By lunchtime, Emerald had managed to fully regain her composure. Yes, it had been a strange, humiliating, and oddly erotic morning, but it was probably just a blip. She’d just had an unusual reaction to the enthralment hex because it was her first time experiencing it. Yes, that must be it.

She wondered if she might eventually believe that.

Regardless, it was done now. As were her lessons for the day - she only had two this morning, with the remaining class periods that afternoon instead being given over to independent study time. Normally, she couldn’t wait to be alone with her thoughts in the library, or in her dorm’s common room. Today, she worried that more time by herself would lead her further down the mental rabbit hole that had brought about the morning’s impromptu masturbation session.

She chose a circuitous route to the dining hall, hoping to avoid anyone who had been in Professor Finn’s class. She was disappointed, to say the least, to be met by the sight of Livi, dressed in her PE gear and accompanied by Georgie and Jemma, her two best friends - although ‘henchmen’ would be a better term. Before Emerald could slip away back down the corridor, the girls spotted her.

“Emmie!” Livi cackled, reaching her in three swift strides. “Thought I could feel your weak-ass aura.”

Emerald tried to dart past her, but the other two girls were blocking her path. Livi stepped behind her, leaving her surrounded.

“You should’ve seen her this morning,” she sniggered. “Little Emmie finally found her role in life. She’s only ever had any value as a test dummy - and this morning she did it without complaint! Bet that must have made it easier, huh?” Livi prodded Emerald in the shoulder, making the smaller girl wince. “You probably liked it, didn’t you? Not having to waste any energy on whining, or feeling embarrassed - just having your free will taken away, so we could do whatever we wanted with you...”

“Ooh, here we go.”

Emerald blushed and swallowed hard, her gaze downcast. This was standard bullying fare for Livi and her cronies, but it was made worse by the fact that, unbeknownst to the bully, there was a grain of truth in her words. Once again, Emerald could feel a stirring between her legs.

Jemma laughed harshly, flicking her long dirty-blonde hair out of her face. “I wish I could’ve seen that, the brainy bitch turned into a dumb little dolly...”

“Yeah,” Georgie chortled, “I bet she was all duh, duh, duh...” She stretched her arms out in front of her and rolled her eyes up in her head, in a mocking zombie impersonation.

“See for yourselves,” Livi said quietly, and Emerald could hear the threat in her voice. Panicked, she spun back around to face her nemesis, who was raising her clenched fists, on which she wore brass bands decorated with spirals. They were basically knuckledusters, but rather than hitting people with them, Livi used them to channel her magic. (And sometimes to hit people.)

Emerald wanted to run, but with the three tall, athletic girls surrounding her, there was nowhere to go. And there was no point pleading - that would only provoke them even more. She watched helplessly as Livi tapped the brass knuckledusters together twice, producing crackling orange sparks. As she drew them apart, a small orb of orange electricity formed between her fists, both of which she abruptly, violently aimed in Emerald’s direction. The magical sphere shot forwards as if flung from a catapult, filling Emerald’s field of vision as it flew directly at her face. The next second the blinding light had vanished, leaving her vision as clear as ever. She looked back at Livi, whose cruel smirk was growing into a predatory leer.

This time, Emerald could observe the changes happening to her. The fear, the desperation, the humiliation, all faded away in a matter of seconds. She tried to cling onto a little steel inside herself - a little resistance, a little willpower - but the steel melted and poured away. Soon, all that remained was the dreamy, floaty happiness she had felt a couple of hours earlier. She gazed at Livi, no longer troubled by her wolfish grin.

“Wooow,” Jemma gasped. She reached out and took hold of Emerald’s wrist, tugging it up into the air. Emerald placidly watched her do it, letting her lift her arm up and then drop it back down. It flopped limply back to her side, the sight of it making Emerald giggle softly. Everything felt so great. She was in such a good mood. Nothing was worrying her.

“Hey, magical dopamine hit. Nice.”

“She looks fantastic,” Jemma grinned, her eyes wild. “So stupid and compliant! What should we do with her?”

