Page 9 of The Spell Caster

How much of the attack on the Paralía Circle had he witnessed? Was history repeating itself?

Costi stepped out into the hallway, and I shuffled behind him. “Salix,” he addressed the other guardian. “What’s the situation outside?”

The pair stopped and turned to us. “Stable,” the guardian answered. “For now. We haven’t seen another wave of angels since we blasted back the third. Aura is cleared for duty, so we’re heading back to the seawall. You coming?”

Costi shook his head. “She’s injured. We’re evacuating.”

Aura looked me up and down dubiously but kept any thoughts to herself. I’d never gotten along very well with the coven.

“Good luck,” the guardian bade us as Costi led me in the opposite direction with a gentle hand on my back. Our footsteps echoed through the quiet corridor of the medical center. The overhead lights were off, leaving only strips of emergency lights along the floor. At the end of the hall, Costi pushed open the wooden door with his good arm.

Outside, it was pitch-dark and silent. The outdoor lights had also been extinguished, and the sky was eerily muted and uniformly black.

Once the door was closed, I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face.

“The circlewrights,” I whispered, feeling awed. This was witch work. To cover the entire sky with a cloak of darkness would have taken dozens of circle spells. All of our circlewrights must have contributed, tracing out spell after spell to make sure the angels couldn’t see us from above.

Costi flicked on his phone, giving us just enough light so we wouldn’t crash into things. The screen was cracked from where I had dropped it during the attack.

“My apartment,” he said. “Walk quickly and close to walls wherever we can. Keep an eye out.”

The Circle we had grown up in looked strange and menacing in the faint white phone light as we crept along the walkways, hugging the buildings. Not a single other witch made their presence known.

When we made it to his apartment, Costi didn’t question me as I retrieved my bag from the tree.

***

After taking a few moments to duck into his apartment to change, I rejoined Costi, and we headed toward the road.

In minutes we reached the bridge. A small parking lot usually held the Circle’s collection of vehicles that would be used in the evacuation effort.

The bridge itself was several miles long, spanning the tidal river and marsh that separated our island from the mainland, an American state called Massachusetts. The salty smell that rose from the marsh was just short of unpleasant, but it was the scent of home.

Walking out onto the bridge, we reached the edge of the shield spell. The moon and stars popped out, a faint tinge of dawn spreading above the line of distant trees. It was quiet. Costi scanned the sky. I looked up as well, trying to catch any hint of the electric feeling of angels I had come to recognize in the attack. After a moment, he motioned for me to follow.

Moving cautiously while watching the horizon, we made our way across. There was a gate at the far end of the bridge to keep tourists out, but we walked around it.

“How far is the Mountain Circle? It’s in West Virginia, right?” I asked quietly as we passed onto the main road.

It was close to morning now, plenty of light to walk by. The air was cool and pleasant with the damp scent of the forest on either side of us. Nighttime insects began to hush with the approaching day.

“West Virginia, yeah. Takes a while to get there, more than twelve hours by car.”

“Oh yeah, we’re taking a vehicle.” I brightened, bouncing a little on the dark pavement despite trying not to look too excited.

Costi gave me an amused look. “It’d take ages to walk that far,” he said.

I had very rarely ridden in a vehicle. The Circle kept a fleet of them for teams to use on missions and procuring supplies from the outside, but I had no reason to leave the community most of the time. I’d only been outside a handful of times on field trips.

I supposed that, too, would change, if I really was a spell caster now.

The farther we walked, the freer I began to feel. My life was a giant question mark, and the only community I had ever known had just been tossed to the wind, so it probably wasn’t right to feel this way. But I finally had room to breathe, equal parts terrifying and exhilarating.

More than an hour passed before Costi led us to a second street that looked larger. Here, the American streetlamp system began, little halos of yellow light dotting the way, and a traffic light glowed at the crossroads.

“If any cars come along, duck into the trees,” he said. “The outsiders will get nervous if they see us walking on the road.”

That was odd, but I believed him. He was well-versed in navigating the outside from the missions he’d gone on while in training.

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