CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

I come to at a rotted wood door.  My skin is hot, sticking to plastic as I push myself up from a blue tarp. The foul stench of manure attacks my nose and I cringe, biting back the vomit stirring in my gut.

I groan. My body aches in places I never thought possible. My joints pop as I stretch out my arms, trying to shake some energy back into them.

Damn, I need a Redbull.

Though a little unstable at first, I manage to stand up and survey the area. The sky's still grey and snow coats the ground, but bits of green poke through it in patches, as if the snow started melting overnight.

I take a few steps forward and the nausea hits me like a freight train. I push up against the wall, closing my eyes as the wave subsides. It's like my equilibrium evaporated with the snow.

Where the hell am I?

A bit off in the distance, there's a fence made of wood and barbed wire that rolls from the edge of this barn and disappears over the hill. Past that, all I see is open sky and a few black dots indicating either animals or people.

When the first door handle I find doesn't budge, I make my way around the building until I find another latch that does. It takes my sight a moment to adjust to the dim, the only illumination coming from the broken window to my right.

The barn is mostly empty, save an old lawnmower and some horse equipment stacked on top a dresser. I move toward it, quickly checking each section until I come across a pair of forgotten jeans in the bottom drawer. They smell like old dirt and have oil stains where there aren't holes, but they're enough coverage to let me venture without shifting again.

There's an old winter coat on a hook near the door and a pair of rubber boots hidden below it. I put them both on quickly, and make my way from the barn, taking a left down the driveway that parts the forest.

I don't I recognize my surroundings. The trees, the fields...hell, even the air is different here. There's nothing familiar about this place. There's not even a trace of magic in the air. I can't really say I'm disappointed in that, though.

Last thing I remember was shifting. Shifting in the cold, dark forest near the school. Was that yesterday? Two days ago? I've blacked out after shifting before, but the longest I've gone rogue was three days, tops. If I knew how long it's been this time, I'd debate shifting again, just to get the hell out of dodge faster. But then I remember the excruciating pain of that first Elite shift, and I resort to sticking to the path instead.

I listen intently as I walk, searching for any sort of highway sounds or low-flying planes, but all I hear is the wind, sometimes followed by a deafening silence.

I keep trudging down the road, following the slushy mud as it curves around the hills and white houses. I keep going until the sky darkens three shades and the dirt and snow finally overpower the smell of shit.

When the gust of prairie wind dies down again, a faint, buzzing sound starts to ring in my ears. At first, I think it's a fly or bee, but the sound gets louder with each step. Finally, I stop and the buzz barrels into me like a ray of heat. A yellow light, as bright and loud as a flare, explodes behind me. It's followed by the high-pitched squealing of old brakes.

"Beck!" Ollie's voice calls out. She's already squeezing me into a hug by the time I match the voice to her face. "Oh my god! I have been searching for you everywhere!"

She pulls back. Her eyes welling.

"What took you so long?" I joke, but she doesn't smile. She looks tired, I realize. Her eyes are bloodshot; her skin is duller than I'm used to. Her hair is longer. Barely, but long enough to make me worry.

"Where are we?" I ask and the immediate look of concern she gives me makes me instantly regret asking.

"We're just a little outside Wenatchee," she answers, but I can see the pile of questions building behind her furrowed brow. "Come on, I left Pete at a gas station a few miles back."

We pull into a Quik-Stop with a breakfast place attached. Pete's inside, already sitting with plates of bacon and eggs and biscuits set out for us.

It takes me all of two seconds to sit and shovel half a sausage patty in my mouth.

Ollie slides next to Pete and waits for the waitress to fill my mug with over-brewed coffee.

"Whoa man," Pete says. "Slow your roll. I know I owe you one, but I really don't want to perform the Heimlich today."

I swallow down another chunk of sausage. "Sorry, guys. It feels like I haven't eaten a real meal in days."

Ollie doesn't say anything, and her silence makes my hair prick up.

"What?" I ask.

She looks at Pete quickly, and avoids my eye contact when she turns her head back in my direction.

"Ollie, what is it?"

"Beck, we haven't seen you in almost three months."

The fork clatters against the edge of the plate. "What?"

She nods. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"The dance," I say. "The fire at the school."

Ollie frowns.

"Holy shit, man. I can't even imagine. I mean, I freak out when I wake up at nine AM thinking it's six." Pete quickly adds, "not that three hours is comparable to three months."

"What happened?" I ask. My appetite has vanished. "Don't spare me the details."

She sighs. "I'm not sure exactly what happened after I went with Pete to the hospital, but we couldn't get a hold of you for days after the fire. First, I thought that maybe you were hiding out. Taking time to recuperate after everything, but when a week went by, I really started to worry. So I went to every single place I could think of to look for you, but you were never there. I even went back to the bar, but there was nothing left except your brother's cabin."

