Patreon Extra - Sam's POV of Noah and Cassandra's Kidnapping

SAM DURING NOAH’S KIDNAPPING

A Warlock: Book 2 Short

Daniel Kensington

© 2025 Kensington, All Rights Reserved

This story is canon and depicts the event of Noah and Cassandra’s kidnapping from Sam’s POV.

“Sam,” Noah said, “stay here and bring the others when they come out.”

“But —”

“You’ll be able to follow us,” he called back. “You can sense where I am through the coven bond.”

Sam’s shoulders sagged, and she nodded reluctantly.

She watched Noah turn and dash into the alleyway across the street with Rachel and Hannah, then growled and kicked the curb.

“Ow! Fuck!”

It didn’t help that Noah was right — he needed Hannah’s Hindsight to follow Cassandra, and Sam was the only one left who could follow him. Unless one of the other witches inside had Hindsight, but she didn’t think any did.

Knowing he was right didn’t make it any easier to watch him run off into danger, though.

She stared at the restaurant doorway, feeling Noah move farther and farther away through the coven bond, and wondering what the fuck was taking Brittany so long.

All a witch with Precog should have to do is say, “Vision! Follow me!”

It wasn’t like she’d lie about Precog, that’d destroy her reputation.

Maybe none of them gave a shit about Cassandra getting hurt — Sam could definitely see that being a possibility.

The door swung open and Brittany exited, followed by a dozen witches — probably leaving the restaurant staff wondering what the fuck was going on.

“Ma’am? Ma’am? Ma’am!” one of the servers was calling from the back of the crowd.

Which ma’am she was after wasn’t clear, but having four or five tables walk out at the same time was probably concerning.

“Here,” Brittany said, elbowing her way back through the following witches while digging in her purse. “Put everything on this and add thirty-percent, okay?”

The server looked at the offered card as though she’d never seen one before.

“What? I can’t just —”

“She can’t just take a card while we’re running out, Fielding,” one of the other witches said. “It could be stolen.”

“Here,” another witch said, stuffing several hundred-dollar bills into the server’s hands. “Keep the change.” She glared at Brittany. “We’ll settle up later.”

“But —”

“Go,” another witch told her. “And box up my dessert — I’m not done.”

That set off a chorus of, “Mine, too!” along with: “Pack my ice cream separate so it stays cold!”

“Now,” Liza, one of the other shitty-witches in Cassandra’s clique, said, “what’s so fucking important you had to drag me away from my Chocolate Rod?”

“Yeah,” one of the others demanded. “If the Zabaglione Spurt gets cold, it’s not as good.”

“I told you,” Brittany said. “Cassandra’s in trouble.”

“Uh huh.” Liza looked around. “Where?”

“This way,” Sam said, starting across the street. “Come on.”

At the far curb she noticed a distinct lack of bodies crowding around her and looked back.

None of the other witches had moved.

A couple looked like they’d started to, but Liza had moved to the front of the group and held up her hands to hold them back.

“Follow you into a dark alley?” she asked. “Are you nuts?”

“Guys!” Brittany yelled. “Cassandra’s in trouble — she’s going to get hurt! Bad — I saw it!”

“Sure you did,” Liza said, shaking her head. “Let’s get this straight. Cassandra, who’s been making this little onesie miserable all year along with all the rest, is in some mysterious danger you can’t describe and we’re all supposed to follow you all over town on your say-so?”

“Precogs don’t lie about visions,” Sam called across the street, resisting the urge to add “you stupid fucking witch” and going with: “You know that.”

“And everybody knows Fielding here has the impulse control of a jackelope,” Liza said. “I doubt she’s really considered the long-term effect trying this little prank is going to have on her Family’s rep.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?” Brittany demanded. “Jackelopes aren’t —”

“Shut up,” Liza said. She pointed at Sam across the street. “What’s going on is they’re setting us up. Her stupid feral and the others are hiding in the alley or something, probably ready to dump a bunch of shit on us when we run in to ‘rescue’ Cassandra — who, by the way, is at the Blue Iguana or the Slip-N-Side right now picking which frat-asshole she’s going to leave with blue balls tonight.”

“Crone’s piles, Liza,” Sam demanded. “If you don’t believe it, why’d you even come outside?”

Liza gestured at the crowd. “To keep everybody else from being stupid.” She turned her back to Sam and addressed the others. “This is a trick. They’re trying to drag us into a trap and —”

“Liza,” one of the others said, looking a little worried. “Accusing a Fielding Precog of lying is pretty —”

“Accurate — that’s what you were going to say, right?”

“Shut the fuck up, you Crone-cursed witch!”

Well, Sam thought, that got their attention at least.

She licked her lips, seeing all eyes on her and trying to think of something that would convince the other witches, even as she felt the distance to Noah increase.

Fuck it.

“Brittany, call Magistra Blackwood and tell her what happened,” Sam said, backing toward the alleyway.

“But —”

“Noah’s moving straight that way!” Sam pointed. “If none of the teachers who come have Hindsight, I’ll … I don’t fucking know, I’ll burn an arrow in the fucking street if he turns — just follow us somehow!”

“Sam, maybe —”

“I’m not losing him!”

Sam turned from the others and ran for the dark mouth of the alley.

*

Dumbass witches.

Sam ran down the alley, concentrating on the coven bond and her link to Noah. It had only been a few steps, but she thought she was already closer. Maybe.

She wasn’t sure what she’d be able to do to help if the threat to Cassandra was really serious and not just some frat-guys, but she knew she had to try.

It wasn’t like she had a lot of offensive magic.

Stupid Harmony, she thought. What good does that do?

They still didn’t know what her new Lust and Pain affinities were, but they probably sucked, too, given her luck with resonants.

Maybe pain at a distance? That would be cool.

Wave a hand and hurt someone? Yeah, she could get behind that.

Could you hurt someone so much their eyeballs exploded from wincing? Maybe. It’d definitely be on the table if someone hurt Noah.

If someone even tried to hurt Noah.

