But not everyone had been so lucky …
With reluctance, I peered over to where Bishop sat huddled in a ball. I choked back a sob for the hundredth time. His angular cheekbone rested against the window as he stared out vacantly, a million miles away. Or at least a few thousand, back in Manhattan where his true love lay, charred in a heap of ash. He had watched Fiona burn, struck down by the witches, unable to do anything to stop it, and now he was lost. He hadn’t spoken a word since. He refused all offers of blood with nothing more than a growl. My heart ached every time I looked over at him, hoping this was all a mistake, hoping that I’d see Fiona’s violet eyes twinkling back at us. But I had seen those eyes firsthand, and they were no longer twinkling. She was never coming back.
We had lost Julian’s sister, Valentina, as well as my dear grandfatherly guardian Leo, in the mountains. Fiona in Manhattan … so many and the war hadn’t even begun. Who would be next?
The plane’s lights flashed and reflected off the bed of clouds as our plane cut through. “Fifteen more minutes,” Sofie whispered. I couldn’t help but sense trepidation in her voice. Weird. Sofie was normally so good at hiding her unease. Suddenly, Mage and Sofie vanished from their seats. They reappeared in Bishop’s corner opposite each other, Bishop sandwiched in the middle. Sofie loomed in front of him, Mage behind. Bishop’s cold charcoal eyes narrowed suspiciously as they raised to meet Sofie’s. She met his look with one of intense determination and I saw recognition flitter on his face, his expression and posture changing to that of a caged animal, ready to spring. Wild eyes darted around the cabin as if searching for an escape route.
“What’s going on?” I whispered to Caden, gripping his muscular forearm tightly. Too tightly probably but, then again, I couldn’t hurt him.
Caden pulled me closer until my back was pressed up against his chest, but he said nothing. Amelie mimicked the protective position with Julian, now conscious and sitting up wide-eyed and confused.
Sofie’s lips began moving subtly, inaudibly. Her hands rose, her fingertips spread apart. A deep growl of protest escaped Bishop’s sullen mouth. Mage instantly pounced on him, one delicate arm wrapped around his neck in a headlock while the other pushed down on his shoulder. Bishop fought back, his tall lean body thrashing from side to side, attempting to twist out of Mage’s grasp. Her knuckles whitened as her fingers dug into his collarbone.
And then Bishop stopped moving. Mage backed away, freeing him to run. He didn’t. He was stationary. Not a twitch of a finger, not a shift of a foot. Nothing but his pupils rolling over the cabin.
Instantly, I knew what had happened. “A spell,” Caden whispered, echoing my bewildered thoughts.
“But … why? I don’t understand. He’s not going to hurt us!” I said.
With strong, forceful hands, Caden gripped my arms and turned me around to face him. He gently caressed my cheekbone with a single finger. “That’s where you’re wrong,” he answered softly. A shiver ran down my spine. “Bishop has only one thing on his mind, Evangeline … revenge. He’s been eyeing that emergency exit since Sofie announced we weren’t going back to New York.”
I frowned, shaking my head. I hadn’t noticed. But … that didn’t make sense. “He could have done a swan dive from thirty-thousand feet and survived, so why wait?” I argued.
“You. You stopped him.”
My face pinched, my confusion deepening.
“If he broke the seal of the door up here, we would lose cabin pressure and the plane would crash. You wouldn’t survive. He knows that,” Caden explained, squeezing my shoulders. “But I’m sure he was planning on bolting the second he thought it was safe enough.”
“And we can’t have him doing that,” Sofie interrupted, taking her place beside me once again. She smiled sympathetically. “We don’t know what is waiting for us in Manhattan. There’s an army of witches there, armed with Merth. The last thing we need is Bishop starting a one-man war with them on the streets of New York. He’d get himself killed.”
Bishop, dead? No … But this? I looked over at him, our broken friend, sitting upright, his hands folded on his lap, as if his body were bound by cords of rope. Invisible magic rope. Wasn’t there another option?
“I know you don’t like it. I don’t like doing it, either,” Sofie went on as if reading my mind, which I’m sure she likely was doing. She offered a reassuring pat on my knee.
I looked over at Bishop again and sucked in a deep breath as his eyes fixed on me, raw pain screaming, begging for relief. Begging for freedom from his internal agony as we sat here, plotting … “How long does he have to stay like that?” I asked in a pained voice, feeling like a wolverine had taken up residence inside me and was tearing apart my insides.