Page 57 of Druid Cursed

“Where do you think you’re going?” At Cara’s voice, Maggie turned around again.

Jeeves, of course, had vanished. Cara marched down the hallway in a forest-green gown, strappy heels, and a silver tiara, a woodland princess on a mission.

She stopped close to Maggie and crossed her arms. “Samhain isn’t over yet. ”

“All the more reason to escape while we can,” Wendy said, sounding annoyed. “Our car won’t wait long. Let’s go.”

“Oh, good.” Cara gave Wendy a cool look. “You found Wendy.”

Wendy cocked a hip. “And you are?”

“Cara, Wendy. Wendy, Cara.” Maggie made the quick introduction. “Without the bracelet Cara gave me, we wouldn’t be here, Wen.” She faced her new friend, a friend she never expected to find. “I won’t forget what you did for me.”

“It was no problem.” She leaned in and lowered her voice for Maggie alone.

“And my vision showed my grandmother getting better, thanks to the boon. You didn’t hear it from me.

” She winked as she straightened and spun in a swish of silk.

“Samhain isn’t over yet,” she repeated over her shoulder. “Make the most of it.”

Something inside her stirred, unfinished, sharp and restless.

She could ignore it, forsake Ravenwood and fulfill all of her former goals and dreams, maybe find contentment someday.

Or she could choose a different path of magic and mayhem, a direction that betrayed everything she wanted only a week ago.

She could honor Kellen and the life he’d awakened in her.

Maggie’s breath rasped as she fisted her hand.

Better to live one final day than not at all.

Midnight was mere minutes away. She had to hurry.

Leaving her suitcase stranded in the hallway, she headed for Wendy and the doorway to the future. The suffocating weight vanished and made her steps quick. “I have to go back.”

“Back home, right?” A hint of panic vibrated in Wendy’s voice as Maggie swept past her, into the night.

“That’s where we’re headed. Once we’re on home soil, things will go back to normal.

” Following, she sounded as if she tried to convince herself as much as Maggie.

“It might take some time, but this week will fade until it seems like someone else’s bad dream.

Maybe we can even laugh about it. Not tomorrow, but when we’re toothless old biddies. ”

“I don’t want it to fade.” Kellen’s dagger in her hand grew warmer as she increased her pace. “I’m sorry, Wen. I have to go back.” She broke into a run before Wendy could stop her.

Guided by the new moon crescent, Maggie reached the site of the standing stones in a matter of minutes.

Moonlight softened the destruction. The rubble appeared more like the bones of ancient castle ruins than stone shattered by spells, the barren, blackened earth the richest soil.

The fire remained burning, either by magic or miracle. Shadows skittered beyond the flames.

Holding her breath, she stepped over the uneven stones into the circle.

No thrum of energy danced along her skin or vibrated in the ground.

If any residue of magic remained, it hid from her, out of reach.

It was as if no good or living thing could survive long within the area desecrated by Sorcha’s evil, the land permanently polluted by her touch.

The scorched soil crunched beneath Maggie’s boots as she approached the spot Kellen had vanished. The magic that had temporarily channeled through her hadn’t bothered to leave behind any of its secrets or helpful instructions. She freed the knife from her belt.

Panting, Wendy skidded to a stop a few feet away. “Maggie, give me the pointy steel.”

“It’s never going to be okay, not for me.” She gave her friend a smile, tried to make it convincing. “I want my life to count for something.”

“It does .” Wendy inched nearer, her shadow long and stretching in the firelight. “I need you, Mags. Who else will talk me out of stupid Ireland Halloween vacations and other future mistakes?”

“It wasn’t a mistake. I met Kellen.” The blade gleamed, black as a winter night beneath the moon’s caress. “I love you, Wen, but unless you learned from Sorcha how to break the curse another way, this is his only door to freedom. Ever. I won’t let him spend an eternity in emptiness.”

“Even though you know he wouldn’t want you to? That he would forfeit everything, endure anything to spare you?” Wendy waved her hands in the air. “Come on, Maggie! You don’t even know for sure if he’s alive.”

“I have to try.” She tightened her grip on the dagger. “I won’t ask you to stay and watch.”

Wendy narrowed her eyes, and her mouth set in a stubborn line. “One move, just one, and I’ll be all over you like a kid at the county fair corndog stand.”

“Go get your cab before it leaves without you.” Maggie tensed, gauging Wendy’s next move. She stood beyond immediate reach, several feet away. A fast cut should do it before Wendy’s good intentions ruined everything. “I have to do this.”