The coven bond told her Noah was still straight ahead as she crossed a street and entered another alley.

Whatever Cassandra was up to, she was running straight and fast, like she wasn’t thinking about anything but putting distance between herself and … something.

That worried Sam — Cassandra was a senior and had three more years of instruction than Sam or Noah did. If she was running, what the fuck could Sam do?

Claw the fucker’s eyes out if I have to.

Whatever the fucker was.

Assuming the fucker had eyes.

Sam started listing possible non-eye-having creatures that could be chasing Cassandra.

It was something to distract her from worrying about Noah as she ran.

Let’s see … nuckelavees?

No, they never left Orkney.

Tsuchinoko hardly ever went outside of Japan.

Bonnacons were a possibility. They’d come over from Europe along with witches and many others behind the Veil … but if one of those was chasing Cassandra it should be trying to attack her — and flaming shit was a little hard to miss.

Ahuizotl were native … at least down in Mexico. Could one have made its way up here?

The problem was, they were water creatures so they should be in a lake or river or something, not —

Fear lanced through the coven bond, making Sam stagger. She would have fallen if she hadn’t run into the alley’s wall and steadied herself.

The fear was replaced by anger, which was good — or would be if it wasn’t Noah they were talking about.

He probably didn’t know enough to stay afraid of most things if he got really mad — especially if the thing threatened someone he’d decided to protect.

Why he’d apparently decided that about Cassandra, Sam couldn’t figure out.

She’d have been perfectly happy to just tell Cassandra’s group about the vision and go back to eating her Fourgasm Sampler and fantasizing about how Noah might punish her for the whole Dominus-trick.

She’d just left one alley and started across the street for yet another when the pain hit.

Sam screamed and staggered, collapsing to her knees and feeling her palms get scraped and raw as she caught herself on the rough surface of the road.

That was nothing to the pain in her chest, though.

Not her chest, her soul — it was as though her body’d been hollowed out and her insides replaced by fire — a fire that consumed the warmth and comfort of the coven bond, replacing it with stone-cold ash.

She screamed again, clutching at her chest, and that hid the screeching of tires.

*

“Noah!”

Sam sat up — or tried to, a hand on her chest stopped her and an arm around her shoulders eased her back to lie on the grainy surface of the sidewalk.

“Easy, dear — not too fast.”

It took Sam a moment to place the voice and recognize where she was — the street in town, still, lying on the sidewalk with a crowd of people around her.

“Melaina, Noah, he —”

“We know, dear.”

Sam struggled to rise.

“We have to —”

“Magistra Cassian is leading the search,” Melaina said. “Do you feel able to stand now?”

Sam thought about it for a moment, trying to process what she’d just heard.

A search meant they were looking for something — someone, Noah.

“Why aren’t you looking?”

She hadn’t really meant it to come out that harshly, but … maybe she did. The burning in her core had been replaced with a cold emptiness — no sense of Noah at all. Not what he was feeling, not a direction … nothing.

“We’re not so far from where the trail was lost,” Melaina said. “I’ve been there and Magistra Cassian has things well in-hand for the moment.”

“But —”

“Noah would want to see you cared for,” Melaina said. “And, once your coven bond is restored, you’ll be the one to lead us to his captors. Come, now, stand up — it’s safe to move about, now that you’re awake and aware.”

Sam followed the other witch’s glare to a pair of mundanes standing nearby.

“I don’t know why you keep glaring at us,” the man said. “She’s the one who decided to run out into traffic and collapse.”

“We just moved her out of the street,” the woman next to him insisted, then grasped the man’s arm and turned her attention to the phone she held at her ear. “It’s ringing, finally!”

Sam realized the rest of the crowd around her were Willowmere teachers and students, including Liza and the others from the restaurant — and Hannah and Rachel.

“Rachel! Where’s Noah?”

The coldness Sam felt increased as her two friends looked away, unable to meet her eyes.

“We’ll catch you up in a moment, dear,” Melaina insisted. “But let’s get you on your feet first.”

Sam nodded and stood with the other witch’s help, only swaying a little.

“What happened?” she demanded.

“Over here, dear,” Melaina whispered, guiding her deeper into the crowd of witches. “Away from where the mundanes might overhear.”

On her feet now, Sam could see more of the crowd and noticed the one couple weren’t the only mundanes around. There were more than a dozen, all on the outskirts of the circle of witches and excitedly talking on their phones or clearly recording.

“Rachel and Hannah came upon you shortly after you fell,” Melaina said once they were nearer the building and well away from any of the mundanes. “They were able to block the cell service in the area until the rest of us arrived.” She shrugged. “But, by then, there were several mundanes around, all filming even if they couldn’t call the authorities.”

If she hadn’t been so worried about Noah, Sam would have been worried about that — drawing mundane attention was frowned upon, and she’d certainly managed to draw quite a bit of it.

“We can move her now?” Prima Rosethorn asked, coming up to them. “I’ve released the block on their phones — those who went seeking a signal to report this will have gone far enough, so there’s little point.”

Melaina nodded. “Now she’s conscious, her end of the bond will be stable.”

“Stable?” Sam asked, massaging her chest to dull the ache. “This is stable?”

The other witch brushed a bit of hair off Sam’s forehead and she was surprised at how calming and comforting that gesture was.

“Hindsight saw him loaded into some sort of vehicle — unconscious, but alive. Whoever took him, I doubt they’d have bothered to move him if they simply wanted him dead.”

“He’s alive?”

Melaina nodded. “I’m certain of it.”

Sam clutched at her chest. “But —”

“I can only assume that whatever blocked him from Hindsight is also blocking your bond. Now that you're conscious, the bond will find you when it’s no longer blocked.”

“But you’re sure he’s not —”

“If Noah was dead,” Melaina said, “you would not be standing.”

A hand grasped Sam’s arm, shaking her roughly.

“What the hell were you thinking? Do you know how close —”

Before Sam could even register that it was the mundane man shaking her, Prima Rosethorn was between them, pulling his hand from her and backing him away.

