“Hold steady!” Charlie shouted, the only coherent voice in the maelstrom, the only other witch not rendered mute. Penn couldn’t say a single word.
Sonia was still spellcasting. Penn knew academically that this was a long spell. Even their edited version to do one little tweak took pages. Most spells lasted less than a page, so witches gathered energy and then used it. Holding on like this felt like someone put a blow torch to her toes and was slowly working their way up. If they reached her head, she’d be burned alive by magic, and she didn’t know what would happen to her then.
In all her worrying, she hadn’t once spared a moment for herself. She hadn’t thought about what it would be like as a witch to be in the middle of this double Circle monstrosity.
There were no words for the amount of magic building. It was an order of magnitude beyond what she’d ever dreamed possible; she didn’t have any reference point. It was as if someone who lived in a one-story house their whole lives suddenly went to New York.
She stopped worrying about Asher and started wondering ifanyof them would survive this.
Then the magic began to move.
The spell began to take shape between them.
She felt Quinn stir beside her as magic dived toward his spine.
It wasn’t some random wolf’s spine; this was Asher. She watched as Quinn traced the charm of the shifter spell within him. Intellectually, she knew what the spell was. She had the recipe, after all, but it was an entirely different thing to see it mapped onto a human body.
It was wedged between every cell, twisting them beyond recognition. What witches did to these men took her breath away. Had they consented? If they had, did they understand? Did they regret it?
She was no longer surprised Asher was teetering on the edge of insanity. She was now surprised the rest of them weren’t.
The shifter spell took the fundamental fact of their existence—being human—and twisted it until it was balanced on a knife’s edge with another being. Worse, that change belonged to someone else. In the original instructions, the shift belonged to witches. Shifters couldn’t do it themselves unless it was to protect a witch. Now, there was a gaping burned-out hole right at the base of their neck where the compulsion had lived. So shifters had done that at least, literally snapped their leash and taken control themselves, but it meant a lifetime of balance and holding the two pieces of themselves together.
Worse yet, in this one, a third actor was lurking at the very base of the spine.
Abruptly, she swallowed all her horror, fear, and judgment about what her ancestors had done in a different age.
This, at least, she knew how to do. It felt like her entire career had prepared her for this, to set aside the complicated existential angst of being human to help an animal in need.
Quinn had been certain that she could stabilize the charm for at least five minutes, but Penn thought that was insane now. Penn was going to have seconds if she didn’t want to do more damage. That blown-out hole at the top haunted her. She was so glad it was there, but they were already working on a wobbly charm. She was not going to have five minutes.
She took a deep breath and firmly brought the visualization into her mind that she had worked with Moira on all night, using the latter’s expertise in snakes to build a magical paradise.
She realized, even if Quinn had given her an hour, she wouldn’t have needed it. Animals didn’t deliberate. In questions of survival, they made split-second decisions. They had to. They lived this close to death all the time.
She wasn’t going to have a long, drawn-out conversation with a serpent. It was going to gain its freedom to move for the first time in millennia, and it was going to choose fast.
It had to choose her.
She didn’t even want to think about what would happen if it didn’t.
“Get ready!” Charlie screamed.
Screaming instructions hadn’t been the plan, but Penn heard nothing through her bond with Asher. Something to note for the next gigantic, horrifying magic double Circle. The coven could talk, and the pack could talk, but apparently not to each other. Or maybe it was her problem alone, because her only connection was through Asher, whose wolf never said a word.
“Now!” Quinn screamed.
Penn opened her paradise, seeking that coiling presence at the base of his spine.
Nothing happened.
Come on!
She couldn’t sense anything, but Asher began to fall.
She dove to keep in contact.
Come on, come on, where are you?