“Try me, Mags.” Her green eyes flashed, so much like Sorcha’s that Maggie blinked. “I’ve had witch practice all week. I won’t let you sacrifice yourself.”

“It’s not your call. This is my life, my choice. I’m the one in control of it. Not you or Kellen or anyone else. Just me.” Only a minute remained before midnight, two at the most. She had to do this now. Maggie slashed at her wrist.

Wendy dove straight at her, faster than she believed possible.

The next second, Maggie sprawled on her back on the charred earth, the breath knocked from her lungs, her knife hand pinned to the ground.

Straddling her, Wendy smiled, victorious.

“I guess the week wasn’t a total bust. Thank you, Sorcha, for teaching me how to tackle innocent bystanders. ”

Maggie bucked, panic rising to a tidal wave. In seconds, the door to freeing Kellen would be closed forever. “Get off me!”

“Never!” Wendy gritted her teeth, holding her down with surprising strength. “I didn’t stomach being possessed by your witch of a grandmother just to let you poetically die in a ceremonial graveyard for tragic true love!”

“There is no need for such dramatics, ladies.”

At Jeeves’s voice, they both paused, Wendy still trapping her. He bowed, mere feet away. Suit perfect, shiny shoes, not a single pine needle or leaf in his hair revealed how he’d arrived.

“Where did you come from?” Wendy gave him a suspicious look.

With fluid grace, Jeeves crouched and held out a small doll made of burlap.

“Master Caedmon requested this poppet for the counter-spell, Miss O’Malley.

It holds your fingernail clippings and hair, nettle, agrimony, and black salt, all the necessary ingredients to remove and reverse a hex.

” Silver flickered across his eyes, an echo of the lightning that had taken the Ravenwood twins.

“The last ingredient must be added to the poppet before the last stroke of midnight on Samhain.”

Wendy grabbed the knife from Maggie’s limp fingers and pointed it at Jeeves. “You’re not killing her.”

“Death is no longer required, Miss Hayes.” Quick as a striking cobra, Jeeves plucked the dagger from Wendy, flipped it, and handed it back to Maggie, hilt first. “With Miss O’Malley’s willingness to trade her life for Master Kellen’s, it allowed me to alter the final weavings of the complicated spell we have been preparing over the last century. A mere drop of her blood will suffice.”

“Why didn’t anyone mention this earlier?” Maggie struggled free of Wendy’s loosened hold and sat up. She took the knife Jeeves offered, her hand shaking, hardly daring to believe it could be true.

“Had you known, the depth of your sacrifice would not have been enough to affect the curse and allow us to bend the spell. We did not know for certain it would work. We had only hoped.”

“So Caedmon wasn’t really going to sacrifice her?” Wendy sat back on her heels, watching Jeeves intently, as if the answer might change her destiny.

Jeeves stared at her a long moment, unblinking. “My master dared not reveal his plan, most especially with the enemy near. The witch’s interference nigh thwarted all our toil, but ’tis not too late.”

“Not really an answe r,” Wendy muttered, scowling.

“I suggest you act quickly, Miss O’Malley.” Jeeves stood and loomed over them. “Midnight is mere seconds away.”

Her heart in her throat, Maggie jabbed her finger with the blade. God, please let this work. A bright, red drop swelled and tumbled onto the doll’s head. “Is that enough?”

Jeeves was gone.

“Shut. Up.” Wendy looked around. “Where’d he go?”

Maggie held her breath, waiting for a sign the spell had worked.

The night remained still and silent. Only the hum of the dwindling fire broke the quiet.

The soft light from moon and stars burned, cold and distant as the trees watched from afar.

Long seconds passed. She checked her watch. Midnight had passed into a new day.

She felt naked, unprotected against the wave of pain rising to drown her. A hard pit formed in her stomach. She gripped the knife so tight her fingers went numb. The hope she’d desperately clung to for the last few minutes flickered out.

“I’m sorry, Mags.” Wendy squeezed her shoulder.

“No.” Maggie shook off Wendy’s hand. “I didn’t find Kellen only to lose him. Karma doesn’t work that way. True love doesn’t work that way. My story isn’t a tragedy.” She strangled the burlap doll. “It isn’t .”

Wendy wrapped her arms around her and held her close.

Shaking, Maggie pressed her lips together to bottle the wail building from her chest. If she let it loose, she’d never stop. Crushed hope was worse than having no hope in the first place. Kellen had been right about that, too.

Kellen . Her heart broke with a muted snap, like the crack of a twig underfoot. There would be no method to repair it, a wound she’d carry for the rest of her days.

“—centuries wasted!” Kellen’s voice thundered in the stillness.