“Touch one of my students again and —”

“Evelina,” Melaina said.

The Prima took a deep breath.

“Magistra Hawke?”

“Yes, Prima?” the teacher asked, appearing out of the crowd.

“Escort this person away and explain to him … something.”

“Yes, Prima.” Magistra Hawke gestured. “Sir, the Institute Director is addressing the situation —” She guided the man away. “Now, I’m certain the authorities have been called, so let me explain to you the legal elements and consequences of assault…”

“I’m sure he’s quite shaken, Evelina,” Melaina said. “Having a girl fall in front of his car must have been shocking.”

“That’s no excuse for putting hands on one of my students.”

Melaina nodded. “It is not — yet, also, not so egregious as to warrant winding up in a vivarium somewhere.”

“What? I wasn’t —”

“You had the look of a newt in your eye, Evelina. Don’t deny it.”

Prima Rosethorn sighed. “Only for a week or two,” she muttered, then sighed again. “I’m rather tired of my students being harmed.”

“As am I, Evelina, as am I. Still —”

Melaina sighed as a siren sounded.

Sam was still in too much shock herself to do more than stand and numbly observe. She was clinging, desperately, to Melaina’s assurance that Noah was still alive, but the emptiness she felt had her close to despair.

She could only stand still and watch as a police car, lights flashing and sounding its siren again, pulled to the curb.

An officer got out, looked around at the scene, then strode toward them. Surprising Sam, the circle of Willowmere staff parted to let him through.

“Director Rosethorn,” he said blandly.

“Sergeant Lang,” the Prima responded.

“A dozen people call saying a girl’s collapsed in the street and they couldn’t get through to 911 for twenty minutes — I should have known your ‘Institute’ would be involved.”

“Just a bit of a stumble, sergeant,” Prima Rosethorn said. “Nothing we can’t handle internally.”

“Yeah, ‘internally,’ like everything else.” He frowned. “Why is it, every time something weird happens in this town, it’s someone from your ‘Institute’ involved?”

“I can’t imagine what you mean, sergeant.” The Prima was scanning the crowd for something, then gave a small nod. “I’d honestly think the college students would be more of a problem for you.”

Sergeant Lang nodded. “Oh, they are. No doubt. Still trying to make sense of those kids nearly killing each other out at the Cove last year. You know, the two who did the beating claim it was one of your ‘attendees’ who made them do it?”

“‘Made’ them? How exactly?”

The sergeant suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Well … told them to … is what they said.”

Prima Rosethorn raised an eyebrow and the sergeant sighed.

“Yeah, yeah, I know — which is the only reason we haven’t been out to speak to you again. Still, if your attendees are getting so drunk they’re running out in front of cars, we need to —”

“Hello, Kenneth.”

Sam blinked as Magistra Fallowell appeared next to them. The police sergeant looked at the diminutive witch, licked his lips, then shook his head.

“I — we —” He smiled. “Hi, Lisandra.”

Magistra Fallowell smiled back and Sam could see the thin tendrils of Allure, actively worked, creeping around the sergeant.

“You haven’t called me in so long.”

The potions teacher pouted and looked at the sergeant under fluttering lashes.

“I — we — I mean.” Sergeant Lang swallowed hard. “Yeah, I guess it’s been since those kids beat each other —” He shook his head and the tendrils of Allure brightened. “I thought you were going to —” He hung his head. “I’m sorry, Lisandra.”

Magistra Fallowell nodded and smiled, taking the sergeant’s arm. She turned him back toward his patrol car.

“Well, that’s all behind us now, isn’t it? Let’s catch up.”

“Yes, Lisandra.”

Melaina sighed as the pair walked away. “I do hope she’s careful. The long term effects…”

“Lisandra knows what she’s doing,” Prima Rosethorn said. “The sergeant will wake up tomorrow with far more pleasant memories than he deserves.” She looked around. “Now that Samantha can be moved, will you escort the students back to campus? I’ll check on Magistra Cassian’s efforts and meet you there.”

*

“It’s the Blakes,” Sam insisted.

She was feeling better now that she was back on campus in Magistra Blackwood’s rooms with a half-drunk cup of Melaina’s tea in her hands.

If “better” could consist of feeling like her insides had been removed with a melon scoop and replaced with jagged bits of ice.

“It has to be,” she repeated.

“We can’t know that, dear,” Melaina said, “though it is a possibility, I suppose.”

Hannah, Brittany, and Rachel were with them. Magistra Cassian and the Prima had just left after informing them all — well, mostly Melaina — of what she’d found out. Which was, essentially, nothing.

Cassandra had been cornered in an alley by … something they couldn’t see.

Noah had shown up and fought … something they couldn’t see.

Then Noah had been knocked unconscious and dragged to … something they couldn’t see, and Cassandra had been led to the same thing, and then…

Nothing.

Rachel had more information than the teachers had been able to uncover, having been grabbed by some guys in weird suits, seen Noah fighting someone, something, with a great deal of strength and magic resistance, and then hidden across the street to watch them load Noah and Cassandra into a battered, white van — along with one of their number who was clearly dead — and drive off.

“I should have helped them,” Rachel whispered again.

“No, dear,” Melaina said, shaking her head. “You’d already seen that your magic didn’t affect them. If you’d been hurt or taken as well, we’d know even less about Noah’s abductors than we do now.”

Sam nodded.

“I don’t think it was the Blakes,” Rachel whispered.

“Who else could it be?” Sam demanded. “We know they want Noah and it was Cassandra he rushed after.” She pointed at Rachel. “And you said she wasn’t fighting when they put her in the van.”

“Yeah, but the guy who grabbed me was a … well, a guy. The Blakes wouldn’t risk a warlock, much less four — Noah killed one of them.”

Hannah shook her head. “They could have hired someone for that. Maybe weres — my Family hires weres for a lot of stuff.”

Now Melaina was shaking her head. “Of all the hirelings I can imagine putting on suits of silver, weres aren’t even on the list.”

