“We’ll get you the help you need, I promise,” I said, caressing the side of his face. Golden warmth filled me as our eyes met.
A moment went by in silence.
“I doubt he hit any vital organs; otherwise, I’d be dead already. You should really brush up on your anatomy knowledge, Merlin,” he retorted, his tone clipped.
I breathed a sigh of relief, internally thrilled to see him still alive, kicking and just as obnoxious as before. I had a feeling that he was the kind of guy who’d go out flipping everybody off as he gave his last breath. Judging by the fire burning in the pit of my stomach, Wade Crowley had no intention of letting go just yet.
“Bleeding out, yet still an arrogant jerk. Impressive,” I muttered. “I left the knife in, so I do know something.”
He chuckled, then grimaced from the pain. “Your sassiness might’ve rubbed off on me.”
I laughed despite the tears rolling down my cheeks. “Glad to see I’m an influence, at least.”
The air rippled in front of us. A wormhole opened, tall and vertical, its edges glowing green. My eyes immediately snapped to Jacob.
“Is this you?” I asked him.
The boy shook his head, but he didn’t seem surprised. He knew who this was.
And so did I.
Isadora Merlin stepped through the portal, her eyes wide as she drank the whole scene in. She gave Wade and me a quick nod, then rushed over to Jacob and helped him up.
“You bit into the charm,” she said to him. “I couldn’t find you before. The alarms went off, but I couldn’t go inside the house. I saw the runes on the walls. I knew they’d rigged the place to explode. And I didn’t want to risk teleporting myself in there, either. I knew the Ryders might be waiting for me, prepared to trap me. Two captured Portal Openers would’ve been worse for everyone.”
“I didn’t get a chance to call you before we got here,” Jacob replied. “The Ryders. They were holding the Smiths hostage, waiting for Harley.”
“Oh no, honey, I’m so sorry,” Isadora murmured. “I tried to find another way in, but, in the meantime, the house was surrounded by security magicals.”
“You’re Isadora Merlin,” Wade said, staring at her.
“And you’re wounded,” she replied, coming back to us. “This will stop you from bleeding out, until they get you to the infirmary.”
Isadora took a small coin from her pocket; it was encrusted with a variety of symbols on both sides. She pressed it against her lips, whispered a spell into it, and put it in Wade’s hand.
“Hold it tight,” she added.
He did as asked, closing his fist around it. He then stiffened, looking like a living statue.
“Wade? Wade, are you okay? Wade!” I gasped, suddenly alarmed and terrified of losing him. I had no idea what that coin did, and I had never seen someone paralyzed like this before.
“It’s a Time Stopper,” Isadora explained. “It’ll keep the bleeding in limbo until you take the coin out of his hand. It’s the only way he’ll survive this.”
“He said he didn’t think any vital organs were hit,” I murmured, looking down at him.
“Yes, well, I’ve seen enough people get stabbed to know that his pallor is indicative of massive hemorrhaging,” Isadora replied, then looked at Jacob. “Are you okay?”
Jacob shook his head slowly. “I had to… I had no other choice.”
Isadora frowned at me, confused. “What’s he talking about? He’s clearly in shock.”
I pointed at Emmett’s lifeless body. Isadora glanced over her shoulder, noticing him and the gaping hole in his stomach.
“I had to,” Jacob repeated, his voice barely audible.
Isadora got up and gripped his shoulders firmly. “Jake. It’s okay. You’re safe now. It’s over, honey.”
“It’s not over,” Jacob replied. He fumbled through his pants pockets and handed me two small leather satchels. I didn’t recognize the symbols painted on them, but I already knew what they were. “They had me hold on to them,” he went on. “I’m sorry, Harley… I really am…”
“Oh God!” I breathed, forgetting all about Jacob’s guilt. “We need to get back to the house!”
Isadora sighed. “Death of a Thousand Cuts,” she replied, recognizing the hex bags in my hand. “The Ryders’ doing?”
“Yes! Please, take us back. Now!”
I was terrified that we were already too late. Garrett had said Mrs. Smith had only had a few minutes as it was. How long have we been out here?
Thank God Isadora got a move on. She put her hand out and opened another wormhole to our right.
“Take Wade with you,” she ordered. “I’ll send word for the coven’s security magicals to come pick the Ryders up. I’ll take Jacob away.”
