Page 48 of Just a Little Wicked (Wicked Sisters #2)

Stacy

We WILL figure something out. These are my friends. They could use your help.

Atlantes

No.

T hey moved to the living room, with the aunts and Missy taking one floral couch, and Connor and Holly taking the other.

Holly was wearing sunglasses and her cheeks were pale, but at least she was able to sit upright—sort of.

She was mostly slumped against Connor while his strong fingers kneaded the back of her neck and Prickles snoozed in her lap.

Erikson gestured for Winter and Stacy to take the individual chairs. Stacy sat, but Winter shook her head no, choosing instead to stand. “Okay, everyone is here,” Winter said the moment the last person entered. She turned to Stacy. “What did you learn?”

Stacy sat like a princess, with her knees pressed together and slightly angled, her back ramrod straight.

Not for the first time, Winter felt a twinge of jealousy toward Stacy, her brothers, and all Witches in general.

They had a draw to them, a magical charisma that Wickeds simply did not.

Witches enticed people to them, while Wickeds repelled them.

Stacy cleared her throat. “After you visited Atlantes, I got a call from him. It was my first time talking to a Pillar Witch, and I wouldn’t say it was pleasant.

He was very unhappy with me. He claims you withheld my name though, so he had to figure out my identity on his own.

Thank you for that, and for the heads up that he’d be calling. ”

Winter paced in front of the unlit fireplace until she forced herself to stop and face Stacy head-on, her hands clasped behind her back like she was a soldier in the military. “What is a Pillar Witch? And are they all so uptight and cranky?”

Stacy huffed a laugh. “A Pillar Witch supports the Witch Network.” At their blank looks she continued.

“These days, all Witch magic is connected. Think of a glittering, invisible web weaving Witches together. Hundreds of years ago, before the witch trials, we didn’t need the network.

Witches worked so closely with Wickeds that their magic was perfectly balanced: Wickeds laid barren diseased fields, and Witches helped the plants grow.

Wickeds brought rain, and Witches helped harvest. It was a symbiotic relationship: two species working closely together for the benefit of mankind.

But after the witch trial murders, the Wickeds thought it would be safer to dismantle their community and retreat into the shadows, and Witches were left with a surplus of unbalanced magic.

They became unstable. Although the Wickeds still existed, they no longer interacted with the Witches the way they once had.

Some Witches went mad from the surplus of magic, while it fizzled out completely in others.

The magic became uneven and unpredictable, so our government sought a way to stabilize our society.

“After a lot of trial and error, they learned how to balance Witches without the constant engagement of Wickeds. That was how the Witch Network was born. When a Witch comes of age, she is tested, categorized, and connected to the Network. When a Witch has an overflow of magic, she can funnel it into the Network. When a Witch has need of magic, she can siphon it from the Network.”

“That’s brilliant,” Connor said, his gray eyes luminous. “I wonder if Wickeds could develop something similar to ease the burden of their curses. They’ll never again work in tandem with Witches the way they once did when things were less globalized.”

Stacy shrugged. “Possibly? I don’t see why not, but then Wicked power is quite different than Witch magic.”

Winter turned the concept over in her mind. She’d love to funnel some of her excess power into a community pool, but then what Wicked would ever want to draw from it?

Until that moment, Winter hadn’t understood the impact the division of Wickeds and Witches must’ve had on her kind.

It was great that the Witches had found a way to thrive without their evil sisters, but if the lack of comradery had affected the Witches so badly, then it must’ve affected the Wickeds, too, only perhaps they were so used to suffering that they’d simply born it in silence.

Could Wickeds have been slowly going mad without the constant give-and-take with Witches?

Could there have been increased instances of Wickeds going full-blown evil that had been covered up—or eliminated entirely—by the Shadow Council?

For the first time, Winter realized that simply dismantling the Shadow Council might not be the answer.

“Anyway,” Stacy continued, “we have five Pillar Witches that act as support posts for the Network in the United States. Think of them as architectural pillars, literally upholding their sections of magical webbing. They’re responsible for maintenance on the Network and making sure the magic continues to funnel smoothly in all directions.