“Rachel isn’t sure it was silver, she just said it looked like silver, so —”

“Cassandra was in real danger,” Brittany said. “The Blakes couldn’t fake that.”

“Yeah? Do you think the Blakes wouldn’t stoop to not even telling Cassandra what they had planned so she’d be really scared?”

Brittany was shaking her head. “That’s not how Precog works.”

Sam knew that. The things Brittany saw would have been real possibilities, not just Cassandra’s fears.

“And it was Cassandra,” Hannah said. “How would anyone guess Noah would try to save her of all people.”

“Because he’s good! Because he’s kind and noble and … fucking stupid! Everybody knows how dumb he is!”

Sam buried her face in her hands, hoping to hide the tears she knew were coming again.

The others were right, she knew, and that was why she was so desperately trying to convince herself otherwise. The Blakes could be handled — after the first couple failures to mark Noah, because that’s exactly what would happen, they’d figure out how strong Noah was and have to take the time to build up a high priestess candidate to overpower him.

That would give Melaina and the others time to locate him.

If it wasn’t the Blakes…

Another Family? One strong enough, or desperate enough, to risk angering the Blakes by putting Cassandra in danger?

But she knew the others were right about that, too. Only someone who knew Noah well would guess that he’d be dumb enough run off and try to rescue Cassandra Blake.

And that scared her more, because if it wasn’t a Family trying to catch a trinitara warlock, then…

It could be anything.

Sam rushed to the bathroom and collapsed onto the toilet seat, burying her face in her hands and letting herself give in to the sobbing she could no longer control.

*

Later, Sam didn’t know how long, there was a soft knock at the door.

“Sam?” Brittany whispered from outside. “Can I come in?”

“Sure, come in.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes.

Brittany eased the door open, slid inside, then softly closed it again.

She sat on the edge of the bathtub and laid a hand on Sam’s back.

“There’s nothing new,” Brittany said before Sam could ask. “Melaina’s gone to get Felicity, so —”

“What? Why? What if —”

“She says it’ll be okay,” Brittany assured her. “She said it won’t take more than an hour and … well, I guess Felicity was talking about carjacking a Ferrari or something if she didn’t. Rachel called your friend Mihai to watch over … Morgan, is it?”

Sam nodded.

Brittany rubbed her back. “It’ll be okay.”

“You can’t know that. You can’t —” Sam looked up at her excitedly. “Unless you saw something? Have you seen him? Is he —”

Brittany was shaking her head.

“I haven’t seen Noah, and even if I did … nothing’s certain.”

Sam knew that — and it made what happened even worse, because there wasn’t even a certainty that Brittany’s vision about Cassandra would have come true, either. Maybe Noah had put himself in danger for no reason.

“Then you can’t —”

Sam stared at Brittany for a moment. The girl was no good at keeping secrets at all. One question from a camp counselor about who had the booze and she’d —

“You’ve seen something. What is it?”

Brittany bit her lip and looked away. “I shouldn’t. It’s —”

“Tell me! What have you seen? Tell me or —”

Sam trailed off — there were any number of things she could threaten Brittany with disclosing if the other witch didn’t tell her, but … not now. Not for this.

“Please? Please, Brit? I can’t lose him — please?”

“It won’t help find him, it’s just —” Brittany took a deep breath. “Remember it’s not certain, okay? I didn’t see Noah. I never see Noah, but —” She frowned. “Anyway, it’s you and me. I think it’s this summer and we’re just sort of hanging out, but —”

“What?” Sam demanded.

“You’re happy,” Brittany whispered.

Sam sighed as something loosened in her.

It did nothing to fill the aching sense of loss, but it helped her thoughts settle.

If there was any chance of her being happy this summer, then that was a chance Noah would be okay, because there was no way she’d … not without him.

She sniffed, scrubbed at her eyes, then nodded and pulled out her phone.

“All right, then,” she muttered.

“What are you doing?”

“Harmony can’t kill people.”

*

“Wait here. I’ll be right out.”

“Again?”

Sam’s rideshare driver hadn’t been particularly thrilled to wait at the ATM, either, but Sam didn’t carry that much cash and she didn’t feel right not leaving some.

She sighed and dug some bills out of her wallet, holding them out.

“Twice that when I get back, okay?”

The driver looked at her skeptically.

“We’re not supposed to take cash tips…”

Are you fucking kidding me?

“Five minutes. Ten, tops, and I’ll give you twice this on top of the fare.”

She really didn’t want to stand around waiting for another ride.

“You’re not going rob the place or something, are you?”

Sam looked at the building.

“What kind of idiot would take a rideshare to rob a gun store?”

The driver apparently dismissed the idea, despite that being exactly what Sam was doing, and took the cash.

“All right, ten minutes?”

“Yeah.”

Sam opened the door and stepped out.

She entered the gun store to the tinkling of bells, smiled at the guy behind the counter, then cast her glamour when he looked back at the customer he was helping. Now he wouldn’t see her, and he’d assume she’d left while he was ringing up the current sale.

It wasn’t a big store, more of a mom and pop type, and she wasn’t expecting to find anything particularly high-end, but they did have a nice selection of shotguns.

Sam avoided the models she was most familiar with — those were designed for skeet or bird hunting and only held two shells. She had a feeling she was going to want more than that.

Even if there was only one guy responsible for taking Noah, and Sam got him with the first shot, she was going to need more than that. She had a certain amount of aggression going on, and that was going to be taken out on something.

“Hmph,” she muttered looking over what was available.

Nothing from her preferred brand, but the Italians weren’t that bad.

A tiny bit of magic opened the lock keeping the shotgun chained in place and Sam took a quick glance around to be sure no one would see it move from the rack into her glamour, then she looked it over. A quick look down the barrel and test of the action satisfied her.

She’d prefer it hold more than its four-plus-one — four in the tube, one in the chamber — but that was too much to hope for in this State.

It’d do.

Next came the shells, and she started stuffing boxes into her purse.

