Witch & Wizard 04 - The Kiss (20 page)

I might be able to heal, but I haven’t conquered death. My power can fail, and I keep forgetting that. And right now, it’s not working, and Janine’s not waking up.

It’s just like with Sasha.

“No!” The scream rips through me with the thought. I can’t go through that again. Not with her.

Men are screaming all around me, running for their lives. We’re still in range of a few archers, though, and for a moment, I
want
their arrows to hit me. I want to feel the pain, to curl up next to Janine and go to sleep with her forever so I don’t have to deal with this loss. It already hurts so much I want to tear out my own heart.

Because I don’t know how to fix this.

Janine is the clearheaded one. What would she do? She always seems to have the answers, but I can’t ask her now.

Stop the blood
, I can almost hear her saying.
Keep her warm, get her conscious, and stop the bleeding.

I tear off my rough vest and press the mangy fur against her, but the bleeding is too widespread and the cuts are too deep. I need to stitch them up, or cauterize the wounds—something I’ve only read about and have no idea how to do. For a healer, I’m totally useless when it comes to these basic skills. I don’t have any supplies anyway.

All I have is my magic.

And it’s failing me. Again.

No.
I bite down hard on my tongue, controlling a sob. The flames climb around us and I can feel the heat pressing in dangerously, but I can’t turn away from her. Not yet.

It doesn’t have to be like with Sasha. I healed Wisty from worse. And Njar, who seemed so lost when I first saw him. He came back, didn’t he?

He came back for love
, I remember.

I
do
love Janine, I realize with crushing agony. I love her so much I can’t imagine leaving this Mountain without her.

I kiss her cheek and taste her blood, and think of the first time I felt the beginnings of that love. Even though I couldn’t admit it to myself at the time, it started with that first poem. I recited it just for her, and her bold smile made me blush.

Poems used to turn into spells for me, before I could call the magic on my own. They used to have so much power….

I prop Janine up in my lap one more time.

You can control this. You can stop it
, I tell myself.
This is what you were made to do.

I concentrate intensely as I touch her shoulders, and even though I thought I barely had anything left, the M feels alive on my fingers again.

“
Methought that joy and health alone could be / Where I was not…”
I start, surprised I remember it after so long.

The poem becomes a spell as I say the words, and I think of Janine’s intelligent eyes, her sharp laughter. I hover my hands over her torn neck and her exposed ribs.

The air around us moves with the force of my magic, and the heat from my sister’s fire seems to help fuel it. I clench my hands into fists next to Janine’s head, urging the power out, shaking with the incredible effort.

At first I can barely see it, but it’s there. It’s happening. The wounds are mending. Before my eyes, the fibers of the muscle are weaving together; the cells are regenerating; the skin is covering the bone.

She’s healing.

I pull her body toward me, rocking her.
Please, please.

Janine’s eyes flutter, and I inhale sharply, so afraid to hope—so afraid I imagined it.

Then I feel her hand twitch. Her fingers squeeze mine weakly, and I totally lose it. Before she can speak, I’m laughing and sobbing and kissing her all over her face—her eyelids and her cheeks and her teeth and her hair.

I don’t stop until she starts to cough, and then I help her sit up, still holding her as she spits out blood.

I’m weeping openly now. “I thought I lost you,” I sputter. “I thought you…” Even now, the word feels too terrible.
“Died.”

“I did for a minute, I think,” Janine murmurs. “I saw Celia, wherever I was. She told me to come back here. She told me I would never find a better person than Whit Allgood. She—” Her eyes fill with grateful tears. “She told me to love you with all my heart. And I do.”

I cradle her against me. “I love you, too, Janine,” I choke out. “I love you so much.”

“I get it now, Whit,” she says. “It’s
our
time to be together.”

Chapter 61

Wisty

THE SMELL OF burning wood is intoxicating. Our fire rages on, a wall of orange spreading from tree to tree, and with each second it blazes, I feel stronger.

It’s the horses that run first. With white eyes bulging, they throw their riders as they flee.

