Page 107 of The Unbound Witch

I glanced over my shoulder. They could have snagged her and there was nothing I could have done about it.

“Jump over the edge of the isle. Now.”

“What?”

“Run and jump. I’ll catch you, I swear.”

“I can do many things, Moondance, but that’s not one of them.”

“Thief!” someone boomed from behind us.

“If you trust me at all, you have to run.”

And so she did. Spinning on a heel, she dashed for the tree line as a mob of witches moved toward her. I rushed past her, trying not to notice the tear that slipped down her cheek as she took that final step and leaped over the edge, a trail of dirt falling below her as she held back her scream with her eyes shut. She landed with a plop and I dashed to the left, toward the waterfall before the growing crowd made it to the edge and saw her.

Pushing through the water, Atlas stopped us with a panicked yelp. “Don’t drip. Stay back.”

“Shh!” I warned, gesturing above us as angry voices yelled from a distance, pouring down the opening.

Setting Talon on a small ledge, he pointed toward the ground where two nearly perfect circles had been drawn in black and white chalk. Leaving Nym near the entrance to pull off her dripping cloak, I moved into the cave, gathering the items from the satchel.

“Let’s get this done and get the fuck out of here. If I never come back, it’ll be a day too soon.”

“Agreed,” Nym said, slipping off her boots to move without dripping water.

She held her hand out to Atlas and when a tiny, pearlescent gem dropped into his palm, his eyes doubled.

“We did all this shit for a regular ass pearl? The shop had a jar of these on the bottom row shelf by the door.”

“Okay, first, creepy you know that and second, it’s called a whispering pearl, so it must be different. They didn’t think it was useful, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t. This spell is rare.”

He sniffed the pearl and shrugged. “Looks the same, smells the same. It’s the same. That wraith was fucking with you.”

“Was she?” The haunted voice from the Fire Coven echoed off the walls as the wraith surged out of the flowing water, studying the spell circle.

“Have you been following us this entire time, just waiting to pop in and say hello?”

“The wraiths are a network of watchers and whispers, Wolf. There was no need.”

One moment they were standing there, the next, the isle jerked sideways and Nym slipped, her feet still wet, sliding toward the gaping hole the waterfall covered. She screamed just as Atlas lunged, snatching nothing more than her fingers. He held tightly, trying to pull her back in, but Talon was not so lucky. He slid with tiny claws digging and scratching the stone, desperate to get a hold of something. Watching that white tiger fly past Nym and tumble down wrenched something inside me I shouldn’t have felt.

It happened in slow motion. She looked at me, horror stricken, then down over her shoulder toward the falling feline, then to her fingers barely holding Atlas. In one movement, one single second, she let go.

42

KIRSI

The vibrating scream of the wraith from within the cave hidden behind the waterfall was nothing compared to the sounds outside of it as the isles all around us began to sway and drop. Witches everywhere were tumbling, falling off the isles. Not just ours, all of them. Something had happened, but I couldn’t focus on that, couldn’t think, as I dashed for the ocean, flying past Nym.

When she landed in my arms, having caught Talon in her fall, her fear was my fear, her heart was my heart. The life she’d nearly given to the ocean was my life. I’d almost lost her and, as she trembled in my arms, not crying, but wracked with fear, I knew the question I was going to ask the wraith had changed. I no longer wanted to leave this world with the ghost, I wanted something more. And I think I always had.

The axis of the isle had shifted. I floated around the waterfall, and reentered the cave, flying all the way to the back before setting them down.

“We must hurry,” the wraith demanded. “The isles are falling.”

“Fuck the spell. We have to get out of here,” Atlas said, gathering the items he’d laid along the floor.

“No!” the wraith screamed, surging forward to steal the pearl. But her hand passed through it. She could not touch it. She whirled to me. “Do you see? This is what I said would happen. No one cares about the wraiths enough to set them free. No one will save you from this misery of an existence. You are doomed for eternity, just like we all are.”