Slugs, shot … She searched the shelves. Salt … salt … salt … fuck.

Stupid mundane laws.

Fine.

Sam grabbed a box of birdshot — she’d reload those with salt.

Since they didn’t know who’d taken Noah, she wanted options that would hurt all the possibilities.

Keeping everything within her glamour, Sam tossed cash behind the counter — she’d figure out if it was enough later. Maybe she’d have to come back and leave more, but she was in a hurry. She left the store, adjusting the glamour to make herself visible, but not the shotgun, as she approached her ride.

“I need to stop at a grocery store,” she told the driver.

*

“Well, this is new.”

Sam looked up with slightly bleary eyes as Melaina entered.

The older witch had already returned with Felicity when Sam got back from the gun store but hadn’t been in her rooms. She’d been meeting with Prima Rosethorn and the other teachers again, planning what everyone would do once Sam could sense Noah again.

The other girls were on the couch, having quickly decided that the best way they could help right now was to leave Sam the hell alone. They all seemed to understand, but Sam would apologize for being snippish later — she still had a lot of work to do and was only about three-quarters through the boxes of shells.

Did she really need that many?

Felicity, who was crouched on the table and watching intently, didn’t seem to think it was overkill, and the softly growling cat-witch was exactly who Sam thought she should be taking direction from in this.

The table had been turned into an assembly line, with source boxes on one side of Sam, finished on her other side, and supplies in the middle.

Boxes of rock salt and Sam’s jewelry box from her dorm room, along with the same from the other girls, none of whom had complained when Sam asked for every bit of silver they owned.

Sam looked up from her current task, which was to carefully melt a bit of silver from a necklace chain onto the tip of the slug, using some very delicate magic to manage both the heat — so that the thing didn’t fire up into her face — and the thickness — to not alter the aerodynamics too much.

Each of the finished shells had been treated similarly — some shot carefully removed and encased in silver, other replaced by rock salt, still with a few silver-coated pellets, and then all recrimped and carefully lined up in order.

Slug, shot, salt, Sam said to herself to keep the order straight. She’d much rather have to fire a round to get to what she needed than try to reload, and until they knew exactly what had taken Noah, she couldn’t be sure what would work best.

“There is no new word on Noah,” Melaina said in answer to the expectant looks turned her way. “We are still waiting for Samantha’s coven-bond to show us the way.”

“I’m coming with,” Sam told Melaina. “When we know where he is, I’m coming with.”

The older witch came around the table, placed an arm over Sam’s shoulders, and kissed the top of her head.

“Of course you are, dear. I’d never leave family out of vengeance.”

She picked up one of the slugs and examined it.

“Very nice work — a bit dark, but that’s to be expected.”

Sam frowned. The silver was shiny, even with her eyes burning and grainy from the careful, detailed work, she could see that.

“Dark?”

“The blessing, dear. Pain and death — dark, but I approve. It will only last a few days, but that’s all we’ll need, I think.”

“Oh.” Sam looked at Felicity. “Is that what you were adding?”

She’d felt the cat-witch’s power touching each of the shells along with her, supporting her work.

“Mrowr.”

“The blessing’s yours, dear.”

Melaina went to the kitchen and began making tea while Sam frowned more.

Blessed silver, even with an effect that would only last days, was a lot harder to achieve than her power should allow for. She was already exhausted, physically and mentally, from the work, and honestly couldn’t believe she’d made it this far. The precision of managing the heat and the thickness of the coating used a lot of mana. How could she possibly have had enough mana to bless the silver as well?

“Oh,” Melaina called. “And congratulations — Noah will be quite happy, I’m sure.”

Sam blinked.

“What are you talking about?”

Congratulations — Noah will be happy?

What the fuck did that mean?

Am I pregnant?

She was certain she’d made sure she wouldn’t every time it applied, but … well, sometimes she was a bit disassociated from reality in the moment.

Sam turned her attention away from her work for a moment, looking instead at herself. She’d been avoiding that, not wanting to see how low on mana she might be after so much work, but … she wasn’t.

Her primary resonant was still over half-full … and not with the yellow of refined mana that Noah pushed into her. This was the brightly shining white of Love, filling her — with more and more threads bubbling up from her depths with every breath.

“Seriously?” she demanded of herself. “Now?”

*

“I love him,” Sam whispered, not sure she believed it still.

Now that her work with the shotgun shells was done, she had nothing to distract her and the new knowledge was only just sinking in.

“Of course you do,” Melaina said, refilling Sam’s tea.

“But…”

Sam fought the urge to scream again — she’d done enough of that already. The problem was she didn’t feel any different — and if she loved Noah without feeling anything more, then that meant she’d loved him all along, she was just too stupid to see it.

“I never told him,” Sam whispered.

“He knows, dear.”

“Everybody knows,” Hannah muttered.

“What?”

“It was pretty obvious,” Rachel whispered.

“Maybe now you’ll stop telling me,” Brittany said.

“What are you talking about?” Sam asked. “I didn’t even know —”

Brittany’s eye roll made it clear to Sam.

“Really?”

“Over and over and over again.” Brittany sighed. “I nearly flunked my Potions final last semester because you kept me up all night. I’ve never had so many visions about something — you just wouldn’t shut up.” She shared a look with her sister. “And since those were future visions, everybody’s going to have to listen to it now.”

“Oh.” Sam blinked a few times, trying to understand what had just happened. “Maybe the visions will stop now that I know?”

“I hope so,” Brittany muttered. “Oh, and could you stop showing up to tell me how many orgasms you’re going to have? It’s really frustrating.”

*

Sam sat on Melaina’s couch the rest of the day, staring at the shotgun she’d brought over to the coffee table, along with her purse and the roll of shells inside. She’d arranged them carefully, in order, then rolled them in a length of silk Melaina had given her, so that she’d be reloading in the same order.

She muttered slug, shot, salt so often she was certain the others were sick of it, but preparing what she was going to do to whoever’d taken Noah was preferable to thinking about the rest of it — how much time she’d wasted not being able to tell him how she felt. Maybe he did know — everyone else seemed to have had no problem figuring it out — but knowing wasn’t the same as hearing.