There are screams and warnings in a rough, guttural language as Mountain People stumble through the smoke. The arrows keep coming for a long time, but eventually, even the bravest turn in terror.

All but a strange woman dressed in white, walking right through the flames.

“Stay back!” I yell.

I raise my fist to throw a lightning bolt, but Heath stops my arm, breaking our connection abruptly. Something’s wrong here: Heath, a powerful wizard at his most fearsome and unforgiving seconds ago, seems to shrink as the wispy figure glides toward us across the snow, closer and closer.

Who is this mysterious woman?

Close up, she’s tall and elegant, with milky, ageless skin and a severity to her gaze. My eyes flick to Heath uncertainly. I stay on my guard, ready to attack, but I won’t make a move until he does.

She studies me with glittering eyes. “So
this
is who all the fuss is about.”

I feel awkward under her gaze, but Heath looks even more uncomfortable. He looks guilty. And almost, almost…
apologetic
.

“Mother, this is Wisty,” he mumbles.

I stare at him, shocked. This is his
mom
?

“Who could forget Wisty Allgood, the volatile, hot-headed girl who’s destroying the world?” she says.

“Excuse me?” I bristle. Not exactly the warm welcome you envision when you meet your boyfriend’s mom.

Heath’s mother gestures at the blackened trees. “You come to our home and burn down the forest?”

“We were attacked,” I protest, my cheeks reddening.

“Tell me, would you burn your people, too?”

“That’s enough, Mother,” Heath warns.

“Have I taught you nothing?” she snaps at him. “A witch and a wizard must never be together.”

“Those were your rules. Old rules, from a different time.”

“And I play by my own rules,” I say defiantly, and snatch up his hand again. I don’t know exactly how I feel about Heath right now, but I know I don’t appreciate being told I
can’t
date someone.

The woman in white purses her lips. “The magic is sweet, isn’t it?” she asks, and her voice is softer, nostalgic. “It gets in your blood. It makes your heart race and rage with its power.” She nods knowingly. “And then it drives you mad.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Heath says tersely. “I’m in control.”

“Your father thought he was in control, too.”

Heath grinds his teeth. “I’m not my father.”

“The power warped his mind,” she continues. “He wanted more and more. He needed another witch whose magic he could harness and exploit. I can see why he was obsessed with this one.” She looks me up and down, and frowns. “He always had a thing for the color red. I thought you knew better, son.”

“What are you talking about?” I interrupt. “I didn’t even know his dad.”

She stares at Heath. “You didn’t tell her?”

When he doesn’t answer, the woman looks at me with pity.

“Tell me what?” I ask Heath with growing unease.

He scowls at his mother but won’t meet my eyes.

“Tell me what?” I’m almost shouting now. “Heath,
who was your father
?”

Chapter 62

Wisty

“THE ONE,” HEATH says quietly, and my skin crawls like a thousand spiders are swarming over me.

I’m not sure if I heard him right, though, because I feel like my head is in a vise all of a sudden. The pines are closing in on me, and the ground is rising upward.

“I’m sorry—
what
?” I manage to choke out, steadying myself against a tree trunk. It’s the only thing my brain seems to be able to come up with right now:
WHATWHATWHATWHATWHAT
, filling up my skull and pushing out my ears.

“My father was The One Who Is The One,” Heath says again. He has the decency to look me in the face while he stabs me in the back, at least.

I may vomit. Repeatedly.

“She doesn’t seem to be taking it well,” his mother observes. “Maybe you should sit down, child.”

“Shut
up
, Mother!” Heath explodes at her, and she goes silent as his voice echoes through the still-smoking forest, scaring up birds.

He steps forward, reaching for my arm. His tone softening, he says, “Wisty, listen to me—”

“No!” I shake my head furiously, backing away from him. I’m not sure what to do—whether I should run or rain fire—but right now, the thought of Heath’s touch is unbearable. “Don’t come near me,” I warn, narrowing my eyes and waving a threatening finger.

“Okay.” He holds his hands out in surrender, palms up. “I know it’s hard to see it this way right now, Wisty, but this little… piece of information… it doesn’t matter.”

