She wasn’t sure if she’d fainted from the terror of being taken or if they’d somehow knocked her out. When her eyes opened she was facing a rock wall. The space seemed familiar and small. After a few minutes, where she strained to see around her, she realized she had been taken to the dryads’ hiding space.

Where had all the dryads and nymphs gone?

She found her bottom was perched on the rock throne the king had been sitting on. Her legs were in front of her. Some invisible force held her tight to the spot. She couldn’t move her arms or her legs.

“Oh, I see you’re awake,” Lucas said. He walked in front of her. She searched his eyes and saw the same wide-eyed look. It seemed like his movements and even his words were formed outside of his consciousness. It was like he wasn’t quite in control.

He slapped her hard across the face. The sting shocked her and the fact that she couldn’t move an inch made it that much harder. “Don’t stare at me.”

Trying to move or figure out a spell in her mind, she continued to stare at him. Maybe he would slap her loose somehow. Then, she was going to throw everything she had at him. She could still move her mouth she found.

“Why is this happening to me?” Penelope couldn’t figure out what she’d done to Lucas to make him so angry.

“I think you know,” replied a voice she hadn't heard in years. One that couldn't really be talking greeted her ears.

She tried to turn towards the voice but couldn’t move, "Bianca?"

"Ah yes, you never have been too keen on calling me Mother, have you?"

“Why are you here? You’re dead,” Penelope said through clenched teeth.

“I’m obviously not my dear girl, although a lot of people think that. You gave up on me.”

“I didn’t give up on you Mother, you never cared about me.” Penelope willed something, some spell she could do to get the binding off of her. She didn’t trust her mother at all. Her life was in danger.

“I love you Pen, so much. I just loved, and still love, myself more.” Bianca came into view now. She smiled at her with blinding white teeth. She had aged well.

“You look, young Mother. ‘Drinking the blood of newborns?” Penelope said as a spell moved like a snake winding through her mind. If only she could just get the strength to execute it.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Bianca laughed, “You’re getting a few crow’s feet around your little eyes.”

“Let what’s bound be undone,” she yelled and waited. Nothing happened.

“You’re not as powerful as me my dear. You couldn’t keep me out with wards and you won’t get out of my binding spell.”

Lucas stood beside her mother smiling. She watched as Bianca lifted her hand and pushed him into the wall. She moved her finger in a small circle and suddenly Lucas couldn’t move either.

“What the hell, Bianca. You said you’d make me a king. You said I’d be successful,” Lucas cried.

“I lied,” Bianca said.

“Whatever you’re planning, you’re sick if you think you won’t regret doing this to your daughter,” Penelope said. She hoped somewhere underneath, buried in this evil woman, was the mother who sang Row Your Boat. That person had finally left her mother, or maybe she’d been a façade the whole time.

“Penelope, you’ve never gotten me. Having power over the creatures is the only thing witches have going for us. They throw us in jail because they’re scared. They’re weak minded and weak in general.”

“No, they throw us in jail when we kill them. People don’t generally like being killed.”

“Well,” Bianca laughed. “Then they’re going to hate the next phase of my plan.”

“What’s that Mother?” Penelope still struggled to get free, to no avail.

“I’m going to take over Blue Falls, of course, and maybe Cedar Falls while I’m at it.”

Bianca walked between Lucas and Penelope, placing crystals on the rocks. She had black ones and clear ones. Penelope couldn’t see how many she put out, but they made a clinking sound each time and there had been at least ten times she heard it. Whatever her mother was planning to do it would not be good for her and Lucas.

Bianca snapped her fingers. “Lucas, snap out of it. I want you fully aware of what’s going on.”

“What is happening? You said we’d play a prank on the fae, and the next thing I know we’re making dryads sick. Who the hell are you, lady?”

As Penelope expected, Lucas had not been in control. Even his voice sounded different.

“Lucas” Penelope said hesitantly, “Seraphina thinks you wanted to get back at her for the way you were treated when Rytas was king.” Penelope wanted to know if he could be trusted to help her if they could get the upper hand.

“That wasn’t her fault. And this broad literally said we were going to change the color of the drinking water and not tell anyone how it happened. I thought it would be funny,” he shrugged. “Oh well, leave it up to Lucas to screw it up.

“Well, that’s my mother for you. She’s very manipulative.”

“Bianca, stop this at once.” Another voice Penelope recognized echoed all around them. Suddenly Penelope could wiggle her fingers and then she could move her arms. Next, her legs started to work and the she could walk again. She put her back up against the rock wall.

Her grandmother Skye Cradle stood in front of Bianca. Penelope felt happy to see her and scared of what her mother would do.

“I heard you were back. What are you doing with Pen?” Skye asked. She had her hands up in front of her in the defensive magic pose.

“Grandma, be careful,” Penelope said.

“Mother, you really should have stayed out of this. You’re not going to stop me.” Bianca smirked.

