Sorry, so I know this is like, out of nowhere but I had this chapter half-written and figured I should hunker down and FINISH IT. Thanks to whomever decides to find out how it ends!

Chapter 8

A few days had gone by since Cassie had left Faye alone in her room, mere moments away from a kiss, but ended in an uncomfortable air of uncertainty. Everything seemed to be off between everyone in the group. Jake was more or less ignoring Cassie, Diana and Adam were avoiding Faye, and Faye and Cassie seemed to be stuck in an apprehensive space. Neither girls were speaking to each other directly, but still glanced at each other every now and then causing the group to know that something was up. With the Demon King's rising coming so quickly, the circle needed to get back in tune with each other, but now seemed to be the worst timing ever.

They were all sitting in the old, rickety home in the forest, thinking in silence to themselves with no other sounds save the flittering of paper or the closing of books. Everyone was trying to come up with a new way to avoid the apocalypse with the Demon King, though nobody was really coming up with any concrete information on how to specifically stop the portal from opening.

Melissa was rifling through a large, beaten-up book, her eyebrows scrunched in concentration.

"I don't get it. I feel like if this dude was such a badass in the past, there should be some more text or history on him. Things that document what he did, how he came into existence, and ways for us to stop him," she closed the book, causing a dust cloud to expel from its pages, "it's as if this guy doesn't even exist. We've only ever found information from Diana's book of shadows, but even then that stuff was vague and brief."

Diana and Adam exchanged looks, but remained silent.

Jake coughed, "Well that just means we're not looking hard enough. Keep, uh… looking through whatever sources we have. I mean, didn't Cassie have a book of shadows?"

Cassie snapped out of her thoughts and nodded, "Yeah, I have my book. I'll check through it for whatever I can find."

She pulled her book out from her purse and began to read through it. Sometimes she kept her book locked away in her room, or hidden in a secret floorboard in the house, but at times like this when more dangerous things threatened to destroy them, she decided it may be more convenient to keep it on hand lest they need a spell from it.

Diana and Adam got up from the couch they were on and glanced at each other knowingly, "We're uh… going to go check the other room and read some of the scrolls that we haven't gone through just yet. We'll be back in a sec." They both left with Diana bringing her purse in tow as well.

Melissa could practically feel the tension hanging in the air between Faye and Cassie. Faye gave her a pleading look, but Melissa just gave her a sheepish smile.

"Hey Jake, I'm going to go check the basement for some more books, can you give me a hand?" Melissa asked nicely.

Jake looked at her oddly, "Why? I'm pretty sure you can find things on your own, and in case you haven't noticed…" he pointed to the open book that he had just picked up, "I'm kind of busy.

Melissa rolled her eyes and started to walk to the basement, nodding to him with a more serious, intense face, "I could really use your help moving some of the heavier chests and boxes. Now."

Finally catching on, he sighed heavily and followed after her. As the two went downstairs, he whispered quietly, "What the hell is up with you?"

Melissa shook her head and frowned, "You're more dense than I thought Jake. Obviously Faye and Cassie have some things they need to sort out with each other. Didn't you notice?"

The taller boy knitted his brown in thought. He was thinking back to his night with Cassie, but he didn't know what that had to do with Faye. He lightly shrugged once more, "I don't know what's going on, but I'll find out sooner or later."

With the two of them gone, Cassie read through her family's book silently, continuing to ignore the fact that Faye was walking around the room absentmindedly flipping through random books that were lying around. They both were highly aware of each other's presence, but nobody was saying anything. There were a million thoughts racing through Faye's mind, and eventually, she could no longer hold it in. Walking over to behind where Cassie was sitting, Faye leaned over the chair and rested her arms on the back of the seat.

"Need some help there, princess?"

"Nope," Cassie chirped, "I'm doing just fine, thank you."

The blonde turned another page, and more silence ensued.

"Oookay… well, maybe you need help with translating something, hm?" Faye asked, slightly more perturbed this time.

"Nope."

"UGH!" Faye threw up her hands in frustration, "What the hell Cassie? It's one thing to not want to talk about something, but to not want to talk to me at all? I think someone is being a little childish here."

