“What’s going on?” I asked, turning back to face Gabriel, the one who made our travel arrangements.
“If we’re fighting to win, not just to survive, then we need a fighting chance,” he said simply.
“We heard you could use a hand,” Delia smiled at the shock on my face. I saw Tristan and Benjamin behind her, sitting at a table with a guy I didn’t recognize. He hadn’t looked up when I came in.
To their left was Caleb, looking unscathed by the flames I had watched engulf his island safe house. I assumed the raven-haired bombshell on the couch with him was Etta, but when she looked up at me, struggling not to react as if I were Cassie, I recognized her.
“Being a badass suits you,” Caleb told me with a smile before I could say anything.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” I returned it. I’d had my doubts while watching the island burn.
“It’ll take more than that to get rid of me, but they keep trying. This is my better half,” he introduced me.
“Etta,” she extended her hand for me to shake, a firm grip where I had been expecting warmth.
“I saw you in a memory…” I tried to find a delicate way to tell her I saw a few moments of the night she died. It would have been better if I hadn’t said anything at all. “I saw the night Cassie met you,” I swallowed, figuring it got the point across without bringing it up.
“I’m surprised you recognized me,” she exchanged a look with Gabriel before Caleb pulled her closer. I definitely wasn’t getting on her good side so far.
“Your eyes,” I said simply, “they left a mark.”
“Not one of my finer moments. But a defining one for her.” Etta looked deep into my eyes, then moved from my moonstone necklace down to my running shoes, sizing me up.
“I hope I can live up to her,” I said, twisting the ring Clara gave me around my finger. Etta was nothing like how Caleb said she would treat me. Either because I’m not really Cassie, or because I was the cause of the fire on the island that claimed another one of Caleb’s lives.
“Try to win,” the guy from Tristan and Benjamin’s table spoke up.
“I’ll try my best,” I told him, but he was getting looks from nearly everyone else.
“I’m just saying, Cassie went out in the middle of the night to confront him on her own and sacrificed herself to fix her mistake. I don’t want to risk my life if this one will give up the minute it gets dangerous,” he defended himself. He looked younger than me, with dark brown eyes and copper hair that looked like it was on fire when the sun reflected it.
I could see the vein pulsing in Gabriel’s forehead as he clenched his fist, resisting the urge to punch him. To be honest, I didn’t blame the guy for saying what everyone else was probably thinking.
“Is everyone ready?” the flight attendant came over and asked Gabriel, interrupting the stare-down, though I’m not sure the stranger was aware, or would have cared.
“We’re good,” he agreed.
“Then if everyone could please take their seats, I’ll tell the captain we’re ready for takeoff,” she gave an awkward smile before shutting the door and going into the cockpit.
“Collin makes earthquakes, but he can’t control the Gift and his emotions at the same time, so he often comes off a bit…”
“Like an asshole,” Collin finished for Embry, who was trying to find a nicer way to describe his personality.
“This is a suicide mission,” I told him bluntly. “I’m not going in blind like Cassie, because I know what he wants and I know we don’t stand a chance. But I’m still willing to try, and like Cassie, if it comes down to it, I would rather stab something through my own heart than let him win.” I felt the dagger in my chest from when Kiara did just that and winced, feeling like a naïve child now that so many people were risking their lives for me.
“Let’s go sit,” Embry encouraged, gently nudging me. He brought me past everyone so we could take our seats in the back, while Gabriel stayed in the front with Delia.
“Do we have a plan?” I asked him, buckling my seat belt.
“We will go to the house Henry and Annabelle once shared and hopefully find Henry minimally surrounded. We will keep them busy while you get the missing ingredients for the ritual, and then we all live happily ever after,” he gave me a smile, knowing that sounded more like a fairytale.
“Your plan lacks a lot of specificity,” I warned.
“It depends how many henchmen he has, and what their skills are,” he shrugged, but I was not happy with his nonchalance. “Most of us have been fighting together for centuries. We know each other’s skills and weaknesses and know how to work together, even without a plan.”
