The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1)(73)

“You were magnificent. Honestly.”

“That’s not an answer,” she replied as she dusted off her skirt, looking over at Gwyn and Elaine, both of whom were as grave as she’d ever seen them.

“You did it, Vivs,” Gwyn said, coming forward to take Vivi’s hand. “You pulled Aelwyd’s spirit right into you, it was the coolest magic I’ve ever seen. You were all goddess-y, and your hair was blowing in the wind like Beyoncé . . .”

Vivi stared at her. “And it didn’t work,” she said. “I can see it in your face.”

Gwyn’s bravado collapsed, and she pressed a hand to Vivi’s cheek. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Panicked, Vivi looked to Rhys, standing there so handsome, so casual, hands in his pockets, but there were lines around his mouth, his shoulders tense. “Apparently Aelwyd didn’t have the juice, Samhain or no.” He shrugged. “Win some, lose some.”

“No,” Vivi said, shaking her head. She still felt wobbly from the spell she’d just done, could still taste a strange metallic flavor in her mouth, and she was shivering, but she was also really, really fucking sure she wasn’t about to let anything happen to Rhys.

Or Graves Glen.

“No, this isn’t over,” she said, and Elaine stepped forward, taking Vivi’s hand.

“My love, we’ve done our best. Do you know how many witches could survive what you just did? Even on Samhain, calling up a spirit is work. The magic involved can kill, and look at you. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you, Aunt Elaine,” Vivi said, and she meant it. “But I’m serious. We can’t just quit.”

“Vivienne,” Rhys said softly. “There’s nothing else to do.”

Closing her eyes, Vivi shook her head. “No, there has to be. If we just think . . .”

Thinking might have been easier had she not just had a three-hundred-year-old spirit inside her, and were her mind not chanting, Rhys will die, Rhys will die, Rhys will die, over and over again, but she tried to still her thoughts a little, tried to take a deep breath and will herself to calm down, to find the solution.

Rhys was cursed, so the town was cursed. Rhys and the town, bound up together, because of the ley lines. The magical lines that Rhys’s ancestor had laid.

But no.

Her eyes flew open.

It hadn’t been Rhys’s ancestor. Not just his ancestor. Aelwyd had been there, too. Aelwyd’s magic was in those ley lines, and Aelwyd’s magic was in Vivi’s blood. In Gwyn’s, in Elaine’s.

It might not work. It probably wouldn’t work.

But she had to try.

“The ley lines,” she said to Rhys now, already heading for the cemetery gate. “We have to get to the ley lines.”

And Rhys, goddess love him, didn’t even question it. “I have my car, and we have,” he checked his watch, “about an hour until midnight.”

“You two, too,” she said to Gwyn and Elaine. “I need both of you.”

“We’ll be right behind you,” Elaine said, and again, Vivi felt a rush of gratitude for these people, these people who loved her and trusted her.

The drive to the cave was a blur, neither Rhys nor Vivi saying much, and when they arrived, Gwyn and Elaine had actually beaten them there.

“Rhys,” Vivi said as they stepped into the first cave, the larger chamber leading to the rest of the system, “I need you to wait here, okay? This has to be just the three of us.”

He didn’t question it, just nodded. “Of course.”

As Vivi made her way to the opening leading to the ley lines, though, he couldn’t help but call out, “Good luck making me not dead!”

This time, when Vivi walked into the chamber where the ley lines were, she didn’t feel that rush of heat she’d felt with Rhys. If anything, she just felt a little nauseous, disoriented, like she’d spun in a circle too many times. The magic was still in here, still just as powerful, but now it was also powerfully, horribly wrong.

“Holy shit,” she heard Gwyn whisper, and the three of them looked at the magic, pulsing on the floor of the cave. What had once been clean purple light was murky with corruption, thick and sluggish, sparks of reddish light occasionally flashing off it.

“It’s gotten worse,” Vivi said. “It looked bad that first night, but this . . .”

For the first time since she’d come up with this plan, she started to worry that maybe it was a stupid idea after all. Maybe she wasn’t going to be able to pull this off.

But she had to try. For Graves Glen. For Rhys. Even for Aelwyd, who deserved so much better than what had happened to her.

“Hold hands,” Vivi said, and she, Elaine and Gwyn formed a circle, clasping their palms together.

“We made this magic,” Vivi said, closing her eyes. “Our family did. Maybe nobody built a statue to her, or named a college after her, but she was real, and she was here and she helped make this town what it is. She gave her life for it. And we’re her descendants.”

She felt both Gwyn and Elaine squeeze her hands, and it gave her the courage to take a deep breath and say, “So fuck Gryffud Penhallow. The Jones Witches are taking this back.”

Vivi could feel the power surge beneath her feet and both Gwyn’s and Elaine’s hands were suddenly so hot they almost burned, but Vivi kept holding tight, kept sending every bit of magic she could muster into the circle made of the three of them, and then down into the ley lines themselves.