Hush (Witches & Warlocks Book 2) (16 page)

Celine blushes and still can’t look at me. “Zoooee…” she draws my name out and sounds like the pre-teen she is for the first time since I’d started sharing my time here with her.

There’s just enough embarrassment in her voice, just enough pride in her eyes, just enough red on her cheeks that I understand. Celine didn’t hate Luke.

“You had a crush on him?”

Huge tears well in her eyes and I feel like the biggest creep since the beginning of time. “He was my boyfriend. I miss him, too.” Her eyes go wide and she throws up her palms. “But
please
don’t tell Noah.”

I don’t know if it’s sad or sweet that she’s worried about her little brother finding out about her relationship with Luke all these years later.

No, that’s not true. I do know. It’s both.

Well, hell. This is weird. I might be in love with Celine’s brother, and I think I used to be in love with her childhood boyfriend.

I might be a terrible person.

Celine presses her forehead against mine, her huge blue eyes gleaming, partly because of the otherworldly light that just comes with being a remnant, partly from the tears gathering there, and partly from something that looks like happiness. “You’re not a terrible person.”

She says it with her voice and with her mind and a flood of images follow her words:

Me fighting the hollows for her.

Me figuring out how to stop time in the courtyard rather than bow to Daya’s orders.

Me pulling waves of dark magic back into myself, bringing life back to the trees in the orchard.

Me, getting up and doing the things Daya asked of me, but never giving myself fully to my dark magic.

I realize, with a little jolt of surprise, that this is me as Celine sees me. She thinks I’m strong. And brave. She respects me. I don’t know what to say.

“I’ll do what I can to bring the boys here, but you might have to help me figure out how.” As brave and strong as she thinks I am, I know from the very bottom of my heart that I don’t deserve someone as pure as Celine.

“You just tell me how,” I think back to her. “I’ll do whatever you need.” And I mean it. Whatever this little girl needs to finally earn herself some happiness, I’ll do it.

Chapter Eighteen

Over the last couple days, Celine has worked out some way to channel my magic while I’m sleeping so she can start trying to reach Noah and Luke. She calls it
dreamweaving
. I’m not really sure how remnant magic works, but she assures me that by using her magic and my dreamscapes, she’s flying under Daya’s radar. At first the fear that she doesn’t know as much about magic as she thinks knows kept me awake each night, but after a few nights of nothing happening other than some very vivid dreams, I’ve settled down.

Is it working? No clue. Supposedly, I’ll
feel
when I get their attention and I can start actually trying to communicate, but all I’ve been feeling up to this point is creeped out by all the freaky dreams and tired because of all the broken sleep. Plus, Daya’s really upped the game as far as my training goes. I’m starting to feel less like she’s trying to help me understand my dark magic and more like she’s trying to ... what? It’s such a tiny little sneaky feeling. It’s like all of her lessons have this similar thread, this similar idea …  and I can’t quite put my finger on why that seems off to me, but it does.

I mean, on the one hand, it’s totally within the realm of normal that all the lessons have a similar thread. Like, the whole ‘let’s get Zoe to understand her dark magic and incorporate it into who she is’ thread? But on the other hand, something just feels off. My spidey-senses are tingling. I’ve decided to pay extra attention to the nuances of the lessons to see if I might be able to discover just what’s got all my alarm bells going off. Plus, I’m being careful to use my judgement about how and when I use my dark magic.

Thing is, light magic comes from such a place of positivity, there’s very little repercussion to using it. It generally takes longer to use than dark magic, and maybe has a slower effect than dark magic. It pulls its energy out of the witch casting the spell, so the worst that happens is that the user gets a little (or a lot) tired. Light magic is mostly defensive … it works best when it’s defensive, hell, it’s easiest when it’s defensive, but it can be offensive too, as long as the offense is really a defense. It’s tricky, but if you think about it, there’s some sense there.

Dark magic? It’s wicked fast and wicked effective and is almost completely offensive, but it requires some huge sacrifice to use, usually pulling energy out of things around it. The bigger the spell, the bigger the consequence. Basically, you have to hurt something, kill something, or make some kind of personal sacrifice to use it.