“I wanna see her do the zombie walk,” Georgie said eagerly.

“In a minute. I have an idea of my own first.” Livi smiled cruelly. “I’ve just been running around on the field, after all, and now my trainers are filthy.”

“Oh, I like where this is going...”

Catching on to what she was implying, Jemma and Georgie started to laugh. Emerald smiled dopily at them, not following the joke but feeling amused and cheerful nonetheless.

Livi grabbed her by the shoulders and stared her in the face. “Emerald, I want you to clean my shoes. With your tongue.”

Emerald didn’t hesitate. Dropping to her knees, she lowered her face towards Livi’s scuffed, battered trainers, which were indeed caked in mud after the PE class. Extending her tongue, she ran it along the surface of the shoe, efficiently, mechanically wiping off as much dirt as she could in one stroke.

Jemma and Georgie were almost crying with mirth at this point, but it wasn’t enough for Livi. “Slower,” she ordered. “Take your time. Like you’re enjoying it... Like you’re making out with it.”

“Who is this bitch? I think I’m in love.”

Taking in the instruction, Emerald altered her methods accordingly. Moving her mouth to the toes of the shoe, she engulfed it with her lips and tongue, kissing it like a lover. She stayed at the toes for a while, and then began to travel across the top of the shoe, slurping and fellating the tough, muddy leather. The taste of the shoe and the dirt covering it didn’t register with her. Nor did the discomfort from kneeling on another stone floor, and nor did her growing erection. Just as before, she simply didn’t notice such things - she couldn’t. She had no thoughts, and no feelings, except drifty bliss. She was happily, dreamily obedient.

“Wow, you really are loving this. Even if I couldn’t see your boner through your skirt, I can just feel the arousal coming off you. Jeez, no wonder...”

Livi lifted her foot to give Emerald access to the sole of her shoe, to which she began delivering a slow, luxurious tongue bath.

“What the fuck is going on?”

The exclamation made Livi jump with shock and almost overbalance. Undeterred, Emerald kept licking her shoe. If she had looked up, she would’ve seen a short blonde girl had just entered the corridor. She was not the only person who had done so - a handful of other students had arrived in recent minutes, and were observing Emerald’s plight with reactions that ranged from discomfort, to amusement, to open ridicule. But the newcomer was not one to stand by and let injustice continue.

Freya Travers was an outspoken, politically-active seventh-year, and one of the highest ranked. She had an infamous habit of using multiple spells at the same time, and as her talents had grown over the years, the combinations she’d used had become increasingly inventive. She wasn’t as skilled in combat magic as Livi, but her trickery and ingenuity made her more than a match whenever the two duelled.

Other than a faculty member, Freya was the best possible person to discover Emerald’s predicament.

“Stop,” Livi growled at Emerald, who immediately halted her ministrations. The taller girl tugged her foot out of the kneeling thrall’s grasp.

“Aw come on, I was enjoying that!”

“I’ll ask again, Sharma,” Freya snarled. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Livi smirked. “We’re just having some fun. Isn’t that right, Emmie? Tell her we’re just having fun.”

Emerald gazed up at Freya, wide-eyed and innocent. “We’re just having fun,” she parrotted.

Freya snorted. “You call this fun? Enthralling this girl and making her lick your shoes clean, in front of everyone? This is terminally stupid - not to mention, illegal. You could get into deep shit...”

Livi snorted. “Yeah, like I’m gonna get punished for this. I’m top of the year, the teachers’ll just let me off with a warning.”

“You’re an idiot for even risking it to begin with.”

The blonde witch stared at her for a long moment. Then, the corners of her mouth twitched. A wicked glint appeared in her eye. Her disdainful expression shifted into a vindictive sneer.

“You know what would be fun?” she suggested, her tone as sharp and savage as shards of glass. “Let me have her. Let me screw with her for months on end. Make her think I love her, make her think I’ll care for her and protect her. Let her choose to be mine. Not just my girlfriend - my obedient sex pet.”

