Pyrrha and Wasila passed beyond the door to emerge within a lush jungle, and the abrupt change of scenery was almost breathtaking. The smells of fresh rainfall and damp soil permeated the twilit rainforest. Scattered shrubs, vines and vibrant plants sat half-distinct under layered shadows, shifting patterns thrown by sunshine leaking through the shattered canopy of swaying leaves far above. The forest was alive with noise; countless calls resounded from far-off and not, all running together in a near-endless stream of bestial chatter.
A spell revealed the waiting welcome; a constellation of lights dotted the branches overhead, each denoting a furry and robust black figure with an apish outline looming over them, perched in shade they wore like a cloak, and Pyrrha could make out over a dozen sets of fangs bared in broad grimaces.
Wasila followed her eyes and whispered: "I wonder . . . what are the odds they're friendly, only rubbish at smiling?"
The creatures answered for themselves; they leapt heavily from their branches and soared with two sets of batlike wings unfolding, withholding their simian bodies from the ground as they barked out harsh shrieks that stabbed at Pyrrha's eardrums with shards of ice, sharp and blinding agony grating against her bones like a grindstone.
She held her breath and performed a wide-ranging gesture; the air wailed as it was ripped out of place, and it gathered around herself and Wasila in a swirling pocket of impossible density, a feeling of immense pressure pressing her in as if she stood below an ocean. Foliage whipped around them as she maintained the spell with swift twirls, and the shrieks cut off; with no air left to them the beasts dropped quietly from the sky to strike the dirt with heavy thumps, some dying on impact, others writhing breathlessly as Pyrrha kept the curse alive with perpetual motions.
Air continued to gather, pressure continued to build; Pyrrha kept casting until black spots bloomed across her vision; she released the spell, and the stolen air rushed out in all directions with the roaring force of a fleeting hurricane, sending burly bodies tumbling away as she gasped for breath, fighting lightheadedness to remain upright.
Plants rustled when the few creatures left living stirred. Their every shrill breath exhaled drove another nail into Pyrrha's ears; Wasila darted ahead into the brush and silenced them one by one, piercing voices cut off by a pulse of wind and emerald light. A headache came full-formed in Pyrrha's skull while she caught her breath, watching between trees for snatches of Wasila's shape weaving throughout, swift and silent as a jungle cat. She emerged from the undergrowth seconds later with a cheery smile.
"Well, that was quite a racket. What next, do you think?" Wasila said. "Lions, tigers, or bears?"
Pyrrha shook her head and cast out for life, and the sparks receding in all directions confirmed her suspicion. "Those things were a warning as much as an ambush; Eilith's creatures have retreated." Another flick revealed the woman's lifesign growing steadily closer. "It appears she's on her way to meet us."
"Perfect," Wasila said. "I've never been much for the outdoors."
With one slow and deliberate gesture of her wand Pyrrha cast a curse resembling thick black smoke that spread through the air in every direction, drifting not in coils, but in wavy streams seeking the surrounding plant life, seeping over leafy stems and up along vine-wrapped trunks like a spreading stain, deadly silent. The affected flora sat perfectly still, a static shadow of the forest that had been, before their murky shapes dissolved into wavering wisps that flickered and vanished from sight, revealing the inky tide behind them as the curse dispersed ever further. Pyrrha maintained the spell until she could see several hundred feet all around, where nothing remained but sunlit soil.
As the spell faded, Pyrrha caught snatches of movement at the new-formed border of the forest, creatures of all shapes fleeing for shelter from the sudden daylight; she focused on one loping form that resembled no animal she'd ever seen, a pale and hairless quadruped the size of a lion with limbs long and sinewy; it paused before the treeline and sniffed at the air, turning a wide, eyeless head precisely in Pyrrha's direction. Saliva dribbled from the beast's eerily wide jaw as it seemed to stare, deliberating, before turning to vanish into the jungle.
"Rosier's been a busy bee," Wasila mused. "What might she want with such malformed creatures? The pleasure of like company?"
Pyrrha didn't know or care. "In a moment you can ask her yourself."
She led the way across the barren field under dazzling charmed sunlight. The dirt was loamy and fresh under her boots, and it absorbed the sounds of each step until she stopped in the center of the desolation. All around was flat nothingness—another field ravaged by fire flashed before Pyrrha's eyes; a painful twist in her gut followed the scar's flare of heat. Silence pressed in.
Only half her mind considered the impending confrontation. Morrigan had had ample time to pursue, and Pyrrha knew she could even now be hanging over the Lodge like a corporeal curse, a mindless emissary of death scraping at the door with blunt and brittle fingerbones, relentless imminence embodied.
"Where are we?" Pyrrha asked, eyes roving the treeline, alert for the smallest flicker of motion. A spell revealed Eilith's presence drawing closer still, and another affirmed the feeling winding across her skin; there were endless ferine eyes appraising her from the forest's fold.
Wasila leaned back to bask in the sunshine. "Mmm . . . a few dozen miles from Lukla, I believe," she said, exhaling a tranquil breath. "How fast does your oldest admirer travel?"