Cassie looked up at Faye, "Throwing a tantrum? Now that seems a bit more childish, don't you think?"

Faye walked around the armchair and poked her finger into Cassie's chest continuously, each time more pressing than before and sent shockwaves through her body.

"Look. I know you told me that you didn't want to talk about it, so fine, you can tiptoe around the subject as much as you'd like. But you're going to have to face it eventually whether you like it or not." She continued to stare hard faced into Cassie's eyes, her eyes starting to glisten with emotion. She took a deep breath and backed away, standing up fully, but never breaking eye contact.

"I'll be waiting," said Faye.

And with that, she grabbed her things and stormed off, presumably back to her home, though she didn't let anybody from the circle know where she was headed off to. As she pounded her way down the stairs, she ran past Melissa and Jake who had come back from the basement with a few measly books in hand. Before she could say anything, Faye was already out of the house, slamming the old door behind her. Jake was about to run after her, but Melissa grabbed his arm and shook her head.

"Don't. We should get back upstairs," she said.

The two of them made their way back up and found Cassie sitting alone on the couch. Her eyes carried a glazed over look and though she had an open book on her lap it didn't seem as if she was even focusing on it at all.

"Cassie?" Melissa asked softly.

The blonde sniffled before flinching abruptly at the sound of her name; she quickly broke into a clearly large, and clearly empty smile.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't hear you guys coming up the stairs. I was just…reading this book," Cassie wiped her eyes hastily before standing up, "and yep, sure enough there doesn't seem to be any mention of the Demon King or the end of the world. Go figure."

Melissa and Jake exchanged glances. He was about to speak up but was interrupted when both Adam and Diana came into the room looking rather shifty.

"Hey, where's Faye?" asked Adam.

Cassie shrugged, "She left."

He cast an odd look at her before exhaling lightly, "Well then I guess now is the best time to bring this up." Adam looked at Diana, who nodded to him silently in response. He held an unassuming black book in his hands and showed the rest of the group, and he continued speaking in a hushed tone.

"I found a Book of Shadows."

Everyone's eyes widened instantly at the notion that another witch had found their coveted book.

"Only thing is that it wasn't mine; it was Faye's."

At this point, everyone was still shocked, though Cassie's attention was fully grabbed. Why did Adam have the Chamberlain's family book? The whole group started firing off question after question and it started to become quite an uproar until Diana took hold of the situation.

"Calm down, calm down! Adam found the book in his attic, and no, Faye doesn't know about this just yet. I mean, after all, we all know how she'd react if she had her family's book in her possession. While we will give it to her eventually, right now it is critical that we address the Demon King situation first so we have been reading through the book to try and find more information. Until the impending apocalypse is over, we decided that we'll be holding onto the book."

"Are you sure about this?" asked Cassie, "what if there is stuff in there that only Faye knows about? Wouldn't it be better if we did bring her in on this-"

"No," Diana cut her off, "she'll just be destructive with the book and I don't trust her with it. I mean, what if she just ends up abusing the spells that are in there? We don't even know the full potential of what might be stored within those pages!"

Cassie's gaze faltered slightly. She pursed her lips in concentration before shaking her head, "I don't believe that. I think she's a better person than you think."

"Look Cassie, I know you've become real close with her, but I think Diana is right on this one," Jake said as he took a step closer to the blonde, "I think it's better that Faye didn't know about this."

"I shouldn't know about what?"

Everyone's heads snapped around as they saw Faye standing at the top of the broken down stairwell. She was standing with her arms crossed and an emotionless expression.

"Faye! We thought you left!" exclaimed Melissa.

"Yeah, well, you thought wrong. I dropped my wallet here under the couch and I was going to get it tomorrow, but maybe it was a good thing that I came back to get it. Something seems to be so interesting and so secretive that you had to talk about this together without me. I wonder what that is, hm?"

