The End of Magic (The Witches of Echo Park #3)(66)

        

"The Red Chapel!" Evan began to yell, looking around at the others, using his eyes to encourage them to do the same.

Arrabelle was the first to understand what he was doing. She gave him a curt nod and began chanting. Dev and Daniela joined in next. Niamh was the last to add her voice to Lyse's spell-but the effect was instantaneous. The blue orb popped and they were free.


• • •

"Who was that?" Arrabelle asked as soon as they arrived.

They were in a part of the dreamlands that Evan and the others hadn't seen on their last trip, a flat expanse of land covered by a foot of water as far as the eye could see.

"I don't know. But whoever she was, I wanted to punch her," Daniela said, eyes blazing with anger.

Niamh raised her hand, the shy kid at the back of the classroom, waiting patiently to be called on.

"I think she knows," Evan said, pointing over at Niamh.

The others turned, silent now as they waited for Niamh to elaborate. Lyse stood with her hands on her hips, a modern-day Boadicea. Arrabelle, with her shorn head and athletic body, was Lyse's second-in-command. Daniela, small and scrappy, looked better than she had when they'd first gotten to the hospital, but her cheekbones still protruded from her elfin face and, in contrast to her brightly dyed hair, there were brown roots at the base of her scalp. With her physical softness, Dev looked maternal and easygoing, but Evan sensed a steely strength resonating inside her, undercutting that softness.

And then there was Niamh.

Evan had known Niamh and her twin, Laragh, since they were teenagers. He'd treated them both like they were his kid sisters. He knew how tough and strong Niamh was, knew she'd been battered down by this experience but that she was a survivor.

They were a ragtag bunch-but Evan was proud to be going into battle with each and every one of them.

"They came to Yesinia's house. Just knocked on the door," Niamh said.

"She was our coven master," Evan elaborated, for those, like Dev, who might not have known.

Niamh continued: "I'd gone there, to Yesinia's house, to talk to her about this tarot spread I drew that just kept repeating and repeating." She turned to Dev, who was also a diviner. "Did the cards do the same for you?"

"Yes, I got the spread, too," Dev replied. "The tarot was adamant. The spread wouldn't stop, just kept repeating. It's something blood sisters in my family had experienced for centuries . . . they tried to let me know, but I . . . didn't understand." 

Evan noticed that Daniela was being particularly silent, her head down, eyes on her gloved hands. Hands that she was squeezing into double fists. Lyse had noticed Daniela's silence, too, but she wasn't being subtle about it like Evan.

"What's wrong?" Lyse asked. Daniela looked up, eyes darting back and forth as though she'd been caught doing something wrong.

"Nothing," Daniela hedged.

"I don't believe you," Lyse said. "You have this strange look on your face . . ."

Daniela sighed, and Evan was pretty sure she was trying not to get emotional. There was a telling tic in the cheek muscle just below her right eye.

"I . . ." she began, then stopped, frowning so deeply that the worry lines in her forehead came together like a triangle made of wrinkles.

"No one here blames you for anything," Arrabelle said, but Daniela just shook her head.

"After I'm done talking, that might not be true anymore," Daniela said, and swallowed hard. Once again Evan could see the emotions warring inside her.

"All you can do is tell us," Evan said. "It can't be that bad."

Daniela took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

"I'm The Fool. The Judas. The one who sold us out."

Lyse stepped toward her but remembered the "no touching" rule before she'd gotten too close. She quickly pulled her hand back.

"What're you talking about?"

"Don't you know already?" she asked Lyse, her frustration building so that she began to pace, trying to expel some of her nervous energy. "Desmond. My father, your grandfather . . . I didn't know and I told him everything. I told him Lizbeth was the last Dream Keeper. I thought he was on our side, but he was the mole. He had my mother and Eleanora killed. He destroyed our coven and split us apart. He goaded us into doing all of this. Getting Lizbeth to bring magic back into our world . . . it's all part of The Flood's plan!"

She stopped moving, the plosh of displaced water stopping, too, as she stared at them.

"I screwed us all. It's my fault," she continued, punching at her hip with a balled fist, trying to punish herself with physical pain. "Lizbeth was under their spell, she was being used . . . once Pandora's box was opened, The Flood could use our powers against us. Turn humanity into a Dark Ages mob of witch-hunters-which Arrabelle says has already happened-and the battle between us and the humans would bring about World War Three-the end of days, the beginning of the apocalypse. They want to wipe us and humanity off the face of the Earth and start all over again. It's why they call themselves The Flood."