"Fast enough. We'll need to—"
The plants and bushes ahead retracted into the earth, the vine-laden trees leaned aside, and Eilith emerged from the forest as it shifted back into place behind her. Her seething expression was firmly set as she strode closer, wand ready at her side—she gestured upward and Pyrrha tensed, but newborn clouds swelling in the sky were the only result; they spread across like soap suds on water to capture the harsh sunbeams in their screen of gloom, casting a grey pall over the clearing.
The air sharpened with tension as Eilith passed within speaking distance and kept walking, her gaze secured to Pyrrha's with an ironclad connection; Pyrrha saw Wasila draw back from the corner of her vision as she leveled her wand at Eilith in warning. Undeterred, the woman advanced with anomalous muteness until the tip of Pyrrha's wand pressed between her burning eyes.
Seconds passed like hours while Eilith conveyed unrivaled contempt in her stare. "Well?" she said finally. "Are you going to do me in, or not?"
"Not unless you force my hand," Pyrrha said, "but you know that, of course, judging by this little show." She nudged Eilith's forehead with her wand.
"Poke me again and I'll force the whole fucking arm down your throat."
"Bravado doesn't suit you," Wasila commented from aside. "You've thrown your little tantrum, here's Mummy come to acknowledge you. How about being a big girl, now, and staying out of our way?"
Eilith turned her searing glare to Wasila. "Traitorous bitch—you helped her overcome the others, didn't you? Didn't you?" Wasila merely smiled sweetly in response, and Eilith seethed. "Spineless fucking coward."
Wasila let out a soft laugh. "An adorable tautology, bless you."
"She saw reason," Pyrrha cut in. "Morrigan is upon us, and within the hour, that will be a literal truth. This threat is above our petty rivalry, above Cabal politics; either help us or stand aside, if you have any desire to live."
"Petty rivalry?" Eilith went eerily still for a moment, and Pyrrha caught a flash of boiling rage behind her eyes that vanished just as quickly. "I don't care about Morrigan. Actually, I'm feeling rather generous towards her right about now," she said quietly. "I'm going to give her what she wants."
"That—"
"You're surrounded," Eilith said bluntly, her smile more a grimace. "Kill me, and they'll keep you alive while they feed, savor you as long as you survive. But you knew that, of course," she added with venom. "If you surrender, I'll consider making it quick."
Wasila gave an amused noise. "You might consider who you're threatening, instead. How do you plan to cohabitate with a genocidal immortal, should you defy the astronomically long odds and best us?"
"Just what makes you so bloody certain she's the only one who can do anything about it?" Eilith said, still glaring daggers down the tip of Pyrrha's wand.
Pyrrha fought the impulse to glance at Wasila; it was something she wanted to know, herself.
"Maven saw it," Wasila said simply, as if she'd never heard the old seer declare the opposite mere hours ago.
Eilith scoffed. "Right. Forgive me if I don't put stock in the prescience of a dead woman, nor the lies of her killers," she said, voice steeped in vehemence. Her eyes never left Pyrrha's. "It doesn't matter, because I don't give a damn who's fated to do what. Pyrrha doesn't deserve to leave this room alive after all she's done."
"Perhaps you don't care for this bizarre little zoo quite as much as you pretend to," Pyrrha said. "You've thrown their lives away, and you're about to do the same with the rest; if you insist on conflict, I'll best you, and I'll eradicate the entire habitat. The others, too. You can prevent it, but only if you cooperate."
Eilith stepped back and laughed, a harsh and humorless sound. "You've been sure of yourself before, Pyrrha, and look what it got you; a face fit for solitude, an absence of family to match—"
The curse left Pyrrha's wand with a flick and a thought, but Eilith was ready; it passed by her cheek as she returned with a pure white spell Pyrrha deflected, and the few feet of space between them grew steadily wider; they drew back one step at a time while they burned the air with a storm of curses flashing just as fast as the eye could track. Heat radiated from the center of their contest where spells seared the space and landed anywhere but where they stood; the scorching air shimmered like fire, and Pyrrha sent it forth in a sweltering wave that parted around Eilith at her gesture.
Ribbons of distortion trailed from Eilith's wand tip as she transitioned to another spell that blossomed like a warped sun, serpentine beams of light licking at all in reach to leave shining scars as they extended. Pyrrha gestured; a tall mirror appeared between them, and the tongues of light hissed and bent back to lash at Eilith, who narrowly diverted the strikes, an oath ripped from her lips as she ended the spell. At Pyrrha's motion the mirror birthed a perfect Eilith, and it launched into a stream of curses while Pyrrha added to the assault; the real Eilith batted away the barrage with blinding-fast flicks until she'd bought herself a brief moment to tap her head; her hair turned from brown to black, and the mimic vanished.