“Oh, wait. But—”
“You know he’s not safe in the coven yet,” she cut me off. “He’ll be with me. A Portal Opener and a Magical Detector like him will pit magicals against each other. Katherine won’t stop until she gets him. I’ve eluded her for all these years, Harley. Jacob’s better off with me. I wanted him to be able to have a normal life, but his abilities are too rare and too precious for him to stay out in the open.”
I exhaled, not having the time to argue. “Okay. And when will I see you again?” I asked. “You can’t go disappearing on me again. And Alton Waterhouse really wants to talk to you!”
“Soon. I promise. And don’t worry about Alton. I’ll deal with him when the time is right,” she replied, then she and Jacob helped me up.
They lifted Wade off the ground as well. I put my arms around him, holding him tight as Isadora used her Telekinesis to pick us both up and toss us through the wormhole. I wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth, or if I was ever going to see her again. My instinct told me yes, but the pragmatic side of me wasn’t yet convinced. But she did have a point. Jacob was safer with her for now.
In the meantime, however, I still had a life to save.
I landed on my back with a thud, back in the Smiths’ living room. Wade was on top of me, horribly heavy and still.
“What the—” Garrett blurted when he saw us.
“Time Stopper. He’s got a Time Stopper on him. Get him off me!” I cried out.
Garrett and Tatyana immediately came by my side and pushed Wade off, and I jerked to my feet. Santana’s Orishas were shooting across the ceiling, sparkling green as they seemed to notice me—and cuts were working their way up Mrs. Smith’s torso, her shirt now also drenched in blood. Her complete silence made me fear the worst had already happened.
My heart in my throat, I tossed the hex bags in the air.
The Orishas darted toward them all at once. The impact caused a small explosion as the contents of the small satchels were obliterated.
Forty-One
Tatyana
It took me a while to figure out how this all ended.
After Harley finally halted the Death by a Thousand Cuts, Garrett ran into the bathroom and came back with a couple of wet towels, which he used to tend to Mrs. Smith’s cuts. She was out cold, as was her husband. But she was still alive, much to Harley’s relief.
“Why didn’t this place blow up?” I asked, slightly hazy due to the sudden turns and twists of what could’ve been our demise. “The runes. They were rigged to set this place alight,” I added, looking at Harley. “How did you get back here without setting them off?”
Harley sighed, the corner of her mouth twisting. “Emily said this house would blow up if anyone set foot through the door. Pretty sure we came in through a wormhole.”
“Wormhole trumps door. Nice loophole!” Santana said, then put her hands out, her twelve Orishas buzzing around her, brimming with energy. “Come on, ladies, you know what to do! Let’s take those runes down!”
The Orishas spread out through the walls of the house. A minute later, twenty security magicals spilled in, their Esprits glowing as they joined us on the scene.
Harley was lying on her side next to a frozen Wade. Astrid came in, joining Dylan as they both kneeled before Harley and Wade.
“I heard most of what happened through my earpiece,” Astrid said, pointing at her Bluetooth device. “Had we not left the channel on, I wouldn’t have known to stop the security magicals from going in.”
“Yeah, the Ryders rigged the place up real nice,” Garrett replied.
Two nurses entered to check on the wounded. They had Wade lifted by security magicals and carried outside, where the coven ambulance was waiting.
“Is he going to be okay?” Harley asked anxiously.
“He’s on a Time Stopper. It pretty much saved his life,” one of the nurses replied. “Doctor Krieger will look after him, don’t worry.”
“What about them?” Harley sighed, looking at Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
The nurse checked them both carefully, frowning as she assessed Mrs. Smith’s cuts. “She’ll live,” she said. “The husband is just knocked out.”
Harley nodded slowly. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Sure. What do you need? You don’t look so well yourself,” the nurse murmured.
“I’ll be fine. Can you just… Can you just wipe their memories clean of everything that happened from before they decided to foster Jacob? That’s about three or four weeks.” Harley exhaled again, cringing from the pain.
I almost felt it too, in the pit of my stomach. I could only imagine what she was going through. She would never have wanted such a solution to be applied to the Smiths, since it went against her general viewpoints of mind control. But this was a tough call, and she had made it.
“We’ll do that. We’ll do a whole cleanup operation here,” Garrett said to her. “Don’t worry about it. It’ll look like a botched home invasion. We’ll have the Smiths unconscious and call the cops as soon as we get rid of every trace of magic in this place, including ourselves.”