Page 89 of Truly Madly Magically

In our heads, I hear Frost’s voice: Reveal to thee what you must see.

The spell sweeps through me, into my head. I blow out a breath. Then, on the next inhale, it all comes back to me.

“In the spring, the witch known as Skip Simon bartered his blood for dark magic with the express intent of causing harm,” the Undine pronounces, as my memories flood back. “Each coven contended with this witch. One ignored his offenses. One fought him. Which approach will witchdom favor?”

She’s speaking to the crowd, but then her sharp, soulless gaze turns to us. “Riverwood. Explain to those you wish to rule why you believe your brand of justice was correct.”

For a moment, we all stare at each other. Explain our brand of justice? What justice was there? I can remember it now. Skip came at us. We fought him off. I don’t remember all the details, but I remember that.

Vividly now.

We don’t need to discuss this one to know that Emerson is the one to address the crowd. He attacked her first. She called to us, and we helped her fight him off.

Rebekah hadn’t been back in town then. It seems like a lifetime ago now—but as I think that, I remember something else. Skip’s black magic felt a lot like the shadow that came after Zander and me a few weeks back.

Emerson looks out over the crowd, and I wonder if this is hard for her. It’s not really discussing a justice we chose. It’s discussing what we did in response to someone going against all we stand for—and striking out against us.

But she manages to look unruffled, and she begins. “Starting last Ostara, Skip Simon used dark magic to try and hurt me. He lured me off the bricks and across the river so that adlets could attack me.” A shocked sound runs through the crowd at that, because adlets are old monsters that shouldn’t exist. “He branded me, without my consent, when he thought I was spell dim. He tried to get physically rough with me one night.” She looks at Carol when she says that, for a beat or two. Then she squares her shoulders and faces the crowd. “When all else failed, he attacked me himself. Out in the open, on the hill in front of Frost House.”

There’s a little tittering sound. A sound everyone in St. Cyprian knows all too well. It sends the usual prickle of apprehension down my spine, and we all look toward the source.

Carol Simon sits back in her chair with her red cloak flowing and her messy hair dancing in the evening breeze. “This is all very convenient, isn’t it? You claim my son attacked you. Alone. No one can vouch for this, but we’re meant to believe you had no choice but to kill him?” Carol looks meaningfully at the crowd. “This is justice?”

The crowd is muttering again, but Frost laughs. Not nicely. “The black-magic-tainted witch did not die that day, woman. What kind of mother does not know her child yet lives?”

“Give them proof of what happened, Ellowyn,” Elizabeth says in my ear. She’s clutching my shoulder, almost as if she’s hiding behind me, and I get it. Everything about these trials and the Undine feels terrifying.

“How?” I ask her, under my breath, because people can hear me.

“Revelare, you can show the crowd the past,” my ancestor tuts at me. “Just as you showed them Zachariah and me at the meeting where we declared ourselves your sponsors.” She grips me harder. “Do not tarry.”

I personally try not to think of that night, because it was extraordinarily painful. The Joywood tried to kill me—again. I remind myself that I’m protected now. Thanks to the Undine.

Still, while I know I can see the past, connect spirits to the living, create a historical retrospective for ghost sponsors, and so many other things, I’ve never tried to project an event to a group of people. I was there for part of Skip’s attack, but not for the whole thing, and I’m not sure I can show things I didn’t see. Things that don’t connect to me.

I showed Zander his mother by holding his hand. Maybe, if I hold Emerson’s hand now and connect into her, I can show the crowd what happened to her before the rest of us heard her cry for help.

We can show them, I say, not just to Emerson but to our whole coven. We can show them what happened. Just like last June when they showed everyone Rebekah’s past.

Best night ever, my best friend says darkly.

You can do that? Emerson asks me. Not in disbelief, exactly—more like I’ve been holding out on her.

I can, I say, as if I know this for a fact.

I step up and take Emerson’s hand in mine. I listen to Elizabeth’s whispered instructions on how to cast the spell. Then I address the crowd, because apparently that’s something I just do now.

“Earlier this year, the Joywood showed you Rebekah’s adolescent transgressions.” Most of them saw the show even if they weren’t in the high school gym with us, forced to relive our teen years because the Joywood wanted to embarrass us. “They added their own twist, of course, but I have no twists. I can’t project a lie. I can only show you what actually happened.” I realize I’m not 100 percent sure about that until I say it, but I nod as if I knew I could all along. “This, then, is the truth.”

“As I said,” Emerson says, glaring at Carol. “Skip Simon attacked me. Alone. While I flew.”

I hold on hard to Emerson’s hand. I take a deep breath, center on the magic inside of me, and say the spell words Elizabeth feeds me.

“The sphere of time, tangled and mine, show the memory, for all to see.” I may or may not lift a theatrical arm on the other side, like a witch you’d see dancing up on Main Street.

Above us, like some human drive-in movie, the entire crowd can see Emerson being slapped out of the air by Skip’s slimy magic.

I suck in a breath, hard, but Emerson is calm and collected beside me. Even if her hand trembles slightly in mine.

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