A swipe sent the mirror soaring for Eilith, and as it burst into shards midair Pyrrha shifted the fragments into an array of daggers which buried themselves in the dirt mound that gathered up. A shuddering purple curse blasted through the pile in a spray of soil to reveal nothing beneath; the curse soared on to carve through the forest, its howling matched by the cries of wounded beasts. Before Pyrrha could think the seeking spell she felt a tingle at her back; she spun on her heel and conjured an iron shield which shattered in a flash of emerald flames the next second.
The ground gave an ominous series of rumbles as they exchanged spellfire; Pyrrha nullified one curse with a whisper of air and spun away from another to cast where her back turned; the iridescent charm shined down from behind her to light Eilith's pale countenace, rapturous and vacant, and Pyrrha aimed—
The earth erupted in twin showers of dirt, violent tremors throwing Pyrrha off balance as two towering shapes loomed over her, grotesque and wormlike creatures with gaping maws and swaying tendrils; they convulsed and spat an oily substance Pyrrha captured in the air, acrid fumes burning her lungs as she sent it streaming toward Eilith, whose murderous face glowed green in the light of a spell; Pyrrha fanned out the stream and froze it with a whirl to receive the curse as the monsters lunged.
Under Pyrrha's flitting wand the monsters shifted until they fell to her feet in a tangle of rope which became a rearing snake in turn; Pyrrha pulled it into the path of a curse that cut it to ribbons and returned with a lightning bolt that arced away from Eilith's arm at her motion, and Eilith raised her wand to her throat and uttered a thunderous call at the top of her lungs as Pyrrha lashed out again.
The cry echoed over the field as Eilith narrowly blocked a curse, the force of it sending her staggering; she deflected three more while she stumbled back, falling away from the fourth as a stampede of formidable footsteps registered from all around. Pyrrha ignored them, shaping grasping arms from the earth while Eilith rolled away, slashing off snatched robes with a flash as she sprang to her feet. Pyrrha's curse glanced off the pale barrier Eilith raised around herself, and she smirked from within the swirling shell. Countless hulking creatures barreled out of the forest.
"Very well," Pyrrha said quietly; she performed a complicated twirl, and the barrier crackled as it seemed to putrefy, black veins of corruption snaking across the surface that dulled into muted shades of grey. Eilith flourished her wand, eyes widening when nothing happened.
The beasts closed in from all sides with loping strides twice their length, each monstrous footfall adding weight to the frantic drumming beats. There was no time to look closer; Pyrrha's heart lodged in her throat as she gestured upward and soared from the ground, borne smoothly away on a wide platform of solid earth. As she rose she couldn't help but peer down at the snarling masses left behind, a furious churning sea of wiry brutes with too-long necks craned up at her, unsettling blunt teeth bared as they leapt over each other to snap at the air beneath her. A brief scan yielded no sign of Wasila.
Pyrrha halted her ascent just out of the beasts' reach as she began to feel dizzy. She knelt to steady herself, taking in deep breaths while she peered past the horde of mossy fur and bloodshot eyes to the murky barrier that still caged Eilith, who cast upon it with one fruitless attempt after another, her panicked frustration growing more apparent with each failed effort. Pyrrha's flicker of amusement died as quickly as it came when a new sound reached her from above.
Flying beasts with wicked curved beaks and long, whiplike tails screamed down from all around in steep headlong dives, closer by the second. From her knees Pyrrha raised her wand and executed a complex maneuver; subtle light shone from the tip, and it filled the sky with gently swirling radiance in every shade of blue, an otherworldly monochrome aurora. The ethereal glow blossomed across the air and over the field below; as the airborne beasts passed within they sank like stones to careen into the masses, each dull crunch of impact followed by pained squalling and outraged snarls.
A brilliant jet of emerald light flew several feet from Pyrrha, and she turned sharply to see Eilith casting again from her prison, features frozen in cold fury. Incoming green curses surpassed the barrier and soared by ever nearer, each with a tremendous rush of air, while Pyrrha allowed her platform to sink. She rose to her feet as she rejoined the earth among countless groaning creatures that lay inert, limbs weighed down by the charm drifting around them like eddies of air made azure light.
A gesture tore one winged creature from the dirt to float before Pyrrha as she strode forward between the supine masses; before it could so much as squawk in protest the incoming curse struck with a burst of emerald, and the fight died from the thing's beady black eyes. A wordless scream of rage ripped through Eilith; Pyrrha cast the leathery beast aside to pluck up another, and it died just the same, but Eilith didn't stop, hurling curses one after the other to strike the monsters Pyrrha yanked into her path with swift flicks.
"Won't you just die, die, die, fucking die!" Eilith kept casting like a woman possessed until Pyrrha tossed aside the latest victim and dispelled the corrupted barrier with a flourish; the sapphire light of her charm swept in to swaddle Eilith before she could blink, and she fell heavily to her knees; her arm drooped, shaking as she strained against invisible weight. She struggled a moment longer before collapsing face-first into the dirt.
"I'm afraid I won't," Pyrrha said. She disarmed Eilith with a flash and approached slowly, kneeling with care beside her motionless form. A twirl of her wand turned Eilith over to reveal a disquieting blank expression.
