Page 123 of Wickedly Ever After
“I think you’ll find I do,” Agatha said. “Don’t be so surprised. You were just saying that you thought both the crown and the people would continue to listen to the witches in charge, and they did. The queen herself gave us her blessing and her royal permission to get rid of both of you before she ran off to mourn the marriage of her son. So, which one of you wants to go first? Age or beauty?”
“Hold on a minute, I said I was resigning—” Hector said, but Agatha’s wand was trained on his chest; in a second he’d be dead.
“No, Agatha, stop!” Ida threw herself in front of him.
She thought she was ready for it, but nothing—nothing had ever hurt like this. The blast hit her like a thunderbolt. Theimmortality was ripped away from her like skin ripped away from her body, and it wasn’t loose or worn, but tight and clinging to the bones. She cried out, grabbing at her chest, and fell to the floor. This is what Hector had endured to resurrect Tinbit. She couldn’t imagine pointing her own wand at herself to do it as he had. The room blurred, went dark.
Then someone was holding her, stroking her forehead, someone warm, strong, and smelling of black roses.
“Ida? Ida?” Hector’s face came into focus at the same time the room did.
“What—what happened? Agatha!” She tried to sit up.
“Slowly.” Hector helped her, supporting her in his arms.
“Agatha—where is she—” She glanced around wildly, trying to rise. She would not let Agatha hurt Hector; she couldn’t lose him.
“I told you slowly! Agatha is incapacitated for the moment,” Hector said. He folded his hand around hers, and she looked wonderingly down at the handle of a wand.
“Where—where did you get that?”
“It’s the wand I owed you,” he said. “I ordered it when we got to my castle, and it came in while we were with the dragons. I was planning to give it to you today after this meeting as a token of my respect when you ascended to the head of the Council.”
Ida gazed in horror at the decidedly stony visage of Agatha, still posed dramatically in the middle of casting a spell, or it might have been dramatic if her mouth hadn’t been open.
“Limestone?” she ventured.
“Granite,” he said. “It will take her a year to chip her way out, but I rather think she deserves it. Do you think you can walk?”
“I—I think so. What about Tara?”
Hector glanced at the Good Witch of the South, snoringsoftly, her cheek resting on her pastry. “Well—I’m sure she’s got a true love. Somewhere.”
Cear emerged from the hearth, dusting ashes from their hands. “All is arranged, Your Wickedness,” they said. “You won’t be pursued for several hours. Your horses are waiting.”
“Thank you, Cear,” Hector said, pulling Ida to her feet. She collapsed against him, leaning hard into his shoulder as he half-guided, half-carried her out of the Hall.
***
Hector put her up on Napoleon before mounting up behind her. “Come on, Mary,” he called, and the mare cantered after them as they rode out of the courtyard with a whinny that made every hair on the back of Ida’s arms stand up, it was such a horrible grating sound.
She leaned back into Hector’s chest as he spurred Napoleon’s bony flanks and the undead horse put on a fresh burst of speed. They were leaving a trail of bone dust on the cobbled streets that anyone could follow, but once they left town, they’d be much harder to follow.
“We need—my home—”
“I know,” he said.
She bumped along in front of him, feeling the severed ends of her life curling up like a plant dying in the hot sun. Everything had gone so wrong. She should have known that nothing she or Hector might say would convince the other Cardinal Witches to give up any power. She’d been a fool not to see it.
“I’m sorry,” she said eventually.
“What for?”
“I should have…told you. If you’d known I planned to getmyself fired, you could have done it. It probably would have hurt less.”
“I couldn’t,” he said. “I don’t think I could ever cast a spell against you again if my life depended on it.”
***
