The Accidental End (The Accidental Witch Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  “I was not part of the rebels, thank you very much. I have some standards, but I want my daughter to be head witch. I know, I know, why would you believe that Adam is their father, but it’s true. I met Adam before Elodie and I fell in love with him, as everybody who ever met the damn man did, and then he met my sister and she bedazzled him. He said there was no decision to make, it was always Elodie for him... until I convinced him otherwise.” She looks at the twins, eyes full of love. “I didn’t trick him, I just persuaded him. Once, only once, and then spent the rest of my life trying to get him to choose me over my sister. He didn’t. He chose her, but he was loyal to me in his own way. He picked me to handle the rebels, after all, and he told me all of his secrets. Me. I had been trying to figure out what to do, how to get past this annoying magic, when I learned about Zeta’s plan. I let her go ahead with it, watched as you interrupted the ceremony, watched as we invested you instead of Fletcher, and waited until it was my turn.”

  “But you wanted to kill me as soon as I was invested. Fletcher said so.”

  “That was for show, really. I had to act like I knew nothing about anything. And so that’s the loophole, if you will! Clever!”

  She cackles again, causing the twins to look rather alarmed. They still haven’t spoken, and Ellis tries to lock eyes with them. Are they as power hungry as their mother? As desperate to kill her?

  “Anyway, being Adam’s confidant, if nothing else, meant that I also knew what would happen if we tried to undo the original magic, which I have to do so that Vann can be free.” She softens at his name. “And you’ve figured that out. You have solved all my problems, Ellis. And I thank you for that, even though I have to kill you.”

  Ellis closes her eyes. The information is overwhelming, and she cannot think of anything to say.

  Vann pokes his head through the doorway. “Everything’s set up my love.” Ember grins at him and jumps up to kiss him, before spinning back to face them. “Ready?”

  Ellis remains rooted to her seat and Thea and Talia stand reluctantly. “Come on Ellis, we can’t do this without you.”

  Desperate to stall, Ellis clears her throat. “Can I ask you some questions first, try to get my head around this?”

  Ember sighs but nods and takes a seat on the settee again. She gestures for the twins to sit back down.

  “So you want one of your daughters to be head witch instead of me, or Fletcher, really?”

  Ember nods. “It might not make any sense to you, you’re not from our world, but being head witch is an enormous deal – a privilege and an honour.”

  “But you won’t be head witch – your daughter will be.”

  “True. But I will finally have the girls acknowledged as Adam’s children, and I don’t want to be too unkind here, but Fletcher won’t make an excellent head witch. I loved Adam, I truly did, but he was too soft, probably moulded that way from spending all his time with my sister and his son is exactly the same. You have to have some fire to be in charge, some balls.”

  Ellis coughs. “And you don’t think Fletcher has the balls to do the job?”

  “You might think otherwise, being in love with him, but I know he doesn’t. He’s a wuss, a sook, a baby.”

  “Okay, and you can’t kill him, because you love him so much?”

  “I love him, but also if I killed him to make one of the girls head witch, it just wouldn’t work.” She shrugs. “Magic.”

  “And the girl’s father is really Adam? They’re not cousins, they’re brother and sisters?” Ellis looks at the twins, who look as shell-shocked as she feels. “Did the twins know? That Adam was their dad?”

  Ember shakes her head. “No, I only just shared that with them, but they stand by me. I’m their mother. They are with me on this one.”

  “Did Adam know? Did Fletcher’s dad know that he was their father?”

  Ember looks sad and shakes her head, no.

  “He didn’t figure it out? When you had the twins nine months after...” Ellis trails off and Ember shrugs. “Maths wasn’t his strong suit.”

  Ellis almost laughs, but then her face turns sombre. “And when you said I was a pawn...?”

  “I didn’t even know it myself, but Zeta was bragging to Vann about all the things she’d done, the plans she’d made, to get Efa to power. She wanted you to be head witch. Not you, necessarily, but somebody that wasn’t part of our world. The night you got invested, the night you thought you were chasing your little puppy through Margam Park? Nuh uh – you were chasing Layland who had shifted into your cute little puppy – Doughnut was it?”