"Too bad," she said hoarsely. "Get on with it, then." Her eyes remained transfixed by the dull grey sky while she lay stiffly like one already interred, arms at her sides.
Pyrrha despised the feeling of a life held by her blood-sullied fingers. Through her hollow shell, such power had wrought far more woe than wonder.
"I . . . don't want this for you." The admission came as a small surprise even to Pyrrha; she had every reason to feel otherwise, though such murderous ire as Eilith's focused on her was well-deserved.
"You're a scourge," Ashlin affirmed, voice edged with something unsettling. "We are."
"Feeling's not mutual," Eilith muttered. "Never will be, so get it over with, already. I'd rather not waste my last moments chatting with you."
An amused hum escaped Pyrrha. "You don't have a choice."
Eilith huffed. "Bitch."
Pyrrha leaned back to sit on her heels; she studied Eilith intently, the facade of contented resignation mirrored in the thoughts she offered. "I want to know where your hatred for me stems from."
The question seemed to rekindle a fire in Eilith. She tore her eyes from the clouds to shoot an incredulous glare. "The bloody nerve you have to even ask that question . . . Do you think so little of the damage you've done? Unleashed an unstoppable disaster, murdered our colleagues, snuffed out hundreds of muggles—?"
"That's not it," Pyrrha said quietly. "You've despised me since long before all this. Tell me why." It was her best—and perhaps final—chance to answer a question that had nagged at her for two years.
"Bugger off," Eilith spat, turning her head away with a grunt of effort. "Be done with it! I'm through talking."
Pyrrha pointed her wand at Eilith; foreign thoughts and memories blossomed in her mind and wilted the next moment, withered away and scattered to the winds until all was barren.
"You'll get nothing from me!" Eilith snarled, squirming within the aura wreathed around her.
"You can't stop me. Save us both some time."
"Fuck—!"
Red light winked at the tip of Pyrrha's wand, and Eilith arched her back as she howled in agony until she had no breath left. She gasped in bursts just long enough to scream again, the piercing cries ringing out over the field like the death knell of a crooked bell resounding between the jungle trunks. The forest rustled at the edges as unnatural beings found their way out and promptly collapsed within the radiant aurora drifting about the clearing. At last Pyrrha lowered her arm; the rosy glow faded and took the wailing with it.
"Tell me what you're hiding."
Eilith took harsh breaths. "You—you'll—"
Once more Pyrrha assailed the woman's mind, now a primal storm of emotion in stark contrast to the former serenity; adrenaline flowed as alien rage swept through, and Pyrrha redoubled her concentration, brushing aside the sensation to slither in further, deeper. Scattered scraps of memories flashed before her eyes as they flickered away like leaves in a breeze. She saw them, felt them, fleeting split-second scenes—a tall figure at the other end of a platform; a painful throb from her jaw; the smells of sweat and ozone; the cheers and jeers of a teeming crowd.
Like bothersome bugs, other memories flittered in to meddle: a barn owl spilling ink over piles of coursework; a redheaded boy disparaging her over breakfast, to the table's entertainment; cool air streaming through her hair high above the stands—
Pyrrha's heart lurched at the suspended sensation—too far aloft on a thin strip of charmed wood, at the scant mercy of the greater forces of the world. The reeling inanities flickered to a stop as Eilith's triumph bled through, and the memory sharpened into lifelike detail, swerving through the air in daring swoops and dives that set Pyrrha's heart thundering. The dive steepened, and she was falling, falling—
A breath and a blink brought her from the brink of lost control. She didn't feel the pain her recrimination brought, but she felt Eilith's visceral reaction, the anathema to every thought that wasn't escape from the hell surging through her from everywhere at once.
"I can end it all," Pyrrha said under Eilith's cries. The words wouldn't venture far intact, but her voice, her suggestion, would come across. "Stop fighting. Show me the truth."
At last, the garbled memories playing out before her resolved into a legible chaos: the Headmaster's dispassionate recitation of the rules and rewards of the annual dueling tournament, a glorious thrill overtaking the ever-present shameful undercurrent born of her name; incredulous amusement at her first round opponent, the bookworm who'd never had a proper duel in her life; shock and horror spiraling down her as she lifted her head from the platform, the bitch already stepping away; the remainder of the evening passing through a fog of numb while the rest fought for her future, her one opportunity come and gone in a blink.
The final scene crystallized into a perfect picture of the past, every detail captured and held in suspended animation, a memory never faded, never far from the forefront: Pyrrha Clay, hunched against the spectators' praises, quietly declined the life she'd stolen from Eilith without a thought, leaving behind a stunned Head Auror to issue a halfhearted offer to the runner-up.
The turmoil swirling through Pyrrha swept into place, and she understood, a wrenching feeling within her chest wrapping her in iron bands of regret. She released the spell and felt cerebral relief as Eilith's emotions faded from her.
Eilith sobbed even while she fought her distress with rough breaths, gulping air as if enough of it would stem the outpouring. Pyrrha sat still and silent by her side. At length the tide of feeling fell low, and Eilith's panting breaths filled the silence, the soft and steady sounds laboring under the immense weight of anticipation.
