Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(135)

The floor underneath me creaked.

“Step aside!” Marjorie cried.

I moved just in time. A moment later a tree sprouted from the place where my feet had recently been planted. The trunk rose up, divided into two stout limbs, and branched out further. Shoots grew into green leaves at the tips, and then came white blossoms, and finally red berries. In a matter of seconds, I was standing beneath a full-grown tree, one that was flowering and fruiting at the same time.

The firedrake’s feet gripped at the tree’s uppermost branches. For a moment she seemed to rest there. A branch creaked and cracked. The firedrake lifted back into the air, a gnarled piece of the tree clutched in her talons. The firedrake’s tongue flicked out in a lash of fire, and the tree burst into flame. There were far too many flammable objects in the room—the wooden floors and furniture, the fabric that clothed the witches. All I could think was that I must stop the fire from spreading. I needed water—and lots of it.

There was a heavy weight in my right hand. I looked down, expecting to see a bucket. Instead I was holding an arrow. Witchfire. But what good was more fire?

“No, Diana! Don’t try to shape the spell!” Goody Alsop warned.

I shook myself free of thoughts of rain and rivers. As soon as I did, instinct took over and my two arms rose in front of me, my right hand drew back, and once my fingers unfurled, the arrow flew into the heart of the tree. The flames shot up high and fast, blinding me. The heat died down, and when my sight returned, I found myself atop a mountain under a vast, starry sky. A huge crescent moon hung low in the heavens.

“I’ve been waiting for you.” The goddess’s voice was little more than a breath of wind. She was wearing soft robes, her hair cascading down her back. There was no sign of her usual weapons, but a large dog padded along at her side. He was so big and black he might have been a wolf.

“You.” A sense of dread squeezed around my heart. I had been expecting to see the goddess since I lost the baby. “Did you take my child in exchange for saving Matthew’s life?” My question came out part fury, part despair.

“No. That debt is settled. I have already taken another. A dead child is of no use to me.” The huntress’s eyes were green as the first shoots of willow in spring.

My blood ran cold. “Whose life have you taken?”

“Yours.”

“Mine?” I said numbly. “Am I . . . dead?”

“Of course not. The dead belong to another. It is the living I seek.” The huntress’s voice was now as piercing and bright as a moonbeam. “You promised I could take anyone—anything—in exchange for the life of the one you love. I chose you. And I am not done with you yet.”

The goddess took a step backward. “You gave your life to me, Diana Bishop. It is now time to make use of it.”

A cry overhead alerted me to the presence of the firedrake. I looked up, trying to make her out against the moon. When I blinked, her outline was perfectly visible against Goody Alsop’s ceiling. I was back in the witch’s house, no longer on a barren hilltop with the goddess. The tree was gone, reduced to a heap of ash. I blinked again.

The firedrake blinked back at me. Her eyes were sad and familiar— black, with silver irises rather than white. With another harsh cry, she released her talons. The branch of the tree fell into my arms. It felt like the arrow’s shaft, heavier and more substantial than its size would suggest. The firedrake bobbed her head, smoke coming in wisps from her nostrils. I was tempted to reach up and touch her, wondering if her skin would be warm and soft like a snake, but something told me she wouldn’t welcome it. And I didn’t want to startle her. She might rear back and poke her head through the roof. I was already worried about the condition of Goody Alsop’s house after the tree and the fire.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

The firedrake replied with a quiet moan of fire and song. Her silver-andblack eyes were ancient and wise as she studied me, her tail flicking back and forth pensively. She stretched her wings to their full extent before tightening them around her body and dematerializing.

All that was left of the firedrake was a tingling sensation in my ribs that told me somehow she was inside me, waiting until I needed her. With the weight of this beast heavily inside me, I fell to my knees, and the branch clattered to the floor. The witches rushed forward.

Goody Alsop reached me first, her thin arms reaching around to gather me close. “You did well, child, you did well,” she whispered. Elizabeth cupped her hand and with a few words transformed it into a shallow silver dipper full of water. I drank from it, and when the cup was empty, it went back to being nothing more than a hand.

“This is a great day, Goody Alsop,” Catherine said, her face wreathed in smiles.

“Aye, and a hard one for such a young witch,” Goody Alsop said. “You do nothing by halves, Diana Roydon. First you are no ordinary witch but a weaver. And then you weave a forspell that called forth a rowan tree simply to tame a firedrake. Had I foreseen this, I would not have believed it.”

“I saw the goddess,” I explained as they helped me to my feet, “and a dragon.”

“That was no dragon,” Elizabeth said.

“It had but two legs,” Marjorie explained. “That makes her not only a creature of fire but one of water, too, capable of moving between the elements. The firedrake is a union of opposites.”