Sam thought about all the times Noah had told her he loved her. He didn’t go overboard — he knew it hurt her a little bit, even as it made her heart soar, that she couldn’t say it back. Still, that hadn’t stopped him from reminding her from time to time — and she treasured every one of them. It broke her heart that she’d kept him from feeling that as well all these weeks.

Melaina disappeared into her bedroom for a time, then returned with a long sleeve of silk.

“We’ll be moving quickly when the time comes,” she offered as an explanation. “Steel isn’t as bad as cold iron, but it won’t be welcome where we’re going.”

Sam frowned, but she slid her shotgun into the sleeve, knotting the open end when Melaina told her to.

“Where’s that?”

The Fairy Road.

Sam jumped as the voice sounded in her head and she looked around, wondering who’d spoken.

“Sam?” Rachel asked. “You okay?”

“What — who?”

Felicity hopped into her lap and sat, staring at her intently.

“Felicity?”

Who else?

Sam stared at the cat-witch in shock. So far as she knew, Felicity was pretty selective about who she spoke to mind-to-mind, most people were, since the connection could allow for leaks of more than one might wish the other to know.

“Why?”

Why speak to you? You are my kin now — and I must adjust to my family growing. As well, you will need someone to advise you on the Fairy Road, while Melaina must concentrate on our path.

“We’re going into Fairy?”

“Who are you talking to?” Hannah asked.

“The cat,” Rachel said. “Catch up.”

“Around the edges of Fairy, yes,” Melaina said. “We will travel faster than any others and reach Noah first. When you sense him, we will travel. Evelina will be following our journey and start the others on the way once we know Noah’s direction, but we will find him first. Then we’ll finish our business before she and the Council representatives arrive.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if they were with us?”

Much as Sam wanted to be the one to put down whoever had Noah, she’d rather there be enough force to make certain Noah was safe.

Felicity’s lip curled.

Our family has secrets, she said. As well, this prey is ours.

“Felicity’s desires aside,” Melaina said, “there are limits to how many I can take through the Road.”

“You — you sound pretty confident we’ll have the chance.”

Sam desperately wanted to believe that, but the aching emptiness inside her seemed to mock the possibility.

He is a Blackwood warlock separated from his witch. He will find a way.

Melaina sighed. “Given it’s Noah, likely an unexpected one.”

*

Sam found it harder and harder to believe that as the night went on, reaching a full twenty-four hours since Noah had been taken, and then more.

She hadn’t slept. She’d barely eaten, and that only so Rachel would stop making airplane noises while trying to feed her.

Not even the second batch of cookies Melaina had baked could tempt her.

Sam assumed the baking was the other witch’s way of dealing with her own feelings of fear and anger as they waited for some sign.

She knew she should both eat and sleep, so she’d be rested, awake, and ready when the time came, but she couldn’t force herself to — especially not to sleep. What if Melaina didn’t want to wake her?

The thought that she couldn’t very well miss anything when it was her coven bond with Noah they were expecting to tell them where he was … well, she was a bit tired for logic.

Maybe she should pull her shotgun out and check it again?

Pain lanced through her — worse, even, than what she’d experienced when her link to Noah had been broken. Then she realized it was like the pain of pulling a thorn from your palm — sharp but followed by relief as the pain you’d had all along eased. Warmth filled her. Warmth and love and the certainty that he was —

“There!” Sam yelled, leaping to her feet and pointing.

Melaina rushed over with a pair of maps. She handed one to Hannah and laid the other out on the table. A compass landed on the table and the map slid until the Norths lined up.

“You’re certain?” Melaina asked.

Sam nodded and Melaina drew a line from Willowmere on the map in the direction Sam pointed.

“Do you have it?”

Hannah nodded, showing an identical line formed on her map.

“Take it to the Prima,” Mel said. “Samantha, let’s go.”

Sam grabbed her shotgun, checking the knot at the end of the silk sleeve to ensure it was sealed as Melaina’d told her, and slung her purse full of shotgun shells over a shoulder.

Felicity hopped from the table to her shoulder, wrapping her tail around Sam’s neck.

Take Melaina’s hand.

Sam listened to the cat and hurried to catch up with Melaina, who was almost to the door, slinging a bag of her own over her shoulder and reaching back with her other.

Sam grasped that just as Melaina touched the door and glanced back at her.

“Remember,” Melaina said. “This is for Noah.”

*

Crone’s corns — Noah owes me big for this.

It wasn’t a Willowmere corridor outside of Melaina’s apartment, it was a world of swirling, pink mist, marked by explosions, like lightning, of blue.

Sam honestly couldn’t tell if those sparks were small and near or huge and far.

Watch your footing.

Sam didn’t know what Felicity was warning about. Even though she couldn’t see her feet through the swirling mist, the ground beneath them was steady … a bit soft, perhaps … a little uneven … maybe…

Sam stumbled and had to use her hold on Melaina’s hand to keep her feet under her.

What was that? A fucking boulder?

Sam stumbled again as Melaina came to a stop, turned to the side, and opened a door in the mist.

Behind that one were mists of cool green, brightening and ebbing in calming pulses. Sam could feel the coolness that lay inside.

Mmmellainah

“Blast!” Melaina said. “I should’ve known he’d be hanging about after I walked the Road to get Felicity.”

Sam couldn’t tell if the voice was in the mists or in her head. It seemed to echo in her skull without bothering with her ears.

Come to plaaayyy, Mahlayna?

“Well, that’s creepy,” Sam muttered.

“Come, we must hurry.”

Melaina pulled Sam through the doorway.

More twists and turns within the green mist.

I caaan smellll you, Melayna.

“And worse … Melaina? What is that?”

Felicity answered as Melaina opened a new door into a jungle barely lit by moonlight streaming down from the canopy.

Tansy.

“Is a tansy a thing? Or a person?” Sam whispered.

