Page 80 of The Unbound Witch

I glanced toward Atlas and back to the ghost. “You truly cannot touch physical items? At all?”

Her eyes narrowed on me as her somber face returned. “A lesson you will sadly learn since you have clearly not yet.”

“That’s all the questions for today,” Atlas said, swiping his foot over the circle. “We’ll collect your items and be in touch.”

“I look forward to it, white wolf.”

We stood in silence for several minutes before turning toward one another, the ghost long gone. “Did she—”

“Best not speak of it here,” he cut in. “Let’s go find your witch.”

* * *

The fuckingdoor was hanging off a hinge. How many witches had passed by this house and not noticed it? I surged forward, Atlas shifting to match my pace as we raced for the elder’s home we’d essentially locked Nym in. One second he was beside me, and the next he slammed into an invisible barrier, unable to cross.

“Go!” He growled. “Be careful.”

I hadn’t felt the barrier, hardly heard the crackle as I passed through the witch’s spell meant to keep others out. Thank the goddess it was a weak spell compared to what I’d witnessed from Eden and the Dark King. Effective on shifters, but it wasn’t enough.

The old wooden door creaked open on a single bolt. I didn’t stop. Navigating the place I’d only seen full of old witches, finding two withered bodies on the floor, I cringed. For a heartbeat, the whole world was silent, as if I was passing over a graveyard. The spell the Dark King cast forced them to protect Nym with their lives. And so they had… in vain.

A crash of what could only have been furniture in the room beyond yanked me forward. Rounding the final corner of the home, I took in a scene I couldn’t have fathomed. Nym, standing on a desk in the back corner, arms outstretched in a defensive stance with Talon roaring as loud as he could toward the door where a woman with long gray hair stood between us, her back to me.

Nym’s green eyes met mine in sheer dread. She moved her hands as if to cast, to control the white tiger at her feet, but nothing happened. Not until the witch I couldn’t identify lifted a blood-stained hand and ran it down the king’s invisible barrier. It cracked like glass before shattering the magic into pieces.

Nym’s head fell backward, her arms open as magic she’d been cut off from poured into her. When she righted herself, she didn’t pause for a second, casting to take over the tiger that bound across the room. I turned invisible, sneaking past the witch that held lightning in her bloody hands. Ophelia. The old, determined witch from the Trials.

“This has gone on long enough.” Her haggard, old voice walked down my spine in a way that would have given me goosebumps, could I have them.

Talon took one step as Nym’s spirit blessed marking glowed, but Ophelia cast and sent him flying into the wall. I wanted to do something, anything, but as I surged into the room, I slammed into a magical wall. She’d put a fucking salt circle down to trap me, and I’d floated right into it, entirely unaware. I wondered how she’d known I would come. But of course I would. For Nym. I could only stand and watch as baby Scoop arched his back and hissed. If she cast upon him, she would likely kill him.

Nym didn’t waste a second, leaping down from the desk and surging forward. Magic spells sprang around the room, cracking into the walls, destroying the furniture, sending books flying. A snake Nym had thrown got past Ophelia’s spell, and it hissed at her feet. She paused for a second, and that’s all Nym needed to send Talon forward once more, pinning her to the floor.

“Why?” Nym asked, needing none of my help as she looked down at the old crone.

“Thirteenth witch,” she croaked. “I’m tired of waiting for you to die. No one would have questioned your death in the Trial when you fell over that cliff.”

Nym cast another serpent, letting it coil around Ophelia’s body as her familiar backed away. “You pushed me. I didn’t fall.”

“Did I?” She grunted. “The old memory is failing.”

I made myself visible, and Nym immediately swiped the circle of salt trapping me. Freed, I hovered a bit too close to the witch. “What do you know about the Harrowing?”

Her body turned purple as the snake coiled tighter and tighter, though when her eyes landed on me, I still shared a sharp smile.

“A shame…” she managed.

Nym moved her fingers, and the snake relented, if only enough for her to take a breath with compressed lungs.

“You were saying?”

“A shame you died. That mouth of yours was so entertaining.”

“I can assure you, it still is,” Nym said. “What do you know about the Harrowing?”

“Only that…” She gulped. “Only that the Moon Coven has a chance to be stronger now with Willow in charge. Once you and Raven die. We thought the Harrowing was a curse, but it turns out, it’s the goddess’ blessing for us all. She wants you to die.”

“Funny. If the goddess wanted me to die, why did she send you?”