In response, Skye lifted her hands above her head and threw a spell at her daughter. Penelope could see the force of it rippling through the air. Bianca laughed and grabbed it like an incorporeal beach ball. Penelope screamed as she hurled it back at Skye.

Her grandmother’s feet flew up in front of her and she landed on her back, hard. To her credit, she didn’t make a noise and got right back up to her feet. Penelope knew she must be hurt though.

“I’ll just drain your power right along with theirs. It will give me even more of a fix before I take down those alphas and their little followers.”

“Bianca, there’s no reason for you to harbor such hatred,” Skye said. “Penelope has started to make a good name for witches. She’s been rehabilitated.”

“No, she’s not. She’s been shut up. They want her to play the quiet mouse and not cause any trouble. Then the next thing that will happen is they’ll blame her and she’ll be right back in the jail.” Bianca moved slowly one foot in front of the other. She looked like a cat stalking a mouse as she advanced towards Skye.

Penelope had been moving slowly towards Bianca, while she was caught up in her speech. Lucas just looked like a terrified little boy and was clearly going to be no help.

“What’s hers shall be mine,” Bianca said and held her hands up in front of Skye. Slowly a little thread of gold light streamed in a wavy line from her grandmother. Skye continued to whisper spells and fought it with her own magic. She hurtled spells at Bianca, but it wasn’t even affecting her.

“Stop it,” Penelope said and grabbed her mother having finally gotten close enough to her. She grabbed both her arms and pulled them down.

“Don’t make me hurt you, darling,” her mother said in a deep angry tone. As she did she smiled.

Penelope had a hard time figuring out how someone could be so twisted that she took pleasure in hurting her own blood. She flew up into the air arms flailing, trying to grab something. When she came back down she landed on top of Lucas. He grunted as they both fell to the ground. Pain radiated through her body and she wasn’t sure how many more hits she could take from her mother.

“It’s no use,” Lucas said. “I’ve felt the power she possesses. It would take a lot of magic to overpower her now. It’s something about killing a wizard and absorbing his power.” Lucas rubbed his shoulder where Penelope had landed on him.

Penelope realized he must be talking about the magic battle. She’d killed someone? If she’d killed someone why did they think she was dead. It didn’t make sense. Her mother had not only won the battle Penelope thought she had died in, but she gained all kinds of power.

Penelope looked over to see her mother still draining the power from Skye. Skye put her hands up again and pushed them forward, still sending powerful spells through her mother. Penelope could see them shimmer in the air as they hit Bianca and moved through her. Her grandma was putting up a huge fight and nothing was working against her mother. Skye fell to her knees, as Bianca continued to drain her. Her hair started to lose its color, turning from the gorgeous silver Penelope loved to stark white. Skye clutched her chest and put up one hand still trying to disarm Bianca. It just wasn’t working. Penelope felt a pain in her side and pulled her shirt up. There appeared to be a rock lodged in her side. It had cut her and blood dripped from the wound. The sting of the rock washed over her and she screamed as she pulled it from her skin. The blood rushed from the wound and Lucas instantly tore his shirt and wrapped it around her.

“Hold it tight,” he said nodding.

“Mother, I went to your funeral. The coroner and everyone saw your body. How did you pull something that insane off?” Penelope hoped to distract her so her grandmother could regain some of her control.

“Easy. I killed Wally and then did glamour spell to make his body look like mine.”

“Wally Estes?”

“Yes, the famous missing wizard of Blue Falls. He’s buried in my grave.” Her mother laughed taking delight in that fact. “Good enough for him.”

Penelope had heard all sorts of things about Wally growing up. He had flown off with the eagles; he fell into a never-ending hole in the forest, and so many more things. He’d disappeared when she was sixteen, the same time her mother had died. Now it was starting to make sense.

“You killed him. His family has been looking for him for so long. He had children Mother, how could you take him away from them?”

“Because they weren’t his family, we were. Don’t you think you deserved for your father to be in your life? To be present in the home. He would have killed me for trying to expose him. I just beat him to it.” She tried to pull away from Penelope, but Penelope held on tightly.

She felt dizzy. Her mother had never mentioned who her father might be. Anytime she’d asked the question had been ignored and her mother had changed the subject. There was no way she was telling the truth. Penelope tried to pull her to the ground because she didn’t know how to stop what she was doing to Skye. Her mother was much too strong for her to take down.

Skye was now lying on the ground while Penelope still held on to her mother’s arms. The older witch broke free of her grasp and walked over to Skye. Most of the color had drained from her grandma’s face. Her cheeks still held a bit of pink, but it was slight.

“Bianca, darling, you don’t have to do this,” Penelope’s grandma sounded so weak. She was worried her mother was killing her.

“Sorry Mama,” Bianca said and with one final movement a huge glow emitted from Skye and then her eyes closed and she went limp.

