“Normal? Us?” I laughed and squeezed his hand, staring into his handsome eyes and so happy not to be doing this alone. “Who wants normal? That’s boring. I mean, I wouldn’t mind being able to show my face in public again, but minor details.”
“Come on. Lace up.”
I grabbed my new boots we’d picked up and pushed my feet into them. They were heavy, clunky, but they had awesome traction. I walked the woods like a boss with these babies on. Once I had them secured, I slapped my legs and stood. “Let’s do this.”
We grabbed our coats, packed up all our stuff and shoved it into backpacks, and headed out. If the Council found our hideout, we didn’t want to leave behind anything they’d use to track us.
After teleporting back to the spot we’d last seen Renee and the coven, we started our search. I’d tried silently pleading with Renee. When that had gotten us nowhere, I’d turned to Stace. Still nothing. For seven days. Nothing.
“Cressida,” I whispered into the air, hoping above all hope she heard me. “Our world is in trouble. Dark elementals have taken over the Council. They’ve taken over the school, which means they could destroy you. Our side is going to lose if we don’t find the coven and get Renee to agree to join us in the fight. We need their support. I’ve tried opening my eyes, but it’s not working this time. I can’t find them.”
“That’s because they don’t want to be found.”
I whipped around at the sound of the very distinctive lisp. Stace stood there in her long brown dress, her hair down, a warm smile ready to greet me. I was so glad to see her, to know she was okay, that I ran up and threw my arms around her. “Oh my God. Stace. You have no idea how happy I am to see you.”
“I’m beginning to get an idea,” she replied in a muffled, strangled voice. “You’re going to break my ribs if you don’t loosen your hold. I can’t breathe.”
“Sorry.” I retreated, giving her space. “Where’ve you been? We’ve been searching these woods for a week looking for you.”
“We’ve been here. We’ve seen you.”
“Then why didn’t you let us find you until now?”
“It took me this long to convince Renee to let me bring you in front of the coven for an audience. More and more witches are being pushed into exile, so our circle is growing. We went from thirteen to sixty overnight when the Council outlawed witchcraft. Our numbers continue to grow by the day.”
“That’s terrible.” And grossly unfair they had to go into hiding all because of one man’s ignorance and fear.
Stace slowly shook her head. “No, Katy. It’s wonderful. That’s over sixty witches, some of them almost as powerful as Renee, all willing to listen to what you have to say. This is your chance to build your army.”
Whoa. I’d expected to come here and convince Renee to join us, not start a revolution. But the Council had to be stopped by any means necessary. If that meant starting an uprising to take them down, that was exactly what I’d do. I might no longer be the prophecy in the Council’s eyes, but I would still do whatever it took to protect my world.
Bring it on.
Bryan and I followed Stace to a grove of trees. When she stopped, so did we and looked around. There was nothing here. No signs of life at all. “What are we doing here? Where are we?”
“We’re here.” She lifted a crystal she wore around her neck and made a single downstroke, and a shimmering silver streak appeared in midair. It was as if the crystal had carved a slice in the universe, tearing a hole. “This way.” She walked directly into the tear and disappeared.
“Very cool.” I followed, stepping into an entirely different world. The sun shone bright, and it was warm, two things that weren’t happening outside this bubble of awesome. There must have been some sort of magic barrier keeping this place entirely invisible. Green grass spread as far as the eye could see. Trees surrounded a gorgeous meadow of flowers, each one with a house built into its branches. They were the fanciest treehouses I’d ever seen.
“Wow,” Bryan said next to me. “This place is awesome.”
“Thank you.” Renee walked up, her smile not quite as warm as the last time we’d spoken. She wasn’t exactly happy to see me. “I wanted to give them a place to live so much nicer than where they’d come from. Maybe then they wouldn’t miss the homes they’d been driven from so much.”
“It’s beautiful.” I lifted my gaze to the treehouses. “Is there enough housing for everyone?”
“As long as we double up. We’ll need to expand again if we get many more joining us. If the coven as a whole agrees to side with you, I expect we’ll see more wanting to join the fight. What do you call yourselves?”
“Uh…” Was that a trick question? She knew my name.
“Your side,” she explained further. “If you’re going to start an uprising and lead a revolution, you need to give your followers a name to chant, remind them why they’re fighting.”
“Order of the phoenix,” Bryan volunteered.
I looked at him. “That one’s already taken.” But I didn’t hate it and played around with names in my head out loud. “The phoenix rises from the ashes stronger than ever, but it doesn’t really fit. We won’t go down in flames, so there won’t be any ashes to rise from. No, we need to be guardians of our world, protect it from the dark side taking over.”
“Fight club.”
I gave him another look. “Again, taken. Besides, we need to be more than fighters. We need to
