Double-Sided Witch (Covencraft Book 3) (30 page)

“Wait! Jade!” Paris yelled, not able to move faster - it was as though he were trapped in one of those horrible dreams where your body won’t do what you want it to, not matter how much you will it.

He made it two more steps toward the docks and he knew he wouldn’t make it in time. He knew what was going to happen before Jade moved again, before she started tipping forward, before she hit the water and he could hear her in his memory saying, ‘
I can’t swim.’

Even if Jade could swim, it was too cold. The water would be near freezing. Her body entered with a splash and she sunk under the surface. A strangled sound escaped his throat, as he fought against the magic holding him back. The licorice smell intensified, burning his nostrils. Underneath it, he could smell sage and vanilla and he knew that particular scent, but he couldn’t spare the mental processing power to chase the thought.

A burst of magic tore through the night with a crack of sound and a burst of light. It blinded him and made his ears ring. The pressure wave of it brought him to his knees. It wasn’t his magic and for a moment, he thought it was the unknown Sparrow Lady until he managed to look up and see her struggling on her knees as well. He’d never felt anything as powerful, hadn’t even known magic could be so powerful without any kind of warning preceding it. The Sparrow Lady stumbled to her feet and disappeared into a flock of birds, the flock of them swooping into the darkness of the forest. No longer trapped by her magic, Paris pushed to his feet, breathing in the strong smell of flowers and cloves - Jade’s magic. Linden blossom, his brain finally supplied. After all this time, he finally could place the scent of her magic. Linden blossoms and cloves. He staggered to the lakeshore and smelled grapefruit and cinnamon as well, only not as strong as Jade’s magic. His gait was off and he fell to his knees in the shallow water, the shock of the icy temperature causing him to gasp. He didn’t know what he thought he could do - in the cold, in the dark - only that he had to do something. He pushed to his feet again and yanked off his coat, throwing it to the shore. He sloshed further into the lake and was preparing to dive in when someone broke the surface, out by the dock.

It was her - Jade. She looked around, as though searching for something and then dived back into the water, gracefully, as though she knew how to swim, how to dive. Paris stumbled over the slightly rocky terrain, back out of the water and across the shoreline to the dock, running down the planks, his footfalls heavy and thick. He reached the end just as she broke through again, only this time, she wasn’t alone. She had someone in her arms, their head hanging forward, face obscured.

She must have heard him because she turned toward him.

“Here!” she shouted, trying to heft up the unknown person she held. Unthinking, he reached out and grabbed the person, the woman, under her shoulders and heaved her sodden, soaking body to the dock, laying her down before turning back to Jade.

Her teeth were chattering and she had both hands up on the dock, already trying to kick herself out of the water. Paris reached down and hauled her up too. She crawled on her knees to the other body, pushing the long, dark hair from around the woman’s face.

It was Jade.

They were both Jade.

Paris fell backward with a shock, landing on his ass hard. The body on the dock was prostrate, unmoving, but he could see in the silvery moonlight that blood was trickling from her ears and nose, running down the side of her head and into her hair.

The other woman leaned over the body and rested their foreheads together. She cradled the unconscious woman’s face, her fingers running through her wet hair. She was speaking, despite her teeth chattering and her body shivering. For a moment, her words sounded jumbled and didn’t make sense until Paris realized what she was saying.

“I’m awake now, it’s your turn. Wake up, Jade. Wake up.”

Paris swallowed hard and stared, open-mouthed at the woman who knelt over the body. She was kneeling over Jade, he realized.

“Who are you?” he asked, even though he knew what she would say before she spoke.

She looked at him and now that he was closer, he could see, even in the moonlight, the sharp green of her eyes.

“I’m Lily.”

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

For
a moment, Paris was at a loss. He stared at the two of them. Two identical women - one he thought he knew and the other an exact physical duplicate of her, who he did not know at all. Lily shivered, her teeth clacking together, and Paris could see her lips were slightly blue-tinged, as were her fingertips. She had pulled Jade partially into her lap and was holding her close, as though she had any warmth to give. Paris stumbled to his feet and ran back down the dock, to the lake edge, retrieving his coat. When he brought it back, he wasn’t sure who to give it to, but Lily made the decision for him, taking it from him when he held it out wordlessly and draping it over Jade.

“She’s breathing, but I can’t get her to open her eyes,” Lily said.

Paris knelt down and made a move to take Jade from Lily’s arms and Lily reared back, clutching Jade closer to her.

“I mean to carry her,” Paris clarified. “I hope you can walk?”

Lily nodded, but Paris began to doubt that she could with the way her body was wracked with cold. Her fingers were claws, digging into Jade’s shoulders even as Paris tried to gently pull Jade away. He managed to get her from Lily’s grasp and then heft her into his arms.

She’d been right before, she wasn’t a slight woman, but he could carry her out of the Preserve if it was necessary, which it appeared it was. What he couldn’t do was carry them both. Lily struggled to her feet, her teeth making horrible clacking sounds as they chattered. She started walking off the dock, Paris following her carrying Jade. Lily’s feet were bare - her pale toes also blue and Paris remembered Jade had lost her shoes on the way to the dock. Lily was wearing an exact copy of Jade’s outfit, even missing her shoes, as Jade was.