  “Macaroon,” Ellis answers, her voice trembling.

  “Right, Macaroon, was actually Layland, with the sole aim of getting you invested instead of Fletcher. Like I said, a loophole. Zeta saw it, but she didn’t get as far as we did. Now we have Lincoln here to reprise his role... Sadly we must kill you, but Vann can do an expert job of it. He’ll make sure you’re struck first so you won’t feel a thing. And then Lincoln will invest Talia and the entire world will be how I want it.”

  And that you’re about to kill me, that you’ve lied to your sister this whole time, cheated with her husband? None of this matters?”

  Ember shrugs. “Not to me, it doesn’t. It’s the reason Adam asked me to fight against the rebels. I don’t worry, I don’t second guess, I don’t stress myself out worrying about the morality of my choices – I just do what needs to get done. And you’ve changed the original magic, so I can undo the power we have over the other creatures, give them their freedom, and set Talia up as head witch of the witches. Vann and I will get married and have little fairy witch babies and Fletcher and Elodie? They’ll get over it. That’s all they’ll have the energy to do.”

  Ellis

  I cannot believe what I’m hearing and yet it shouldn’t surprise me. I never liked Fletcher’s aunt – she’s so scary and cold and condescending and arrogant, with her perfect hair and her high heels and her bright red lipstick.

  Did she really sleep with her sister’s husband? Has Fletcher got two sisters, well, half sisters, instead of two cousins? How will his mother cope with this betrayal?

  And my stomach flips. Was Macaroon really Layland in disguise when I chased her that night? That’s so gross. And was I really changed so they could kill me off instead of Fletcher?

  Why me?

  I’ve always been unlucky. If anybody will step in the dog shit – yes, that’s me. If the bird will poop on somebody’s head – yes, me. The one who’ll get hit with the stray football, rugby ball, tennis ball, anything – me.

  I try to think of more questions, anything to delay the inevitable, and then I smile. The one good thing – the only good thing about today – is that they will undo the original magic, and as per Sadie’s dastardly plan, I will die. So Ember might get her wish of investing Talia as the new head witch, but she won’t be the one who kills me. That’s some minor comfort to me.

  Is that really a good thing? I wipe at a tear that’s trailing down my face.

  “Ah don’t cry, pickle. I’ll make it painless; I promise.”

  I snort. As if I can believe her. She wants to kill me so that her daughter can be head witch, her daughter, whose father is her sister’s dead husband. She’s a snake. A mean and nasty snake who doesn’t even care that she’s a snake.

  “Anything else you need to know? Questions? Anything puzzling you, or can we start?”

  I shrug. Everything is puzzling me, upsetting me and stressing me out. I don’t have just one question for this snake woman; I have about a thousand. But what’s the point? Even if I could get a bit of my magic to work, I’d be no match for Ember. Or the twins. Or Sally. “Are Sally’s parents in on this too. Are they against Elodie too?”

  Ember frowns and sighs. “They are, as it goes, but I’m not against my sister, am I? I haven’t killed her or Fletcher. I haven’t harmed them. It’s not so much being against her as being for me.”

  I raise an eyebrow at her. She can sug
ar coat this if she wants to, if that makes her feel better, and helps her sleep at night, but the fact of it is, if Zeta was insane, Ember is worse. She’s perfectly sane. She seduced her sister’s husband, kept her betrayal quiet, pretended to be a good, loving sister, and then planned to usurp her nephew from his rightful position as head witch. And because the magic wouldn’t let her, she’s happy to kill me instead.

  I shudder again, thinking of how I held and snuggled Macaroon when it was actually Layland. I let him lick my face. I’m so glad he’s dead. Urgh!

  “I don’t need to convince you. You’ll be dead within the hour.”

  My stomach turns over. Dead within the hour. I’m expendable. I’m nothing to her, never was. I was always just a means to an end.

  “So if Zeta had succeeded and killed me, made Efa head witch, would you have killed her, to put Talia in her place?”