Dark magic is a drug. It’s giving into your selfish side. It’s like that desire to lash out and say exactly what you’re thinking, even when you know it’s the wrong thing to say. It feels great to get it out. I think for a lot of people, you feel bad afterwards - I know I do - but in the middle of it? Ya. That’s good stuff. So, when I’m using my dark magic, which is almost constantly now because all of Daya’s lessons require that strange blend of light and dark, it’s a constant effort not to lose control to the luscious feeling of awesome that comes along with it.

But I’m determined not to give in.

‘Cause I’ve got a plan.

Kind of.

If it ever starts to work.

After several nights of nothing but strange dreams and grumpy mornings, I’m starting to wonder if the ghost of an eleven-year old girl and a hugely powerful but under-trained witch have what it takes to escape from the Wicked Witch of the West. I’m still writing in my journal each night, and I’d love to try and write what I’m really thinking, but I don’t. ‘Cause you know,
fool me once, shame on you
and all that jazz. I don’t even remember the name Becca used for the book she’d tricked me into using for a journal, the one that let her have access to all my personal thoughts and moments, but I’m not taking any chances that Daya’s thought of the same trick. The only thing I write about now is what happened during the day, what I thought about it, and what I learned. This is not going to be a
shame on me
situation.

Celine asked me to create some wards in my room to keep the hollows out. She explained that having a source of my magic to draw from would help her with the dreamweaving. Since it has the added bonus of keeping Bo and his entourage of nasties out, I’ve been more than happy to comply. Each day, after stumbling back to my room, depleted and dirty from the day’s activities, I write in my journal and refresh my wards before crawling into bed and tumbling into sleep.

Celine usually curls up with me, snuggling close. While we hope Daya will just think it’s a comfort thing - and I’ll be honest, that’s a big part of it - we need the contact so Celine can filter her magic through my wards, into my dreams, and out towards the guys. Like I said, the whole thing seems kind of transparent to me, but Daya’s not slammed into my room and wrenched Celine out of my arms, so I guess that means something’s working.

Tonight, my dreams have a different quality almost from the get go. There’s a familiarity to them, a level of serenity, of tranquility. Off in the distance, there’s this pillar of light that just feels like solace and all I know is that I need to GO THERE. I wander through strange worlds and alien landscapes, searching and lost, just aiming myself at the beacon until somehow, I’m just …
there
.

And then, out of nowhere, the beacon has a name.

“Hey, Noah.”

He looks up, startled and his face lights up and then crumbles and it’s like he goes from seeing me to seeing straight through me. I made the connection but lost it in the next instant. Or maybe he didn’t care enough to reach out and finish the connection. Who knows?

Here’s what I do know.

I’ve not spent each night looking for him, each day missing him, for me to find him and lose him all in the same instant. I reach out and funnel my magic through Celine’s, trying to strengthen our connection, because, damn it, he’ll see me if that means I have to jump on his back and do cartwheels off until he does.

“Noah!” I scream his name as I reach out, cursing when my hand falls right through him as if he were nothing more than a projection on a screen. Now that I can see him, I realize all the more how much I miss him, how much I’ve needed him. I’ve been incomplete since he stopped talking to me. How could I have been so stupid? This guy is cut from the same awesome cloth as his sister, and maybe he loved me once, and I just took all that he gave me and tossed it aside. Silly me, too desperate for answers, too easily swayed by Luke.

“Noah!” I reach out again. “Please see me. I’m so sorry. I’ve been such an ass. But,” and here’s where I really start to feel awful, “I need your help.” After all he’s already done, after me being an ungrateful bitch, I can’t believe I have the gall to ask for more. He flinches, squeezes his eyes closed and shakes his head like he can’t concentrate. Maybe I’m getting through to him.

He turns and looks my way, his blue upon blue eyes slowly focusing on mine until I’m certain he sees me.

“Zoe?” He squints. “Where are you?”

