Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night

attempt, and she finally made it to her feet.

When she faced Bowe, he winced at her bloodied face, the bruises already emerging. Her hair was coated with soot. As she limped to him, her eyes began returning to normal.

'Mari,' he grated, 'you've got to heal yourself.'

'Bowen, your legs... your chest.'

'I'll be fine—'

Another sudden wind rushed over them, scattering debris. Mariketa cried out as an invisible force assailed her, seeming to strangle her from inside.

'What's happenin' tae you?' he yelled. 'What is this?'

Grueling moments passed. When the wind eased, and she was released from whatever had gripped her, she appeared confused. 'I think... I think that was Häxa's power... '

If what Mari had said earlier about destroying a sorceress was true, then she'd just had an infusion of a near godlike power.

As she started for Bowe once more, the whites of her eyes and her irises seemed to become flooded with black, as though ink had spilled inside them—like Häxa's had been. As if possessed, Mariketa swung her gaze from him until her uncanny eyes locked onto the glass on the floor.

Her expression was as if she were starving, even lustful, and she hurried to it, stepping directly atop it. The ground seemed to fall out from under her, and she dropped down, disappearing.

Bellowing with fear for her, Bowe dragged himself to the mirror to reach her. But she was gone.

He raked his claws down the glass, desperate to follow.

53

Somehow Mari had managed to enthrall... herself.

For days, she'd remained in her dimension, standing motionless in front of her antique full-length mirror. Though she was conscious and rapidly healing, she was unable to move, to look away. She couldn't even part her lips. If anything was placed between her gaze and the mirror, her eyes—fully black from Häxa's power— burned it away.

Mari had already been walking a razor's edge with her new captromancer abilities before she'd been saddled with Häxa's power. Though not inherently evil, the power was greedy, ravening for the knowledge the mirror helplessly ceded. Mari couldn't free herself...

Once her parents had awakened and made their way back home from Häxa's plane, Mari couldn't even hug them back, couldn't even cry with her frustration, though her dimension had become drenched in rain. They'd looked so worried for her, yet so proud of what she'd accomplished.

With the help of the coven, the two planned to bind Häxa's power within her, letting Mari get accustomed to it gradually over decades. But they couldn't bind the power when it was in active use—like when it was freezing unwitting witches in front of a mirror. And Mari's eyes constantly glowed like two LED lights.

At least her coven was stepping up to the plate, witches motivating like crazy. Apparently, the wake-up call had been when Häxa, one of the world's most ancient and evil powers, had risen, only to show up—directly in the parish next to their Andoain Animal House. No longer did they feel insulated and protected by the law of laissez les bons temps rouler.

The world wouldn't know what hit it when that crew got it together.

As her parents did every day, Carrow and Elianna visited with her at the 'Cottanorouse.' Knowing Mari could hear them, they chatted, and brought her tea as if she would drink it. They also urged her to unenthrall herself, as if Mari might not be totally convinced that she wished to do so. She wanted to point at the new power and say, 'Take it up with stupid.'

Because Mari was on a plane of the Wiccae, and she couldn't speak to invite Bowen, he couldn't come to her. Her friends and family had deduced that it snowed whenever she missed him; the plane had become a constant whiteout.

Today at Mari's place, Carrow played solitaire, bundled in blankets. Elianna looked to be sorting dried frogs' legs by size, and then by toe webbing. Mari's parents were out consulting seers for the answer of how to rescue Mari. Today they would meet with one of the most powerful oracles in the world—Nucking Futs Nïx.

'Damn, Mari, it's cold!' Carrow chafed her arms. 'I dig the whole Narnian vibe you've got going on, I do. And I've been dutifully keeping an eye out for talking beavers wearing armor—but come on, this is getting ridiculous! If you miss the Scot so much, then just break free.'

Elianna said, 'Do you know he's bought the property just next door to Andoain so he can scent you the minute you come home. And, well, because his house got blown up.'

'Look, Mari, you have to come out of this and do something,' Carrow said. 'Put him out of his misery— or—allow me to make him fall in love with dryer lint. You decide.' She shrugged. 'I know you'd worried about Bowen not wanting to come near the coven—but we can't get him to leave. Apparently, some of the witches admitted to him that you're on a different plane—he can be really dogged with the questions—and now he's determined to reach you here. Interestingly, he believes the information about the plane's existence—but not about the fact that he can't travel to it.'

'He returns to Andoain daily, sometimes hourly, researching witchery,' Elianna said.

Carrow glared. 'Well, maybe if you and the others would stop sneakily setting out food for him, he wouldn't keep coming back!'

Crossing her arms over her chest, Elianna said in a mulish tone, 'He wouldn't eat otherwise.'

'Whatever. But seriously, Mari, he's having such a hard time with all this that even Regin feels sorry for what he's been through.'

Elianna added, 'He's watched your graduation video so many times, I'm sure he's memorized your school's alma mater.'

'I don't know what he does with the videos of your college cheerleading he brings back to his place'—Carrow waggled her eyebrows—'but I have suspicions.'

Elianna coughed delicately.

'Now that you've done what you were Awaited to do—well, part one at least—everyone's grasping about for a new name for you,' Carrow said. 'If you don't kick this enthrallment, then I'm going to campaign for Mariketa the Glass Witch, or 'Glitch.' Come kick my ass if you don't like it, otherwise... '

Elianna squinted at Mari and sighed. 'I think she wants to be called Mariketa MacRieve.'

Mari did. She wanted to go to Bowen and tell him she loved him, she wanted to visit with her family and friends, she wanted to... blink. But the knowledge flowed through her veins; the power demanded.

It seemed that she would be forced to stay here until she knew... everything.

Which meant she'd never leave.

Because everything is the very thing I cannot know.

When Bowe tracked down Nïx at last, she was perched like a gargoyle on the roof of a building on Bourbon Street. He climbed up to her, feeling only a lingering ache in his healing leg. 'Nïx, you have to help me.'

'What's put you all in a dither, werewolf?'

'You were right about everything, about the Hie, about me finding my mate. All your predictions came true— though you might have bloody told me exactly who had put a hex on me.'

She finally faced him. 'I said you'd been ensorcelled, not enchanted, and everyone knew Mariketa wasn't yet a sorceress.' She rolled her eyes. 'Really, pet—duh?'

Keep a rein on it.

She added, 'Though I am truly sorry that you had eighteen decades of unadulterated misery.'

Bowe compared the princess's actions to those of the witch who'd hurt his father. The only difference was degrees of pain. But he had little time to think of what she'd done to him—to all of them. 'I need to find Mariketa.' Gods, did he need to find her. The longing for his witch was a thousandfold more powerful than what the strongest sorceress on earth could engender in him.