Page 21 of The Witch & the Tiger

“Beaver Moon,” Willow replied promptly. November 27th. Monday.”

“Nine more days. Or eight more, if we consider that three days every month will be appropriate. We shall invoke the name of the Beaver Moon and then summon the fog. We can test it on the 26th, but we’ll not go straight away. If it works, we’ll get everyone we need for the 27th. I’ll start making the arrangements.”

The professor and student parted ways, and Willow messaged the group chat she now had with Eva and Martin, telling them everything they’d discovered.

Willow: Do you remember Yannick chanting anything? Did he mention anything about the moon?”

Martin: I don’t recall. We didn’t meet until around midday, so…

Eva: That sounds like he had enough time to summon the place before meeting up. If he were that confident, it’d work.

Martin: Yeah…

Willow: Do you think he knew it might be dangerous?

Martin: He never mentioned anything about that. Besides, we wouldn’t have gone if we thought it was dangerous.

In all their messaging, something nagged at Willow. How responsible was Yannick for the situation? Why was his only body not recovered? It didn’t sit right with her. Martin had survived, but it was a near thing with the drowning. Apparently, only his shift to tiger form helped him survive longer – perhaps the strength of the form helped him get through and find more air.

Professor Umber had said that the family’s obsession with practicing rituals was a way for them to feel closer to the fae. Maybe they were visited by someone from the Unseelie. Maybe the spell had enchanted Martin.

Too many questions. None of which could be answered until the light of the full moon.

Helping Martin felt important. Helping him meant she spent a lot more time working on her magic, and Professor Z’Hana even arranged for a rather quick trip by private jet to the West Coast for the purpose of letting her use her magic to shield them from high tides. Saltwater moved differently from running water, and both Willow and Z’Hana waded into the sea, with her expressly trying to protect them.

Using her magic, she parted a small section of the sea, and the deeper in they went, the more challenging the control of the water became.

“The idea is that you need to form a pressure bubble,” she said. “However, the deeper you go, the harder it’ll be to maintain the bubble due to the water pressure. So, the deeper you go, the more the bubble will shrink, and you’ll have to adjust to maintain an equivalent pressure within.”

All of it sounded rather complicated to Willow, but she focused hard on her bubble cage, forming and weaving it around two separate people at once. They practiced at first by going ten feet underwater and timing how long the bubble held. Then, they worked on forming multiple bubbles, as it was easier to form many than to make one gigantic one.

By the end of the day, Willow was utterly exhausted, but Z’Hana had booked a hotel, and so there were four more days of relentless practice. No Dreadmor Academy for her while she wrestled with the ocean and attempted to perfect the magic.

“We must take no chances if you’re the one to come with us. I need to be certain that your magic can protect us during high tide.”

That was fair, and Willow agreed to it. But it meant that she could only message her friends and Martin early in the morning and the evening, as Z’Hana wanted her to work her magic as much as possible.

The first evening, she’d messaged Martin:

Willow: The prof is a complete slave driver. I can practically hear her cracking the whip as she gets me to use the magic!

Martin: Oh no, poor you! If you want, you can still return, you know – the professors did mention they can look for someone else if it’s not something you wish to do. I wouldn’t want to place you in any unnecessary danger…

Willow: The professor said this can count toward my grade, and it’s a lot more entertaining than sitting at a desk and scribbling notes! I’m happy to help, anyway. You deserve it.

Martin: I’m grateful, truly.

Willow: This is also probably better than whatever half-baked plan you had, too.

Martin: Ha. Well, the professors insist that it’s not my fault that I wasn’t thinking clearly.

Willow: Do you think you’ve managed to shrug it off now?

Martin: I don’t know. I still keep wanting to check every day. But it’s hard to know how much of it is me and how much is the enchantment.

The second day went a little better, with them managing twenty feet and Willow even managing to hold the bubbles against a vicious riptide so that they wouldn’t be sucked into the undertow.

On the third day, they risked going deeper, to forty feet, which honestly was a terrifying experience for Willow, as they needed to wade further out and sink deeper and deeper, knowing it would take a while to reach the surface. The paranoia of losing control of the bubbles helped since she could now accurately judge when her magic was close to running out.

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