There were … things out there in the shadows. Little hoots and tweets that Sam was certain had nothing whatsoever to do with birds or insects or anything Sam might be able to recognize without going insane.

“Tansy is … Tansy,” Melaina said, pausing to look around, cock her head to listen, and then dragging Sam off in a different direction. “He just … is. If he is a he. I’ve never asked. Seemed a bit rude, so, for all I know, he might be a —”

Smell your sweets weets eetssshhugar!

“That’s a guy,” Sam said.

“Indeed.”

Sam lost track of the number of doors Melaina took her through. World after world, each unique, with Melaina sometimes pausing to listen or drag Sam to the side, crouching down to hide from something very large and very snuffly shuffling around in the mists … or plants … or fucking yucky fucking spider webs … and all with the voice calling after them.

Smell you, taste it, long to…

Melaina pulled up, throwing her head back and breathing deeply. Sam took the chance to lean over, hands on knees while she tried to hack out a lung. She’d never run so far — it seemed like they’d been at it for hours — hours during which anything could’ve happened to Noah.

“Melaina?” Sam gasped. “What —”

“I hear you there, Tansy,” Melaina called out. “You’ve caught us. Come on out and have your forfeit.”

“Melaina?”

It will all be well, Felicity said in her mind. Melaina will pay any bargain owed.

“That’s not comforting, because — ew!”

The ew was more for the appearance of the thing than the thought of any bargain Melaina might owe the thing — those ews would come later when she thought of them.

For now, it was enough that the thing hopping out of the mists was nowhere near the size Sam was expecting, being less than three feet tall — but it was every bit as ugly as she’d expected. A green, warty face surrounded by dangling, squirming tendrils, sat atop an equally warty body.

The thing scurried up to Sam, rose to its full three-foot height, opened it’s wide, toothy mouth, and … sniffed.

“Ew!”

Ihs this what you’ve brought me, Melaina?

“And ew!”

“No, Tansy, she’s not for you. She belongs to a Blackwood warlock.”

The little creature scurried away, covering his head with his hands.

The Blackwoods lies! No more Blackwood warlocks!

“There is, Tansy. I have a … rather great grandson.” Melaina turned to Sam. “Don’t tell him I used that particular phrasing, dear.”

Sam shook her head, still staring at the creature.

Congratulations?

“Indeed, Tansy,” Melaina said. “I’m quite pleased.”

And what do you have for me?

Sam jumped as the thing rose to its full height again and sniffed repeatedly.

What has Melaina brought for … snickerdoodle?

“And some of those white chocolate-macadamia ones you like.”

Melaina swung her bag off her shoulder and the creature hopped forward eagerly to take it from her. Tansy buried his head in the bag, sniffing deeply.

I told you Melaina would pay any bargain, Felicity said.

*

“What I don’t get,” Sam said as they followed Tansy through door after door, “is why — if Tansy would lead us on this shortcut for a bunch of cookies — why did we run from him in the first place?”

“The cookies were a gift, dear — the payment was the chase.” Melaina shrugged. “Tansy enjoys a good game, but there are few willing to play with him.”

“Because?” Sam felt the question needed to be asked.

He eats them, Felicity said.

Ahead of them, Tansy opened another door and Melaina nodded.

“Oh, here we are.”

Sam raised her eyes from where she’d been watching her feet slog through a thigh-high morass of swirling purple to find a door opening onto the most beautiful dumpster she’d ever seen.

Sam took a deep breath and relished standing on concrete instead of a cloud — or giant mushrooms, or …

Please, never tell me that wasn’t marshmallow cream.

Melaina spread out her map and adjusted it with her compass.

“There,” Sam said, pointing.

Melaina drew another line on the map, noting where they intersected it.

“Right — come on.”

Sam took Mel’s hand and dashed back through the door.

“This is taking so long,” Sam said. “It’s been hours — anything could have happened.”

“Time isn’t the same in Fairy,” Melaina said. “It’s only been a minute or two.”

“Really?”

Melaina nodded.

Several hours and two more stops back into reality to triangulate, they came through a door onto a street in front of a large house.

“This is it,” Sam said, reaching for the knotted end of her sleeved-shotgun.

“Thank you, Tansy,” Melaina said.

Brownies next time, Melaina?

“We’ll see.”

Good as a promise, Melaina — good as a promise!

Felicity leapt from Sam’s shoulder and Sam had to jump a little. To be told there’d be a jaguar there was different than seeing it.

She felt the tug of their coven bond and could tell Noah’d gotten himself in trouble again.

Her shotgun made a comforting noise.

“They’ve got him in the basement.”

*

“Evelina will have Magistra Cassian and the others on the move already, closing in as we narrowed the location — now that we’re certain, we’ll have a bit more than twenty minutes before they’re here,” Melaina said as they approached the front door.

“We’re not waiting, are we?” Sam asked, worried the plan might have changed and if she had the guts to blow the hinges off the door if Melaina said yes. She doubted that was the plan, though, since the older witch’s seeming calm had been fading with every step toward the house.

Sam winced at the disappointed glance and irritated growl that was met with — that the growl was accompanied by a snarl that exposed gleaming white fangs and the glance had sparks of white lightning that were beginning to make Melaina’s hair float around her head like a halo … did nothing to ease her embarrassment at a stupid question.

“Of course not,” Melaina said. “The warning is about how much time we’ll have to secure Noah and ensure he’s under shield before others arrive — I imagine there’ll be Council adutrices with them, and we can’t let them notice anything odd about Noah.”

“What if the ones who took him noticed something?”

Melaina shrugged. “The same as if they haven’t.”

No one touches one of ours and lives to tell tales.

With that, The Blackwood gestured and the building’s door, frame and all, was ripped from the wall and crashed inward.

Felicity was only a moment behind the door and Melaina followed, with Sam close on her heels.

The front door opened onto a living area filled with dingy, well-used furniture. No sign of either Noah or his captors, though Sam could dimly hear the sounds of a fight. The sounds were coming from their right where there was a kitchen with a hallway on its far side.