The whole coven was dead silent. Nobody wanted to say anything, but it was in that stillness that Cassie grabbed the book out of Adam's hands and dashed over to Faye. It was a hectic scramble as the others shouted and tried to stop her, but the blonde was quick and she got into close proximity of Faye. She pressed the book into Faye's hands and leaned up close to whisper in her ear.

"Adam found it in his attic, but it's yours."

A look of bewilderment spread across Faye's features before she made the connection and grinned wildly. She leaned in close and whispered into Cassie's ear, her breath tickling the blonde's skin.

"I owe you one."

And with that, the taller witch made a hasty retreat down the stairs taking two at a time until she was out the door leaving the rest of the coven speechless at what had just happened. Seconds later, Adam exploded.

"WHAT THE HELL CASSIE!" He punched his fist into the wall causing it to crack and shutter before he pointed to the stairs and shouted loudly, "Someone go find her!"

The others were still slightly dumbstruck until Adam bellowed, "NOW!"

Jake was the first to nod and slowly started to jog down the stairs with Melissa following shortly after. Neither of them wanted to be there with Adam in rampage mode. Even Cassie herself was still shaking visibly from the shock of it all. She didn't know what possessed her in that moment to take the book and give it to Faye, but she just felt compelled to do it. Maybe it was making up for earlier, or perhaps it was just instinctual for her to want to help Faye, but either way, the coven no longer had the book as a resource and she was to blame for it all.

Adam glared at Cassie, his eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. He had a vein popping near his temple, which under normal circumstances on any other given day would have been funny, but at this time, Cassie wanted nothing else than to be anywhere but here.

"You threw away our only source of information that could possibly stop the Demon King," he snarled.

Cassie grit her teeth and nodded firmly, "Well… I would do it again if I could. Faye doesn't deserve to be left in the dark, and she might find something that can help us all-"

"You're a fool Cassie," said Diana, "she won't be searching that book for things that will help us. She's always just looked out for herself and now that she has her family's book, there's no telling what she's going to do!"

"But I-"

"Whatever," Adam cut her off, "I don't want to hear it. Let's just hope that Melissa and Jake find her before she does something stupid."

And with that, he stormed off. Diana trailed behind him as she cast a disappointed look at Cassie before silently disappearing down the stairs.

Cassie exhaled deeply and her shoulders slumped. She walked over to the couch and found Faye's wallet underneath the furniture covered in dust. Opening the wallet up, she looked into Faye's piercing brown eyes on her driver's license before shaking her head.

"What have I done?"

Several hours had passed but the coven had little luck in finding Faye. They went straight to her home but Mrs. Chamberlain shook her head stating that she hadn't showed up yet. Each person split up into pairs and went to go search in different places like the mall, the Boathouse bar and grill, and even the forest surrounding the old broken down house that they used as home base, however they could not find her.

The group had met back up at the abandoned house, the books and scrolls long forgotten as they fervently brainstormed on places where the unpredictable witch could have gone, with Melissa going so far as to suggest putting out a search party via the local authorities to locate the girl.

Jake shook his head, "No, we can't do that even if we wanted to. Not enough time has passed for the cops to consider a missing persons report, or even bother sending out a patrol to try and find her; they'll just say that she went shopping or something."

"Think!" Adam fumed as he paced back and forth angrily, each step causing the old rickety floorboards to creak in protest, "where could she have possibly gone?"

Diana frowned, "We checked everywhere. The Boathouse, shopping districts, her home, and even within a half-mile radius of this location yet there's still no trace or hint of where she disappeared to. Don't we have like… some sort of tracking spell we can use?"

"I've got it!"

Cassie piped up rather loud and out of the blue, startling the others into looking at her oddly from her sudden outburst. The blonde blushed a little from the scrutiny and smiled in a more calm, collected manner, "I did learn of a tracking spell after reading through scrolls. I didn't know if it would come in handy or not, but I think it might just work." She fished Faye's wallet out from her pocket and held it flat in the palm of her hand. Narrowing her eyes in concentration at the small object, Cassie took a deep breath and chanted, "Indica mihi."

The wallet hummed to life and gained a small ethereal glow as it levitated slightly off her hand. After hovering in place for a few moments, the small object started slowly vibrating and turned blue.

