Two years.
They had let it happen for two years.
The air had a crisp chill to it, the last remains of summer swaying away with the light breeze.
Ivy liked to think those two years hadn't been wasted.
She'd started college, for one, alternating between attending classes and working ungodly hours in the dead of night.
She'd found the job on the anniversary of Eben's death.
The date was marked in her brain, like a tether she could hold onto whenever her nightmares startled her awake.
Oddly enough, Faye slept like a baby.
Her nerves were as fierce as her personality, and the predicament that had been hers not so long ago had always managed to keep Ivy up for most of the nights. But not Faye.
Never Faye.
Faye hadn't gone to college.
On one of the rare days they could still make time for each other, they'd gone to San Francisco, and Faye had taken up some unexpected modeling contract offered by another face in the crowd.
She worked every other day.
Her career was in full swing, having been discovered by numerous agencies for her supernatural charm.
Whenever necessity required her out of Chance Harbor, Ivy studied and swung by the smallest nearby town, that of Crowhaven End.
She knew the way by heart: a small ravine and some miles away out of Chance Harbor, the sign to New Salem and a few roads down the pebbled roads to find another sign, larger by a millimeter.
The road wasn't pebbled there.
She usually took a right, and then another and kept driving ahead for a few minutes before she reached her destination.
Madame Zelia's pawnshop saw a variety of clients, all eccentric in their own personal ways.
On good days, Ivy only had to check the register once every two hours, and on those days, she could retreat into the back of the shop, toward the real reason she'd taken up work in this dumpster of a place.
You see, Madame Zelia's pawnshop and antiquary gave way to an herbal garden. This garden, protected by the glass dome of a greenhouse, was essentially shielded from the conspiratorial human eye.
It hosted the most exotic plants Ivy had ever seen, dug up from nearly all realms ever known to witches.
Over the years, she'd managed to get a hang of all of them, finding out all their magical properties, the way they could serve Nature's true purpose.
The way they could bring about destruction and quite possibly the end times.
But amongst the numerous bushes, bright flowers and ceiling-high branches, lay a chest.
It was made of wood, its contents fastened with brass knuckles that glistened under the moonlight and large veins spreading across the surface, showing way toward the ominous book perched on top.
A book of Shadows.
Zelia's own precious book of Shadows.
She was allowed, under certain circumstances to use the book.
To flip through its contents and learn and use whatever sparked her interest. To explore all that she was and all that she would ever be. She was a demi-god, after all.
Her life hadn't changed much after that revelation. Neither Zeus or Persephone had come down from Olympus to find her for some sketchy family dinner. Not even to blame her for Hades' predicament. She liked things this way.
She was a relatively powerful witch, born to another witch. She didn't need anything else.
Despite her new acquired knowledge, she'd never once brought Faye to see her discovery, for she could only imagine the younger witch's reaction.
Faye wasn't exactly known for her ability to keep secrets.
Or to keep her hands to herself.
Not that she was necessarily complaining...
But as it turns out, none of Zelia's spells could have prepared her for this.
The wind rustled in the nearly-bare trees, blowing the dried leaves to the ground.
Dead.
Just like them.
All of them.
Six dead bodies who had still been people but a second ago.
And he stood in the middle of it.
Surrounded by flames and death itself.
The last time she'd seen flames was a vivid memory.
Faye was screaming and tied to Jake and they were dying.
The flames licked their skin as they climbed the pole, drawing a perfect circle around them and getting nearer still.
She'd thought she was going to lose her that day.
But she'd survived. She was here. They were all here.
Surrounded by a circle of smoke, skinny carcasses and rotting bits of flesh.
She lifted her leg and sidestepped an ominous rock, the glistening surface shimmering a bright red under the moonlight.
Jake led the way out of the narrowed outcropping and the rest of them scattered around the circle.
Under the dark blanket of night, six dead bodies, and seven witches.
Ivy felt her own dread spike through the roof as Faye shuddered beside her.
No matter how many times they would face adversity, this kind of twisted witch rituals always rendered them mute.
''Adam!'' Cassie screamed, her eyes turning to the lone figure standing in the midst of it all.
The fog was thick around him, and although they'd spent several years looking for him, she would recognize those dimpled cheeks anywhere.
His hair was longer and he harbored a shaggy brown bread which framed red-rimmed eyes she barely recognized.
She'd grown up with him.
She knew him.
But this... this wasn't Adam.
''Adam!'' Cassie repeated, screaming over the gust of wind.
It picked up the scattered leaves and the bits of melted snow off the ground and twirled them around the circle, forming a protective cloak around the warlock.