"You went back there?" I practically growl the words, fists clenching at my sides. "That is the last place you should be after what they did."

"I know, but the place is vacant," she says, her voice lower now that random people are staring at us. "I don't know when, but the wolves left."

I scoff. "They're still there." When she frowns, I add, "they may not be there currently, but that territory is still theirs. That's where the Elite anchor is. When they're ready to rebuild, they will. You can't go back there, no matter what."

She nods as if only to appease me. "Your brother is dead. Officially. There was a ceremony where your parents are buried. So is Cruxley."

The outer corner of my eye twitches.

Ollie and I both fall silent for a long moment, as if the same memories are flashing through both of our heads. Cruxley forced us here. Whether intentional or not, it was her destructive need for power that brought all of us together, in one form or another.

"What about Conall?" I finally ask the words plaguing me since I woke up at the barn.

Pete clears his throat. Ollie stares at him, as if pleading for him not to say something. He nudges her arm, instead.

"Beck, you don't want to hear this."

"Don't spare me," I warn.

She nods, slowly exhaling a long breath. "I don't know if the Shelland you knew exists anymore."

My knuckles pop from squeezing my fists so hard. "How so?"

"Beck..."

"Just tell him, Olivian," Pete says, taking hold of her hand on the table.

I bite down on the inside of my cheek, fixating my stare on hers.

"Like you, she disappeared for a while, too. But, about a month after the fire, signs of her started popping up."

Pete continues for her, "We didn't know it was Shell at first. There were just random fires, or accidents here or there, but then Damien noticed there was a pattern starting."

"A pattern?"

Pete shakes his head. "Yeah. The fires and stuff. When you separate them, they all just seem like random, fluke accidents. But Damien traced them on a map, and when we did one of those, um..."

"We used the same detecting spell that we used when we were looking for Cruxley. The one that lead you to Raif's house," Ollie says.

Pete says, "yeah, and the map lit up like Times Square on New Year's."

"Each dot on the map was either a home or business that belonged to an ex-coven witch, and each spot has been completely demolished--burned right to the ground."

"How many?"

"How many?" Ollie repeats my question. "How many dots?"

"How many people have died in those fires?"

Pete slinks back into his seat and Ollie takes another breath. "Last we checked was a few days ago, but the body count was near two-dozen."

I lean forward, resting my temples in each of my palms. Two-dozen bodies. Twenty-four people have died and it's all my fault.

"Right now, the news thinks it's a string of attacks from some sort of arson group, but we know it's Shelland." Pete sighs. As if seeing my question before I ask it, he tacks on, "There's a symbol at each site, and it's hers. I know it's hers cause a while back, there was this thing with a trucker she was freaked out about. She told me she marked him with some weird symbol she'd never seen before."

That was the night she found me at the bar, the same night she burned it down. She was panicked about her first brush with magic.

"I should have been there," I say, words grating against my teeth. Instead, I was roaming through the woods, doing who-knows-what. 

"Beck, you can't blame yourself. Whatever is happening with Shelland, that's on her. She wasn't being honest with us."

I shake my head, but Ollie keeps talking. "That night, at the dance. Did you know she was talking to someone inside her head? I thought she was just talking to herself at first, like the overflow of magic had driven her crazy. But Damien and Pete and I have had nothing but time to analyze everything and we think that someone was talking back to her."

I frown. "I'm really not in the mood for jokes."

"She's not joking," Pete responds.

"How? Why?"

"Because of this." Ollie turns, reaching down into the backpack smushed between Pete and the wall.

She sets her grimoire on the table. The edges of it are burnt, with ash pressed inside the leather creases. She opens it open, and with her thumb, rapidly flips through the pages. I've seen that grimoire a thousand times, and every time it was opened, the pages were layered with ancient text and drawings and scribbles, all made throughout hundreds of years. Now as she flips through it, every single page is blank.

"Where is everything?" I ask, hushing my voice as the waitress glides by.

Ollie shakes her head. "It could have been Shelland, or it could have been something Cruxley did when she performed the Elite ritual. I wish I knew for sure. Either way, it puts us right back at square one."

"We'll figure it out," Pete tries to reassure her. "Damien's working with my mom to get it all sorted."

"Your mom?" I ask.

Pete nods. "Yeah, turns out Shell's parents aren't the only ones with secrets. I don't even think my Dad knows she's a witch. We just thought she was crazy into herbology."

"Speaking of Sarah Kemp," Ollie adds, reaching back into her bag. When she pulls her hand back out, a chain drops from her clasped fingers.

I hold out my hand and Ollie lays the item into my palm. A rush of relief courses through me as the familiar stone hits my skin.

"Her necklace? I thought for sure it burnt up with the school."

"The protection spell," Ollie replies. "I think when I cast that, it protected the necklace itself, too."

"Yeah, it's helped keep my license intact, too! Even if I accidentally sit with it in my back pocket. No bend-marks." Pete grins.

