Page 41 of Bewitched by the Wicked Witch (The Bewitching Hour #4)

Twenty-Six

Sage

T he aftermath of magical confrontations never quite matches the dramatic climax you'd expect from the stories.

Instead of triumphant music and rolling credits, you get unconscious conspirators who need to be dealt with, traumatized victims requiring immediate medical attention, and the unsettling knowledge that this conspiracy likely extends far beyond what you've uncovered tonight.

"Well," I said, surveying the scene with the detached interest of someone whose day had officially exceeded all reasonable expectations, "this presents some interesting logistical challenges."

Tommy and Cate lay unconscious on the chamber floor, their stolen magic dispersed and their bodies finally succumbing to exhaustion.

The four rescued girls were conscious but weak, their magical pathways still struggling to readjust after months of systematic drainage.

And somewhere in the tunnels above, I could hear distant voices that suggested our underground adventures hadn't gone entirely unnoticed.

"The mob," Callum observed grimly. "They're probably still looking for you."

"Let them look," I replied, though privately I was calculating our chances of getting four weakened magical teenagers through hostile territory without attracting unwanted attention. "Right now we have bigger problems."

Cosmo padded over to where Tommy lay sprawled, his starlit eyes gleaming with predatory satisfaction. "Should I bite them?" he asked hopefully. "I haven't had a good opportunity to bite anyone today, and I feel like I'm falling behind my quota."

"Tempting, but no," I said, though I appreciated his enthusiasm. "We need them conscious for questioning, not bleeding out from familiar bites."

But as I knelt beside Tommy to check his vital signs, my fingers accidentally brushed against his exposed wrist, and suddenly I was drowning in visions that definitely weren't my own.

Images flooded my mind with violent clarity: Cate Bennett dragging an unconscious Paige through the tunnels, my cousin's delicate features slack, her honey-blond hair matted with blood from where she'd been struck down.

My heart seized in my chest as the vision continued.

I saw Cate's face, twisted with the kind of calculated malice I should have recognized years ago, as she flung Paige at Tommy's feet like discarded garbage.

This wasn't betrayal, this was a continuation of the venom she'd always harbored, just finally given free rein.

"What have you done?" I snarled, though the words were directed at the unconscious Cate rather than anyone who could actually answer.

The vision shifted, showing me Tommy's sickening hunger as he'd knelt beside Paige's limp form, his fingers trailing along her pale cheek in a grotesque mockery of tenderness. "Isn't she lovely?" his voice echoed from the memory. "So young, so pure... The perfect vessel for our dark purposes."

I jerked my hand back from Tommy's skin, the connection severing abruptly and leaving me gasping in the present moment. The psychic residue of their intentions made my skin crawl with revulsion.

"Sage?" Callum's voice cut through the red haze of fury that was building behind my eyes. "What did you see?"

"They had Paige," I said, my voice raw with emotions I was trying very hard to keep contained. "She's here somewhere, and they..." I couldn't finish the sentence, but I didn't need to.

Callum's expression darkened with understanding.

We found her in a smaller chamber connected to the main ritual space, unconscious but breathing, her hands bound and a gag around her mouth. My cousin looked disturbingly fragile in the phosphorescent lighting, younger than her seventeen years and utterly defenseless.

"Too long," I muttered, kneeling beside her to check for injuries while carefully removing her restraints. "I should have realized what they were planning."

"You couldn't have known," Callum said softly, but I could hear the guilt in his own voice. We'd both missed the signs, too focused on the larger conspiracy to see the personal threat developing right under our noses.

Paige stirred slightly as I brushed her hair back from her face, her eyelids fluttering but not quite opening. She was alive and relatively unharmed, but the magical emanations around her suggested she'd been drugged with something designed to suppress her natural abilities.

"She'll be fine," I said, though I wasn't entirely sure if I was trying to convince Callum or myself. "The binding ritual wasn't completed. Whatever they gave her will wear off."

When we returned to the main chamber with Paige safely in Callum's arms, I found myself staring at our unconscious prisoners with a very specific type of irritation.