"Woah, what the heck?" Said Melissa as her eyes widened in amazement at the display.

Cassie grinned, "Blue means cold. I had to use one of Faye's items as the kickstarter for the locator spell, but we just need to head in the direction that this wallet is pointing in and the closer we get, the redder the item becomes. C'mon, let's go!"

The crew kept close as Cassie led the way down the stairs and out of the rickety old house. Leaves rustled as a brisk gust of wind kicked up all around them. Rotating ever so slightly like a compass, the wallet wiggled in place as it hovered above her hand, indicating the direction in which its owner resided. Without wasting a breath, the coven darted off at full speed in that direction, not knowing where they were going or how far, or even what lay in store for them once they get there. Branches whipped at their skin as they vaulted over fallen logs, muddled water splashed in every direction with each hurried step, and not a single word was uttered with each passing moment.

Humming with more intensity, the wallet gradually morphed from an icy blue to a light purple, and then into a neon pink hue.

Cassie slowed her pace so that the group could catch their breath, and she eyed the wallet with dreaded concern. She had faith in Faye, despite the rest of the coven's thoughts and opinions, but it still didn't shake this deep seeded feeling of fear that started to take root in the pit of her stomach. By now Faye must be reading through the book with a fervent voracity knowing full well that the rest of them would track her the instant she fled the building, and with them not knowing where she escaped to that would've bought her extra precious time. Cassie only hoped that Faye found a solution for the Demon King before Adam or Diana confiscated the book from her indefinitely.

"C'mon Cassie, we can't stop now. The wallet is nearly red, so she must be nearby," Jake wheezed between words as he tried to catch his breath from running.

Melissa's eyes widened as she saw in the distance a glowing pillar of light. Even through all the trees in the forest, it was like a hideous beacon signaling their impending doom.

"Guys, I think I know where she is," she pointed to the ominous light and everyone's expression fell into despair.

Adam started stomping around and ran a hand through his hair, his eyes shut tight and eyebrows furrowed in frustration, "Are we too late?! We have no fucking idea how to stop the Demon King, and I'm pretty damn sure he's supposed to be coming through some portal tonight. And unless my eyes are deceiving me, that looks like a goddamn portal to me."

Diana put a hand on his shoulder for reassurance, "Look, we don't know what that is. For all we know that's just Faye messing up on a spell or something."

Upon hearing those words, Adam stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes shot open in realization, "Or, for all we know, Faye is helping to open the portal."

"No, stop it!" Cassie shouted instantly, "Faye wouldn't do that! She's one of us!"

"She is a power hungry, conniving witch who is willing to throw us under the bus if that means she gains something out of it!" Adam bellowed back, "How do we know she isn't the one opening right this very instant to get something in return from the Demon King? Immortality? Infinite magic?"

"You're twisted!" Cassie spat back, her eyes filled with unyielding faith.

Jake walked up to her and tried to comfort her, but Cassie swatted away his hand.

"Don't touch me!"

She bolted off into the direction of the light and she shouted back at them, "You all think she's a bad person, but you're wrong!"

"Cassie wait!"

The Coven chased after her, but it seemed like Cassie had boundless amounts of energy since her pace had seemingly quickened instead of lightened up.

As they trailed behind her, the trees up ahead thinned in density until they found themselves in an open clearing with a large stone archway nearly thirty feet tall in the center. The arch looked absolutely ancient; moss draped down and spilled over the edges all along the entire structure, deep cracks riddled it to the point where it was a wonder that it still stood. And in the clearing, a familiar brunette stood holding a book.

"I knew it!" Adam shouted, "She couldn't be trusted with the book!"

His voice snapped her attention to the rest of the group, her eyes widened like a deer caught in headlights and she slammed the book shut.

"Stay back!" shouted Faye, her eyes wild and filled with concern.

"No," Adam exclaimed, "this is all your fault!"

He dashed towards her, but all Faye did was scream.