Pyrrha said, "It must've been a trial like none other, to carry a Death Eater's name through school."
"I hate you," Eilith said, her quiet intensity tracing a little chill down Pyrrha's neck.
"I understand." Pyrrha found herself at a loss for words while she contemplated the revelation. She had inadvertently snatched away Eilith's most precious desire, and from her perspective, had discarded it without a care. The aching loss still echoed in Pyrrha's chest, a familiar feeling, yet vastly different.
"Kill me," Eilith whispered. Her eyes were closed, utterly peaceful, and with her pallid complexion, her teary cheeks, she appeared as a drowned woman sunk beneath a swell of swirling sapphire.
"Luscinia changed her name. Could you not've—?"
"For fuck's sake!" Eilith bellowed, shattering the air of peace. "No, Pyrrha, I couldn't change my fucking name—Evan Rosier is not the family! That bloody tournament was my only—" she let loose a wordless howl of rage "—just do it, already! End it!"
"I've told you, that's not what I want. I intend to spare your life upon the sealing of a Vow."
Eilith barked a harsh laugh, a faint note of hysteria betraying her fear as she struggled against the charm. "What're you hoping for, you fucking lunatic? Lifelong servitude? Humiliation? You'll never have my word," she said, voice escalating until she was screaming her throat raw, "and if you don't kill me here and now, I swear to God I'll spend weeks giving you everything you bloody deserve!"
Wasila's amused voice came from behind. "Offer her life, and she demands death. You're the epitome of obstinacy, Rosier." She stepped silently around them to stand at Eilith's other side, movement sluggish, as if treading through water. Her too-wide smile betrayed only the barest hint of strain amidst the charm's influence. "By the by, threats tend to yield more favorable results when they don't sound quite so romantic."
"You—!"
"All I want in return," Pyrrha said over Eilith, "is a truce. A truce that ends upon Morrigan's death." She paused to let the implications sink in; the other two regarded her with similar disbelieving expressions. "We'll settle our accounts afterward."
Wasila knelt and peered at Pyrrha with lively curiosity. "Interesting. What did she show you?"
"That's between her and myself," Pyrrha said. She allowed her displeasure to radiate as she added, "Your assistance in resolving this dispute would've saved us valuable time. Explain yourself."
Wasila cracked a wide, mischievous smile. "You made it quite clear my meddling on your behalf is unwelcome. Have I not held to your instructions?"
"This isn't a game, Wasila," Pyrrha said, jaw set painfully tight. "There's far too much at stake for this sort of foolishness."
"I'll endeavor to practice only the proper sort of foolishness, then."
Irritation was swept aside by Morrigan's shadow spilling ever further across Pyrrha's thoughts. Time was of the essence. "Bond us," she said, snatching up Eilith's hand. "Now."
"Well, since you asked so politely . . ."
Wasila drew her wand and set the tip against their clasped hands. She and Pyrrha looked at Eilith with expectance, and Eilith bored holes into Pyrrha with the force of her stare. After a moment, she hissed a seething sigh and squeezed Pyrrha's hand hard in vindictive assent.
"I'll not agree to anything else," Eilith ground out. "Don't try."
"Thank you," Pyrrha said, and she meant it. There were far too many deaths resting on her shoulders.
Wasila waved an intricate pattern over their joined hands; a faint aura of light shined as if from within their flesh, and Wasila returned her wand tip to press against Pyrrha's knuckles. A solemn gravity settled over Pyrrha as the spell took hold of some hidden piece of her. Eilith's eyes tightened and flicked away at a low moan from one of her beasts.
"Begin," Wasila said. "Or go on holding hands in silence, if that's what you need. Bracing moments like these are a rare pleasure. I understand."
"Couldn't have offed her, too?" Eilith muttered darkly.
Pyrrha ignored them and set her eyes firmly on Eilith's, and she spoke clearly: "Will you set aside your grievances toward me until Morrigan is destroyed?"
There was a stretch of silence while Eilith stared back, her baleful expression a different sort of promise, an assurance that time wouldn't blunt her feelings. Eventually: "I will."
A ribbon of light rippled from Wasila's wand and wrapped around their joined hands, sank into their flesh, and the glow faded as Pyrrha let go.
Pyrrha stood and looked around through the brilliant shifting curtains of light at the groaning beasts stirring feebly. "The spell will fade soon," she said, and she strode away with Wasila at her side, back toward the exit.
It wasn't until they reached another of the Lodge's halls they were warned. The luminescent mushrooms along the walls had darkened in tone from soft gold into a harsh scarlet hue, and the meaning was clear.
"She's here," Pyrrha said with a frigid thrill, probing at the Lodge's enchantments as they hurried along the corridor.
"Should we run?" Wasila asked, sounding exhilarated.
"Abandon the Lodge? Why—?"
"No—actually run, instead of this speedwalking nonsense. It's a little undignified, yes, but—?"