She stared down at Emerald, smirking evilly. “And then, I’ll break her heart. I’ll crush her spirit. I’ll destroy her, and then I’ll throw her away. I’ll send her into the Dark Woods, never to be seen again. By then, even if she could fight back - and we all know this pathetic little charmless couldn’t muster so much as a spark - she’ll be too far under my power, too wrapped up in my control, to do anything but let me send her to her doom.”

Emerald was still smiling placidly up at her tormenters. But, listening to the blonde magician’s malignant words, something started to change. Her heart began to beat a little faster and harder in her chest. A shiver of dread went up her spine. It was as if the scheme Freya was outlining had just begun to rouse her from her magical trance.

“About time. Wakey wakey, sapling.”

“We’ll edit her memory so she doesn’t remember this,” Freya continued, “so she thinks I came to her rescue, made you guys leave her alone. She’ll be oh so grateful to her knight in shining armour. And then I’ll make her believe I got revenge on you guys for her - humiliated you in front of everyone, even worse than you’re doing to her. She’ll have no reason to suspect anything wrong. And after months of her letting me enthral and dominate her on a daily basis... I’ll drop the hammer, and shatter her spirit.”

Livi cackled. “I gotta admit, that does sound pretty fantastic. Especially the ‘throwing her into the Dark Woods’ part. This stupid bitch never deserved to be here in the first place - she shouldn’t get to go through adult life claiming bragging rights for it.”

She stepped closer to Freya, looming over Emerald. “Y’know, I never realised you were like this, Travers,” she mused, seeming impressed.

Freya gave a mock curtsey. “Why, thank you. Gotta keep up the pretence, haven’t I? As long as everyone thinks I’m the golden girl - the one who stands up for weak, worthless little worms like Emmie - I can get away with anything. I can destroy her, and no-one’ll suspect me - or you, because you won’t actually be part of it. We’ll both be free and clear, walking out of this place as the top two witches in our year...”

“Fuck, you’re so evil,” Livi muttered, awestruck, before she practically lunged forwards and planted a kiss on Freya’s lips, which she hungrily reciprocated.

Watching the two of them make out from her knelt position, Emerald’s woe grew worse by the second. Her chest was getting tight, as if constricted by a snake. Her eyes teared up at the sight of Freya’s nimble hand reaching up the back of Livi’s skirt and groping her toned ass.

She still didn’t understand why, or much of what was happening, her mind addled by the hex. She just knew she didn’t like it.

“Well, who would...? Heh. ‘Wood’.”

“Um, I have a question.”

Breaking off their impromptu makeout session, Livi and Freya both shot Jemma looks of matching annoyance. “What?” the bullies’ usual ringleader snapped.

“It’s just, uh, Travers - how do you know Kane’s gonna ask you to enthral her?”

Arching an eyebrow, Freya stepped past Livi and approached Emerald, her already malicious expression turning a shade nastier. “Let’s just say I have a hunch,” she sniggered.

And she extended her foot, hooked it under the hem of Emerald’s skirt, and flipped it upwards, exposing her throbbing erection.

Gasps, laughs and jeers filled the corridor. Jemma and Georgie clapped hands over their mouths. Livi couldn’t have looked happier if she’d won a trophy. “Oh my Goddess, she’s fucking getting off on this!” she thundered, hooting with laughter.

Emerald couldn’t look at any of them. The shame was all-consuming. She wanted to crawl away, to race back to her dormitory and hide. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t move at all - she couldn’t find the impetus. She felt caged, contained, as if the walls were closing in around her. Her arms were dead weights, feeling bound to her sides, her legs equally numb beneath her. She didn’t feel hexed any more - she was well aware of what was going on, all of a sudden - but it was as if she was so mortified that she didn’t see the point in moving, or covering up. Why bother? Everyone had already seen her like this anyway.

