Page 40 of Bewitched by the Wicked Witch (The Bewitching Hour #4)

Twenty-Five

Sage

T he footsteps belonged to six more council guards, their boots echoing against stone as they filed into the chamber with military precision. Each one carried binding cuffs that glowed with containment runes, the kind designed specifically for powerful magical prisoners.

"Excellent timing," Tommy said cheerfully, clapping his hands together like he was directing a particularly successful dinner party. "Please secure our guests. Carefully—we need them intact for the final phase."

I glanced back at the girls we'd been trying to free.

Ashlynn and Chrysanthemum were still unconscious, their breathing shallow but steady.

The partial disconnection from the draining apparatuses had given them some relief, but they were too weak to move.

Periwinkle's eyes fluttered open, confusion and terror warring in her gaze as she took in the standoff happening around her.

Callum moved protectively in front of me, magic crackling around his hands, but I could see the calculation in his eyes. Six trained guards plus Tommy, all of them armed and prepared, with innocent lives hanging in the balance.

"Don't even think about it," Tommy warned, somehow reading our thoughts. "One aggressive move from either of you, and I'll drain every last drop of magic from these girls before you can blink. Their deaths will be on your conscience, not mine."

The guards approached with practiced caution, clearly briefed on exactly what they were dealing with.

Magic-suppressing cuffs clicked around my wrists before I could react, the cold metal immediately dampening my power to barely a whisper.

Callum received the same treatment, his jaw tight with barely contained fury.

"You're a criminal," I spat, my dampened power still crackling around me like lightning seeking a deserving target. "You've been murdering innocent girls for decades, stealing their magic, and all to feed your own sick prejudices."

Tommy's laughter echoed off the stone walls like the cackle of a madman who'd spent far too much time alone with his own twisted thoughts.

"Innocent? These abominations are a cancer on our pure bloodlines, Sage.

Every drop of foreign magic they carry weakens us, makes us vulnerable to corruption and decay. "

"And they call me the bad witch of the town when this has been going on under their noses," I growled, anger building like pressure in a sealed container.

"They're children," Callum said, his voice low and deadly as he stepped forward with anger flashing in his emerald eyes. "Innocent children you've tortured and murdered because of your own twisted ideology."

"Children who should never have been born," Tommy countered, his magic flaring higher with evangelical fervor. "Mixed breeds, half-bloods, genetic aberrations that have no place in a proper magical society."

Something dangerous snapped inside me at those words, a restraint I'd maintained my entire life, the careful control that had kept my true power in check.

The shadows around me deepened, shot through with stars that pulsed like a heartbeat, and for the first time in years, I let my magic run completely free.

"You want to see an aberration?" I snarled, my voice echoing with power that made the very stones tremble beneath our feet. "You want to see what a real dark witch looks like?"

The air around me shimmered and warped as my true heritage manifested, not just the Blackstone magic that ran in my bloodline, but something older, more primal. The magic of shadow and star, of the void between worlds, of power that existed in the spaces between heartbeats.

Tommy's confident expression faltered as he felt the magnitude of what he was facing. "Impossible," he whispered, backing away instinctively. "No single witch has that much power."

"You're right," I agreed, taking a step forward as my magic continued to build like a gathering storm.

"No single witch does. But I'm not just a witch, am I?

I'm a Blackstone. Descendant of Maud Blackstone, who made a pact with powers beyond mortal understanding to protect her people from persecution. "

The binding runes on the altar began to crack under the pressure of my unleashed magic, their carefully constructed patterns unraveling like cheap embroidery. I could feel the girls' stolen power responding to my call, ready to return to its rightful owners.

"And you," I continued, my gaze boring into Tommy's suddenly terrified eyes, "have spent your entire miserable life trying to destroy the very thing that could have saved this town from its own fear and ignorance."

"The ritual isn't complete," Tommy stammered, backing away as my power continued to grow. "You can't stop what's already begun."

"Watch me."

But before I could complete the liberation process, the air shifted, charged and electric, warning that we were not alone anymore. I turned in time to see Cate Bennett emerging from the shadows, her pretty face twisted with malice.

"One more step, witch," Cate snarled, raising her hands as dark magic crackled between her fingers, "and I'll make sure these girls suffer for every second longer you delay. I can kill them all before you can break a single binding."

The threat to the already traumatized victims sent a fresh surge of rage through me, but I forced myself to remain still. "This is between Tommy and me, Cate."

