“Anything underground will be safe,” Ceri said.

“I said no!” I protested, but Ivy’s eyes begged me to say yes.

“Then Jenks and his family will die,” Ceri said cruelly.

I stood before her, ill with frustration. Right then, I hated her although she didn’t deserve it.

Pierce drew me to him. The difference between Ceri’s proud disdain and his brow furrowed in pained empathy was striking. “You are the definition,” he said softly. “You can hold the strongest, widest circle. Make one to encompass the garden. I will be the safety, and I will keep the magic from acting upon us. Everything between my circle and your larger one will be subjected to a quick flash of heat.”

I looked over my church, seeing it smoking and ruined in my mind’s eye. Burned at my own hands? “The trees, my garden,” I whispered.

Ceri turned from watching the approaching fairies, her impatience obvious and making me feel like I was stupid. “The leaves will be singed. The garden will sprout from roots. The heat won’t do anything to your church but clear the spiderwebs from it. Even Bis will be untouched. Rachel, Jenks cannot last against such numbers! He and his family will be slaughtered! Why are you hesitating?”

Because it was black magic. Anything able to pass through an aura and burn a living thing was black. I’d be a black witch. I’d be everything they said I was. But to stand here in a bubble while Jenks’s children were cut down and slaughtered …

“There is no other option, Rachel,” Pierce said, and I grew frantic. From beyond the safety of Pierce’s circle, I could hear Jenks shouting final instructions to his children. They wouldn’t scatter but would stay to the last. Ivy begged me with her fearful eyes. I had to do it.

Without a word, I closed my eyes and set an undrawn circle wider than the one at Fountain Square. I felt it go up, encircling the church, the grounds, and a slice of the graveyard. How many were inside it? How many would die? I thought, pulling my hand from Pierce.

“Jenks!” I shouted, blood humming from the strength of the line. “Go to ground!”

A sharp whistle pulled my eyes open to see a flowing of pixy wings into the stump. The fairies broke ranks, chasing them faster than would seem possible. Torches made tiny flames surrounding Jenks’s home. Three fairies darted through the abandoned door. Trusting me, Jenks had let them in to do battle in his own home.

“I will lead,” Ceri said, taking one of my hands. Pierce took the other, gingerly since it was his burnt hand. Safe within Pierce’s sheltering bubble, Ceri bound our wills together, her aura swirling, pressing against mine with the feeling of silk and the scent of sun.