eyes, full of the emotions she could never understand. And tried not to pass out from the panic. It looked like a kind face. If alien kidnappers were kind. She stared at a green pendant, counting its sides. Eight. An octahedron. Sort of - a very organic one. "Who are you?"
"I'm Moira, my sweet girl. And who might you be?"
Years of therapy and social training exercises dug a response out of her terrorized brain. "My name is Beth Landler."
And then a second face stepped forward - and this time, it didn't belong to a complete stranger. "You're from the Chicago coven."
The woman who had come with Jamie Sullivan. Fear clawed Beth's insides - where was she? "You came with him. With Jamie."
"Yes. I'm Lauren." A hand reached for hers, along with the delicate flutter she knew as mindtouch. "It's very nice to see you again."
She hadn't been kidnapped by aliens. Just witches. Ones with power beyond what she had ever imagined possible. Beth put a leash on her catapulting fear through sheer force of will. Surely, whatever unfathomable magic they had used, they subscribed to the same creed that had guided her for over a decade - and it harm none.
"We absolutely mean you no harm," said the most familiar face softly.
More flutters. A mind witch. Eleven years as Liriel's partner, and Beth still shuddered. Not everyone had Liri's gentle ethics.
The flutters vanished. "I will respect the lines you set." Lauren touched her hand briefly and stepped back.
Beth gripped the edge underneath her hands and realized she still sat in the middle of a table. Wishing desperately for dignity or any tiny shred of sanity, she sized up her surroundings, taking mental inventory. Knowledge was power, or at least maybe a way to calm the terrified beast clawing at her throat. "Where am I?" It looked like someone's particularly comfortable living room.
"This is a room we call the Witches' Lounge." Lauren met Beth's gaze directly, and then looked over at the couch, frowning. "But I'm not sure why you're here."
A woman with blonde hair and fierce eyes looked up from her smartphone. "Mia says it was a small glitch. They were trying to update the transport spell so no one else landed on the table. Crossed a line of code with the fetching spell."
Beth knew the words were English, but none of them made any sense. She slid off the table, needing to feel ground under her feet even if she had no idea where on the planet the ground was.
The blonde woman looked her way again. Such sharp eyes. "Were you on your computer?"
"I was checking my email." And thinking of reaching out to Jamie Sullivan. Beth appealed to the only person in the room she was sure was real. Tried to make the eye contact that convinced normal people she had something important to say. "I don't understand what happened."
Lauren's eyes furrowed deeper. "I'm not sure I do either - but it looks like we did some unintentional magic and pulled you here." She slid out a chair. "Please, come sit and have something to eat. I know the transport spell feels really weird the first few times."
Beth jerked into a chair behind her instead, her bones turning to melted goo. Transport spell? Transport spell? "This isn't real."
"It is." Lauren spoke gently and held out a plate. Brownie.
Beth blinked, trying to put the impossible together with baked goods. "No, thank you. I'm allergic to chocolate."
She could see shock hit the room. The young, tired-looking woman on the couch spoke for the first time. "I didn't know that was possible."
"Nor did I." The older woman inspected her closely. "Especially for witches."
She wasn't a science experiment. And this was not an alien kidnapping. Beth could feel her brain a hairsbreadth from meltdown. Facts. She was good with facts. "Chocolate allergy is rare, but not unknown. Most people are really allergic to the caffeine or the flavonoids, though."
Babbling. She was babbling. And her head was feeling very strangely light. "I need to go now."
A glass of something cool slid into her hand. "It's eggnog.