I want to tell him I’m sorry. I want to tell him that I realize I’ve been a total bitch, that I’ve taken advantage of him and I never want to do that again, that I want to make him as happy as he’s made me, but I’m not sure how much time we have before something happens. It’s been days finding him, I don’t want to waste even one second.

“I’m at the ranch. With Daya. And Celine.” I can’t stand the flood of emotion I watch tear across his face.

“Celine’s with you?” If pain has a sound, that would be it. “I thought she … Zoe? Celine died.”

Oh, God, the hope in his statement rips open my heart. I nod, and despise myself for even bringing her up. “She’s a remnant. She’s been helping me.”

His face grows hard in the absence of hope, the final realization that his sister has been stuck here for decades while he continues to live out his life wages a war against his handsome features. His magic blazes awake, a dazzling display of light and dark, drawn out by his emotion. What do I say? Do I talk about how wonderful she is? How the world suffered with her loss because we need people like her in it? Or do I just say silent?

“Why are you here?” His eyes start fading out of focus and he’s seeing through me again. What if he just lets this whole thing go and wakes up, thankful to be rid of a particularly brutal dream?

“Celine sent me. We need you. And Luke. Both of us need both of you.”

Noah swallows hard and shakes his head. He looks away, and I watch as he settles the raging emotions fighting inside him and the flickering light around him goes from a strange blend of light and dark to just a pure golden glow. He is a testament to control and inner strength, the strongest person I’ve ever met.

And he still hasn’t answered me.

“Noah? Can you hear me?”

He refocuses on me and for just the tiniest fraction of a second, I’m floored by the amount of disgust I see there. I even stagger back a few steps, losing control of our connection and cry out when he flickers in and out of focus. There’s a surge of energy -
thank you, Celine
- and Noah’s features come back into high resolution.

“Are you asking me to drop everything and come to your rescue again? Grab Luke and off we go?”

My heart sinks. I’ve used up all his good will. Me, the person who so resented being used by Daya and Becca and whoever set Becca up to keep me hidden, I went ahead and used Noah and never even thought twice about it.

“I don’t deserve it. I know it. I’m a terrible person…” I trail off, distracted by another huge surge of energy. My dream world ripples and flexes, the ground moving and twitching under my feet. And then it’s like I’ve lost control of my words and body. I open my mouth wide, too wide, and light blazes from my eyes and I only know that because somehow, I’m watching it instead of experiencing it. And then, there’s a parade of images, the same ones Celine showed me the other day. Me fighting the hollows for her. Me figuring out how to stop time in the courtyard rather than bow to Daya’s orders. Me pulling waves of dark magic back into myself, bringing life back to the trees in the orchard. Me, getting up and doing the things Daya asked of me, but never giving myself fully to my dark magic.

Celine stands beside me in my dream world and stares at her brother with a look that’s serene and peaceful and wistful and so filled with love. Noah’s face crumbles and the love is echoed in his eyes and tears stream down his cheeks. He reaches out and sobs when he can’t quite touch her, his hand passing through her form the same way mine passed through his just moments ago.

Celine steps forward and holds out a hand, palm out. He lifts his as if to press it to hers. I think they’re talking, and though I can’t hear it, I can see all I need to see to understand that they’re overjoyed to be reunited and there’s grief, so much grief, at having ever lost each other.

“She’s not a terrible person,” says Celine in her angel’s voice. “She’s worth saving.” Noah nods, tries to speak, but I don’t think he can make it around the lump in his throat. He just closes his mouth and nods more frantically, and then sniffs and smiles all while his face crumbles yet again.

“I’m sorry,” he begins in a choked whisper.

Celine shushes him. “I’m not.”

And then the world explodes and I sit up, alone in my dark cell, sweat soaking into my cot. “Celine?” I call out even though I know I’m alone.

Chapter Nineteen

I pass the rest of the night watching the wedge of a window go from black, to gray, and then to blue before the morning sun blazes into existence. I don’t know what happened to Celine. All I know is that she’s gone and I’m really afraid something bad happened to her. When Daya scrapes open the big metal door, I’m already dressed and waiting. Thing is, when she doesn’t look surprised, I’m pretty certain that she’s the cause of whatever happened to Celine.