petunias sprouted all around him, their toxic mist permeating the air. He began to choke and gag.
“We have to save him! Crawl to the right.” We hobbled to our knees and scooched toward Alasdair. He spotted us just as we reached for him with our free hands. The moment his fingers linked with ours, he became encased in safety.
Another bomb hit close by, knocking us into one another like bowling pins. After we’d regained our balance, I glanced around at the chaos of camp; people on fire running, crying, others tending to the wounded. Calum, Ana, Oliver . . . I’d seen all of them go down. My heart throbbed, pushing against my lungs until I couldn’t breathe. Were they all gone? How many others? I hadn’t seen Eòran or Fergus in ages.
I sucked hard to draw in air, my head like a balloon floating above my shoulders.
“Vee!” Kenna pushed her face into mine, so close our noses brushed. “Pull it together. I can’t do this without you!”
I blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. My heart slammed into my throat as my vision started to dim and I wobbled on my knees.
“Come on, use your yoga breathing. Deep breath in.” Kenna pulled air into her lungs, her spine straightening. I followed suit. “Slow breath out.” We both exhaled, our shoulders slumping.
And I could think again. “I’m good. I’m good.”
A bomb smashed into a nearby tree and it burst into violet flames. The same tree where . . . “Lachlan! The twins!”
“I saw the twins wi’ their family,” Alasdair reassured. “And the other boy was wi’ yer dog, Blaz. They’re safe—” His voice fell off and he didn’t have to say the rest. For now.
I had to think of something. These people were my responsibility—and I knew there was no way we could win. Unless . . .
I gripped Alasdair’s hand with all my strength, tugging him closer. “Back at the field where we first saw the skellies, you said there was a way to beat Addie. A last resort.”
“Aye, but ye aren’t goin’ ta like it.” His watery blue eyes met mine, their intensity making them as brilliant as the sky. “Ye have ta break the Covenant.”
I raised my brows and waited for the punch line. No way was that the secret he’d been keeping. But instead of laughing it off and giving me the real, more plausible way to defeat the witch, he said, “Ye have ta breach the borders.”
Something inside of me snapped. “Are you insane? There is no way we’re giving up and committing mass suicide!”
Eyeing the old man, Kenna asked, “What are you saying exactly?”
“If ye break the Covenant, the witch becomes mortal. The fact tha’ she canna restore her appearance while usin’ her magic to attack tells me ye weakened her. I believe that Saint Sebastian’s Elixir is continuing to weaken her and will strip Adelaide of any remaining magic as the Covenant breaks. Ye see, it’s harder to hang on ta magic in the modern world than it is in Doon. Once she’s mortal, ye will be able to kill her. It’s the only way.”
“If we do this”—I cringed as another magic bomb crashed into the camp—“can you guarantee it won’t kill us all and end Doon forever?”
“Nay, but I have faith. I believe the Protector knows our intentions and would never abandon us.”
Addie hurtled a seemingly endless supply of magic explosives at our camp and the zombie fungus grew larger by the second; soon it would begin to swallow our people and eat their flesh. When I looked at it from that perspective, we had little to lose from Alasdair’s last resort. If we did nothing, we were dead anyway.
“Even if I believed you, and I’m not saying that I do, there’s no possible way we’d make it to the border before Addie blew us all to kingdom come.”
“Aye,” Alasdair agreed. “It would take a miracle.”
As the old man and I stared at each other, the air between us began to stir. I watched in disbelief as a small funnel formed. It swirled away from us, devouring the zombie fungus and ripping the petunias from the ground. Three more funnels were sweeping through the paddock, sucking up skellie bones before they could create more fungus.
“Verranica!” Jamie’s face appeared just outside our bubble. Relief smacked into me and my knees buckled.
He clasped my shoulder, keeping me on my feet. “Ye’re no’ going to believe this!”
Duncan ran up beside him and we joined hands with them,