Wasila cut herself off as the hall's end came into view, and they stormed through the doorless portal into a vast room nearly as spacious as the antechamber, though shaped quite differently. There were no walls, only a low, domed ceiling set directly against the circular floor. All of it swirled with the familiar dreamy patterns of dark blues and purples, though it was washed out by the red glow of the fungi sprouting all around. The characteristic smell was stronger than elsewhere.
In the chamber's center stood a cauldron wide enough to fit several grown men, and it bubbled readily over a blazing fire, the substance within murky and mudlike. Around it was an extensive array of potioneering materials set on desks and inside many-locked chests; scales and silver knives and mortar and pestle were scattered about, debris among the larger sieves and crucibles.
They set to work at once, rifling through the stores for snidget feathers, bottled ozone, and several more exotic ingredients. Beside Pyrrha, Wasila held up two vials to the light, both in shades of green nearly indistinguishable. She huffed in annoyance and released the vials, which hung in place as she drew her wand and restored the lighting to a more natural tone.
While Pyrrha cast a dusting of creeping coral into the brew, she felt a sickening tingle in her chest.
"Someone's bypassed the sanction," Ashlin said. "Daisy. How did she come by your blood, I wonder? Does she know more than we suspect?"
Ice crept through Pyrrha at the thought. We'll find out soon.
"Nearly done," Wasila said as she stirred the cauldron with slow circles of her wand, the substance within now a deep, sluggish green. "The soil?" she added with a questioning look.
With several quick gestures, a weathered trunk popped open its third lock and released myriad translucent spheres formed of charmed water to float like bubbles in the air. Each of them were drawn from every sea and commingled into something more. Inside the eclectic orbs were swirling clouds of dirt undiluted by the water, secured as if in fluid glass. Pyrrha directed one to float over and into the churning liquid in the cauldron, and Wasila's eyes followed as it sank.
"Argentina?" she said. "Suppose that's about as far as possible, but does it make a difference?"
"It does," Pyrrha said as she locked the soils away again. "She doesn't apparate. It'll have to suffice."
Everything trembled as if the Lodge itself were at an earthquake's epicenter, and the lights darkened back into a stifling bloody red. Their eyes met.
"The fumes—quickly," Pyrrha said, waving her wand across the Lodge. The enchantments woven throughout were already wavering, to her alarm; she bolstered them with her own charmwork as Wasila toiled feverishly over the boiling cauldron.
It was a battle of minds, indirect and intimate. Morrigan's influence seeped between the cracks to pry at the Lodge's underpinnings, scrabbling for purchase, and Pyrrha rebuffed, redirected—she reformed the Lodge's defenses in a constant flow of change as Morrigan peeled away at each charm like methodical claws across skin, each pass sinking further to the bones.
A barely perceptible tremor swept through the defenses, and at once there was a cascade of collapse—Wasila called out in alarm as the shadows of the room stretched over them, unnaturally solid, to smother the lights, reaching across surfaces with shapeless arms; Pyrrha cast out the blackness with a swipe of burning light and kept maneuvering, her wand a blur issuing charms that made mockery of the human senses as they passed beyond perception to permeate the Lodge.
Morrigan's touch probed for weakness and found it again; as Pyrrha made to act against her the colors of the room were inverted, the ceiling swirling with blinding, dizzying light, Wasila's face black as night where it turned up in surprise. Pyrrha countered the charm and her arm hit the wall—the room was closing in, barely half the proper size and shrinking further until they were trapped between wall and burning cauldron; Pyrrha averted a deathly curse that sought Wasila, then performed a swift gesture and the room snapped back again.
As Pyrrha contested Morrigan's reaving, Wasila tended the cauldron with all of her haste, a flurry of motions in repetition rendered thoughtless by memory. She stirred with one hand and dashed in components with the other until the cauldron emitted a sibilant noise and began to billow smoke in great puffs. At this she aimed her wand at the fire; it roared to new heights to lick around the lip of the cauldron, and the fumes grew into a steady column of smog that swirled up to seep through the ceiling.
"Done!"
"Not yet," Pyrrha said as she nullified a wicked hex with a gesture and a screech of air. "She means to withhold us."
"We'll slip her!"
Wasila joined her efforts with Pyrrha's, and together they twisted and struggled against Morrigan's advancing hold over the Lodge, her curses cleaving in to anchor them in place. Their wands moved to an untraceable symphony while they wrested control, little by little; though Morrigan was almost indomitable, a primal force, it was their Lodge, and it favored them; with one coactive artifice of magic they won free for a moment, and it was all they needed.
"We're away!" Wasila said breathlessly. "Have we—?"
Pyrrha gestured at the domed ceiling, and its bleak shades faded to reveal their snowswept mountainside in Nepal rising higher and higher around them. Above, Morrigan's yellow eyes burned no less harshly in the pale midday sun; she stared down at Pyrrha while she descended with them, a ruined arm outstretched, and Pyrrha stared back until the view was smothered by unbroken white, sinking gradually into black as the Lodge burrowed beneath the earth.