Jade was heavy in his arms and, though he was loathe to think it, all Paris could hear in his brain were the words, ‘dead weight.’ Jade was floppy, her body holding no position on its own and he had to keep a tight grip lest she simply slip out of his arms.

Christ, how the hell was he going to get them out of here?

A sound from the forest made both Paris and Lily turn their heads and he was confused when he saw bobbing lights and heard crunching footsteps along with voices. Then Callie broke through the trees with a headlamp on, followed by Josef from Counter-Magic, several other Counter-Magic agents and a two pairs of EMTs with medical bags and backboards.

The cavalry had arrived. Before he could open his mouth, Lily was hopping up and down on her bare feet.

“Here! We’re here!”

Everyone headed over to them immediately and Paris was quickly and efficiently separated from Jade by two EMTs, who took her and expertly laid her out on a backboard before he even realized his arms were empty. He looked over and saw Lily with the other two EMTs, while the Counter-Magic agents were working a perimeter around the lake. Josef and Callie came up to Paris, Callie with her open, expressive face and Josef looking slightly grim.

“You said bring help,” Callie said, shrugging a bit.

Paris lunged forward and hugged her tightly, so, so grateful for her friendship in that moment. He’d called her in a blind panic, not even knowing what to ask for and she came through for him, for Jade.

She patted him gingerly on the back. “Is everyone okay?”

He pulled away from her, looking at Lily as she was wrapped in several blankets and told to sit down despite her protests that she was fine. He then looked at Jade being strapped to a backboard, still unconscious.

“Holy shit!” Callie exclaimed, looking from Lily to Jade. “Who is that?”

It hit Paris that Callie was talking about
Jade
when she said that. She was staring at Jade unconscious on the backboard and Lily arguing with the EMTs. Callie just assumed the conscious woman, declaring she’d be fine once she warmed up, was Jade.

Josef edged closer to Paris. “Should I be working up some kind of containment spell right about now?” he asked, eyeballing an unconscious Jade. God, they both thought that Lily was Jade.

“Yes, I mean, no,” Paris said. “Not for her, not for either of them. There was someone else here. I didn’t see her face. She had Jade under some kind of a compulsion spell and was blocking me. I need your agents out looking for her.”

“The Sparrow Lady,” Lily interrupted, batting the hands of the EMT away and breaking free of them to come next to Paris. “She smells like licorice.” She paused as though remembering something. “And she has blue eyes.”

“Anything else?” Josef said to her.

She turned and looked at him, stopping stockstill and blinking, her eyes wide and bright. “I know you.”

Josef smiled wryly at her. “I should hope so since you work for me.”

Lily shook her head. “No, I mean, I know you from before.”

Josef raised an eyebrow at Paris and he wanted to explain, but he didn’t know how.

“I’m so glad you’re okay!” Callie exclaimed, laying a hand on Lily’s arm.

Lily looked down for a second, then up at Callie and then her whole body shifted slightly and she smiled at Callie. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“I thought you told Henri and I you were tired of saving the world.”

“I am,” Lily said easily, “I told you guys it was someone else’s turn next, but I keep being the only one around when shit goes down.”

Paris’ mouth went dry. If he hadn’t known she was Lily, if he couldn’t still see Jade on the ground with EMTs by her side, he would never know this was Lily pretending to be Jade.

Callie lurched forward and hugged her and Lily hugged her back, just as Jade would - slightly awkward, but heartfelt.

One of the EMTs stood up from where he was kneeling next to Jade. “We have to get her to the medlab. She’s hypothermic and in shock.”

Lily pushed past both Callie and Paris. “I’m going with you.”

“You don’t even have shoes,” Paris protested, following her.

“I have one,” she said, holding up the one sneaker that had been on the dock. “I’ll pick up the other on the way out.”

The EMTs had already picked Jade up on the backboard and started carrying her out. Lily was hot on their heels, even only in one shoe, with Paris right behind her. He paused for a moment, torn between Josef and his Counter-Agents and following Jade. As Coven Leader, he should stay and try to find the Sparrow Lady. But he wanted to go with Jade.

“Go,” Callie said, waving him on. “I can stay here and be an interim ‘you.’”

“Thank you,” he called, darting after Lily and the EMTs.

He caught up with Lily after only a few steps and placed a careful hand on her shoulder. She turned her head slightly but didn’t break her pace, keeping up with the EMTs despite being soaking wet and in a blanket.

“You pretended to be her,” Paris said, keeping his voice low enough that the EMTs wouldn’t hear.

“What? Oh, back there? Yes, I did. I thought it would be easier than trying to explain.”

“Don’t do it again,” he said flatly. He hadn’t liked it. It had been flawless. If not for the color of her eyes and having her tell him not moments before that she was Lily, he doubted he would have known. It scared the hell out of him. She nodded once, in accession.