The Northeast section actually just went down. ”

Winter grimaced. Shit. Shit! So that was what Atlantes had meant when he’d said she’d blown out “half” his Network.

“What ah . . . what happens when it’s down?” she asked guiltily.

“Nothing horrible. Witches feel a little off, like there’s an imbalance in their ears, but they adjust and deal until it’s up again.”

Winter exhaled with relief. God, she really was chaos incarnate, causing disasters far and wide. No wonder she’d barely felt any Wicked consequences lately; she was more than fulfilling her curse’s quota of destruction, no matter how unintentional.

“Anyway, after Atlantes and I talked, he recalled an elder Witch up north that he thought might have answers about why the Shadow Council wanted Winter. He had his hands full trying to get the Network back up, so he suggested I go.”

“That was nice of him,” Aunt Rose said.

“Er—yeah.”

“Atlantes isn’t nice,” Winter explained. “He’s only helping because he personally hates the Shadow Council, and because he thinks it would be catastrophic for Witches if I joined.”

“He’s not wrong,” Stacy said. “It would be catastrophic for everyone . Wait, you’re shielding your timeline, right? I don’t want the Shadow Council seeing any of this.”

Winter nodded. “I am, but I’m not shielding you.”

She waved her hand. “Don’t worry; I’m taken care of.”

“You went and saw this elder Witch?”

“Yes. Her name is Emmaline Wyther, and she’s a hundred and two years old.

Literally a hundred and two. She’s blind, and yet somehow, she knew every move I made while in her house.

The Witches have texts on the Shadow Council, but they’re rare and speculative at best. Emmaline is one of the wisest, oldest Witches in the country, and she has a memory like a steel trap.

Atlantes thought if anyone would know more about the Shadow Council, it would be her.

” Stacy paused to sip her coffee. “Wow, this is really good.”

“Thanks,” Winter said.

“So I went up north, and it turns out Emmaline is a kook. A kook who doesn’t forget a single thing. I got the impression the real reason Atlantes didn’t go was because he wasn’t welcome. There’s definitely more to their story.”

“Maybe he wasn’t welcome because he’s insufferable,” Erikson offered.

Stacy smirked. “Oh, I’m sure that’s part of it. Emmaline’s family are storytellers, and they never forget a slight.”

“Storytellers as in they tell a good tale, or it’s their magical talent?” Missy asked.

“They have a magical talent for telling, keeping, and preserving oral and written lore. Emmaline’s well of knowledge is .

. . simply unfathomable. She also possesses the wisdom of the women in her family who came before her.

Her grandmother, Elizabeth, lived in Connecticut as a young girl at the end of the Civil War.

Her stories have been handed down to Emmaline. ”

Winter’s fingertips tingled, and she knew this was why Stacy had come.

“Apparently, Elizabeth once recalled waking in the middle of the night and hearing voices downstairs. She snuck down the stairwell and stood in the shadows, where she overheard something extraordinary. She passed the memory down to her daughter, and then her daughter passed it to Emmaline.”

Winter’s attention was so riveted on Stacy that she was barely breathing, and she could sense everyone else’s tense excitement.

She wished for a moment that she was standing near Erikson, his big palm on the back of her thigh, reassuring and warm, instead of being halfway across the room while he leaned his elbows on his knees and looked at Stacy like she was about to give him the secret to immortality.

But she couldn’t go to him. She couldn’t risk touching him anymore. It was too dangerous.

“While Elizabeth stood in the shadows, she saw two strange women in the parlor with her mother. They were mostly cast in shadow with only a few lamps lit, but she could sense the magic in one of them, and knew that she was a Witch, while the other made her feel physically ill.”

“A Wicked,” Aunt Rose said.

Stacy nodded. “Elizabeth didn’t understand that at the time, but she distinctly remembered the feeling.

The war was nearly over; it was March 1865, and there were a lot of deals and contracts being made in the dark urgency of night as it became clear the North would win.

The clock over the mantle read one in the morning, and Elizabeth knew her mother was usually in bed long before that. ”

“I’ve died and gone to heaven,” Winter heard Connor mutter, and she couldn’t help tossing her history-obsessed brother-in-law a fond look.