They waited in silence with senses heightened by adrenaline. Pyrrha stood ready while Wasila coaxed more from the cauldron, and eventually, the lights turned from crimson to pink and then to gentle gold, and relief settled over her; they had escaped.
Fury was quick to sweep her up. To be chased from one refuge to another like a frightened rabbit, ineffectual and pathetic, by the one who had taken all from her . . .
"We'll have her soon," Ashlin said in her ear, soft and reassuring. "Soon. There's only some work yet ahead."
Her sister's voice abated her ire, though not enough; Wasila spoke with familiar amusement. "Ah, yes, it's rather vexing to miss death by a hair, isn't it? All those squandered hours composing the perfect epitaph . . ."
Pyrrha swept out of the room without a word, leaving Wasila to tend the mixture.
Unsteady beats of the heart belied Pyrrha's outer calm. She sat across from Daisy by the common hall's fire once again, her friend slumped and unconscious. Time passed uselessly; it wouldn't change their impending talk, because all Pyrrha could tell her was nothing, whether she preferred otherwise or not. She wasn't stalling to compose an explanation, but to brace herself for the outcome of Daisy's discovery.
The thought her dear friend might wake and look at her with revulsion and fear stayed her from waking Daisy. A sick feeling twisted in her gut while she stared, helpless, at Daisy's troubled face.
Ashlin was behind Daisy's chair, leaning over with a thoughtful look. She raised her eyes to Pyrrha. "I've got a solution."
Pyrrha drew her wand quickly and flicked it, glancing up past the dimly glowing ceiling sprouts, just to be certain; Wasila's spark of life flickered far off, still diligently minding the cauldron in the Lodge's uppermost chamber, and Eilith shined deep within her feral domain.
"Tell me," Pyrrha whispered. She didn't bother to mask her distress; with Ashlin, it was a futile endeavor.
Ashlin's smile somehow darkened her expression, made more sinister by the fire's flickering half-light. "Don't pretend. You know what I'm about to suggest—the same course you're considering now. It's your only option, really."
"Obliviation? I couldn't—couldn't do . . ."
"Why not? You prefer her hurt? Her confusion and disgust?"
"Of course not."
"Then take it from her," Ashlin said earnestly. "The pain, the uncertainty, the danger—take it all, send her back to Hogwarts. It's not too late to fix this mistake."
Pyrrha wallowed in indecision. The thought of destroying even a snippet of thought in Daisy's head made her blood turn cold. She reached out and ran her hand across the soft fur of Hati's neck, the wolf sitting steadfast beside her, looking from her to the empty space behind Daisy in bemusement.
A miniscule part of Pyrrha, the part that carried furtive hope, thought Daisy might consider her. Though they hadn't spoken in too long, theirs was a friendship outside of time, she thought, a transcendent bond that could drop off for years and pick up again as if it were the very next day. If anyone in the world would venture to understand and accept Pyrrha's vital purpose, it was Daisy.
Though she was loath to share her burden, the alternatives were yet worse. She needed Daisy.
Ashlin knew Pyrrha's answer before she said it, and her sister's face became a hateful mask. "You're selfish. Your wants'll be the death of her."
The words dug into Pyrrha's chest and twisted, and she could feel despair rising in her, threatening to shatter her composure. Nothing was as it should be, and her every course was its own calamity. She couldn't bring herself to violate Daisy's mind, even for her good, and yet this weakness could only wreak greater evils in time—a horrible image came unbidden, of Daisy withering to dust in the air, scattering, nothing.
"It's not mine," Pyrrha said, her grip like iron on the chair's arms. "It's not mine to decide for her. Aradia will unmake the Vow, and then Daisy will have it all. She can choose to forget—after."
"She'll die for you if you allow her!" Ashlin shouted, making Pyrrha start at a flare of heat. Her expression bled hurt. "She will! You can't protect her—you couldn't protect me! And you still care nothing for me! I'm still here, I know you—aren't I enough?"
"Ashlin—"
"I know what you think, and you're wrong—I'm not a curse. I was born from a curse, nothing else; I am what I am. I'm real. I love and hate you, and you love and hate me. We're sisters—proper sisters. Daisy doesn't understand you like I do. She can't."
Each beat of Pyrrha's speeding heart spread pain and love and sorrow and want—want for Ashlin's declaration to be true, because she missed her sister like nothing in the world. But the pain beating down from her scar impressed harsh reality upon her.
"She can't," Ashlin repeated, gaze imploring over Daisy's dozing form with an expression achingly familiar, full of flagging hope. Her eyes shimmered in the firelight like gems cut from the sky.
Pyrrha took a breath and hardened her heart against the apparition with all of her will, and she said gently, "We'll see."
Hell made home in her head, blistering, bleak, and it withdrew near as swiftly, the whiplash of pain an odd sort of vertigo. Ashlin's wounded countenance didn't simply vanish—she went pale and skeletal, putrefied into black death, crumbled to pieces that were swept away in a nonexistent wind.
"Oh . . ." The word escaped Pyrrha in a paroxysm of grief, and she pressed her hand to the dull pulse of the burn that mirrored her life's own.
