Page 135 of What The Hex (The Family Spells)
It took me a second—and I didn’t exactly like the direction of my thoughts—but there was only one good answer to that question.
“The faerie ring.”
I took off for the front door, snatching the keys to Abel’s mate’s van off the hook as I went. We headed down the steps and away from the horde of witch-eaters marching through the woods out back. Since the cabin was still warded against entry, each krampus was having to slide down the chimney to get in. It slowed them down, but it wouldn’t stop them.
Us leaving just might and, if they followed us into Faerie, they’d be playing a fine game between hunters and hunted.
“Trouble on the other side of the Veil,” Connard said. He was clinging to my right shoulder, and I hadn’t even noticed. His claws couldn’t penetrate the demon leather I was wearing anyway. “The queen’s just arrived.”
Fantastic.
I ignored that awful slice of hell and kept moving, climbing into the driver’s seat and pushing Fey off on her father. She could scream all she wanted: I was getting us the fuck out of there.
“Do you know where it is?” Spectre asked just before a witch-eater landed on the roof of the van, denting the metal and causing both Caine and me to curse up a storm. I started the engine and hit the gas, sending the van’s wheels churning in the snow and ice.
We might’ve gotten stuck if I hadn’t had a charm on my hat for just such an occasion. I reached up and snapped off a small white pom-pom, clearing the snow around the van’s tires and turning us in the direction of the winding road that led back toward the lodge.
The krampus on the roof was thrown off, but I didn’t wait around to see what would happen to him. Instead, I floored it, causing the van to slide on the slippery gravel. Another charm came off my hat—a tiny nutcracker ornament this time—and we had some stability.
I was going to burn through my holiday charms as fast as the ones I’d used in Hael.
That was terrifying.
What happened when my bag of tricks was empty?
“I know where it is,” I responded belatedly to Spectre’s question. As I drove, he and Caine did their best to comfort the kids, and I tried to contact Bastet.
I got only silence in response.
“Anything from Hex?” I asked as Connard maintained his grip on my shoulder.
“Nothing yet, Ms. Spells. I’ll let you know if I hear from him.”
I pursed my lips and drove as fast as was possible without killing us in an accident. When we arrived in the small, remote parking lot next to Abel’s SUV, I cut the engine and we climbed out together.
The children were remarkably calmer now, and the crying and screaming had stopped. Fey and Zavier held hands with Spectre, one on either side, while Caine dealt with the twins. I led the way into the woods, following an invisible path that I knew I’d never forget.
It had taken me and Caine days to find the right path to the faerie ring; it was an event burned into my brain and aided by my witch nose. I’d plucked several of the brown mushrooms that made up the faerie ring and taken them back with me the last time I’d been here.
I would never forget that smell.
We were silent as we walked, listening for footsteps, for the sound of jingling bells. In the distance, I could hear the war horn.
The witch-eaters were coming.
I only hoped we’d drawn them away from Raeanne’s place and into the woods.
I nearly sobbed when the faerie ring appeared in the distance, the only bare spot of dirt in a sea of white snow. The ring itself wasn’t entirely of this world, so it was unaffected by the weather. Good thing for us or I’m not sure that we would’ve found it.
Together, the seven of us stepped into the ring and I reached out with my magic, searching for that tiny split in the Veil that would allow us to pass through to the other side. The sensation of traveling through a faerie ring was much like that of falling. One minute, we were standing upright in the woods, the next we were tumbling down the side of a small incline, a strange white grass tickling our skin, an odd breeze teasing our hair.
I was the first to stand up, pulling Zavier up alongside of me.
“Graceley, your hat …” Spectre offered up as he stood up next, pulling Fey along with him. He reached out and plucked a purple mushroom from the side of my hat. “They’re growing out of it.”
I had no idea what to make of that. Instead, I focused on our surroundings.
Faerie was … well, it was weird, an almost alien landscape that defied logic. We stood at the edge of the forest, the orange and white mushroom ring just up the gentle slope behind us. A field of white grass stretched out all around us leading to the dark ribbon of a distant river, a river that I wasn’t going to bring my family anywhere near.