Sam was closest and turned that way, feeling Melaina close behind her.

Her shotgun rose as a shadow moved in the hallway, but Melaina rested a hand on her shoulder.

“A moment, so that we can see who we’re dealing with.”

“Abominations at the door!”

“Ah,” Melaina said. “I see.”

“What —”

Sam didn’t get a chance to place her finger on the trigger before arcs of lightning shot from Melaina’s outstretched hand and engulfed the man … to no effect.

“I see,” Melaina repeated, gesturing to the side.

Which gave Sam the moment she needed to aim and fire.

The blast of the shotgun drew a yowl of irritation from Felicity, who was trying to get into the kitchen past Sam and Melaina, but that was quickly drowned out by crashing as the refrigerator Melaina sent flying across the kitchen pulped the man through the wall.

“More satisfying anyway,” Melaina muttered. She held up a hand. “Wait.”

Sam jumped as a glamoured image of her, as well as Melaina and Felicity, rushed the hallway opening the man had come through, throwing themselves to either side, with Felicity’s crouched low.

Gunshots rang out, cutting into the corners and striking the far wall, until Sam heard a distinct click.

“Now,” Melaina said.

Sam threw herself to the floor at the hall’s opening and fired as she felt Felicity’s bulk leap over her.

This man didn’t have a silver suit on and he was fumbling with his gun to load a fresh magazine when Sam’s shot took him in the knee.

He had just time to scream before Felicity was on him and the scream was overpowered by the crunch of bone.

Sam scrambled to her feet as Melaina passed her.

Slug, shot … shit, Sam thought.

Salt wasn’t going to do her any good against mundanes.

She started to rack her shotgun’s slide to eject the useless round when she felt something move behind her in the kitchen.

Sam spun around, ducking as something swished over her head and slammed into the wall, then pulled the trigger as her knee hit the floor.

More screams followed the boom of the shot and Sam winced at their shrillness — then winced again as she saw where the load of rock salt had taken the man who was now rolling back and forth while clutching at his bloodied groin.

“Slug,” Sam muttered, rising to one knee and firing.

She’d been aiming for the man’s head, but he was thrashing around so much she missed, just clipping his ear instead.

“Shit! Shot!”

Sam racked the slide again and … missed, catching the man’s other ear.

“Shit!”

That was her five.

“Shitshitshit!” Sam shouted as she pulled shells from her purse and shoved them into the gun’s breech.

Of course, she’d very carefully packed that bag, which meant —

“Fucking salt!”

That she put into the man’s torso — at least that wasn’t thrashing back and forth.

“Fucking slug!”

Sam ejected the next three rounds and reloaded, skipping every third, as she left the now still body and stalked down the hallway to Melaina and Felicity.

Do not speak to me of playing with my prey again, Melaina. That one hunts as a Blackwood.

“What?” Sam said. “You think I did that on —”

Sam cut off as Melaina’s head jerked around to face the basement door and the sparking from her eyes and hair was joined by lightning swirling around her hands.

“There is a vampire here,” Melaina said, and blew the door in.

*

“I told you the vampire was a stupid idea,” Cassandra said, climbing over the barricade to approach them.

“Hey!” Sam yelled, spinning away from Noah to point at Cassandra. “If it wasn’t for him, nobody would have even cared you were missing, so —”

Sam broke off, first at seeing Cassandra didn’t have any shields up, then realizing that she must, because she’d just been in the middle of a huge fight, and finally realizing why she could see Cassandra’s three resonants, even though the other witch did have her shields up … which brought her to —

“Really?”

Noah just shrugged. “It was the only way we could have enough mana to get out of the cage so you could sense where we were.”

Sam sighed, shook her head and clenched her teeth.

Leave it to Noah to get himself kidnapped and come out with a new witch. She should have known it would happen when he got kidnapped with a witch — she just hadn’t believed it would be possible with Cassandra.

Then again … Noah.

Sam let her breath out slowly and tried to relax her shoulders.

Like it or not, she couldn’t start her life with a new coven-sister by being the witchy-one. She’d leave that to Cassandra.

Sam held out her hands.

“Blessed be, sister.”

Cassandra stepped back, raising her hands and face going cold.

“Don’t you even fucking think I’m going to —”

“Cassandra!” Noah snapped and Cassandra’s head jerked around to look at him.

Oh. Oh, my, Sam thought. That’s … all kinds of intriguing.

Could Cassandra be … no, that had all been Noah. He hadn’t quite consciously figured out what a tone of voice could do to a girl, but he was coming into it quite naturally, she thought.

“You two don’t have to kiss or whatever that was, but be fucking civil, okay?”

Sam raised an eyebrow. Not being required to kiss still left open some intriguing possibilities.

Cassandra rolled her eyes, but took Sam’s outstretched hands.

“Blessed be, sister,” she muttered.

“Good girl.”

Oh, shit, Sam thought seeing the look on Cassandra’s face. This is going to be fun to watch.

Sam was shocked out of her enjoyment by the sight of Cassandra’s mana up close — not the trinitara status, that was a given, but the tiny eddy deep in the other witch’s core. The little swirl of threads that seemed to circle once, then disappear.

“Oh!” Sam squealed, throwing her arms around Cassandra.

This was big. This was huge. This was the hugest.

She’d wondered, sometimes, if she’d gone astray. So much of what she’d done since she came into her power had been as far from her mother’s wishes as she could get — but all her life, she’d heard that the will of the Goddess was the will of the Family. That the Family’s high priestesses understood that will.

But this? A baby from a coven binding?

She couldn’t help herself — she wrapped her arms around Cassandra and started bouncing up and down, something the other witch surprised her by joining in, with a wide, pure smile.

“We’re really going to have a little witch in the coven?” Sam asked.

“Warlock,” Cassandra corrected.

Sam gasped.

A warlock.

If the Goddess was blessing them with this … then this was what was supposed to be. Even Cassandra — the Goddess approved of this, so … they were going to be all right.