WILLOW
Gray shouted my name from the carnage of Coven members turning on their Tribunal behind me, and I could practically sense him
making his way through the crowd to follow after me. I waved a hand, slamming the doors of the Tribunal room closed behind me. Vines threaded through the gilded iron of the gates, entwining around the locking mechanisms and sealing it like a tomb. Gray would be able to escape, but I had to hope I’d bought myself some time.
His golden eyes met mine as the vines consumed the gate, slowly filling the gaps. His face was set in stone, but it wasn’t only rage that filled his expression.
It was fear.
This was something I had to do alone, in the quiet of the night, without the bluster an audience would need. They deserved to be put to rest in peace, brought to the very places where they always should have lain. It didn’t matter that the silence would haunt me; it would make every whispered word of the dead sink inside me and strike deep.
I made my way through the hall, going straight for the doors. Leviathan waited in front of them, leaning his back against the doorway lazily and fiddling with a dagger. I snatched it from his hands as I approached, ignoring the way he snapped to attention and stared down at me. “Consort?” he asked.
The doors were open, the quiet murmur drifting through the night air as I stared out the open doors. Leviathan stepped into my path, blocking my way when I didn’t halt. “I have a name,” I reminded him quietly, not daring
to speak too loudly. The restless spirits were too close, the joint force of their whispers rising as even the quiet ones began to talk.
They knew I was here. They knew what I’d come to do.
“Willow,” Leviathan said, drawing my attention off that horrifying cemetery to meet his stare finally. “What are you doing?”
“I can hear their cries,” I admitted, turning my attention back to the cemetery in the distance. Leviathan turned to look over his shoulder, following the path of my gaze. His chest sank when he made the connection. I took the opportunity, slipping past him easily and stepping into the night air.
He grabbed my arm in a gentle hold, his fingers wrapping fully around it. “Where’s Lucifer?” he asked finally, holding me still as he looked back toward the Tribunal.
“He’s otherwise occupied,” I said evasively, pulling my arm out of his grip. My time was limited before Gray broke free from the Tribunal doors. They were meant to answer to witch blood, and I had to hope that he did not possess what was needed to open them himself.
Leviathan released me rather than risk hurting me, allowing me to hike up my skirt and continue on my way. Each step took me closer, the murmur of those voices growing louder until it felt like I was surrounded by the screams.
“Fuck,” Leviathan grunted, hurrying forward and abandoning his post.
He stepped in front of me again. “Just wait—”
“I have to do this,” I said, keeping my eyes on that cemetery. I couldn’t look away, could barely even hear myself speak over the pain of those witches who had been separated from everything they held sacred.
Leviathan gazed down at me, carefully studying the desolate determination on my face before finally nodding and moving aside. He took up stride, following along next to me. “What are you doing?” I asked, faltering when he refused to leave my side.
“You may have to do this, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you do it alone,” Leviathan said, his voice soft beneath the thrum of the dead. My veins pumped with the magic in my blood, the call of it singing through me.
I couldn’t have turned back if I’d wanted to, not as my feet moved forward without my permission.
I glanced over at Leviathan sadly. “I’m always alone,” I admitted, smiling as his face fell in response to my words. He stopped in place, and I
turned away from him as I continued on. I didn’t sense his footfalls behind me as I moved on, making my way toward the cemetery. Glancing back briefly, I found the space he’d stood before empty.
I ignored the pang of loneliness in my chest, letting it sink deep into that hole at the center of my very being. I was no stranger to going into terrifying situations alone; in fact, it was where I found comfort. I could rely on myself, always.
It was everyone else who constantly disappointed me. Every moment of every day, I stood alone when things got tough.
I strode forward, only stopping when I reached the edge of the cemetery. The dirt beneath my feet changed, the rot and decay of those buried within making it more fertile. I felt the shift with one side of my magic. The way that life could thrive here, as opposed to the other sacred burial sites throughout Crystal Hollow.
Life went on, even when other kinds of magic had been starved.
I lifted my dress, carefully stepping into the inner ring of the cemetery. The chill of death washed over my skin immediately, the bubble of life outside bursting. A familiar woman waited for me in the center of the tombstones, her hair far too similar to mine and her purple eyes staring back at me.
“Hello, Willow,” Loralai said with a small smile. She raised a hand, and the voices of the other spirits lingering here faded to background noise. My relief was immediate, having not realized just how piercing the sounds had become and the way they’d battered at my skull.
In the quiet of the night, a piercing yowl finally penetrated the haze. Jonathan paced at the edge of the cemetery, hissing at it furiously but entirely unwilling to cross the boundary himself.
Loralai took my hand, her touch as cold as ice. I couldn’t help the anger I felt looking at her, the knowledge that my father’s love for her had been what had derailed my life entirely. He’d loved her in a way he’d never even thought to care for me, willing to sacrifice me for her even in death. “You must leave this place. You’re not ready for this kind of magic yet.”
“I can’t leave them,” I said, shaking my head. I raised my hand that held Leviathan’s dagger, pressing it into the other palm that Loralai released and dragging it over the surface. Blood welled immediately, slipping onto the ground.
“It won’t be enough,” she said sadly, staring at the wound as it healed. Whatever Gray had done to bring me back made me heal far too quickly for the shallow cuts I was used to giving offerings with.
“Willow,” Gray said, stepping through the mist of Loralai. She vanished from sight, dispersing through the air as he appeared in front of me and took the dagger from my hands. I sighed, my frustration rising at the loss of her. I knew it had been a dream to think I could hold Gray for long enough, but I’d dared to have it, anyway. “What were you thinking?”