Tommy and Cate represented our only direct connection to the larger conspiracy network, but they also represented eighteen years of accumulated resentment and a recent attempt to murder my family.

"You know what?" I said, making a decision that probably said disturbing things about my psychological state. "I'm done being the reasonable one today."

"Sage," Callum warned, recognizing the particular tone that usually preceded poor decision-making.

"No, seriously. They kidnapped my cousin, tortured innocent teenagers, and tried to kill us all in the name of magical purity.

" I rolled up my sleeves with the methodical precision of someone about to undertake an unpleasant but necessary task.

"And I'm fresh out of patience for extended villain monologues and legal proceedings. "

"What are you planning to do?"

"Something that's going to either solve our transportation problem or create an entirely new set of issues," I replied, extending my magic toward our unconscious conspirators. "But honestly, at this point, I'm willing to embrace chaos."

The transformation spell I wove was one I'd perfected during childhood, refined through years of practice on various irritating classmates and perfected during a particularly memorable incident involving Tommy himself.

Dark magic flowed from my fingertips like liquid starlight, wrapping around both prone figures with inexorable purpose.

"Wait," Callum said as realization dawned. "You're not actually going to?—"

"Turn them into frogs?" I finished sweetly. "Again? Oh, but I absolutely am."

The spell completed with a soft pop that was deeply satisfying on multiple levels. Where Tommy and Cate had been lying moments before, two very confused amphibians now sat on the stone floor, croaking indignantly as they tried to process their sudden change in perspective.

"This time," I said, scooping them up by their slick legs despite my personal distaste for amphibian texture, "you're not getting away.

" I dragged a wooden box from a nearby shelf and deposited them inside with perhaps more force than strictly necessary.

"This is for Beverly, and Ashlynn, and every other girl you hurt. "

I slammed the lid shut and tucked the box securely under my arm, ignoring the muffled croaking and what sounded distinctly like angry amphibian cursing emanating from within.

"Well," Callum said with the carefully neutral tone of someone trying not to laugh, "that's one way to solve the prisoner transport problem."

"I hate frogs," I muttered, wiping my hands on my dress and trying not to gag at the lingering slime. "But I hate murderous conspiracy participants more."

Extracting the four survivors required delicate handling. Their magical cores were destabilized from the prolonged drainage, and the sudden influx of returned power had left them in a fragile state.

Chrysanthemum collapsed the moment we tried to move her, her siren heritage having made her particularly vulnerable to the extraction process.

Ashlynn's fairy wings were damaged beyond immediate repair, dragging uselessly behind her as Callum helped support her weight.

Periwinkle's giant ancestry was causing problems in the narrow tunnel passages, her magic fluctuating wildly between normal height and nearly seven feet tall.

"The magical pathways are severely damaged," I explained grimly as we worked our way slowly through the underground maze. "It's going to take considerable time for their bodies to remember how to regulate their own power."

The fourth girl, who I learned was named Luna and whose werewolf heritage had been forcibly triggered, remained partially transformed and in obvious pain. Someone had been experimenting with forced shapeshifting, something that should have been impossible outside the full moon's influence.

"How long will the frog transformation last?" Callum asked as we paused to let the girls rest, more out of professional curiosity than concern for our prisoners' wellbeing .

"Until I decide to change them back," I replied with cold satisfaction. "Which won't be until after they've answered every question the High Council investigators want to ask."

"And how long have you been able to perform transformations of that complexity?" he pressed.

I considered the question seriously. "The basic spell I learned as a child, but the binding elements and the conscious retention of human memory? That's new. I think channeling Maud Blackstone's pact magic expanded my capabilities in ways I'm only beginning to understand."

When we finally emerged from the tunnel system near the outskirts of town, dawn was breaking over Old Hollows with the kind of crisp autumn beauty that made recent events feel surreal by comparison.

The mob that had gathered to burn down my hut had long since dispersed, leaving behind only smoldering ruins and the acrid smell of smoke.

"My house," I said quietly, staring at the blackened remains of my carefully constructed refuge.

"We'll rebuild," Callum promised, though even as he said it, I wondered if that would be possible. The events of the night had changed everything, not just for us, but for the entire community.