Back in a Spell (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #3)(80)
“It’s just . . .” I swallowed hard, wishing I felt differently, not wanting to ruin this oasis of serenity for either of us. “I’m going to miss it so much, being this strong. Having this much magic living inside of me.”
Morty stayed silent for a moment, but I could feel the surge of his sympathy through the bond.
“Why don’t we say goodbye to it, then?” he suggested, kissing the top of my head. “In a formal way. Have a private little ceremony for you, together?”
“What do you mean?”
He sat up slowly against the headboard, drawing me up with him. “This building has a roof deck. And it’s late as hell, and cold to boot . . . so there won’t be anyone outside to see.”
“See what?” I said, forehead wrinkling as I peered up at him in the dark.
“You, silly, in all your glory. Come on, let’s throw on some clothes and I’ll tell you what I mean.”
Fifteen minutes later, we stood bundled under a night sky so glassy and brilliant it looked like a fissured black mirror laid over some gigantic source of light, like the chaos of stars was shining not from but through it. A waxing half-moon hung among them, like a pale and heavy-lidded eye. Ghosts of our breath tumbled up and away from us as we stood next to each other, watching the dark, distant outline of Hallows Hill against the horizon; the few glimmering lights still on at Yarrow a few streets over; the more distant, deeper black of the Witch Woods that appeared somehow matte, cut from a darker bolt of velvet than the night.
It was past three, and a near-absolute hush had settled over the town, not so much as the distant rumble of a car engine gunning to disturb it. Just the whistle of the wind past the rooftops, the chill density of the air itself pressing into our ears. The night smelled of sharp cold and woodsmoke, so purely wintry it made even me a bit nostalgic about how soon we’d be meeting the winter solstice, the world pivoting back toward spring.
“This is your chance,” Morty murmured to me, pressing his still-warm cheek against mine. “Cast away; cast anything you want. Make some big ol’ fireworks. Nobody’s awake to see, and even if they are, the glamour’ll take care of it.”
“I thought we were Team Anti-Glamour here,” I said, even as the craving reared up in me to make some magic, tap into that radiant internal heat.
“This one time, I think we can put the moral compasses down for a minute.” His gloved fingers tightened around mine, giving me a squeeze. “You’re doing a hard, hard thing here, Nina. And you deserve this; one last night to let go. To just give in to what you want.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I whispered back, taking a few steps away from him into the center of the shoveled-off roof deck, the weathered floorboards creaking under my boots. I closed my eyes and lifted my hands, sifting through my mental repertoire of spells that drew on light and fire; the ones that Belisama’s favor would take to best. “Here we go.”
Then I flung a parade of spells up into the star-prickled black canvas of the sky.
One after another, not even pausing for the buffer of a breath in between them, because I didn’t need it. I was a furnace, a forge, a human Promethean fire, and the spells rolled out of me like I’d been born to cast them exactly like this, blazing and spectacular, one final, glorious time. A blinding deluge of cosmic fireworks that burst so high I could imagine they must be visible even in the stratosphere, to the gods or anyone else who happened to be peering down at us.
I started with Phoenix Rising, the birds’ golden plumage melting immediately into Polaris’s Ascent—a tremendous, pulsing, platinum star like a diamond mined from ice and light, that went soaring up into the darkness as if to join its natural sisters. After that came Brigid’s Primordial Spark, followed by Spears of Dying Sun, Apollo’s Radiant Quiver, Moonlight Grazing Water, and the Infinite Aurora. With each new spell, the seed of fire inside me burned hotter rather than guttering, those dragon wings beating against the constraints of my ribs in a wild, triumphant euphoria.
I could only imagine how monumental this would feel if I were holding Belisama’s stone, and for a moment I felt like I was falling, into an all-consuming abyss of sadness at the idea that I was letting the stone go. Could I go through with it, after all? Was it too late to reconsider whether I should keep what felt so rightfully mine?
Then I glanced over my shoulder to see Morty’s face, rapt and delighted, flickering with my own magic-made light as he laughed into the sky. And I knew that I couldn’t possibly do anything that would compromise that pride, risk losing that faith and joy in me.
The person I’d become if I kept this temporary gift wouldn’t be one that either of us could love.
So I kept casting and casting and casting into the sky for what felt like hours, until the twinned joy and grief overwhelmed me, closed over my heart like stage curtains drawing shut. And when I dropped to my knees on the cold floorboards, sobbing like my heart would break with the immensity of everything I’d never feel again, Morty was there to catch me, to pull me against him and hold me tight. To feel and share the firestorm inside me until it subsided, and left mostly peace behind.
25
Say Goodbye to Fire, Farewell to Light
The four of us stood by the lake, under a starstruck sky veined by the wavering emerald of the northern lights. There was no snow tonight, only the black mirror of the winter night; hushed, this time, somehow expectant. As if it knew that soon, there’d be something to see below.