“It has to be done,” I said, closing my mouth as I looked around for the spirit of my aunt.
Gray shoved the dagger into his suit pocket, cupping my face in his hands and holding me still as he looked down at me. “What do I have to do to get through to you? You are never alone, and you don’t need to do this alone either.”
I clenched my teeth to fight back the burn of acid rising up my throat, the emotions surfacing as he used my own words against me. There was no doubt as to where Leviathan had gone, fetching the one man he thought could get through to me. “I can hear them, Gray. I’ll never be able to sleep now that I’ve felt this pain, but I’m not strong enough. Loralai says I don’t have enough control for something like this.”
If it surprised him to know that my aunt had visited me, he didn’t show it. “She’s right. You aren’t strong enough for this,” he said, running his hands down over my arms. He took my hand in his, turning my palm to face the sky and staring at my forearm. “But we are together.”
“I didn’t think you would care about them,” I admitted, swallowing as he withdrew the dagger once again and placed the tip to the inside of my wrist. “I thought you’d try to stop me.”
“I don’t, but I care about you. If this keeps you from being happy? Then I care about it.” He pressed the tip into my skin, and I winced back and stared at him in horror.
“I’ll lose too much blood.”
He smiled at me, slowly pulling me back into his space. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Do you trust me?”
“Absolutely fucking not,” I said, my brow pinching when he laughed. “Good girl,” he said, tipping his head to the side. “But do you trust me
to keep you alive?”
I paused, studying him and the blade pressed to my wrist that could end it all. He’d given me pieces of himself to bring me back once, and I’d felt his fear in the moments before I lost all sense of my surroundings when Beelzebub snapped my neck.
I couldn’t trust him in the slightest, but I could trust him with that.
“Yes,” I said, nodding as he pushed the knife deep. White hot pain spread through my arm, sinking deep enough to cut through muscle and sinew. My arm trembled as he held me still, slicing his way up to my elbow efficiently before he moved to the other arm and did the same.
My arms fell to my sides, blood dripping down over my hands and fingers to fall onto the earth. My vision swayed from the pain, my eyes drifting closed for a moment until Gray’s grunt of pain echoed my own.
He cut through his own flesh, carving his arms in the same way he’d done to mine. He lent his blood to my resurrection, the taste of life and death coating the air around us. It was the same as the decay of leaves in autumn, as the first budding of leaves on the trees in spring.
Tossing the dagger to the side, he took my hands in his and turned my arms to face the ground as he gently pulled me to kneel upon the earth. Threading our fingers together, he guided them into the ground that seemed to part, allowing us to slip into the grave dirt effortlessly. It surrounded me, sinking beneath my fingernails and sticking to the blood coating my skin until my hands were buried like the corpses beneath me.
I swayed as I bled, my eyes landing on Gray’s ethereal stare. “I don’t know what to do,” I admitted. This was so different from raising one skeleton from the throne, so different from the magic of life that usually called to me. I didn’t know how to call to so many different areas of magic at once.
“Just feel,” he said, letting his eyes fall closed. His fingers entwined with mine reassured me he hadn’t abandoned me, and I followed suit. My entire world narrowed to my fingers in the earth, to my blood flowing through the grains of fertile dirt. I followed the flow, followed the path the earth took to spread our blood through the cemetery like a river, delivering it to each and every witch who needed it.
A single drop was all they needed to become mine.
“Now breathe,” Gray whispered, his voice warm and comfortable. He was the hearth on a winter day, his word a reminder of everything living. I followed the dirt in the other direction, to the blades of grass and the tree
roots spread through the cemetery grounds. The green of my magic reached me, the familiar feeling of life spreading through me. I let it build within me, feeling it fill me with warmth.
I breathed, sucking in a deep, ragged breath that filled my lungs with spring.
I released it, breathing life into the death of the cemetery. The ground shook beneath me, forcing my eyes to open as Gray hastily guided me to my feet. He lifted me, carrying me to the edge of the boundary as the ground split open where we’d been only a moment before. I swayed in his hold, watching as skeletal hands burst from the dirt.
The witches clawed their way to the surface, a mix of bones and rotting flesh emerging from the earth. The ground beneath them settled, fresh grass and flowers sprouting where the empty graves sat. The dead got to their feet in varying stages, some staggering on bones alone and others with flesh falling from them as they moved.
I held back my gag, watching as their group formed a circle. There were around fifty witches buried in that cemetery since the Covenant had turned its back on the balance.
Gray pressed his arm to my mouth, letting the blood from his skin touch my lips. I opened, drinking from him for the first time since he’d brought me back. I only managed a few drops before his wound healed entirely, and a moment later, mine followed suit with a flash of gold.
Gray released me when he knew I’d steadied myself enough, taking a step toward the cemetery. “What have you done?” he asked, spinning to look at me in shock.
I looked past him to the rotting figures of the witches who had come before me, watching with dawning horror as flesh knitted back together. As fresh muscle and sinew covered bone anew.
They turned to me as one, but it was the youthful face of my aunt who snagged my gaze, raising her hand to turn it over as she studied it in fascination.
“I didn’t mean to—” I said, but the gears were already turning in my head. The implications of what I’d done, of what I could do.
I’d taken in life.
And then I’d breathed it out.
Gray spoke, his voice quiet with his surprise. “Willow, you didn’t raise the dead. You fucking resurrected them.”