  Ember nods. “Yes. It’s always been my plan to make Talia head witch. Ever since they killed Adam, and I realised that Fletcher would be head witch at such a ridiculously young age. Elodie doesn’t have what it takes to lead him. I can lead Talia, help and support her until she’s a little older, wiser.”

  Talia doesn’t look too chuffed about that. I wish I knew what her and her sister thought about all of this. They don’t have their typically smug look on their faces. They look shocked. Subdued. Uncomfortable.

  Probably exactly how I look – but you can add terrified to my list.

  There is nobody here on my side, nobody that will take pity on me, and I will die.

  I know Fletcher will come looking for me when he realises that I didn’t fly after them, and his mum, but what can the two of them do? Faced with this deception, this betrayal?

  I want to close my eyes and cry. This whole situation is awful.

  There’s a tiny bit of me that’s maybe glad that I’ll be dead, and I won’t have to see Fletcher’s reaction to all of this. He thinks so much of his dad, thinks he was the best person he knew, and yet, if what Ember is saying is true, then he wasn’t that good.

  And then I think of him, his beautiful face, his ridiculously lovely hair, the way he holds me and kisses me and I know that if I’m going to die, if somebody needs to be the head witch in my place, then it needs to be him. Not Talia, not Ember’s puppet. But Fletcher.

  That could be the last thing I do, the one good thing. Ember reckons she’ll be an outstanding leader, and show Talia the way, but if that’s the truth why is Vann still alive, why was he able to switch sides, without her being angry with him? Because she knew all along. She’s a terrible person. And she was in on this entire thing with Zeta – she had to be. No way Zeta would have kept Vann alive for anybody she didn’t have an affiliation with.

  I hate this. “Did Zeta know that Vann was on your side?”

  Ember shakes her head. “No, she forced him to help her get away from the safe house, but I had given him something to protect him, just in case. Just a little potion. As soon as she was safe, she turned on him. But he had used the magic to switch places with a shifter. The shifter became Vann and Zeta killed him and left him on our doorstep, and Vann turned into the shifter, only for a few hours. Once the magic wore off, Vann had already left her and gone to safety.”

  “What about Gregory? Gregory was on Zeta’s side. He freed the rebels at the portal.”

  “True, but we kept him alive.”

  “Why?”

  Vann comes into the room. “He’s dead now.”

  My head is reeling. “Why? Why kill him now?”

  “We needed him. Now we don’t.”

  “What did you need him for?”

  “We needed him to get Lincoln back over here. He has close allies that are best friends with Lincoln – we needed that relationship. Lincoln was unwilling to get involved with another investment for us.”

  I snort. No wonder after what happened last time, when I was made head witch by accident. Or not so accident, after all.

  There’s no time to save me now, if only I had told Fletcher what I had done, if only I had had more time, maybe he could have changed Sadie’s magic. But the fact is, if anybody undoes the original magic that put the witches in charge, I will die – not everybody else as she initially planned, lovely lady that she was – but me, just me. And I have no way of escaping this room and making sure that the witch invested after me is Fletcher, not Talia.

  I’m stuck.

  And sad.

  Ember unbinds me so I can walk to my death and Vann ushers me along the corridor to the back of the house where they’ve set a room up ready for the magical ceremony that will set the other creatures free from the witches’ rule and kill me.

  I swallow down some sick and try to breathe.

  I have to get out of this. I have to get out of here. I have to get away. But I cannot think of a single thing to do and it fills my head with white noise, the echoes of the demon’s screams, the sound of Ember’s cackles, the sound of Sally’s hand hitting my face. How can I escape when I cannot think straight?

  I don’t want to die so that Talia and Ember can rule.

  Think, Ellis, think!

  It’s like any brain cells I had have shrunk or run away or been scared out of my brain. It’s too much pressure.

  Vann pushes me into a chair, in the middle of the room, that looks like it’s set up for some sort of sacrificial ceremony.

  Which I suppose it is.

  I focus on the candle flames, letting the warm, orange flickering lights soothe me, while I wait for death.