“No,” Penelope screamed.

Immediately she felt a huge force push her and was propelled back to the rock throne and rendered immobile again. She couldn’t tell if her grandma was breathing or not. Her mother looked juiced up from the power she’d absorbed, her eyes were glowing yellow.

“That’s really freaky,” Lucas said.

A small thin stream of blue light started to flow from Lucas and a gold one came from Penelope. It looked just like her grandma’s light. It hurt. The stream felt like it was attached to a ball of yarn and the thread was unraveling her from the inside. This was so much worse than when Donovan took her power with the amulet. This felt like her mother was pulling not only her magic out of her but her life force as well.

“Will we survive this?” Penelope asked. She had a bad feeling this was a good way to kill someone if you were an insane witch with a vendetta.

“I don’t know. No one has ever come out of this process unscathed. The first time I did it was to your father.” she giggled, “He thought we were going to talk things out. Men are stupid Penelope, don’t ever believe otherwise.”

Penelope hoped that somehow Han had returned to the house and discovered she had been taken. He would be frantic and she felt bad for that. The bears could track her if they wanted to. Seraphina could probably track Lucas if she wanted to. Maybe if she stalled long enough, they’d find them.

The stream of light got thinner while Bianca was talking.

“You manipulated him. You tricked someone who cared about you,” Penelope said.

“No, I just needed his power. It’s not my fault he had a heart attack. What kind of magical being lets a heart attack take them out?” Bianca said, shaking her head. “He was weak and I always thought he was so strong.”

“He was married; you tried to break up his family,” Penelope said. The stream had gotten even thinner as her mother went back down memory lane. It distracted her enough for Penelope to start trying to hold on to what was being taken.

“He didn’t love her,” now her mother’s eyes flashed red. She wondered how the things she’d done over time had manipulated her magic. It was possible the magic her mother now possessed was all dark.

“You don’t know that,” Penelope said, “maybe he would have been able to love me too, if you’d have let things run their natural course.”

“You were a mistake,” Bianca growled, “something that happened because we were careless. I thought he’d want to leave her because a baby was coming into the picture. His kids were older. They could feed themselves. He should have wanted to come with us.”

Her mother had changed so much and almost didn’t have any human emotions anymore. She had clearly become delusional. She’d believed she was in the right all these years. Sure, it stung to hear her mother tell her she was a mistake. She’d mourned a father she’d never known and wondered if he would have given her the nurture she desperately needed, when her mother turned dark.

“Stop talking to me,” Bianca said. “I need to concentrate.”

“You killed my father, so that’s another life you’ve taken for no reason.” Penelope raised her voice, but she felt herself getting weaker. Lucas had already passed out. She looked over to see his chin resting against his chest. The magic still draining from him.

“There’s always a reason,” Bianca said.

“Why drain this fae, he doesn’t have any magic. You’re torturing him for no reason.”

“Penelope, there’s so much you don’t know. Fae have the oldest natural magic of any creatures. They choose not to teach it to their children, anymore, because some of them have used it for bad. It’s all buried inside of them.”

“That’s probably what witches should have started doing,” Penelope’s head dropped forward. Her magic was leaving her, but her mother’s spell had started to die and become weaker. If she could just keep her talking until it wore off completely she’d simply run for it.

“Just because we don’t teach it to our children, doesn’t mean we don’t know how to use it, you bitch,” Seraphina’s voice played sweet music in Penelope’s ears. She wasn’t alone anymore.

Bianca flew up in the air and landed on her back the same way she’d done to Skye.

“Check on Grandma, Seraphina. Please, she took her magic.”

When Bianca hit the ground, Lucas and Penelope did too, as the binding no longer working. Penelope went to help Lucas who still lay unconscious against the rocks. His head hit the ground when he fell and a large knot protruded from his forehead and continued to get bigger. She could see his chest moving and thanked the stars he was still breathing.

“What are you doing?” Seraphina asked.

“He has been bewitched by my mother this entire time. Lucas doesn’t hold a grudge. He was a pawn.”

“Well, that’s great news,” Tao said. He walked in followed by the whole council. Han came rushing in and grabbed her, hugging her to him tightly.

“I’m so sorry baby, I’m so sorry I left you alone.”

“It’s okay, I upset you,” Penelope said.

“That’s enough!” Bianca’s voice boomed around them bouncing off the rocks. Penelope turned to see her eyes were glowing red again. Both Seraphina and Tao moved forward to blast her with magic but she sent both of them flying off the side of the rocks and down into the waterfall.

“They’ll be okay,” Han said.

“Oh, that hurts,” Penelope screamed. Her mother had focused all her energy on taking her magic. Penelope’s essence flew out faster into the crystals and she collapsed. Han caught her.

“Do something,” he yelled at the council.

Donovan appeared in her blurry vision and she recognized the amulet he held in front of him. If he could take her power, then everything would be okay.