I gape at him, finally starting to form clear thoughts.

“Of
course
it matters!” I retort.

The One was the most evil beast to walk the earth. I thought I destroyed everything he stood for, but somehow, Heath is his flesh and blood. How can it not matter when my whole world has been flipped upside down?

“Look, nothing’s changed. I’m still me. Everything we had—it was real.”

I stare at him—at the thick, dark hair, the broad shoulders, the lips that I still want to touch. Still Heath. But, even though I don’t see it, still
The One’s son
, somehow. I let him get close, and closer. I let him kiss me. I
asked
him to.

I shake my head defiantly, trying to put that out of my head. “I could never love someone who came from something so… so evil.”

“I know you did, though,” he insists. “I know you felt this—”

“Everything I felt was a lie!” I shriek. “Because you lied to me the entire time! How could you not tell me that?
HOW?
”

“I wanted to tell you, Wisty! There were so many times I almost did. But I knew you’d hate me for it. Just like this. Hate me for something I didn’t do.” His face crumples into a grimace, and he sinks to his knees and grabs my hand, begging. “Please don’t hate me. Please.”

“Don’t,” I sneer, yanking them back. “Don’t come near me.”

Whit walks toward us through the smoking trees with Janine in his arms.

I look up at him miserably, humiliation written on my face. He’s the last person I want to see me like this, but also the only one who could possibly understand. It’s all I can do not to run to him.

“What’s going on?” Whit asks, narrowing his eyes protectively when he sees the state I’m in.

“I’m fine.” I step away from the boy I thought I loved, fighting back the tears. “Let’s go.”

“You’re safer here, Wisty,” Heath insists, and reaches for my hand as I pass him. “I can protect you.”

“Don’t touch me!” I snap, wrenching my fingers away.

“Izbella—” Whit starts.
How does he know her?

“Go,” she urges. “The old Snow Leopard is sharpening his claws, and soon blood will flow into your City instead of water.”

Then the woman in white places a hand on Heath’s sagging shoulder, and they both vanish into thin air.

Chapter 63

Whit

THE SOUND OF our feet crunching in the snow is the only noise I hear for hours as Wisty and I carry Janine in the rough pelts.

This journey has definitely taken its toll, and my emotions are raw, a tangle of defeat and relief. I can only imagine what my sister is feeling.

Is she hurting? Is she heartbroken?

I want to ask her. To listen hard and tell her it’s going to be okay. To get angry if she needs me to. To hug her close.

It’s what I’d normally do without hesitation, what I’ve always done.

But her face is a stony mask behind me, and the awkwardness left over from our last fight still lingers, so we haven’t said a single word. I listen to my feet snapping the branches instead.

It’s going to be okay
, I keep thinking as we pass the warning signs from the way up and count down the miles. We’re on our way home, and Janine is going to recover.

What about Wisty and me, though? Will we ever be okay again?

The silence weighs on me more as the day drags on, making the stretcher seem heavier, the Mountain steeper, and the air colder on my bare skin.

Finally, when we’re almost on level ground and can see the jagged outlines of City buildings poking up on the horizon, we stop to adjust our grip on the pelts, and I can’t hold it in any longer.

“Wist—” I start.

“You don’t have to say it, Whit.”

Her composed face crumples before I can say anything, and the words tumble out with the tears.

“I never should’ve trusted Heath and I shouldn’t have let you go up this awful Mountain without me and if something had happened to you I’d probably have thrown myself off a cliff.” She shoves me angrily. “So you don’t have to say it, okay? I know I messed up and you were right about everything and I was wrong!” Her lip quivers, and she looks up at me with anguished eyes. “Okay?!”

I blink at her for a second, and then I wrap my sister in a fierce hug. Like I should’ve done from the beginning.

“No,” I say when it finally seems okay to pull back. “Not okay. I was wrong. I should never have left you behind, and everything blew up in my face. If you hadn’t shown up when you did to bail me out…” I look at Janine’s sleeping face and have to fight back the tears. “We both would’ve been done for.”