He wanted to start asking her questions, but hiking out of the Preserve wasn’t exactly conducive to conducting an interview or an interrogation. Lily struggled to keep up with the EMTs, but she only paused once - when they came across the second shoe on the pathway and she picked it up, jamming it on her foot. They finally broke through the forest back in the parking area, where there were two ambulances and four cars.

The car that had been there when Paris arrived however, the Sparrow Lady’s car, was gone.

The EMTs loaded Jade in the back of the ambulance and Lily scrambled in after her with Paris following a close second. They both got a look from an EMT but he said nothing.

“Can you tell me how she is?” asked Paris. Lily had the closer spot and had already tucked one of Jade’s hands into her own. Paris felt a little like a third wheel, stuck at the end of the bed.

The EMT gave him the basics, which wasn’t much. She was unconscious, she was unresponsive, she was bleeding from the ears and nose, and she was hypothermic. Their biggest concern was to get her warm and then get her to medlab, where Dr. Gellar would be meeting them. It wasn’t anything that Paris didn’t already know, but somehow hearing it come from professionals made it seem more real.

The remainder of the way to the Coven was silent with Paris unable to take his eyes off of Lily or Jade.

Dr. Gellar met them on the steps to the Covenstead, her small stature even more dwarfed by the building as it loomed behind her. The Covenstead was dark, with only minimum lighting this late at night, or early morning. Some decorative lighting, some spot lights for security and maybe one or two lights accidentally left on by a witch were the only illumination.

After the number of times Jade had required medical attention in the short time since she’d come to live at the Coven, you would think that Paris would be used to her being spirited away by medical personnel, while he was left to wait outside closed doors. Only this time, he wasn’t alone. He had a companion.

Lily kept pace with him the entire way to medlab, brushing off a nurse who asked if she needed assistance. While she wasn’t actively pretending to be Jade, Paris noted everyone just assumed she was. Who they thought the real Jade was, the one who’d been whisked in with Dr. Gellar, Paris could not say.

Lily disappeared for a few moments in medlab, causing Paris to wonder if she had somehow gotten to see Jade, until she came back in a pair of scrubs, drying her hair with a plain white medical towel. She smirked as she looked down at herself.

“What?” Paris asked.

She looked up at him, still partially smiling. “Jade’s stolen a couple of pairs of these and wondered if she should feel guilty, but decided not to until her total reached five. I’ll have to tell her to add one to her running count.”

“You assume she’ll be fine.” Paris said it like it was a statement, but in his heart, he felt it more like a question. Lily didn’t seem worried about Jade. Or rather, as worried as he thought she would be.

“Of course she’ll be fine,” Lily said, her voice steady and even.

Paris studied her. “How do you know? Can you feel something? Do you know something?”

Lily blinked, her eyes bright and clear. “No, not really, it’s just… I’m here, so of course she will be too.”

“I understood that she existed without you for many years.”

“Well, yes. But I was just away.” She frowned. “Or asleep, I suppose.”

“And what if Jade sleeps now?”

“Why would she?” Lily seemed genuinely confused.

“Why did you?” Paris countered.

Lily’s hands slowed from where they were towel-drying her hair. “We’re not ready to discuss that.”

It was odd the way she so easily made decisions on behalf of Jade, and yet Paris was certain that if Jade were here, she would have made the same choice. She’d not told Paris how she and Lily separated and Paris didn’t think that Lily would tell him now either.

Lily went to the couches in the sitting area and dropped herself down on them heavily, still working on her hair with the towel. Paris stepped over to her slowly, cautiously.

“I don’t bite,” she said.

“You admit this situation is quite extraordinary.”

“I suppose.” At his look she continued. “I mean, sure, it’s kind of weird, but we were always two people, stuck in one body.” She shrugged. “Honestly, this is probably the most normal that I’ve felt in a long time. We’re separate now.” She paused, her eyebrows coming together slightly. “Kind of like we always should have been, I think.”

“What do you mean?” Paris took a seat on the sofa gingerly, sitting further from her than he would if it were Jade. He could still feel her power, so different from Jade’s. Lily’s power was quite reserved and aloof. Paris wasn’t sure if Lily herself were even aware of it.

“I’m sure you probably wondered at some point if this was some kind of dissociative identity, but it’s not. I think you know about our childhood?” she asked and then nodded like she was answering her own question. If they shared memories as fully as Jade had indicated, she probably
was
answering her own question - flipping through their memories until she found what she was looking for. “Yes, she told you a bit about it. So, abusive childhood. It was awful and it sucked, but it wasn’t personality altering. I am not her and she is not me.” Lily sounded so sure, so absolute. “Jade told you that she never remembered a time before me, but I do remember a time before her. I remember when it was only me in the body and my memories of that are quite good. I was young, but I don’t think dad drank then and mom was a real mom. I remember part of a birthday party and I got a yellow dress and I was really happy about it. Things like that. It was only after Jade showed up that things changed. Not before.”

Paris moved, easing himself back on the couch. “What do you mean?”

Finished with her hair, Lily started folding the towel on her lap, fiddling with it. “When I remember it, one day I was alone and the next day I wasn’t. Jade was there.”