Page 49 of Bewitched By the Wicked Witch
Paige followed close behind, her breathing shallow and rapid as we navigated the tunnel and stepped into complete darkness, our footsteps echoing off the stone walls.
As we moved through the narrow stone corridor, my mind raced beyond our immediate danger. The mob's accusations, Tommy's knowing confidence, the way he'd appeared precisely when Callum and I were getting close to uncovering the truth, it all felt orchestrated, like pieces of a larger puzzle finally clicking into place.
"Paige," I said, my voice echoing off the ancient stone walls, "when you said they arrested Callum, what exactly transpired?"
"Tommy convinced them he was collaborating with you," she replied, breathing heavily and occasionally stumbling in the darkness. "Claimed the investigator was showing personal favoritism that suggested magical compromise. They arrested him on conspiracy charges."
My blood ran cold with a mixture of rage and fear. "That calculating bastard. He's systematically isolatingme, removing my only ally and support system." I paused as a terrible realization began forming in my mind. "Paige, what do you actually know about my parents' accident?"
She faltered, nearly colliding with my back. "Your parents? Sage, this really isn't the appropriate time?—"
"It's exactly the right time," I interrupted, spinning to face her in the tunnel's dim lighting. "Tommy isn't randomly targeting mixed-blood girls. He demonstrated specific knowledge about Beverly's schedule, and about our investigation methods and findings. What if this conspiracy reaches back much farther than we initially suspected?"
"What are you suggesting?"
"What if my parents didn't die in a convenient accident?" The words hung heavy in the stale air like an accusation waiting for judgment. "What if they were investigating something eighteen years ago, and someone murdered them to prevent discovery?"
Paige's eyes widened with shock and growing understanding. "That's an incredibly serious accusation, Sage."
"Consider the evidence logically. My parents were respected researchers and advisors to the council. They would have been among the first to notice if something was fundamentally wrong in our community. And then suddenly, they died in a perfectly timed car accident just before I turned eight years old."
Cosmo's voice drifted back from ahead of us in the tunnel. "You're not wrong to be suspicious. I remember your father asking very pointed, uncomfortable questions about certain founding families in the weeks before hisdeath. Questions that made influential people notably nervous."
I stopped walking entirely, staring at my familiar's shadowy form. "You remember those conversations? You never told me about any of this!"
"You never asked the appropriate questions," he replied with typical feline logic. "But yes, Dr. Blackstone was investigating historical disappearances, looking for patterns that connected past and present. Sound familiar?"
My heart hammered against my ribs as the implications crystallized. "We need to reach Callum immediately. If I'm correct, if my parents were killed for getting too close to the truth, then Tommy has been planning this persecution for years. And now he's trying to complete what his family started decades ago."
"His family?" Paige whispered with dawning horror.
"The Bishops," I said grimly, the pieces falling into place with terrible clarity. "Tommy, Reid, possibly others in their extended network. What if the Pure Blood Society wasn't just some historical organization that faded into obscurity? What if it never really disappeared; it just went underground?"
The tunnel suddenly felt claustrophobic, eighteen years of carefully maintained lies pressing down on us like burial earth. We had to reach Callum. He was the only person who could help me prove what I was beginning to suspect: that my parents' murder and the current disappearances were all part of the same twisted legacy of hatred and power.
And Reid Bishop was orchestrating it all from the shadows, using his son Tommy as a pawn.
"Come on," I urged, pushing forward with renewed determination and barely controlled fury. "We're getting Callum out of whatever hole they've thrown him in, and then we're going to uncover the complete truth. All of it."
The time for hiding and playing defense was over. Now it was time to hunt.
Twenty-Two
Callum
The iron bars of my cell had become as familiar as old enemies, each one a reminder of how spectacularly this investigation had gone sideways. I'd been pacing for what felt like hours, my thoughts spinning in increasingly frantic circles while my magic remained caged and silent.
That vision of Beverly's lifeless body kept flashing behind my eyes like a broken film reel, her pale skin marked by dark magic, the faint glimpse of hands, a partial face. The image would haunt me until her killer faced justice, but trapped in this iron cage, I was about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
The problem was, I'd seen too little and too much at the same time. Someone in that mob had touched Beverly's corpse, someone who'd helped drag me away from Sage during the festival chaos. But with my powers suppressed and my memory frustratingly incomplete, I was stuck playing a guessing game with no good answers.
My jailer, Hank, sat in a chair across from my cell with his eyes closed, apparently napping on the job. The man was an enigma wrapped in professional neutrality, clearly powerful, definitely competent, but following orders with the enthusiasm of someone attending their own funeral.
"How long have you been the local enforcer?" I asked, more to break the oppressive silence than from genuine curiosity.
He opened one eye, regarded me with mild annoyance, then closed it again without responding.
"I'll take that as 'not long,'" I muttered. "Look, Hank, she isn't guilty. You know that, right?"