Within seconds, Adam's body went flying backwards by an invisible force, which knocked the wind out of him completely as he scraped and jostled against the ground like a ragdoll before skidding to a halt completely unconscious. Tree roots erupted out of the ground like earthen snakes and coiled around his limbs, essentially pinning him to the ground should he wake up.

A deep, rich chuckle filled the air and the platinum blonde man with crimson eyes appeared from behind one of the archway's bases.

"You should have listened to your friend here."

He snapped his fingers and similar roots burst out of the ground in every direction and constricted each person, including Faye. No matter how hard they pulled or thrashed about, the root-like vines coiled around their legs and arms holding them firmly in place.

Struggling against the constricting roots, Melissa frowned, "You'll never get away with this!"

The Harbinger's body became a blur as he teleported instantly. With his face mere inches away from hers, he simply smiled venomously.

"Oh dearie, I already have. You see, the gate is nearly open, and the only thing that's left is the key."

Whipping his head around, his arm outstretched and palm open, he directed his gaze at Faye and gestured upwards. The roots that constrained Faye ripped upwards and began to move her directly in front of the glowing archway, all the while attempting to thrash about in order to escape.

"Faye no!" Cassie shrieked, but her efforts to escape the death grip of the roots were proving futile.

The Harbinger grinned and closed his palm into a tight fist. Faye's body immediately contorted and she screamed in excruciating agony as lights emitted from her eyes, and a thick, ghostly trail began to leak out of her mouth. The spectral cloudy stream began to flow into the archway and the bright light escalated into a blinding, unbearable sight.

"With her soul, the portal will finally be unlocked."

"NO!"

Cassie's eyes clouded over into a completely obsidian sheen and she screeched at the Harbinger. Her high pitched shriek turned tangible as it caused a shockwave that pummeled him over and subsequently obliterated the roots holding Faye in place. Her body fell to the ground, but that was enough to break whatever magic had been pulling her soul out of her. Shooting a glare down at the roots that constricted her, black flames materialized simply from thought and disintegrated the offending earthen vines like it was nothing.

A look of utter surprise was plastered all over the Harbinger's expression as he stood up from the ground. Though initially dumbstruck, he recovered rather quickly. In one swift motion, he raised his arm up while simultaneously summoning his spear and he chucked it at Cassie aiming to impale her where she stood. She instantly lifted both hands up, and in doing so a large chunk of earth rose with them. The spear embedded not in her, but rather in the thick shield made of dense rock.

The rest of the Coven could do nothing but look on in horror as Cassie showed a side that they seldom witnessed, and it was scaring them beyond anything they could have imagined.

With her eyes still blank as an abyss, she thrust her hands forward and the rock wall with the spear still embedded in it, raced along the ground towards the Harbinger, tearing up other dirt and stones as it ripped its way across the earth. Though he could see it coming, what he couldn't predict was the second stonewall that rose up from behind and pushed him forward, and with both walls coming together he quickly became sandwiched between the two slabs.

Cassie's magical vice-like grip on him held him firmly in place as she gradually walked up to him with a sinister air around her.

Stopping a couple feet in front of him, she remained expressionless, her eyes blank as the night.

"Tell me how to close the portal."

"Never."

He made a minute motion with his wrist, and a rock flew at her head, but with a careless flick her hand Cassie broke it to pieces just like the roots and simultaneously lifted her other arm and motioned away from her body in a horizontal chopping motion. A dark sanguine fluid showered the ground as his arm was torn from its socket, drawing a scream from him and both Diana and Melissa. The sheer brutality startled the girls and they nearly collapsed from shock.

Faye rubbed her head and started to regain her senses once more. Her blurry vision shook back into focus in time to witness a staggering scene.

Tilting her head to the side, Cassie repeated again in a calm voice.

"How do I close the portal?"

He spat in her face.

Wrong decision.

She made a mirrored motion to before and off his other arm went, the limb made a sickeningly dull thud as it plopped to the ground in a puddle of shimmering liquid.

"Cassie stop!"

Faye's voice immediately snapped her out of whatever trance she was in. Cassie's pitch black eyes returned to their crystal clear aquamarine and she became hyper aware of her surroundings. She covered her mouth in horror at what she had done.

