Kelly said, “Yes.”
“Do it. Do it now.”
He was out of the truck before I could stop him. Gavin snarled at him but stayed where he was.
I put the phone back up to my ear. “Kelly. Kelly! What is he doing? He can’t do this on his own!”
And Kelly said, “He’s not alone. We never were. Look.”
They came from the trees. Dozens of them. I could hear their heartbeats, rapid, like the flutter of a bird’s wings. They stood between us and Livingstone.
He cocked his head and said, “What’s this?”
Witches. All of them witches. Some I recognized from Caswell. Some from when I was a child and they bowed before my father. Two more stepped from the trees, moving slowly but surely.
Aileen and Patrice.
Livingstone smiled. “What do you think you could possibly do to me? This is my becoming. You can’t touch me.”
“Oh,” Aileen said, her voice husky. “You’d be surprised what we can do. And we’re not going to touch you.”
Gordo said, “We’re going to contain you. You’re a wolf now. And I know how to trap wolves. You taught me as much.”
Livingstone’s eyes widened.
The witches all pulled out knives, some longer than others. They flashed in the sunlight, and I smelled the burn of silver. Gordo was first, slashing the scar where the raven had once been. Blood spilled. He jerked his arm out, blood landing on the ruins of the road. The others followed, slicing hands and palms and forearms. The stench of blood was immediately thick, mixing with the scent of silver. They all raised their hands as one, and I felt a large wave of magic began to build. Sparks filled the air in front of the witches, colliding and melding with each other, bright like fire.
Livingstone lunged forward. I screamed for Gordo, but Livingstone crashed into the sparks, which flashed as they amassed. He fell backward and landed on the ground, his nose broken but already healing, blood on his lips. He sat up, his hands flat against the pavement.
On either side of the road, as far as I could see into the forest, the barrier rose.
“Witches,” Kelly said in my ear. “They came with us. Once we knew where you probably were, they came. They knew what he was capable of. His strengths. His weaknesses.”
Livingstone picked himself up from the road as the witches lowered their arms. He slowly approached the ward. He raised a hand and hissed when it blackened as if burned once he pressed it against the ward. “Clever,” he said. “I taught you well. You can’t possibly think this will hold me forever.”
Gordo shook his head. “Not forever. But it will for now. And that’s all the time we need.” He turned away from his father, walking back toward the truck, his blood dripping onto the road. He held his head high, his shoulders squared.
He stopped when his father said, “Gordo.”
He didn’t turn around.
Livingstone said, “You’re making a mistake.”
Gordo’s eyes narrowed as he looked down at the knife in his hand.
Livingstone said, “Once I find a way out of here, I will come for you. I’ll come for all of you. And not you, not your pack, no one will be able to stop me.”
With a practiced move, Gordo flipped the knife in his hand and caught it between his fingers by the blade. He whirled around, hand coming up behind his head before throwing the knife. It spun end over end, and—
Livingstone clapped his hands together, catching the knife by the blade, the tip pressing into his forehead. A trickle of blood dripped between his eyes and off the side of his nose to his mouth. When he smiled, it stained his teeth. He dropped the knife to the ground, his hands already healing from the burn of the silver.
“Next time,” Gordo told him, “I won’t miss.” And then he turned around and came toward the truck. “Aileen, Patrice,” he said without looking back, “you know what to do.”
“We do,” Patrice said. “Get dem home. Do what you must.”
Gordo climbed into the truck, face hard. The truck roared as he hit the gas. We shot forward. Gavin lurched but remained upright, his tail curling around my hand. Livingstone stood in the middle of the ruined road, watching us. The last I saw of him was the red in his eye before we turned a corner, leaving him behind.
I WOKE UP SCREAMING in the middle of the night, still caught in the tangle of a nightmare where my brothers turned to dust in front of me, carried away on a harsh wind. They were gone, gone, gone, and I was alone.