So she just kept kneeling submissively at her enemies’ feet, her head bowed, her breaths quick and shaky, her knees really aching, the foul taste of mud in her mouth. She just kept staring down at her stiff dick, which had burst free of her panties at some point while she was enthralled and was now on display for all to see. As she watched, and listened to her schoolmates’ ridicule, it twitched and spasmed more violently, the tip glistening, pressure building up within. She squirmed in place, a desperate whine escaping her lips.

She heard awestruck, derisive remarks from the watching crowd echoing around her. “OMG, is she gonna -”

“I think she is...”

“Wow, what a freak.”

“You lucky little sap.”

“Well? What are you waiting for, Emmie?” came Livi’s taunting voice. “Let it all out, with all of us watching. Show everyone what a pathetic, powerless little perv you are...”

As if still compelled by the enthralment hex, her cock came like a cannon in response to Livi’s words, splattering all over the stone floor in front of her.

Hysterical laughter filled her ears. Though she could hardly dare to do so, Emerald found herself looking up, her lower lip quivering - to see two faces leering down at her, with matching expressions of malice. Livi, her longtime bully. And Freya, her... what?

What was Freya to her, exactly? Why did her betrayal, her cruelty, hurt so much...?

“OK, let’s leave it there.”

The raucous, mocking mirth evaporated in an instant, replaced by an eerie silence. Before Emerald’s eyes, Livi and Freya froze in place, their snide grins fixed on their faces.

Blinking in confusion, she glanced around to see Jemma and Georgie similarly immobilised. So were the other spectators. Everyone else in the corridor had suddenly, inexplicably, stopped, held unwaveringly in place. Not even like statues - more like images, parts of a photograph that surrounded her on all sides. They weren’t even breathing, or blinking. Time appeared to have stopped for them, leaving Emerald stuck within a single moment.

“That was quite the show.”

Emerald jolted with shock, finally finding it in herself to move. Springing to her feet and pulling up her panties, she spun around, searching for the source of the strangely familiar voice.

She didn’t have to look for too long. A figure threaded through the frozen crowd, their entirely static poses and jeering faces undisturbed by their movement. The person approaching her sort of resembled Juniper - except their hair was a dark shade of green, whereas Juniper usually stuck either to golden blonde or jet black. This stranger was also slightly shorter, Emerald thought, and their voice was pitched a little lower. They were surveying Emerald with an amused, thoughtful expression, a crooked smile on their face.

Oh, and they were also completely naked, with one hand wandering back and forth between their heaving tits, casually rolling each nipple between finger and thumb.

“I mean, we kinda strayed from ‘flashback’ to ‘nightmare’ - mixed with ‘fantasy’, I’m guessing,” the newcomer remarked. “Only to be expected after what’s just happened to you - it’s tainting your memories. Still, very entertaining, Emerald, I’ve got to tell ya.”

“Th-thanks,” Emerald murmured without even really knowing why, too distracted by the nude figure before her, her normally sharp mind unable to process a single thing that was going on.

“But you do know that didn’t actually happen, right?”

“Huh?” With that last remark, something seemed to snap inside Emerald. Screwing up her face and shaking her head to try and dispel the fog filling her brain, she glared at Not Juniper in confusion and anger. “What are you talking about?” she snapped. “What the fuck is going on? Who are you?”

“Hmm. Good question.” The only other moving person in the corridor gazed down at their body as if seeing it for the first time, turning on their heel and staring at their ass over their shoulder. “Not sure who I am right now, but I think I’m kinda hot. Don’t you?” They glanced up and grinned. “I mean, you kinda must, to picture whoever this is like... this. I’m getting the sense you’ve never actually seen them naked...? No? So this is just your mind filling in the blanks. Good imagination, I like it. Very... detailed.”

Getting over her initial shock, and the after-effects of the hex, Emerald tried to decipher what the stranger had said. So this person - if it even was a person, it was more likely to be some kind of magical trickster spirit or something of the sort - was using Juniper’s form. Appearing as them, but naked - probably to throw her off balance...

“‘Juniper’? Ohhhh, now I get it,” they exhaled. “Subconscious identification of me with a similar individual from your close experience. If a tree falls in your head, you visualise it as someone you associate with trees, or nature in general...”