"Oh my god no."

Running over to Faye, she knelt down and looked her in the eyes.

"Are you okay?"

Rubbing her eyes, Faye nodded, "Yeah, but… promise me you won't do that – that weird thing again."

Pulling her into a hug, Cassie whispered, "Promise."

Behind them, the Harbinger let out a ghastly bellow, "DO NOT THINK THAT THIS IS OVER!"

With his normally neat and slicked back platinum blonde hair in complete disarray, and no arms left to fight with, his body was in a weakened state. Cassie reached for Faye's hand and gently squeezed it. The strong, jolting connection between the two sparked up stronger than ever, and they looked into each other's eyes knowingly. Together in unison, they shouted.

"Return to your power confined!"

A glowing emblem formed beneath his feat, and in a brilliant flare of light, his being began fading away until he was no more.

The roots that were constricting the rest of the coven crumbled into ashes as the Harbinger became permanently sealed away to the dimension from whence he came.

"You… You guys did it!" Melissa came running over to the pair and gave them both a tight hug. Adam slowly was regaining consciousness from being knocked out earlier, but Diana and Jake were helping him move towards the two.

Cassie gazed into Faye's eyes and smiled fondly, "Yeah, I guess we did."

Being in each other's arms was making their skin feel electric, and it was this close contact that they had missed so much. This burning feeling to be near each other, to be with one another, was becoming an almost overbearing weight of emotion that she could barely stand to hold back any longer. Cassie's urge to kiss Faye was almost indulged, until she noticed that something was off.

"Faye?"

She stared at her friend who seemed to have a hollow expression.

"Faye what's wrong?"

The taller witch furrowed her brow, "I'm so sorry."

She clapped her hands together causing all of them but herself to get stuck to one another back to back in a circular fashion, as if they were bound to a pole by an invisible rope.

"Faye, what's going on?!" Cassie implored her friend to shed light on what she was doing.

Turning to face the still glowing archway, Faye sighed, her shoulders heavy and her expression grim.

"I'm so sorry Cassie, but I have to do this."

Adam, now pretty much awake and now aware of what was going on, had enough wherewithal to speak up, "Do what? What are you about to do?"

"I know how to close the portal, no thanks to you Adam," Faye muttered. "I had enough time to read through my family's book, and it luckily contained all the information we needed to prevent this portal from opening, how to open it if we needed, as well as how to close it. But this requires a heavy price."

At the mention of a heavy price, Diana's eyes widened in fear, "No, Faye, you don't know what you're doing! I mean, I'm sorry that we didn't have faith in you before, but please, you don't need to do this!"

"Oh just shut it. Even until the end, you still don't believe in me."

Faye turned back around to face the rest of the group and walked up to Cassie. Despite all their eyes on her, she closed the gap and their lips came together in a soft yet desperate kiss. All but Melissa were surprised, and Jake even stuttered a "what the fuck?" but regardless Faye whispered sadly into Cassie's ear.

"I guess the book was wrong."

And with that, she turned back around and jumped into the portal with nobody to stop her.

The moment her body hit the glowing beacon, the same thing that occurred earlier repeated itself but in fast forward motion. What looked like her soul was instantaneously purged from her body, and the glowing light retracted and shrank until the archway no longer was lit. It had happened in the blink of an eye, and in that moment, the invisible ropes that were binding the coven together dissipated and Faye's body fell to the ground motionless.

"NO!" Cassie screamed and dove forward to cradle Faye in her arms.

She gently tapped her cheek, while muttering "no, no, no" over and over. Her hands were shaking, tears already welling up in her eyes, and yet she didn't want to believe that this was how it would end. They had defeated the villain, they had prevented pretty much an apocalypse from befalling this world, and what? Just so that she would be alone?

Cassie clutched Faye's body closer before gross sobs racked her body and she could no longer hold it back.

"I hate you Faye!"

Rocking back and forth, she wept. That was all she could do.

Faye always had some sort of snarky comeback, and yet now, her deathly silence was the worst retort that she could ever imagine.