"We've been working with Pete's mom, since she's the one that created the Ironide. But she was telling us about the necklace. It originally belonged to Naomi Bishop."

"That's Shell's mom," he adds.

"It's some sort of family heirloom that's been passed down from witch to witch." Ollie takes a breath. "I knew it looked familiar the first time she wore it. I actually think there was a picture of it in my family grimoire." She adds, "Apparently, it's literally been passed down for centuries."

"And that means?"

"That means that it's incredibly powerful. As in there are actual myths based around it." For the first time in a long while, Ollie's eyes light up. Her brother's get the same way when he talks about something fascinating to him. "Some of the old coven thought it had the ability to counteract any repercussions of casting for those who wore it. Some say the stone can be used in a solstice ritual to cleanse the Gaia of excess Umbra energy. A lot of them actually think the stone harbors souls. Like, they say the stone and filigree are both made of the same elements soul collectors use to bind a soul for transport."

I let out a snort. "If you believe in that sort of thing."

Ollie shrugs. "At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if a vampire walked into this diner and ordered a Bloody Mary."

Pete laughs, which breaks some of the tension splayed on Ollie's face. I wish it could wipe away my own tension, but knowing that Conall is out there, barbequing coven witches sets my whole body on edge.

"So, how did Sarah end up with it if it's Conall's heirloom?"

"Naomi. When her and Raif decided to run off, she gave up her magic, and that meant that she forfeited her right to the necklace because she could no longer protect it. I guess tried to pass it to my mom, but she said no—probably because of my family's own history with Umbra magic."

Pete says, "My mom said that she was actually impressed that Shell could open the jewelry box it was in, because she enchanted it with some sort of complex spell. But I was with her when she found it. She opened that thing like it was just a jewelry box."

"I think Shelland is a lot more powerful than any of us realized. Even her." Ollie sighs. "I mean, for the longest time, I didn't even see that she had an aura. Neither did you, Beck. And then one day, it was just there and it was brighter than any other aura I have seen."

I stare at the stone, fixating on the sheen of blue and white and a hint of yellow. It's hard to explain, but holding this small stone in my hand, makes my blood buzz the way it did when her fingers laced through mine. As if she were here now, holding onto me.

"Wait," I say, clutching onto the necklace. "You said some people believe the stone can hold a soul?"

"Yes."

"How can you see if a soul is inside?"

"I'm not sure we can. At least, not without my grimoire." Ollie shifts forward, cutting my line of sight from stone to her eyes. "Why, what are you thinking?"

"We put a protection spell on this, which essentially bound it to Conall. What if...what if when the blast went off it pulled Shelland's soul inside? To protect it?" My pulse pounds in my chest.

Pete's brows pull tight together. "Sure, I mean it's an interesting theory, but how could Shell be running around burning down covens if her soul were sucked into this necklace?"

I pause a moment, thinking through every bit of magic mumbo-jumbo I know. "Holy shit."

"What?" Ollie and Pete ask in unison.

"What if when it took her soul, it left her body open for another?" I ask. My heart is beating so rapidly I think it might explode. "Think about it! How her aura went from zero to sixty? Or how she was able to cast complex spells without help? I mean, you said yourself that night that her energy was all over the place. You mentioned that she was talking to herself the night of the fire. But you also thought that she was maybe talking to someone inside her head."

"What are you saying, Beck?"

"What if she was talking to another soul? A soul harbored in this—" I hold up the stone. "What if taking her off the Ironide gave a soul inside full access to Shelland's power? So whatever—whoever it was that she was talking to that night, they're the one causing the fires?"

Ollie shakes her head, as if still trying to process this theory. "In order to for magic of that caliber to take over someone's consciousness, that person would have to fully submit themselves to it. You know this better than anyone."

The comment, though unintended, twists like a knife in my gut. She is right. For anyone, including werewolves, to have their will ripped away from them, either has to willingly volunteer or be broken down until they're forced to submit.

Ollie continues to stare off, as if thinking through the past several months with Conall. She has to know I'm right. It's the only thing that makes sense. If this necklace had the soul of a witch inside, and then I convinced her to wean off of the Ironide, that would have left Conall open to any connection from either side of the energy pool.

"So, you think Shell is in there?" Pete asks, pointing at the stone. "If that's true, how do we get her out?"

"I have no idea. But I'm willing to do anything to find out."

Finally, Ollie moves, sitting back to match Pete.  "Beck, if this is true, we have to be careful. No one knows how powerful Shelland's traveler is. That necklace is so old that that soul could belong to anyone."

Ishrug, widening the chain and stretching it up until I can pull it over my ownhead. I let it fall beneath the neck of the quilted jacket, feeling themoonstone buzz against my chest. "The only thing I've ever feared losing, Ilost. So, there's nothing left to keep me from finding her. I will save Shelland, even if I have to die trying."