"Oh, but that's where you're wrong," Cate laughed, her pretty face twisted with malice.

"This has always been about cleaning up the bloodlines, getting rid of the impurities that weaken our kind.

And your entire family has been at the top of our list since the day your grandmother opened our borders to outsiders. "

"Our list?" Callum asked sharply, catching the plural pronoun.

"Did you really think Tommy was working alone?" Cate sneered. "The Pure Blood Society has members throughout the magical community. Councilors, business leaders, even some in the High Council itself."

My blood ran cold as the implications crashed over me. This wasn't just a local conspiracy, it was a movement; one with reach and resources I'd never imagined.

"The disappearances in other towns," I realized with dawning horror. "You've been doing this everywhere."

"Dozens of communities," Tommy confirmed, his confidence bolstered by having another society member at his side. "Hundreds of mixed-blood abominations cleansed from our society. And when we're done, the magical world will be pure again. Strong again."

"You're insane," Callum spat.

"We're visionaries," Cate corrected. "And you, Callum Renshaw, have been a thorn in our side long enough."

She gestured with her free hand, and suddenly the chamber was filled with dark magic, not just hers and Tommy's, but power drawn from the network of binding runes that extended throughout the tunnel system.

I could feel it pressing against my defenses, trying to overwhelm me through sheer accumulated force.

"The girls are weakened," Tommy taunted as I fought to maintain my shields. "They can't help you now. And your warlock boyfriend? He's outnumbered and outgunned."

He was right. Even with my enhanced power, facing two experienced dark magic users while protecting the rescued girls was pushing me to my limits.

That's when I remembered my grandmother's words from when I was a child: "Sometimes, Sage, the best way to fight darkness is not with light, but with a deeper darkness."

I'd never understood what she meant until this moment.

Instead of fighting against the dark magic pressing in around us, I embraced it. I opened myself to every shadow in the chamber, every whisper of void and star that made up my true heritage. And then I did something that went against every lesson I'd ever learned about magical combat.

I pulled all that darkness into myself.

"What are you doing?" Tommy screamed as his stolen power began to flow toward me instead of his intended targets.

"What I should have done years ago," I replied, my voice echoing with harmonics that shouldn't have been possible for a human throat to produce. "Accepting what I really am."

The binding runes throughout the chamber began to reverse their flow, no longer draining power from their victims but feeding it all to me. I felt Maud Blackstone's original pact awakening in my blood, the bargain she'd made with entities beyond mortal understanding to protect her descendants.

"I am Sage Blackstone," I declared, my form beginning to shift and change as power beyond mortal limits flowed through me. "Heir to shadows, daughter of stars, and the last witch you will ever threaten."

The chamber filled with darkness so complete, it was like staring into the void between worlds. But in that darkness, stars began to appear, not points of light, but hungry entities that fed on fear and malevolence.

Tommy's screams echoed off the stone walls as the stars descended upon him, drawn by the decades of cruelty and hatred that stained his soul. Cate tried to run, but shadows rose from the floor to block her path.

"Please," she whimpered, all her earlier bravado gone. "I was just following orders. I didn't want to hurt anyone."

"Liar," I said, and even I was surprised by the otherworldly harmonics in my voice. "I can taste your enjoyment of their pain, Cate. You reveled in every moment of suffering you caused."

The shadows began to close in around both conspirators, and for a moment, I felt the intoxicating rush of absolute power. I could end them both, make them pay for every life they'd destroyed, every family they'd torn apart.

But then I heard Callum's voice, cutting through the darkness like a blade of pure light.

"Sage," he said quietly. "Come back to me."

His hand found mine in the darkness, warm and solid and achingly familiar. The contact grounded me, reminded me who I was beneath the power and the rage.

I was Sage Blackstone, yes. But I was also the woman who had fallen in love with a gentle warlock who saw past my thorny exterior to the person underneath. I was the cousin who would do anything to protect Paige; the granddaughter who wanted to make Gran proud.

I was not a monster.

Slowly, carefully, I began to pull the darkness back under control. The shadows retreated, the stars faded, and my form returned to something recognizably human. Tommy and Cate collapsed to the floor, unconscious but alive, their stolen magic dispersed harmlessly into the earth.

"Is it over?" Ashlynn asked weakly, the first words any of the rescued girls had managed since we'd entered the chamber.

I looked around at the scene, the broken binding runes, the freed captives, the defeated conspirators, and felt a complex mixture of triumph and exhaustion.

"Yes," I said simply. "It's over."