Page 69 of Jingle Spells

“No. No, that doesn’t make sense.” Jasper shook his head. “We met your bosses. They’re not hurting for money.”

Delilah felt a surge of warm appreciation for Jasper’s cool head. Regardless of the chaos, his mind was still sharp. It was strangely comforting to have him there, applying his logic to their mess.

“He’s right,” she said, turning back to Max. “Any money they need, surely they can just conjure it.”

“Not without power,” Max replied, “which they are running out of. Sources of readily accessible pure magic are few and far between these days.” He leaned forward. “The magicians want that grove of yours. And their thought is, if they destroy the town that protects it? Simplifies everything.”

“I’m calling bullshit on that, too,” Delilah said. “They have enough power to erect a fifty-story building overnight. They don’t need our little grove. Why are they so determined to turn Oak Haven into just another stop on the Haunted New England tour circuit?”

“Oh who knows,” Max said with a drunken shrug. “Maybe they just hate you people. Ever consider that? Simplest explanation is often the right one—isn’t that what they say? If Occam’s razor says fuck you, maybe it’s as simple as that.”

“Enough!” Scarlett slammed her hand on the table, making everyone jump. “Why doesn’t matter now. The question is where. Namely, where is our mother? She’s at the casino, isn’t she? She must be.”

Max sighed. “Well, yeah.”

“I knew it!”

“But also no.”

The witches exchanged confused glances.

“You witches like portals, yes? I’m presuming that’s how you gals followed me to Vegas last year. You open a portal to one place, step through, and you exit the portal somewhere else. All well and good.” Max gestured vaguely in the air. “But did you ever wonder what would happen if you stopped midway? What’s between the portals?”

“Between?” Delilah repeated. Portals aren’t hallways; they’re doors. There’s one side and the other side, there’s no between. “That’s absurd. There’s no midway between portals . . . is there?” She turned to Jerusha, the eldest and arguably wisest of the group.

Jerusha frowned and shook her head as if to say, No, that’s not a thing.

“Annnnnnnd that’s why magicians are more powerful than witches,” Max replied with a smug grin. “The space between the portals is exactly where your mother is being held. It’s where the magicians hold anybody who crosses them.”

The blood drained from Delilah’s face. A space between portals? What did that even mean? How could Mama be somewhere that, by definition, didn’t exist? Even the idea made her brain hurt.

“That can’t be right,” Belinda objected from across the room, hugging her armed gnome closer.

“And yet,” Max said, “between every portal there is a space where you exist in both places and in neither. That’s the space the magicians have learned to access and exploit.”

Scarlett, never one to be deterred by mere metaphysical impossibility, straightened her shoulders. “Fine, whatever. So how do we get to them?”

“Impossible.”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees as the witches all reacted to that dismissal.

“Nothing is impossible,” Jerusha declared.

“Really?” Max laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Tell me this, witches. How many portals can you make? What’s the total number?”

Delilah shrugged. “Infinite? I mean, any wall can be a portal to any wall somewhere else. So that’s like asking how many walls there are. It’s not a question with an answer . . .” Her voice trailed off as the implications hit her. “Oh gods.”

Jasper’s eyes widened as he followed the logic along with her. “If there are infinite portals . . . there are infinite spaces between.”

“Yeah, now you get it.” Max reached for his wine glass again. “You want to go on a hunt for your mother? That’s not a needle in a haystack, ladies—it’s a needle in the Milky Way.”

Delilah felt the room tilt slightly, or maybe that was just her own sense of equilibrium failing. Jasper moved toward her, slipping his arm around her waist, the scent of him anchoring her to reality. She leaned against him without thinking, grateful for the support, for the quiet solidity of his body.

The assembled witches, moments ago so ready for battle, now looked stricken. Even Scarlett was momentarily at a loss for words.

Max studied their expressions and, surprisingly, took pity on them. “Okay, so that’s the bad news, I guess. But the good news is, she’s not in any physical danger. Magicians don’t roll like that, their famous ‘saw the lady in half’ trick notwithstanding.” He chuckled at his own joke, then sobered when no one joined in. “She’s just being held there, in stasis. So stop freaking out, put the knives down, just take a breath. Because the reality is, you’ll get your mother back when the magicians decide to give her back to you, and not a minute sooner.” He took another glug of wine and added, “Can I see my goddamn rabbit now?”

The room fell into a stunned silence, broken only by the distant sound of the magical string quartet, which had somehow reverted to playing “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” despite no one being there to hear it.