcase in her hand and a harried look on her face. There was no sign that a woman was being held hostage inside.
Joy didn’t feel ready. Even with her pockets full of spells, they’d soon run out, and then what would she have to save her friend? Raw power and her wand?
It suddenly became clear that Joy might not make it back out of the town hall. Against a witch who had killed Freya, who’d tried to kill Neil, and who carved judgement into people’s faces and sliced open their bodies, filling them with trash… yes, there was a chance this was the last time Joy would see daylight.
So, when she climbed out of the car, her bones already shivering with fear, she made sure to fill her lungs with the salt and citrus air in case she never tasted that familiar brine again.
Eilidh alighted on the pavement beside her, clutching her talisman, and the others seemed to pause and follow Joy’s example. She made sure to wipe everything but her conviction from her face.
“We’re going to get her back,” she said to Eilidh, to Gus, and Maisie, and Salma.
Victoriya wastheirs—theirs to love, theirs to protect. Joy had already lost her mum; she wouldnotlose anyone else she loved.
Eilidh straightened at the look on Joy’s face, pushing back her nerves and meeting Joy’s determination with something steely and hard on her tear-reddened face. Gus didn’t raise himself from his slouch, didn’t take his hand from inside his jacket where it was clenched around his thick ash wand, but he did nod. Maisie brushed against his ankle, but even she looked afraid, her belly closer to the ground, her eyes in constant shifty movement. Only Salma stood tall and calm, though she had to be fighting to keep that mask up because Joy knew she was as afraid for Victoriya as the rest of them.
“Let me take the lead,” Salma said, letting her eyes linger on each of them. They all knew this could be the last time they stood together like this “Stay behind me. I have training for these situations, I know what to do.”
Only Salma had been trained in combat—by her brother, who was part of a secret witch corps in the army.
They started up the wide stone steps towards the columns where Gabi waited for them, stiff backed in her coat, her baton at full length in her hand. Joy expected her fear to relax at the sight of Gabi but this close to Victoriya, tied up and hurt—and to Katrina, violent and gloating in the vision—Gabi’s steady glance didn’t begin to touch the knot in her chest, the twisting of her gut.
But Joy held her head stubbornly high. Sunlight caught on the facets of her wand, the jagged amethyst tip. It didn’t matter if Joy was ready or far from it. Victoriyaneededher, so she would be brave, and she would enter that Town Hall and get her friend, no matter who she had to fight, no matter how many offensive spells she needed to use.
Joy’s eyes slid to two figures lurking in the town hall’s old stone doorway. One was Bo, leaning on a honey wood walking stick, his dark hair whipped around his chin by the wind and his eyes as hard as Joy had ever seen them.
The other was younger. Tall, dark-haired, and strikingly beautiful. But that beauty was marred by the grim expression on his face, the slash of black eyebrows, and by lips pressed into a thin line. His eyes though … warm amber brown shone with emotion. It wasn’t fear, Joy realised with confusion, but something sad. Hurt.
Joy tracked his attention to Gabi and felt a swell of protectiveness rise, but she quickly shoved it away. This was the backup Gabi had called for, the elf that had made her look so haunted.
Eilidh touched Joy’s elbow to get her attention, a question in her vivid eyes and Theodore—her seagull familiar—echoing her confusion with a cry from where he perched on a nearby lamppost.
