Allegiance (Causal Enchantment #3)(5)
Caden pulled me closer until my back was pressed up against his chest, but he said nothing. Amelie mimicked the protective position with Julian, now conscious and sitting up wide-eyed and confused.
Sofie’s lips began moving subtly, inaudibly. Her hands rose, her fingertips spread apart. A deep growl of protest escaped Bishop’s sullen mouth. Mage instantly pounced on him, one delicate arm wrapped around his neck in a headlock while the other pushed down on his shoulder. Bishop fought back, his tall lean body thrashing from side to side, attempting to twist out of Mage’s grasp. Her knuckles whitened as her fingers dug into his collarbone.
And then Bishop stopped moving. Mage backed away, freeing him to run. He didn’t. He was stationary. Not a twitch of a finger, not a shift of a foot. Nothing but his pupils rolling over the cabin.
Instantly, I knew what had happened. “A spell,” Caden whispered, echoing my bewildered thoughts.
“But … why? I don’t understand. He’s not going to hurt us!” I said.
With strong, forceful hands, Caden gripped my arms and turned me around to face him. He gently caressed my cheekbone with a single finger. “That’s where you’re wrong,” he answered softly. A shiver ran down my spine. “Bishop has only one thing on his mind, Evangeline … revenge. He’s been eyeing that emergency exit since Sofie announced we weren’t going back to New York.”
I frowned, shaking my head. I hadn’t noticed. But … that didn’t make sense. “He could have done a swan dive from thirty-thousand feet and survived, so why wait?” I argued.
“You. You stopped him.”
My face pinched, my confusion deepening.
“If he broke the seal of the door up here, we would lose cabin pressure and the plane would crash. You wouldn’t survive. He knows that,” Caden explained, squeezing my shoulders. “But I’m sure he was planning on bolting the second he thought it was safe enough.”
“And we can’t have him doing that,” Sofie interrupted, taking her place beside me once again. She smiled sympathetically. “We don’t know what is waiting for us in Manhattan. There’s an army of witches there, armed with Merth. The last thing we need is Bishop starting a one-man war with them on the streets of New York. He’d get himself killed.”
Bishop, dead? No … But this? I looked over at him, our broken friend, sitting upright, his hands folded on his lap, as if his body were bound by cords of rope. Invisible magic rope. Wasn’t there another option?
“I know you don’t like it. I don’t like doing it, either,” Sofie went on as if reading my mind, which I’m sure she likely was doing. She offered a reassuring pat on my knee.
I looked over at Bishop again and sucked in a deep breath as his eyes fixed on me, raw pain screaming, begging for relief. Begging for freedom from his internal agony as we sat here, plotting … “How long does he have to stay like that?” I asked in a pained voice, feeling like a wolverine had taken up residence inside me and was tearing apart my insides.
Sofie’s brow furrowed deeply as she squeezed my knee again. “Until I figure out something better. It doesn’t hurt, I promise. The spell works like a live current. If I break it to cast another powerful spell, or because I’m injured, which happens frequently,” she gave Viggo a sidelong glare, “the binding will fall apart. It’s not ideal.” Like the spell Ursula had used on Max and his brothers, back in the mountains. Julian attacked her—his sister, possessed by a vengeful witch—with antlers in order to break the binding and save us.
With one last forlorn look at Bishop, I took a deep breath, forcing myself to be practical. Sofie was only doing what was best for Bishop and for the rest of the world. She was right. We needed to protect him from himself.
Another stabbing pain jetted through my eardrum, signaling further descent. “You haven’t told me where we’re going yet, Sofie.”
Her smile was both sad and contented. “Home.”
***
“This is home?” I asked as we passed through a set of swirly iron gates, anchored in a solid-looking, ten-foot brick wall. All nine of us, plus Max, were crammed into a giant black SUV limousine resembling a tank. Sofie didn’t acknowledge me, her focus fixed elsewhere, a bittersweet gleam glean in her eyes. She was miles away. Years ago, in a former life.
I peered out the window as our vehicle snaked along the winding road, taking in acres of rolling snow-blanketed hills, speckled with stately trees, illuminated by the half-moon that cast a spotlight over the silent, sleeping night. Ahead and to our right was a clearing of pristine snow, a large dip at its center. A frozen pond, perhaps. For some reason, I imagined a tiny redheaded girl splashing around in it during the summer, smiling, happy, free.
“Look up there,” Caden whispered, pulling me closer to him. I leaned over until his cheek was only inches from mine. He hadn’t let go of me since the moment we stepped off the plane, as if determined to be physically attached to me at all times, something I was more than willing to permit.
I followed his pointed finger to a mesmerizing sea of white lights lining the road. Hundreds of thousands of twinkling lights, coiled like snakes around naked tree branches. “Christmas lights,” I whispered breathlessly. It was almost Christmas, an event I had completely forgotten about given the circumstances. As we got closer, the trees convened above the drive, creating a spectacular half-mile-long tunnel of glittering lights. I gazed up in awe, speechless.