Ben’s grandmother taught him how to see the light pulsing through nature.
“You have the sight, Benán. Don’t waste it.”
That was before he understood that not everybody saw the current of magic breathing through the world. Her voice was always in his head, and he tried to honor her every time he used his gift. He conjured her memory now as he took out the packs of dried herbs and the leather journal he’d been compiling since childhood, which still held his grandmother’s handwritten recipes.
He pressed his hand to the soft ground before the braided roots of the wyrd knot, feeling for the ley lines that ran underneath. They jolted under his hand. Whatever Vika was doing on her “errand”, he hoped she was quick. They needed to get the knot stabilized before it tore open.
If only she would trust him. After all, he had secrets too. They could help each other.
He couldn’t think of that now. Ben dropped to the ground and got to work.
Speaking the ancient words his grandmother had taught him, Ben started slowly, grounding himself in the space. He traced the sigils in salt around the knot, hoping to buy a little time.
Holding the apple branch as a temporary anchor, he kept chanting. He drove the branch into the earth inside the knot. As soon as it touched the soil, the world lurched. Sounds of the forest swam. Ben tried to pull back, but his fingers were locked around the branch.
The vision hit him like a truck.
A young girl was running, her dark hair trailing behind, whipping her face. She looked over her shoulder at the man closing in on her.
The crack of gunfire. A thud.
The pounding of bare feet on the grass. Dahlia. He recognized her from the picture. Her hands danced, weaving pictures in the air. Power dripped from her words, her eyes lightning flashes in the darkness.
The apple tree bent toward the man, its branches like knives.
The ripping of a branch through flesh.
The man’s wild eyes locked onto Ben’s.
Ben jerked back, gasping as the vision released him. Pain ripped through his palm. An angry burn marked his hand where he’d been gripping the branch. He stumbled away from the knot, cradling his hand.
Dahlia had killed the man. With magic.
No wonder the knot was unstable. Dahlia had channeled its magic, twisted it and the knot absorbed the violence done here. The knot and Dahlia’s magic were tangled together, along with the guilt, rage and blood magic.
The thick, acrid tang of smoke and copper hit the back of his throat. Shadows deepened between the branches, seeping out from the knot and spreading throughout the orchard.
The thing about the Underworld was that it was always changing, like a Rubik’s Cube that never solved itself. As Vika and Misha made their way to the river, the landscape shifted. The lavender fields slowly melted into an aged forest with white asphodel flowers clustered at the base of towering, leafless trees.
Misha trailed behind, sometimes mumbling about Dahlia, but never answering any questions and she wouldn’t even look at Vika. After a while, Vika stopped trying to question her about the orchard.
Though Vika was a creature of the Underworld, she spent little time here. As a Kere, she haunted the battlefields, and when she escorted souls, she took them to the crossroads. She didn’t linger.
There were no familiar markers, no sun to show which direction they were going and it looked the same in every direction. They’d been walking for a while and when they passed a familiar tree, Vika was sure they were going in circles.
“Wait here,” she said. “I’m just going to fly up and take a look.”
Misha stopped walking, but didn’t turn toward her.
Vika shook out her dark wings and jumped into the air, hovering just over the trees. The calm of air under her wings washed over her and she breathed it in. From this height, she was struck by the ethereal beauty of the Underworld.
The asphodel blooms glowed softly in the purplish light, creating paths of luminescence through the shadowed groves. The Styx, a silver ribbon, cut through the landscape. They weren’t too far off track.
Relieved, Vika dropped back down, tucking her wings in.
Misha was gone.
She was only gone for a moment. How had she gotten away? Vika spun in a slow circle, scanning the grove, the thick trees skeletal against the perpetual twilight.
"Misha?"
Nothing.
"Misha!" Vika called louder, her voice swallowed by the dense air.
A flicker of movement caught her eye, white fabric disappearing between two trees ahead.
Vika broke into a run. The trees closed in around her, their trunks pressing closer together with each step. She burst through a tangle of low branches into a clearing and stumbled to a halt.
It wasn't a clearing. It was a crossroads, and Misha stood at the center, talking to someone Vika couldn’t yet see.
Three paths diverged from where she stood, each one bleeding into different landscapes. One led to a thinning of trees, where the glimmer of the Styx peeked through. Vika inhaled the mineral tang of the Styx, relieved to see the way out. The other two paths disappeared into the thick darkness of the forest.
