Page 92 of Shadow's End

Katie stood next to the spring, her form solid rather than ghostly, although if you looked hard enough, the wellspring’s shimmer was faintly visible through her figure. She was a typical O’Connor in looks—tall and rangy, with short blonde-brown hair and a sharp but pretty face. Gabe stood next to her, his figure wispier, but his scarlet hair glowing in the rainbow wash of light coming from the wellspring.

What I didn’t expect to see here were the luminous wisps from the older wellspring. The Fenna were here to watch.

I motioned toward them. “How long have they been here?”

“Little more than an hour” came Katie’s response. “Just before I contacted you, in fact.”

“And the weight of that spell?”

“Grows heavier.”

I frowned. “It’s very unusual for a spell to take more than an hour to develop. They must be doing something else.”

“It started when the fire started,” Gabe said. “We believe they might be feeding it.”

“Which would explain why it has been stubbornly hard to put out.” I swiped at the trickles of sweat running into my eyes. “Why didn’t you mention it when we talked earlier? Monty or Ashworth could have gone out to check and maybe mute its force.”

“Because we believe the fire is a distraction—a means of taking the rangers and perhaps even some witches out of theequation,” Katie said. “If they intended true harm, they would have swept it toward Castle Rock, but it remains in the hills.”

Meaning Monty’s suspicions had been right on the money.

“However,” Gabe added, “the weight on the earth suggests there is more to that spell than merely feeding a wildfire, because it deadens the earth underneath it.”

I frowned. “Why would they want to do that? That makes no sense.”

A silvery thread from the old wellspring wound around my wrist and the whispers of the Fenna filled my mind.

Wild magic could not be called from dead earth. They were creating a cage for me, one that I couldn’t call the wild magic into.

Which, while scary, also suggested they didn’t know about my inner wild magic. Didn’t know it was a part of my being rather than something I could simply use and control. Would that matter in this dead zone they were creating? I didn’t know—and hoped like hell that we could stop them before it ever became necessary to find out.

“I still don’t understand why it’s become so urgent that I step into the wellspring,” I said. “Even if they successfully prevent me calling on the wild magic through the earth, I’ve always been able to gather it from the air, and what deadens the earth shouldn’t affect that ability, should it?”

Again, the whispers ran through my mind. They believed that what I gathered from the air, even when combined with my own, would not be enough to fight Marie and whatever remained of her coven.

The key words there being “they believed.”

But did that mean I dared discount it?

I swiped at another trickle of sweat and glanced at the shimmering pool. Dread surged, but so too did determination. Ifstepping into this wellspring meant not only my survival but that of everyone I cared about, then really, I had no real choice.

I returned my gaze to Katie, though I aimed my question at the Fenna. “How does my stepping into the wellspring affect Katie? She and Gabe gave their lives to protect this place, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.”

The whispers rolled again, this time including Katie and Gabe. My stepping into the wellspring could usurp her control, but this was not something that had been done before and was not a certainty.

“It is a risk we must take,” Katie said. “Too much is at stake.”

I studied her for a minute and then glanced down at the thread on my wrist. “What if Katie and I step in as one?”

The Fenna’s whispering rose in a wave that spoke of uncertainty and doubt. I waited and, after a few seconds, the wave died back to understandable levels. While in theory it should heighten her control as much as it did mine, it was a risk, with an unpredictable outcome.

“For me, or Katie, or your plans?”

The wave rose again. They were displeased with my distrust.

Tough.

I glanced at Katie again. “We do this as one or not at all.”

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