Back in a Spell (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #3)(57)
Before I could consider this mystery any further, time snapped back into place with a jarring shudder. We both stumbled, arms still locked tight around each other, as the portal unceremoniously deposited us where I’d aimed it to arrive—one of Castle Camelot’s topmost towers, with one of the gold-and-onyx Blackmoore banners hanging above the castle’s doors snapping in the wind many feet below us.
Due to an architectural quirk—or possibly just shoddy workmanship, never to be ruled out—there was no internal access point to this tower rampart. No way to get up here without portaling or scaling the castle walls. It was possible I was the only one who’d ever come up here before, to sit alone with a contraband bottle of wine—or whatever else I’d been able to pilfer as an angsty teen—look over Thistle Grove, and think too much.
“God.” Morty was gasp-laughing against me, shivering so hard under his thick duster that I could feel the quaking translate into my own body. And I could feel the rolling depth of his wonder, too, the vast expanse of sheer awe shot through with terror that I’d been too busy to sense through the bond before. “Oh, my entire fucking Christ, Nina! You could have warned me, don’t you think?!”
“I did warn you,” I said, just as unsteadily, still processing my own revelations about our journey. How could none of us have known what we were doing, what manner of realm we were passing through while portaling? The portal spells mentioned nothing about what I’d just felt and seen. And why did I suddenly understand it so much better, as though it should always have been obvious to me?
“What a fucking ride. I really—I really thought maybe I wasn’t going to make it for a second there. And there were things, Nina, weren’t there?” he breathed, pulling back to stare at me with wide, enthralled eyes. “Things that could see us.”
“Wait, you saw them, too?” I said, taken aback.
“No, no, I was shitting myself much too hard to look. Fuck if I was going to open my eyes, when it felt like all my cells were trying to tallyho in different directions. I just . . . I felt them, somehow? Through you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I could feel you notice them, and then once you did, I could sense they were there, too. And something about them . . .” He drew a shuddering breath, drawing back to look at me with the first semblance of real fear I’d ever seen in him. “This is gonna sound insane, okay, but something about them felt like you. Like the way you feel to me, through our bond.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I whispered, pulling fully away from him, wrapping my arms around my chest as I went to lean against the ramparts. Letting chill, woodsmoke-scented air blow into my face, its bracing cold welcome for once.
“What were they?” Morty asked, coming to lean next to me, arms draped over and through the crenellations. Kudos to him, he seemed to have recovered from our trip with remarkable resilience; if anything, he appeared less thrown than I was.
Maybe I needed to look into his meditation practice.
“I’m not sure.” That transcendental certainty I’d felt had begun to fade a little, like waking from a dream, and now I wasn’t positive what I’d seen. “It’s never been like that, before. I think I thought . . . that they were gods. And that we were tearing through their space, like intruders.”
“Maybe they were,” Morty said, with an easy shrug. “And maybe we were.”
“You say that like it’s nothing. No big deal.”
“I mean, why should it be? There’s a goddess statue under the lake, right? Hell, you’re damn near a goddess yourself, from what I’ve seen you do. And you know what they say, about there being more to heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy.”
“Don’t butcher Shakespeare at me, Padawan,” I said, elbowing him in the ribs. “I’m supposed to be the sage one here.”
“We’re both grown, we can take sageness turns.” He looked out into the distance, the sun setting over Thistle Grove, already dipping below the crest of Hallows Hill. We’d whiled the short winter afternoon away at the cemetery practicing Morty’s casting, and now the sky looked like crème br?lée, all smooth cream and gold-torched at the edges. You could see the rolling Thorn orchards from here, bare and spindly with winter, a charcoal sketch of their summer glory. The Witch Woods loomed beyond, too, their evergreens a deep and somehow sinister emerald against the black snarls of the leafless deciduous trees.
And snow everywhere, blindingly luminous, the glow of the setting sun sheeting off of it in sparks. Like light itself made dense and cold.
“It’s gorgeous up here, by the way,” Morty remarked, smiling at the view. “But I thought you were supposed to be afraid of heights.”
“I would be, if I were dangling from a ceiling by a bunch of flimsy fabric, without magic or a safety net below,” I pointed out tartly. “It’s situational. I love being up high, as long as there’s something solid between the ground and me. And this is my favorite secret spot.”
“Classic superhero move,” he said, slipping an arm around my waist. “You’re aware of that, right? Taking your impressionable, awestruck love interest up to your special aerie.”
“What can I say?” I quipped, leaning against him. That electricity surged between us again; the fire that now lived split between us and the bond. “I’m a walking nerd girl cliché, so sue me. In my defense, you’re the only person I’ve ever brought up here. I wouldn’t have had the guts to try portaling anyone else before, anyway. And even if I had, the only person I’d have wanted up here with me to see this is my best friend. Which wouldn’t be allowed.”