Page 58 of Extraordinary Quests for Amateur Witches

The next day, an hour before sunset, the aeroship landed back in the airfield outside Gellingham.

It was strange seeing the city come into view again.

While the gilded skyscrapers looked the same as they always did, seeing it now felt different.

When Kieran had left, he’d felt trapped by the idea of staying in the city.

Simply walking through downtown would serve as a reminder of all the ways he had felt inadequate since moving there.

Now, though, he had only one thing on his mind: getting Delilah back and making Elias pay for taking her in the first place.

A good night’s sleep had managed to quell the side effects from the poison, leaving only a distant ache in Kieran’s leg from where the ice had sliced it.

The wound had felt deeper than it actually was, but it still ached with each step.

With the dull roar of pain gone, Kieran’s brain jumped, over and over, between last night’s conversation with Sebastian and his anxiety about Delilah, like a strange game of emotional Ping-Pong.

“You ready for this?” Sebastian asked as the ship came to a halt in the airfield.

The two of them, along with Briar and Seaweed, had gone out onto the main deck to watch the landing, scanning the snowy terrain.

They’d woken up early, doing their best to plot out their plan of attack.

Kieran had been grateful for Sebastian’s levelheadedness—without Delilah around to be the voice of reason, he and his twin had needed that.

“I’m going to make Elias regret the day he was born,” Briar said through her teeth.

Seaweed growled in agreement from her perch on Kieran’s shoulders.

“That’s the spirit,” Kieran said. “Come on—let’s grab our things. We don’t want to keep Delilah waiting.”

Not long after, the three of them said goodbye to Ariel and Santiago.

Santiago made them promise to be back before the next morning; otherwise, he’d have Gellingham’s entire search and rescue force looking for them.

Ariel, meanwhile, offered a particularly heavy wrench to Briar, just in case she needed something to hit Elias with other than spells.

Briar considered it for a moment, then threw it in her pack.

“Do you have the Hilt and the Stave?” Sebastian asked Kieran as they headed down the gangway toward the trolley that would take them to the Pinwhistle Forest trailhead.

Kieran nodded, hooking a thumb toward his pack. “In here, along with a few of your throwing knives. Once we get the Crown from Elias, we should be all set.”

“Get Delilah, get the Crown, create the panacea, pass your Calling,” Briar said. She nodded. “Easy, right?”

Kieran tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry. It was going to be anything but easy, but at least he wasn’t doing it alone.

“Right.” Kieran nodded, making himself stand a little straighter and holding his chin high. “Come on. Let’s go get Delilah back.”

By the time Kieran, Sebastian, Seaweed, and Briar arrived at the vein, the sun had set.

The moon was full and glowing with pale light.

An eerie silence hung between the barren trees.

Even at the point where the vein’s magic turned the landscape lush and green, it seemed as if there wasn’t a single living creature around for miles.

The only living things were the towering pink mushrooms and the strange light they cast on the mossy forest floor.

It was beginning to feel as if they’d be hunting for hours.

At least, until a muffled voice cried out in pain.

Briar immediately bristled. “Delilah!”

Without a second thought, she sprinted off into the mushroom forest. Seaweed immediately followed on her heels.

It was all Kieran and Sebastian could do to scramble after her, trying not to slip on the mossy rocks or into the babbling brook at their feet.

Any lingering pain in Kieran’s body vanished as adrenaline shot through him.

The climb was uphill, and Kieran felt sweat immediately wet his brow and the back of his neck, even with the cool chill on the wind.

Seconds later, they burst through a copse of towering mushrooms into a clearing.

Here, the brook widened into a large pool, the rocks having dammed it.

The water was opaque, icy pale blue like snowmelt.

A small waterfall poured into it. Even from this distance, Kieran could feel a magical charge coming off it like heat from a flame.

It would have been a beautiful sight if it weren’t for the massive iron chains that had been hammered into the rocks.

They wrapped around a small, elderly woman who was probably only five feet tall.

Her face was smeared with dirt, and her hair was in tangles.

The chains pinned her against the rocks, and everywhere they touched her was raw and red from her struggling to escape.

“Verbena?” Kieran gasped.

Her eyes blinked open weakly. She barely seemed strong enough to lift her head.

“You,” she whispered, voice small. “You must run—it’s not safe here. This pool is full of the vein’s raw magic, which will twist the mind and body without the scepter to control it—”

“Not now, Verbena,” a low voice said. “Give us a moment to speak before you start making demands.”