Jake stepped forward and tried to step over the line of chalk, grossly formed with dead leaves, only for an invisible force to knock him backward. He flew away and landed against a trunk, his body hitting the bark with a sickening crack.
''Adam, stop it!''
He didn't listen.
Their efforts fell on deaf ears as he produced a blade from his jacket pocket, and their eyes widened with horror.
Ivy only had time to hear Cassie scream and look away from Jake to see him plunge the knife into his own chest. Jake groaned under her and she helped him up, walking back to the circle as the fog dissipated.
''Oh my god. Oh my god.''
The former circle ran to the centerpiece of this macabre ritual, crossing over the chalk circle and pushing leaves aside as they got to the body.
Adam was gurgling and spitting out blood and Jake tried with everything in him to keep him that way, but soon enough, the light in his eyes diminished until nothing remained of neither the kind boy or unhinged warlock he'd come to be.
''Is he...''
''Dead.'' Jake confirmed for everyone.
Melissa shuddered, holding Cassie's sobbing form by the shoulders. Faye leaned into Ivy. Jake remained still.
Adam was the kind of kid who'd always shared his toys. The kind of teenager to put his friends first and come up with selfless plans to ensure their safety above all else. The kind to become obsessed with power and kill himself in an ancient ritual.
As they mourned over his barely recognizable form, his blood seeping into the earth in a macabre spiderweb, Jake rose to his feet.
''Give me your hands.'' he commanded at once.
''What?''
''Give me your hands.'' he repeated, grabbing Faye's and Ivy's over Adam's body.
Wordlessly, with puzzled expressions and a half-mind to get out of here as quick as possible, they all complied, taking a hold of each other's hands until they formed a perfect circle over him.
''Repeat after me,'' he instructed, ''To life we bring, to death we rip,''
''Jake... we haven't done this in over two years. I don't think-''
''Just say it!''
Cassie was the first to enact.
''To life we bring,'' she muttered, her glossy eyes finding Adam's lifeless orbs, ''To death we rip.''
Diana came second until each and everyone of them took up the chant.
Their voices carried through the fog, the trees and toward the sky and through realms, pleading with otherworldly entities to grant them this small mercy.
''To life we bring. To death we rip.'' Ivy screwed her eyes shut, envisioning the sight of Adam springing back to life. She had no means to know whether this would work or not. Driven by nothing but sheer desperation, she let the words engulf her.
She thought about his corpse lying in the dirt, beside her boot and squeezed Diana's hand tighter.
A gasp broke through their relentless chant and she opened her eyes to Adam sitting up amongst them.
Jake was the first to register his actual presence. He crouched in front of him and plucked the dagger still tight around his fingers.
''Welcome back to the land of the living.''
''Adam!'' Cassie threw her arms around him.
''Careful,'' Faye warned, ''Has anyone forgotten he was a person of interest two minutes ago?''
''What?'' said suspect separated from the blonde witch to regard the taller girl. ''What are you talking about?''
''You don't remember?'' Melissa frowned.
''Adam, you're wanted by the state,'' Ivy tried gently, ''Several states, actually. For thirteen counts of murder. It's all over the news.''
''What?''
''We think it's that skull you were supposed to ditch. Its pull or whatever.''
''It doesn't matter,'' Diana took a step forward, ''All that matters is that you're here now. You're safe.''
''Do you even know what happened just now?''
''I-I don't know, Mel. I just- the last thing I remember is taking that skull and I wake up and you're all around me... bringing me back to life, I guess.''
''It was Jake's idea.'' Faye clarified, unwilling to be seen as the emotional party.
''Faye. Not helping.'' Ivy chastised, ''You know you were dead?''
He nodded vigorously. ''Wherever I was... I-I think I saw something. Someone.''
''When?''
''Just now- I just... I can't remember...''
''You need to sleep,'' Cassie said, ''We have to take you home.''
''Home is the first place they'll look.''
''We can't let him off the hook.''
''Faye, he's better now.''
''Do you seriously believe him? We could be letting a psychopath on the lose for all we know.''
''She's right, Cas.''
''It's Adam!''
''Stop!'' he interjected, ''All of you... I just, I think I know what-who I saw,'' he released a sigh and stared up into Cassie's eyes. ''It was your mother. It was Amelia.''
''What? Where did you see her?''
''Just now! When I was... when I was dead.''
Ivy and Faye exchanged a look with Jake, the three most dubitative about this ordeal. Melissa and Diana stepped closer anyhow, obviously interested in what Adam had to say now that he was cured of this darkness.
''She talked to me.''
''Well, what did she say?''
''She said only one word.'' He pondered over the exact encounter for a second before his eyes found them one by one and he uttered the single word that brought dread washing over them. ''Balcoin.''