Page 64 of Uncharmed

Chapter Thirty

DRAW YOUR SWORD

T here was Hal, breathing heavily, shoulders heaving as though he’d been running for dear life to get to them.

He scanned the wild scene for a moment, taking in the blazing magic that flew between the trees, before his eyes found hers.

Mage gave a frantic whinny and cantered to his side as Hal threw up a hand to grab his saddle, swing a leg over and mount his loyal familiar.

Rearing Mage onto his hind legs, Hal backed him up several steps.

Moments later, a stampede of billowing cloaks and furious, complex spellwork, aimed directly at every Sorciety member, came careering in from behind him.

Hal had very good reason for his late arrival.

Not only had he brought a hearty contingent of Selcouth coven with him – a crowd of familiar faces spilling out through the trees not a moment too soon, pushing their way out of the bracken to get to the fight – but he was also accompanied by what appeared to be every animal that had ever graced the depths of Arden Place.

Flanking him, among maybe a hundred creatures, Annie spotted the family of wolves that had scampered through the meadow all those weeks ago, the cubs still only half grown but baring razor-sharp teeth.

Stags armoured with towering antlers pawed their hooves at the ground, poised to descend at Hal’s whim.

An army of bats swooped and loomed among the treetops, already disorientating the Sorciety as they struggled to retain composure against the swarm of wings.

What must have been twenty foxes, screeching a battle cry, prowled between Mage’s legs.

And there were many more, too, all of whom Annie and Maeve had welcomed in during the storm – badgers, owls, lynx, red squirrels, stoats, weasels, wild boar and so many woodland mice that it looked and sounded as though the floor of the woods was beginning to crumble.

Every creature was charged with a protective energy, prowling around Hal and waiting for their favourite warlock to give the signal, so that they could rush to his defence.

‘Don’t get hurt, you lot,’ he said gruffly.

The warlock gave his one-fingered salute towards the Heralds.

Hal’s gang descended in a crush on the Sorciety, who tried to turn on their heels and run, but were met by a wall of coven members poised to fight.

The last thing Annie noted before she turned back to Hal was a pair of antlers already lifting the trail of a cloak as they stampeded after Vivienne’s father.

It had taken Hal a moment to register what was happening to Annie: Glory breathing down her neck, wrists and magic locked in her grasp.

‘I would think very, very carefully about your next move,’ he called calmly to Glory, although Annie could see a fire behind his eyes that felt foreign to his usual unshakeable calm.

Mage picked up his hooves in a stutter, enough to make Glory falter, and, with a quick flick of Hal’s wrist, a burst of bronze magic flew straight to the ties that Annie was bound in.

They split and crashed to the forest floor like irons and she stumbled away as quickly as she could, shaking out her wrists so fiercely that sparks of her power exploded.

‘Grab her!’ Glory shrieked to the Heralds, all now locked in their own battles of ricocheting coven magic and the brunt of watchful wild animals.

It was Barnaby Morningstar who was unfortunate enough to be nearest. Annie saw him hesitantly break his own fight to follow Glory’s command.

He sprinted towards Annie, wand outstretched menacingly in her direction, and smiled smugly as his hand closed around the trail of her cloak.

Hal had already galloped over. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

‘Or what, you common brute? You’ll set your little pony on me?’ Barnaby shouted back, throwing up his pointed chin as he simultaneously sent out a blast of magic. Hal easily bent it away, sending it to the ground as he spun the horse around.

He shrugged. ‘If you insist.’

Tightening the reins in a swift command, Hal brought Mage’s back legs up to kick Barnaby hard and solid in the chest. The man folded in two, flew at speed into the darkness between the trees and disappeared from view. Mage gave a satisfied snort.

Annie reeled at the unnerving sight, but all she could think about was Maeve. Somewhere, buried in the brawl of Selcouth against the Sorciety, her girl was in need.

Hal swung Mage around again to gallop through the clearing and into the fight, aiming straight for Morena, who was locked in a collision against a Herald. Meanwhile, it was Vivienne herself who stepped into Annie’s eye line.

‘This is all your fault, you stupid bloody bimbo! Look at my dress !’ Vivienne screamed, stomping her foot into the mud and sending even more splatters up her skirt. She let out a whine and her magic appeared in a fraught tangle between her palms.