“And you’ll let me venture off on my own while you fight a guy whose magic is stronger than anyone we’ve ever encountered?” I was both skeptical that they would let me out of their sight, into the lion’s den, and not sure I wanted to leave them alone and magically defenseless.
“You’ll never be alone,” he said, like there was no other option. “And you’re right, he is stronger than anyone we’ve encountered, but we know a lot of people who are strong on their own, so if we put them together…”
“I’m getting the feeling we will lose a lot of people.”
“Luckily we all come back,” he said in a way that told me I shouldn’t worry, but he did me the courtesy of not using his Gift on me, and the words didn’t do the trick.
“Even Collin?” I tried to lighten the mood.
“He gets better once his sister is around,” he assured me.
“Can’t you just… calm him down?” I suggested.
“He let me do it once when he was having a meltdown, but I tried to be helpful another time and nearly lost a life because of it.”
“I guess no one likes to be manipulated,” I ventured. “Were they just hiding out in Spain, waiting for us?”
“They were in France, about to head back to the States, so Gabriel got them to take a minor detour and change their destination.”
“That’s a big ask,” I said. More of the plan that would probably cost them their lives than of the change in travel plans.
“We have this thing where if someone asks you for help, you go without questions.”
“Because these are your best friends, or all Gifted?”
“More like family than best friends. We’ve all helped each other out so many times I don’t think anyone knows who owes who anymore. I could gladly go a century without seeing Collin, but if he was in trouble, I would go to him. Without a second thought.”
“It’s nice that you have that,” I said, looking around the plane. It was nice that it wouldn’t just be the three of us, but we were nowhere near enough to defeat Henry. I couldn’t even sense a trace of magic from any of them.
“More are coming,” Embry assured me. I tried to hide how relieved I was, but we needed a lot more people. “The connection in Mexico was not an accident, and I’m sure some will meet us in Salem.”
“He knows we’re coming, doesn’t he?” I asked, but the question was rhetorical. Henry told Donovan his plan was to sit back and wait for me to come to him, and although he hadn’t barged his way into my mind since the forest, I got the feeling these headaches were supernatural.
We’d barely been in the air for an hour when we hit a patch of turbulence. I instinctively reached out for Embry’s hand, and he gave me a reassuring smile that showed me why he got his particular Gift. It amplified his natural abilities.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We’re experiencing some slight turbulence, but I am told it should clear up momentarily as we make our descent. Please get back to your seats and we’ll be landing shortly.”
“We’re nowhere near Mexico,” I told Embry.
“I guess we’re bringing Kate,” he gave me a knowing smile, but I had no idea who Kate was.
It was getting dark, but I could still make out the landscape from my window. We were approaching an island, probably the same size as the Island of the Enchanted Moon, but all I saw was grass, trees, a river and log cabins. As we got closer, I felt nearly Donovan-level magic.
“Is Kate…”
“A witch?” he asked as the turbulence stopped suddenly, replace by what I can only describe as a tugging feeling, before the plane went silent. I had wondered how we would land without a runway, but I was not expecting this.
I knew we landed because I could see how close we were to the ground, but I didn’t feel a thing.
“Sorry ’bout that, Mallory doesn’t like visitors,” a girl with flaming red hair came in through the side door of the plane, that opened seemingly of its own accord.
“Collin’s sister?” I whispered to Embry.
“Jazmin,” he agreed. “You’ll like her.”
She was followed by five women and two men, but only one of them caught my eye. Her pink hair didn’t help, but it was the way she looked at me, like she wanted to run over and give me a hug.
They had two bags between the eight of them, and the same resigned look. Within minutes of our landing, a girl with blonde hair closed her eyes and made the entire plane rise into sky, slowly getting higher and higher, until the engines kicked in and we were flying again.
“The one with the silver hair is Kate. She tired of hiding her magic and her Gift, so she started a commune on the island with her sister and a few friends. I think they’re twenty of them now, but they don’t live there all the time, and most of them don’t owe us anything,” Embry explained before leaning back in his chair. I think the goal was just to rest his eyes, but within minutes he was asleep, his soft breathing occasionally interrupted by a snore.