Elias Barclay stepped out from the mushrooms, holding a chain in his hand.

At the sight of him, Seaweed bared her teeth and growled.

Six mercenaries flanked him. He was dressed in a nice suit, and Kieran might have laughed at how absurd that choice was for a magic forest if he weren’t so horrified by the scene in front of him.

The chain in Elias’s hand was attached to a pair of handcuffs made of a strange material—wood, Kieran realized.

“Hawthorn,” Sebastian said, as if reading Kieran’s mind. “To block magic.”

Elias pulled the chain, dragging another figure into the light. As soon as the glow from the mushrooms illuminated knotted brown curls, Briar let out a sharp gasp.

“Delilah!” she cried.

Delilah looked up to reveal a fresh black eye that had left one side of her face swollen and bruised. Tracks of dried blood went from her nose to her lip, which was split. Her dress was torn and mud-stained. Her wrists too appeared red and raw.

She croaked, voice hoarse and pained, “Briar.”

Instantly, Briar jumped for her before Kieran could think to stop her. She leapt over the rocks in Delilah’s direction, eyes burning with twin blue flames as her magic awoke and unfurled in her chest, sparking at her fingertips. The mercenaries on either side readied weapons.

As Briar lifted her hand to fire off a spell, Elias yanked Delilah closer to him, a knife seeming to appear from nowhere as he pressed it to her neck.

“Not a step closer,” he told Briar pleasantly, as if this were little more than a joke to him, “or this goes in her throat.”

Briar skidded to a halt, her eyes rounded. Delilah tried her best to pull away from the knife’s kiss. It nicked her skin, a small droplet of ruby-red blood dripping from the wound onto the collar of her dress.

Briar froze. She growled a curse, then added, “Fine! Damn it, what do you want, Elias?”

Elias smirked. “Ah—there we go. Cutting to the chase. That’s what I like about you Pelumbras—no dillydallying.”

Elias reached into a bag at his hip and withdrew the Crown. Still holding the knife to Delilah’s throat, he waved it in the air, grinning.

“Our deal still stands,” he said, his eyes moving from Briar to Kieran. “You give me the Hilt and the Stave; I give you your friend back. Then we can all go home, no fuss.” His gaze fell on Sebastian. “I’ll even forgive your breaking your contract, Sebastian. Consider it an act of goodwill.”

“And if we don’t take your deal?” Briar cut in, her focus still solely on Delilah.

Elias exhaled a laugh, tapping the knife against Delilah’s throat.

“Well, your friend here won’t be walking away.

Or…any of you, really. With all the money I’m about to get with this magic, I can make any sort of investigation disappear before it starts.

Klaus might be a pain in my neck, but then again, he hasn’t broken a curse in nearly a year.

His limelight is fading—and will go dark the second I take his chance at a panacea away.

So really, I have nothing to lose, unlike all of you. So tell me: Do we have a deal?”

Kieran’s heart thrummed. He stared across the clearing into Delilah’s bloodshot eyes, seeing the way she was fighting not to shake. He’d never seen her so scared; she was always the one to put on a confident face for everyone else. Now, though, there was nothing but raw terror in her eyes.

“I should mention,” Elias said, tapping the wooden cuffs around Delilah’s wrists, “that all of us are wearing hawthorn protection, so your magic won’t be able to touch us. I suspect that will put you at something of a disadvantage, no?”

Kieran ground his teeth, feeling magic burn in his chest. It wouldn’t help him here, not with the hawthorn. Any spell he cast would turn into nothing but sparks the second it got close to Elias and the mercenaries. It simply wouldn’t work.

But he had an idea of what would.

Kieran exhaled, letting his body relax. He put on his best timid, nervous voice—the one he’d always used as a child with his mother. “I guess you’re right—this was a bad idea from the start. I’m not willing to risk our lives for a panacea. I accept your deal.”

“What?” Briar said, jaw agape. While Kieran dropped his pack and unzipped it, she started, “You can’t—but we agreed—”

Elias lowered the knife from Delilah’s throat. He grinned. “I knew you were a smart boy, Kieran. Now, just toss the Hilt and the Stave this way, and you’ll be out of here in no time.”

“Of course.” Kieran reached into his pack, hands tightening around a hilt. “Just toss it, you said?”

“That will be fi—”