“The Witch said to Elizabeth’s mother, ‘It’s done. It’s hidden. They won’t ever be able to find it unless a seer is born that’s strong enough to rifle through the past.’ To which Elizabeth’s mother replied, ‘But they know of its existence?’”

“Who knows what exists?” Missy impatiently interrupted.

Winter was about to second the question when she went rigid. Suddenly she was in Elizabeth’s house at one in the morning, a month before the end of the Civil War, witnessing the verbal exchange through the little girl’s eyes.

“But they know of its existence?” Elizabeth’s mother asked.

She had a house robe over her own white nightgown, her reddish hair twined around the crown of her head.

Lamplight spilled golden warmth over her skin, and even from where Elizabeth crouched in the shadows, she could see the terror in her mother’s eyes.

The other Witch turned to the woman who made Elizabeth’s head hurt. “Lupin?”

“My kind knows.”

“Then destroy it!” Elizabeth’s mother shouted. “Burn it! Weight it down and drown it!”

“We cannot.” The Witch, rather than being reproachful of the outburst, sighed wearily, “It is Goddess given. Divine. There is no magic nor power in this world that can destroy it until it has accomplished its purpose in being here.”

“They will hunt mercilessly for it,” Elizabeth’s mother warned. “The Shadow Council will not stop until they have it in their hands and they have burned the world to ash.”

“Their hunger for power will handicap them. They will alienate my Wicked sisters, and one day they will rise against them.” Lupin said, her voice eerily prophetic.

There was something about her that made Elizabeth’s chest feel strange, like the woman drew her closer while simultaneously repulsing her.

What was a Wicked? And why was Lupin working against them if she was one of them?

“How do you know this? Have you seen it?” her mother asked.

Winter blinked as she came out of the vision and found her family staring at her. Erikson was halfway across the room, but he paused when he saw she’d returned to present consciousness.

“Are you all right?” he asked. He clenched his fists, and she knew it was killing him to keep his hands off her. It was killing her too.

“I’m fine. I had a past vision. I saw what Elizabeth saw.”

Stacy’s lips parted. “Are you serious?”

Winter nodded and finished the story for Stacy, the Witch’s eyes growing wider with each aligned detail.

“Your vision ended before Emmaline’s story did,” Stacy said when Winter finished.

“She told me that after that, the Wicked woman looked directly at Elizabeth and said she knew the Wickeds would one day rise against the Shadow Council, ‘Because it’s already begun.’ Elizabeth knew she’d been caught, so she hurried back to her chamber, but she could still hear their voices downstairs and knew they spoke of more. ”

They sat with that for a long moment.

“The Witches and the Wicked were working together to hide something ‘Goddess given’ from the Shadow Council. Do you know what it was?” Connor asked Stacy, but she was already shaking her head.

“No, and Elizabeth’s mother refused to tell her what it was for her own safety. After that night, Elizabeth never saw the Witch or the Wicked again, but she didn’t forget what she’d seen, and she passed it on to her own daughter thinking that one day it might be important.”

Holly rubbed her temples and said in a raspy voice, “I think we can safely assume that whatever they hid is what the Shadow Council is secretly after, and they think Winter is powerful enough to find out where it is.”

“I’d rather cut off my own head,” Winter said fiercely.

“And that, Elf, is why they’re holding your family against you,” Erikson said with pride in his voice.

“Atlantes is understandably worried.” Stacy set her mug on the counter. “Winter has pastsight, which means she can conceivably find where they hid this powerful, Goddess-given item over two hundred years ago. And if it falls into the Shadow Council’s hands . . .”

The aunts exchanged uneasy looks, and Erikson looked three seconds from throwing Winter over his shoulder and running for his truck. “What are you saying?” he growled.

Stacy lifted her hands. “Easy, big guy. I’m not saying anything, but I came here to warn you.

From the stories I’ve heard, Atlantes can be ruthless when it comes to protecting Witchkind.

If you can’t find a way to stop the Shadow Council from compelling Winter to work for them in the next twenty-four hours, he will find a way.

” At the Celestes’ lethally flat faces and blackening eyes, she grimaced.

“Yeah, exactly. If he goes with the nuclear option, he’ll trigger outright war between Witches and Wickeds. ”