Emerald blinked. Some of that made sense, but some of it was madness. This being, whatever it was, was clearly trying to confound her as much as possible.

“Obviously I had to make a couple of little tweaks, to make them more me,” they remarked, flicking their forest green hair. “And hey, no, I’m not trying to throw you off balance, or confound you - good word, by the way. No, I’m naked because you’re horny, it’s that simple.” They made an all-encompassing gesture towards themself, smirking. “You’re doing this to yourself, sweetie. Please, do feel free to keep staring.”

She blushed, averting her eyes. Could that be true...?

“Of course it is.” Their tone was playfully mischievous. “Unless I’m lying.”

Something occurred to Emerald then, and she couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it before. She looked at Not Juniper again, trying to maintain eye contact and not let her gaze get pulled down to their ample chest - which wasn’t easy, since they’d started to subtly, seductively sway from side to side, their teasing smile growing wider.

“You’re reading my thoughts, aren’t you?” she demanded.

NJ snorted. “Well, yeah. I mean, it’s kind of hard not to, I’m in your head. Your thoughts are like my background music right now.”

In her head? Emerald squirmed, feeling almost as exposed as when she’d been kneeling and helplessly showing off her dick to everyone in the corridor. This entity had formed some kind of mental link with her and could effortlessly peruse her thoughts and feelings, browsing through her brain as easily as turning the pages of a book...?

“I liked the music metaphor better myself - books are kind of a sensitive subject for my kind, given, y’know, paper. But sure, we’ve got a mental link. Mental and physical. That tightness around your chest, the strain on your arms - well, yeah, part of that’s probably the stress of this scenario.” NJ gestured around at the static students. “But part of it’s reality bleeding through. You’re feeling the roots wrapped around you, the smallness of the space where I’ve stored you. The truth of what’s happening to you is breaking through - just slightly.”

Emerald processed this. Reality bleeding through...? That kind of implied that what was going on here and now, in this corridor of Hexbourne Academy, wasn’t real...

“At last! I knew you’d get there,” the being said mockingly. “No, genius, this isn’t real. I was just browsing through your mind, viewing your memories, getting a sense for who you are and whether I’d enjoy you...”

“Then where am I?” she said tentatively, a sense of dread growing inside her. Something told her that she already knew the answer, and she didn’t like it. She almost didn’t want to hear confirmation from this peculiar sprite in front of her.

They grinned wickedly. “You’re in the Dark Woods, my dear. You merrily marched in here under that hex, and found... me. You sank right into my grasp, let me wrap you up in my roots and tuck you into my trunk.” They sniggered, jerking a thumb in Freya’s direction. “You’re deeper inside me than you’ve ever been in her.”

Emerald was too busy feeling horrorstruck by the revelation to be very embarrassed by that comment. She was in the Dark Woods. She’d been trapped in one of its trees, her body bound within it in a mystical trance, her mind laid bare for it to play with as it wished. She was the latest in a long line of hapless wanderers to get lost in the woods... never to be seen again.

She felt an awful, aching wave of fear ripple through her. She didn’t want to believe it was true, but the evidence was piling up. Just as the tree spirit sort-of-impersonating Juniper had said, she could feel, distantly, the roots entwined around her torso, tying her arms to her sides and her legs to each other. Looking down, she saw no sign of the bindings, and could move her limbs normally - but the sensation lingered. As did the feeling of claustrophobia, which she’d attributed to being surrounded by bullies - whereas in fact, it seemed, she was enclosed in a tight cavity within a tree trunk.

Then there were the giveaways within the scene playing out around her. The entire time Livi and her cronies had been torturing her, she’d been having a feeling of déjà vu, although she hadn’t really registered it. She hadn’t been able to, incapable of diverting from the events playing out, as if forced to stick to a specific script. Nor had she noticed Not Juniper moving around in front of her without taking any intervening steps, their position changing between sentences, their hands swapping as they touched themself. They were no longer naked, but as soon as she noticed they suddenly were again. One instant they were dressed in Hexbourne uniform, the next they were topless, then fully nude again - and so on.