‘Oh, get it dry-cleaned, you unbearable crone!’ Annie yelled back, startling herself with the viciousness that tumbled out of her mouth.

Her emotions were roaring, all of them truer and more vivid than she could ever have dared to imagine.

‘Did it ever occur to you that there are more important things?’

‘More important than vintage Vespertine lace?’ Vivienne squawked. ‘I think not!’

‘Perhaps like friendship! Your so-called friend and queen bee was just thrown to the wolves by her own vicious hag of a mother,’ Annie shouted. ‘Look at her! Why aren’t you helping her?’

Pouting, Vivienne reluctantly turned to search for Romily among the frenzied, battling crowd of witches, warlocks and wicche.

Eventually she spotted her, injured and cowering against a tree trunk, clutching onto the bark with terrified eyes.

In that moment of chaos, it made Annie’s heart twang with surprise sympathy to realize that Romily, in all of her self-preservation and determination to be admired, was only a product of her parents.

And tonight, Romily had met the same startling reality as Annie once had, that her own mother would sacrifice life with her daughter to remain at the addictive, all-consuming helm of the Sorciety.

Vivienne huffed a final snarl at Annie, then ran to Romily’s side, throwing an arm around her shoulders to carry her as she staggered and whimpered, clutching her side where Maeve’s magic had hit with a painful blast. Together, they looked so weak, so feeble and cowardly, that they felt unrecognizable to Annie.

How had she ever admired these people, feared their opinions, longed for their pointless, superficial approval?

Shaking her head to clear the complicated thoughts, she threw herself into the mix once again, clawing to get to Maeve amid the fight.

‘Karma, that’s enough!’

Annie’s familiar was still hard at work on shredding Harmony’s up-do in the most efficient way she could manage, claws sinking into the sleek bun while Harmony flailed in circles.

At Annie’s command, Karma paused mid-swipe, gave her ear a quick clean, then leapt down from Harmony’s head to run straight to Annie’s side, altogether looking rather pleased with herself.

Annie gathered her up and gave her a hurried but emphatic kiss on the head.

‘Nice work. You’ll be safe at home, I love you,’ she whispered hurriedly, before quickly vanishing her familiar back to the safety of the cottage.

This was no place for a princess like Karma – even if she had put up a grand fight for the cause of protecting their girl.

A scratch-covered Harmony staggered towards Romily and Vivienne, gratefully receiving their arms around her as they sobbed dramatically in unison.

All three of them turned towards Annie, lit up by the fireworks of imploding magic that showed their matching hate-filled glares.

The way that they rallied against her felt wickedly familiar.

The trio gathered their magic to aim and screeched their final blows in unison.

‘Look what you’ve done to us!’

‘I knew you would always be trouble, I said it from the very beginning.’

‘Stop!’ Annie shouted, sending a wall of protective magic up in front of her like a screen, making their spells rebound back. ‘I don’t want to fight you all. We have too much history to end this way.’

‘But we are the Sorciety! And you’re ruining it all,’ Vivienne screamed.

‘You always put yourselves first. Why is this suddenly different?’ Annie sighed, feeling broken. ‘This isn’t your fight, just because it’s your parents’. We don’t have to keep making their same mistakes all over again.’

At that, Romily faltered just the tiniest fraction, the bitterly vengeful expression that she’d inherited from Glory softening the smallest amount.

‘Rom, please,’ Annie begged, one last attempt to make them leave of their own accord. ‘Get out of here. Be safe. There’s still time to make different decisions of your own. Things can change.’

Romily looked away, furious, refusing to hold eye contact, but Annie noticed the way that she blushed.

Her old friend frantically chewed on the inside of her cheek, a pained and uncertain look on her face that Annie hadn’t seen there for years.

Harmony and Vivienne only awaited instruction, wide-eyed and desperate, until Romily finally gave the most imperceptible and reluctant of nods.

In a bright flash, the Fortune Four, minus one, huddled together with matching whimpers and vanished as a dark mist rolled in to carry them away.

‘Annie!’

Somehow, somewhere in the melee of rebounding, snapping magic and exploding powers, Maeve had struggled to her feet again. She was grimacing and rubbing at her ribcage where Glory’s magic had struck her, but there was a steadfast look in her eyes as she staggered.

Annie went to run to her, but an arm quickly swooped around her waist and pulled her backwards. It was Hal. She would recognize his strength and warmth anywhere.