  14

  “What does she want? Does she know if Ember is okay?” Elodie tries to peer past Fletcher to see his phone. “Has she heard anything?”

  “Mum, she’s here.”

  Confusion colours both of their faces. “Here? Is she safe? Is she with Ember? With Talia?”

  “Hang on, mum. She’s texting. She says be quiet and still and she’ll be out in a sec.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  Fletcher shrugs at his mother and pointedly tucks in next to a garden shed, not answering.

  “Fletcher?” The whisper is so quiet they only just hear it.

  Fletcher answers, just in his head, and Thea does the same.

  She comes around the side of the shed and falls into Fletcher’s arms. “Fletcher.” Her voice is a wail, a quiet wail, but a wail filled with upset, sadness, distress.

  Fletcher keeps his arms around her but pulls back so he can see her face. “Thea, what’s happened? Is your mum okay? Talia?”

  “Nobody’s okay. Fletcher, everything’s gone mad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t have much time.”

  Elodie claps her hands, mutters something, and freezes time. “You’ve got a few minutes,” she says, rubbing Thea’s back. “What’s wrong? Are you all okay and safe?’

  Thea nods, but then shakes her head. “I’m okay, we’re all okay, but nothing is okay, and Ellis isn’t safe.”

  “Ellis?” Fletcher bristles at her name. “Where is she? Who has her? Is it the rebels or the council?”

  Thea looks torn, upset making her shake. “My mum... my mum...” She shakes her head.

  “Thea. We can’t help Ember if we don’t know what’s wrong.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my mum, well, that’s not true, everything is wrong with my mum.”

  Fletcher and Elodie just look even more confused. “Thea, time’s running out. What’s going on?”

  Thea takes a deep breath and looks between her aunt and her cousin, maybe brother.

  “My mum is in there, with Vann and Gregory and Ellis and Lincoln. She plans on undoing the original magic, giving Vann and everyone else their freedom, and then killing, or having Vann kill Ellis, so she can make Talia head witch.”

  Elodie’s expression and Fletcher’s expression match – mouths open, eyes wide, disbelief on both of their faces. “No! That doesn’t even make sense. Why would she want Talia to be head witch? She can’t kill Ellis
, I don’t understand.”

  “I barely understand myself,” Thea’s voice is low, laced with misery. “I’m so sorry. Mum says that... mum says that Adam is our dad, that Talia would be head witch is it wasn’t for Fletcher, and she’ll make a better head witch. It’s all ready to go. I need to go back in.”

  Elodie is silent, face white and mouth tight. She’s shaking her head over and over and over. Fletcher grabs Thea’s arm. “I don’t believe you!”

  Thea is crying. “Fletcher, it’s true. I don’t know if it’s true that he’s my dad, but it’s true that mum said it.”

  “No.” He folds his arms.

  “Fletcher, we can argue about it later, Ellis is in danger.”

  It’s like the fog of anger lifts at her name. “Then you can’t go back in, let me go instead of you, let me rescue Ellis. I don’t care about anything else; Ember can’t kill Ellis.”

  “She has to – she can’t make Talia head witch without killing Ellis. Fletcher I don’t even know if it’s true, my mum has never mentioned who our dad is before now. But she’s determined. She’s crazy.”

  Fletcher turns to his mum, shaking her shoulders, trying to bring her out of her daze. “Mum, mum, I need you to focus. I don’t think it’s true about dad, but we need to move fast – we need to rescue Ellis. How can we switch places, me and Thea? I’ll go in instead.”

  Thea nods, colour coming back to her cheeks. “That might work. Straight after she undoes the magic, she’ll have Vann kill Ellis. You can step in before that. Aunty El, me and you can sort everybody else out.”

  Elodie shakes her head, unable to speak.

  Fletcher looks at Thea. “Why have you told us this, why aren’t you taking her side?”

  Thea colours. “I don’t think Talia should be head witch. I love her – most of the time – but she won’t do a suitable job, not like you would, neither would mum. They’re both too self-centred, too... mean. I don’t know if your dad is my dad, but for now we just need to stop them.”