There were so many implausible, nonsensical things happening. And her brain still felt slower than it should be, a little dazed and dissociated and dreamlike, only belatedly picking up on the inconsistencies. The explanation was clear - this was a dream. A memory, a fantasy, and a telepathic conversation with her tree captor, all rolled into one within her personal mindspace.

Despair was starting to overtake her. Her lip trembled, her eyes tearing up once more. She wondered if their real-world equivalents were doing the same.

No-one had ever returned from the Dark Woods, and those that launched search parties met a similar fate. No-one would ever find or rescue her, even if they knew what had happened to her, or cared to try. She was trapped. She was lost. She was alone. Forever.

And she knew exactly how. Not Juniper said she came here ‘under that hex’. She’d been enthralled, and compelled to walk into the woods. And the culprit had already confessed.

She turned to stare in anguish at the frozen Freya. The blonde sorceress had done exactly as she’d promised. She’d used her, and abused her, and finally discarded her, sending her to her doom within the Dark Woods.

Freya had planned out exactly how to hurt Emerald the most, gaslighting her into thinking she was her saviour, her protector. Livi, Jemma and Georgie had gone along with her scheme, letting her enthral and humiliate them for the whole school to see, so Emerald would believe that they no longer posed a threat and that Freya was firmly on her side. They’d pursued a relationship, developed a dom/sub dynamic, formed a firm regime where Emerald was a powerless plaything and Freya was her mischievous, yet ultimately caring Mistress...

And then Freya had broken her heart and thrown her to the trees.

As Emerald reflected bitterly on all this, it suddenly hit her. She wasn’t just thinking through what Freya would do. She was remembering what she had done. She remembered everything that happened after this day - after this mortifying ordeal that had grown so much worse in its re-enactment, now that the full truth of it had been revealed to her.

She remembered Livi and her lackeys’ public humiliation. She remembered the Halloween Ball. She remembered losing her virginity to Freya while enthralled. She remembered becoming a willing submissive, letting Freya control and command and compel her for months on end. She remembered her decorating her body with an assortment of runes to meddle with her in different ways, furthering her descent into degradation and dehumanisation.

She remembered Freya assuring her that she truly cared about her, that she didn’t see her as worthless, that she thought she was wonderful and valuable. Her precious Emerald. She remembered Freya being so proud and excited for her when she won top of the graduating year group for magical theory. She remembered Freya promising to take her in, to take care of her, to keep her and treasure her throughout their adult lives.

And she remembered being summoned to the forest so Freya could taunt her with the truth, shatter her heart, and dispose of her as casually and callously as a torn garment.

The return of those memories filled her with the same desolation she’d felt at the time. She wanted to crumple to her knees again, to curl up on the hard stone and hide her face in her knees.

“OK, before you go all foetal on the floor, let’s just back up a second and talk this through,” Not Juniper urged her. “Much as I was enjoying the panic spiral, it’s unnecessary.”

“Unnecessary?” Emerald spluttered, choking on a sob as she blurted out the outraged response. “My - my girlfriend was gaslighting me for months, and then she sent me here -”

“Of course she didn’t,” NJ groaned. “Come on, Emmie, use those famous brains of yours. Does any of that actually make sense, when you think about it? Would Freya really go to that much trouble to hurt someone she’d never even spoken to before then? Would she waste half a year making you fall in love with her, only to get rid of you?”

Emerald blinked, taken aback by the tree’s vehemence. “W-well, yeah - that, that’s what happened,” she stammered, suddenly feeling a lot less sure of herself. But a glance behind her at the still image of her malignant Mistress was enough to reinforce her convictions.

Freya had done this. She’d sent her here. She’d condemned her to an eternity of imprisonment, at the culmination of a six-month scheme...

