Page 56 of Destiny of the Witch

When I regained my breath, I looked at Mum. She was slumped on the floor, laid low by the harkan’s final malevolent action, the pulse of red power that had struck her.

‘Mum!’ I screamed. I reached desperately for her neck and gasped with relief when I felt a thready pulse. But it wouldn’t last for long, not with blood still pouring from her stomach – and the Goddess alone only knew what the harkan had done to her with its last pulse of magic.

I couldn’t comprehend it. I hadn’t stabbed Mum, not like the seer had said or like the Goddess’s vision had shown me, but she was still dying and I had no healing potions left, thanks to my father’s vile actions.

The door flew open and Bastion ran in. He was in human form, he had no shirt on and his chest was covered in agonising burns. Benji chose the same moment to walk out of the wall clutching the pale truth seeker to his chest. Istruggled to acknowledge any of them as I stared in horror at Mum’s chest that was barely rising and falling.

Bastion knelt next to me.

‘I didn’t stab her,’ I said inanely. ‘The seer said I would stab a blade into her heart and the vision showed that too, but I didn’t. She stabbed herself. I don’t understand. She’sdying, Bastion.’ A sob slipped out, then I was crying and I couldn’t stop. Tears ran down my face, for once allowed to fall freely.

‘Save her!’ Oscar yelled at me across the room. ‘You have to save her, Amber!’ His voice was desperate.

I looked over and saw that he had hogtied Shaun and was holding a blade at his throat. Shaun was immobile; all the fight had left him at the death of his second familiar.

Bastion pulled his phone out of his pocket. ‘Glimmer,’ he growled at me. He dialled Jinx’s number. ‘I need Glimmer,’ he said urgently when Jinx answered the phone. ‘Now! Send it to me!’

He didn’t wait for an answer, just held out his hands and waited. Like the harkan had been, Jinx’s blade was sentient; it could also transport itself through space by sheer willpower.

My brain started to fire. Glimmer? How would the dagger help our situation? Jinx’s magical blade took themagical essence of one being and gave it to another. It could turn a Common human into a werewolf or give a fire elemental the power of a water elemental; all it needed was the blood of the creature we wanted to create.

Glimmer landed in Bastion’s hands. He grinned triumphantly then grasped the magical blade by the hilt and used it to cut into his arm, gifting the bladehisblood. His magic-rejuvenating-healing blood.

Griffin’s blood. My brain caught up with Bastion’s plan. Of course! I took the blade from Bastion and, with tears streaking down my face, I plunged the blade into my mother’s heart. Not to kill her – as the seer had thought – but to save her.

I pulled the magical dagger out and stared at her anxiously. ‘Wait,’ Bastion cautioned. ‘It takes a moment to work. Watch her wounds.’

I watched. When her skin started to knit together and heal rapidly, I knew that Glimmer had done its job. She had been turned into a griffin. But her pulse was still thready and weak. She needed more than the fast-healing of a shifter; she needed a miracle.

Luckily, I had one handy. I reached into my left pocket and pulled out a vial of final defence. I unstoppered thepotion that would save a griffin even an inch from death and poured it down her throat. She swallowed.

Her wounds vanished in an instant. Her eyes snapped open. ‘Amber? What did you do?’

‘Thank God!’ Oscar whispered.

I burst into happy tears and flung myself into her arms. ‘Mum! You’re okay!’

‘The harkan?’ she asked urgently.

‘Destroyed,’ I managed, trying to get control of myself. I wiped my tears from my face.

‘How?’ she asked, sitting up.

I bit my lip and reached for my pendant. It warmed under my fingers.Abigay?I called.

She is gone,Edith whispered, her voice thick with sorrow.Her sacrifice will be remembered.

My hand fell from my pendant. ‘Abigay,’ I said softly. ‘She gave her soul to the harkan. She wanted to save you. She told me to tell you that she loved you.’

For the first time that I could recall, my mother cried.

Chapter 50

Ria and Shaun were propped on the couch with anti-magic cuffs around their wrists, hands in front of them. Ria glared malevolently at me but my father was staring off into the middle distance, his face blank.

‘And the harkan is definitely destroyed?’ Inspector Stacy Wise asked.

I nodded. ‘It disintegrated. I expect the power wave was felt for miles.’ I rubbed my sternum.

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