Page 86 of A Spot of Tea and Sorcery: Vol. 6

Gosh darn it, Mr. Grimm!her mind screamed.You’re selling your soul to damn Jastira’s, aren’t you?

He had to make certain this time. He had to know that, when he hurled her from this world, she could never return, not by any resurrection spell. He was saving Luna’s life, not just in this moment. Forever.

But at the cost of his own soul.

“No!”Luna screamed, her voice lost in the Dire-fueled storm. How dare he? How dare he sacrifice himself? And not himselfalone, but everything they were supposed to be for each other! How dare he sacrifice their future, their children, their home, their family, all the memories they were going to make together?

Absolutely not. She wouldn’t let him. Drat the man, he didn’t get to make that choice!

Luna dropped to the ground. She hadn’t realized until that moment that she was still floating several inches up, but she made herself heavy and fell to the blighted soil of Alfred P. Grimm’s gravesite. Collapsing to her hands and knees, she pressed her hands hard into the earth and, though she didn’t really know what she was doing, instinctively sent the green light in her soul down deep, deep, and deeper still. Down through all the dried-up and drained reaches of enchanted acreage, stretching out farther and farther. Until she found it.

The Heart of Garden.

The great tree, still alive. Hidden. Untouched and untarnished. Though everything else was drained, the Heart was still alive.

Help me!she called to it.Help me save him!

A moment of stillness.

Then a powerful surge of Green Magic flowed back through her, like an electric charge. Jolting through the green light-streams in her spirit until she fairly burst with the magnified force. There never was a spell like Garden, after all. There never was a heartbeat like that which throbbed in the center of that tree. She felt there the souls of two great magic-makers, the spell’s creators—Alfred P. Grimm and his unappreciated son. A profound legacy of heartbreak and disaster and, in the end, of hard-won understanding. Perhaps even . . . love. Love discovered after death. The sympathy of legacy. Of hands-in-soil, of hearts poured into green and growing things. There was so much pain, but there was goodness as well, which might, with time, with patience, with nurturing, ultimately beredeemed. The love of a mother, who gave her life for her child. The devotion of a man, who sought to make his wife a kitchen garden. The devastation of loss, the hope of new life. A hope that would go on blooming and growing in the legacy of Nigel and his children and his children’s children.

And not just Nigel’s alone.

Hers.

Because Garden belonged tohernow too. Andherchildren would play here. They would dig and plant and scrape knees and hunt worms and feed ducks and make pets of turtles. They would grow in this soil, blossoming like little flowers in the sun. And she and Nigel would watch them, care for them, kiss their booboos, scrub the dirt out from behind their ears.

Thus would they create their Happily Ever After. Together.

Gazing through green-glowing eyes, Luna watched the soul of her husband, tangled with Jastira’s, a writhing mass as they floated toward that yawning mouth of eternal sundering. Luna stretched out her hand—her long, light-brimming, green-shimmering hand—and caught hold of those two spirits. With a single shake, she separated them, dragging them apart from each other. Because he did not belong to Jastira. Neither in this world nor in hell.

“Sorry, Janet,” she said. “He’smine.”

The portal continued to yawn. She felt its devouring hunger, dragging, drawing. Because an unbound soul must go somewhere. But if she let Jastira’s soul loose now, Nigel’s soul would still be drawn after it. It was the nature of this hellish magic. The spell he wrought must be undone, or else, the moment she released either of them, they would simply reconnect and vanish where she could no longer reach them. She must find a place to plant Jastira’s soul. Somewhere it could never harm anyone again.

Turning her far-seeing, green gaze, Luna looked across the vast stretches of decimated grounds. Looked to the hidden center where the Heart Tree grew, huge as a mountain, its branches laden with ripe, red fruit.

Take her, Garden,Luna said.Trap her inside of you. She won’t harm anyone there.

A moment of questioning uncertainty hung in the atmosphere.

Then the Heart Tree opened. Not in any physical way, but a profound opening of spirit. A new gate, a new portal. Luna stretched out her green hand once more, across the miles. Jastira screamed inarticulately, her soul roiling with wrath. But there was nothing she could do now. Not against such magic as this.

So Luna stuffed the soul of her cousin deep into the Heart Tree, and it snapped shut.

Suddenly, the sky overhead turned blue, faintly pinked on the edges with dawn.

Something went wrong with the spell.

Nigel couldn’t say what exactly. He was quite certain he’d spoken the words correctly, even more certain he’d traced the sigil as needed. He knew he’d performed the energy-exchange, sourcing directly from inside himself, as he wasn’t going to need his body or its lifeforce any longer.

And it had been working. He was sure of it. He’d felt the collapse of his physical frame moments before his soul rose and twined with Jastira’s. She’d fought him, resisted him, screeching and lashing in dark slashes of malice. But he’d latched hold of her, joining with her just as she’d always said he would. Maybe she was right in that respect. Maybe their fate was written long ago. And now they could live out that fate forever. In hell.

Only . . .

Only apparently, that hadn’t happened.

Because he wasn’t in hell. He was in his body again. Somehow. Impossibly. The fleshly form he’d thought he’d left behind forever seemed to be encasing his soul, and he didn’t even know how.