I took out the Book of Shadows and went through the pages, trying to find something that could help us with what we were about to attempt. I found nothing even remotely useful against Henry, so I sighed and leaned into the aisle, trying to sneak a look at Gabriel. On the off-chance that he was awake while everyone around him was sleep, I could maybe go over and…
“There’s something about his intense broodiness that makes my knees buckle too,” the girl with the pink hair interrupted my plans as she came and sat beside me. “I’m Jen.”
“Lucy,” I told her. “I was just stretching.” It was none of her business, but I felt the need to defend myself.
“We all know who you are,” she rolled her eyes at me. “It’s cute that you introduce yourself. Although I guess Rosenberg calls you the new Cassie, but even he knows your real name.”
“Is he here too?” I asked, looking around. There were still a few more people I didn’t know, but Rosenberg was a name I remembered. Caleb had described him as someone who likes confrontation, in a way that made me feel like I never wanted to meet him. Although I guess beggars can’t be choosers.
“He’s meeting us there. Which is good, because he doesn’t like plane rides, and no one enjoys being near him when he’s not happy.”
“But he’s on our side?” I had to make sure.
“He likes to fight, but it’s not like he goes around beating people up or insulting guys at bars to start them. I wouldn’t want to spend more time with him than I have to, but if I was in trouble, he would have my back,” she assured me. I guess they all were like family, where even if you don’t like each other, you’re still there for them.
“You both knew Cass?”
“I think he fought with her at some point. She was always running around saving people,” she smiled, but it wasn’t the way she looked at me when she walked in.
“Eugenia here is way more ancient than that,” one of the guys from the commune joined our conversation.
“How ancient?” I asked, regretting my decision to use his wording instead of putting it more delicately. They might be close enough to tease each other, but I wasn’t.
“Annie was the one I saw when I walked in,” she answered the question I’d been trying to ask.
“That would mean you knew Embry and Gabriel,” I turned to Embry, but he was fast asleep beside me.
“I told you he made my knees buckle,” she looked over to Gabriel and gave me a knowing smile.
“Who makes your knees buckle?” the guy asked.
“He made. You make,” she assured him with a kiss.
“I’m Peter,” he extended his hand once they pulled apart.
“Lucy,” I shrugged apologetically, but I wasn’t just going to assume everyone in the world knew my name. “What about Henry?” I pressed, going back a few questions.
“I died in a very obvious way, so when I woke up, I knew I couldn’t just go back to my old life. I did the whole sit in the back pew and listen to my own funeral, then I left town and never came back. I eventually ended up with Delia and was pleasantly surprised when Gabriel showed up for Christmas one year.”
Peter introduced me to Lara and Gigi, both of whom had magic in addition to their Gifts, but I mostly sat back and listened to them tease each other and hang out like we weren’t about to face my worst nightmare.
“You should get some sleep, Lucy. There won’t be much rest once we get there,” Jen told me before everyone found themselves a corner and they turned off the lights.
I didn’t think I would ever get to sleep with what I knew was waiting for us once we got to Salem, but the roller coaster of emotions from the past few days and my lack of sleep eventually caught up to me.
I woke up as a half-dozen newcomers were boarding the plane, which told me we were in Mexico. My sights immediately landed on Terrence, who was being led by a man with dreadlocks. I wouldn’t have been concerned, only he was blindfolded and wearing noise-cancelling headphones. Once he was sitting, he took out needles and started knitting what looked like a poncho.
“Is he okay?” I asked Embry, who looked about as alert as I was.
“Terrence will be with us once we get to Salem, but we thought it was best to not let them in on all of our plans,” he explained, reminding me that Terrence had been touched by a Gifted who now had access to his mind. He couldn’t control it, but he could report whatever he saw inside.
I wanted to check out the new arrivals, but they turned the lights out again and everyone seemed to be sleeping. Except for Gabriel, whose eyes found mine in the dark before he looked away, crushing me. I panicked slightly over the fact that our next stop was Salem, where Henry was waiting, but at some point between the hyperventilating and attempts to calm down, I fell asleep.