As Vika got closer to Misha, a figure materialized at the center of the crossroads. Tall, draped in layers of dark fabric that seemed woven from midnight, with keys hanging from her belt. Two enormous black dogs flanked her, their eyes glowing ember-red.
Hecate, goddess of witchcraft, older than the Olympians and loyal to nobody except her witches, blocked the crossroads.
The goddess's gaze swept over them both, lingering on Misha with an expression that softened into something maternal.
When she spoke, her voice resonated with a power that hummed through Vika’s bones.
"Daughter."
Hecate’s face was ageless and sharp, framed by untamed dark hair. But it was her eyes that made Vika's chest tighten, as their ancient, knowing gaze locked onto her. The warmth in them evaporated.
"You walk dangerous paths, little Kere. Stealing spirits under my protection."
"I'm not stealing her," Vika said, fighting to keep her voice steady. "I'm borrowing her. Temporarily."
"Though you walk between, the dead do not return to the world above." Hecate gestured, and the path to the river shimmered and faded. "Especially not my witches."
Her witches. Of course. Misha and Dahlia had obviously practiced witchcraft. It should have occurred to Vika to seek out Hecate first. Now, that careless mistake was going to cost her.
“I mean no disrespect,” Vika said, trying to recover. "Her sister needs her. There's a wyrd knot unraveling. If we don't stop it—"
"I know of the knot." Hecate's expression didn't change.
"The wyrd knot is coming undone," Vika said. "Violent memories are bleeding through. People are getting hurt. Dahlia is trapped, unable to rest, and to help her, we need her to trust me. She needs to know Misha is at peace."
“Dahlia." Misha's voice was stronger than it had been since Vika found her. "I can’t find her. Where is she?"
Hecate's expression softened, and she reached out, gently brushing Misha's translucent cheek. "Your sister has been holding vigil for a very long time. She stayed to protect what you both loved." Hecate’s gaze hardened as she looked back at Vika. "And now you want to drag this soul back to the site of her death? For what? To satisfy a whim?"
Vika's hands clenched. "To give Dahlia peace. She deserves to know Misha is safe, and she won’t help secure the wyrd knot without proof."
"She is at peace." Hecate gestured to Misha. "Look at her."
Vika did. Misha stood quiet, her carved stick still in her ghostly hands, her eyes distant but calm. Safe in Hecate's domain, tending her impossible apple trees. Alone.
“Peace is relative. She’s been worried for her sister. They should be together,” Vika said.
“If you bring Dahlia here, where do you think she would go?” Hecate said. “She’s killed someone.”
The truth of her words ricocheted through Vika.
Vika had thought she could convince Dahlia to join her sister, but that was probably not an option. If Vika brought Dahlia to the Underworld, the Furies would take her to Tartarus to atone. It didn’t matter that she’d been defending herself. If it was self-defense.
Hecate watched Vika process that realization. When she continued, Hecate’s tone was softer. “A death by magic, fueled by rage and grief, leaves a mark. Dahlia knows this. Even if she hadn’t bound herself, she wouldn’t cross over.”
Death by magic. What did you do, Dahlia?
“Then help me,” Vika said. “There has to be another way. The knot is unstable. If it comes undone.”
“Watch yourself,” Hecate snapped. “I know well what will happen. Time will fold. The violence will continue to bleed through.”
“Then help me.” Vika issued it as a challenge. If witchcraft was needed to fix it, there was nobody better to ask than Hecate.
“You are not as you once were, little Kere,” Hecate said after a moment. “You’ve walked among the living too long. You forget the laws that bind us. Or perhaps you just ignore them.”
Vika bristled at that. “I know the rules.”
“And yet, here you are, trying to steal one of my souls.”
Vika sighed. “I told you. I was going to bring her back.”
Hecate moved closer, her presence pressing into Vika’s space. Vika refused to back up.
“So you said,” Hecate responded. “Imagine if it wasn’t me that found you, but the Fates or the Furies. How do you think the Furies would react to this little scene?”
Vika flinched. She did not want to think about trying to explain this to the Underworld’s enforcers. They were ones for action, not talk.
“The Fates have given you a long leash,” Hecate continued. “You are at a crossroads. The Furies on one side. The Fates on the other. I offer a third path.”