Embracing her even tighter, Cassie sniffled.

"Why did you have to leave me?"

Nobody uttered a word.

Though they now understood the relationship between the two girls, this realization came at the most inopportune times. It had really ended before it could begin, and nobody knew how to comfort Cassie. Comforting her was always Faye's job.

Melissa put her hand on Cassie's shoulder.

"She saved us. She saved the whole world, you know."

The blonde choked out another sob and nodded.

"But I couldn't save her."

Not able to bear looking at her forlorn figure, they cast their gaze away and solemnly stared at the ground. Dianna saw a little beaten up book and her eyes widened.

"Wait, the book!"

They all turned, their curiosity piqued.

"Quick, lets look through it. Maybe there's… maybe there's something in there that can save her!"

"But Diana," Adam started, "You said it could possibly be dark magic and that – "

"To hell with what I said!" She interrupted him, "If we can bring her back, it's worth a try to look!"

She picked it up and started thumbing through the pages to see if anything caught her eye. It was nothing but diagrams, old text in dead languages that she couldn't decipher, and scribbles here and there. Nothing seemed to make sense, and with each passing moment, hope was slowly slipping away.

"Diana, I don't think anything is in there –"

"A hah!"

Holding the book open to a two-page spread, it showed a small, faded picture of a body lying down and then another picture with the same body standing up.

"This has to be something, right? We need to try it!"

They all looked at each other skeptically, but figured it was worth a shot. Forming a circle around Faye, they concentrated all their efforts and chanted in unison.

"Deviare. Deviare. Deviare."

A small breeze kicked up and stirred the area, but nothing of note was happening.

"Deviare. Deviare. Deviare."

Nothing.

Jake with what looked like tears in his eyes, threw his hands down at his side and then rustled his hair in anger, "This isn't working!"

"Maybe it doesn't work because we don't have Faye with us," Melissa murmured, "we're not a complete Coven without her."

Cassie's eyes widened.

Wiping her tears, not caring that she looked a mess, she broke the circle and knelt down next to Faye's body. If they were able to bring Melissa back from the deep sleep on their own, who's to say that she can't do this spell on Faye? If they had as strong a connection as she thought, then it was worth a shot. Placing both hands onto Faye's chest as if she were about to do chest compressions, Cassie scrunched her eyes shut and shouted.

"DEVIARE!"

Her hands lit up in a brilliant supernova of color, and while she suddenly felt the life start to drain from her, she also noticed it was happening around her as well.

Whatever grass and greenery that encompassed the forest began to whither away and started to funnel to Faye's body in a radial design. Trees began to lose all their color, then their leaves, before finally disintegrating. The dirt became drier than normal, the rocks crumbled into nothingness. The entire forest was beginning to die, and even Cassie felt it pulling from her body too, but with each passing moment, she could feel a small electric pulse get stronger and stronger.

"Cassie stop, you're hurting yourself!" Jake exclaimed.

"No, I don't care!"

Cassie kept her hold on the spell as sweat formed on her brow. She could feel herself getting weaker and weaker, but each passing moment the pulse that vibrated beneath her hand began to resonate with her whole being, and then when she almost felt her last breath leave her body, Faye's chest expanded and she took a deep breath of her own.

Her eyes shot open and she started coughing violently, but those coughs were a beautiful sign of life.

Though weak in her own state, Cassie started crying once more, but with tears of joy. She burst out into joyous laughter and practically smashed her body onto Faye's in a tight embrace.

"You're alive!"

Faye was still coughing, and Cassie lying on her chest was not helping matters.

"If you – if you don't get off me, I'm going to… to suffocate. Fatass," Faye weakly sputtered.

Cassie's lips came crashing down onto Faye's and it was like the world around them ceased to exist. With each touch and every kiss, it was an electrifying euphoric moment that nobody could take away from them, and it was only a connection that they shared. The Harbinger was sealed away and the portal was closed for good; there was nothing left in their way.

Pulling away but staying within a couple inches of her face, Cassie was breathing heavily and smiled.

"I guess we were written in the stars after all."