She sat there for uncounted time. Hati nuzzled her arm and whined, and she patted him absentmindedly. The utter silence allowed all of her thoughts to blossom; she flicked her hand toward the silent fire, and it flared into a merry crackling that was utterly out of place, just across from the repose of Maven and Irving. Pyrrha contemplated their aftercare, that and one hundred other things that weren't slumped across from her.
"Time," Ashlin said tiredly, giving Pyrrha's heart a lurch. "Not to be wasted."
Yes . . . thank you, Pyrrha thought back, still deciphering the leap of feeling—had it been apprehension of pain, or relief that Ashlin remained with her?
It didn't matter. What did was before her now, and she flicked her wand before she could hesitate a second longer; Daisy's eyes fluttered open, and she pushed upright with a sharp intake of breath. Worry wrung at Pyrrha's heart while she watched Daisy closely.
Daisy watched right back, and if Pyrrha hadn't known better, she might think to avert Legilimency. Daisy read only her expression as if her mind were written plainly across her face. Pyrrha yearned to break the silence, but she was determined to let Daisy steer their course. She waited under the dread settled on her shoulders like a mantle of cold stone.
Something in Pyrrha's face had given what Daisy sought; her dismay cleared somewhat, morphing into her familiar, wonderful concern.
"Pyrrha . . ." She trailed off helplessly.
All Pyrrha could say was, "I'm sorry I stunned you. I hadn't a choice."
"Yeah, well, never mind that—your room—those bodies—?"
"I can't—"
"—brains and hearts and a person, a prisoner—?"
"I can't, Daisy, I can't explain! Not yet." Pyrrha turned her head from her friend's betrayed gaze, the look like a knife in her. "There's something I need to do before I can speak, and then . . . then you'll have it all, as many answers as you can bear. I promise you that." There was silence, and Pyrrha's heart sank further as she added, "If you wish to go, even to forget, I—I understand."
She watched the fire dance over unblemished logs until a hand captured hers; she dragged her eyes back to Daisy, fighting the urge to snatch herself away.
"You're not a murderer," Daisy said softly, halfway a question, the other half a plea.
Pyrrha did pull away then. Here was their end, cut close by those countless victims of Leitrim, by Daisy's dear mother, and, of course, poor Ashlin. The burn bled her guilt from crown to heel, and she could only say, "I am."
The admission rang with absolute verity, but somehow, Daisy relaxed and smiled, though fraught with sadness. "No . . . I know you. I should've remembered that. You want to think you're in control of it all, that you've got all this power to make right from wrong . . ." She shook her head with sorrow. "No one can predict and prevent all the strife in this world, Pyrrha, not even you. It's not your fault."
Stunned, Pyrrha didn't dare move or speak.
Daisy added, "Whatever's going on in that room . . ." She took a steadying breath. ". . . I know it must be for the good."
Rage boiled suddenly from an unseen pit within Pyrrha. She stood abruptly, her scar pounding, and left her wand behind on the table, fighting an urge to snatch it up and ruin something; instead, she paced. She didn't deserve this wretched forgiveness—none of it was true; it was all in her power, but she had failed, failed, failed, and no one on earth could hold her properly accountable . . . no one save the witch she wouldn't suffer to live long enough.
"Pyrrha! Pyrrha, stop!"
She stopped and turned, and the smell of burning cotton registered. Pyrrha looked down; her robes were smoking at the hems, flecks of smouldering cloth fading from an emberlike glow into black, ragged burns as she watched. Somehow, being faced with her lost control brought it sinking back within her grasp like a switch had flipped. It wasn't calm; it wasn't anything.
"What is it?" Daisy was up and before her again, wringing her hands, eyes shining with anxiety. Pyrrha held out an arm; Daisy's hands twitched as Pyrrha received her wand and mended her robes with a wave.
"I'm sorry," Pyrrha said with a hollow chest. "I'd like to believe in what you think you see, but it's not there."
A light flickered to life beside them before Daisy could speak, and they turned to see the mess of splinters atop Eilith's desk as they tentatively caught fire, birthed from an ember cast from Pyrrha's sleeve. She waved the fire away. The charred shards left behind—once whole and wonderful—were as fitting an end to her endeavor as she could imagine.
She had stared too long. Daisy asked gently, "It . . . it was a violin, right? Or a viola? Whose was it?"
Pyrrha sighed and waved her wand as she walked past Daisy back to the fire. Wasila remained with the cauldron, Eilith with her pets. The moment to recall them would soon come; time was ever of the essence, and Aradia awaited.
Eventually, voice dragging with admission, Pyrrha said, "It was yours. For your birthday." She could feel Daisy's joy mixed with melancholy. "I'm sorry I missed you. It . . . wasn't ready."
There had always been something more she could make of it. Every new angle served to delay their meeting until the day had come and gone, and then, surely, it was best to wait for next year.
Daisy's laugh was a little watery. "Of course." Pyrrha found herself wrapped in a hug from behind, and with an odd sort of surprise came a sharp pang of hurt at the ghost of a different day.