“You honestly believe that? Still? And it’s not just Freya - what about Livi? You really think Livi would make a fool of herself in front of everyone - ruin her own reputation - and then suffer through that for the next six months?”

“But she did,” Emerald insisted. “They did. That happened. She - she told me...”

“Come on,” NJ sniggered. “All that effort, and all that humiliation, for all that time, just to hurt you? How can someone with self-esteem as low as yours, have such a massive fucking ego?!”

Emerald flinched. “Alright,” she muttered, wounded. “But I’m telling you, it happened. If you’re in my head, you can see -”

“Her telling you the plan, and torturing you, and sending you away. Yeah, I saw that. I also saw the time you spent together - the days, and hey, more importantly, the nights. Now those made for enjoyable viewing.”

Emerald shivered, feeling more naked than they were, imagining them hovering in her dorm room watching her adventures of sex and submission with Freya.

“But you know what else I saw? How she looked at you. How she treated you. How she felt about you.” Not Juniper gave her an uncharacteristically kindly smile. “You really think she was just acting, all that time?”

Emerald was about to respond with a flat ‘yes’ - but she couldn’t help thinking back, her mind flitting through the months with her Mistress. Not just the delicious debasement - but the acts of kindness. Freya making a voodoo doll of Emerald and going to sleep cuddling it. Booping her nose while she was astral projecting at the Halloween Ball. Their picnics in that glade, spending hours cuddled up together on the grass, just enjoying each other’s company. Spending the Christmas holidays with each other’s families.

“You really are precious to me. You’re not worthless... You’re worth more to me than I can tell you.”

“No,” she whispered. “It was real.” But she couldn’t bring herself to let hope spark inside her. “At least, I thought it was. Guess I really am an idiot...”

“OK, you might think that, but she clearly doesn’t. I’ve seen your memories - I can guarantee, she’s not acting. You really think she could, for that long? You think she - anyone - could sustain that pretence for six months?!”

It felt like a bucket of cold water had splashed Emerald in her face - and at the same time, as if warmth was swelling within her chest. No. Freya hadn’t been pretending. She did care about her.

She loved her.

She wouldn’t have done this to her.

Which meant... someone else did. Someone who used a glamour to pose as Freya - no, wait, that had really been Freya, she’d already figured out that much. So, someone had enthralled Freya and forced her to do those things.

Someone who hated Emerald enough to get rid of her forever. Someone who wanted her to suffer first, to think she’d been betrayed by the person she loved. Someone who also wanted to hurt Freya, to make her torture her own girlfriend - perhaps out of revenge for a past offence.

Someone with a predilection for using Emerald as a bench... and for calling her ‘Emmie’.

“Wahey, we got there!” NJ whooped, as Emerald slowly turned to stare balefully at the frozen figure next to Freya.

“Livi?” she whispered. “Really...?”

“Who else? You humiliated her in front of the entire school. She has a strong motive. Freya has no motive. Who are we supposed to believe is the bad guy here?”

“That... bitch,” the brunette snarled. She wanted to slap the static Livi, but knew it wouldn’t do any good. The real Livi was still out there - and, more than likely, still had control of the completely innocent Freya. She could do anything to her - even send her into the forbidden forest area too - and Emerald could do nothing to help, trapped and powerless as she was.

“Hey, never say nothing. Where there’s life...”

Emerald gave the tree spirit a puzzled glance. “Why are you doing this?” she couldn’t help asking. “Why would you want me to know the truth about Freya and Livi? For that matter, why snap me out of the illusion in the first place? Why would you want me aware of what’s happening to me? Surely you’d want me placid, ignorant, happy and dreaming and docile so I can’t put up any resistance against you...?”

Not Juniper shrugged. “Well that’s simple, little sapling. I don’t want you.” At her dumbfounded reaction, they continued, “OK, so, beggars can’t be choosers out here - it’s not often that someone comes strolling into our neck of the woods these days, so we help ourselves to whoever does. But truthfully - you? Thanks, but no thanks.”

Emerald shook her head in astonishment, the insecurities that had been so aggravated by Livi’s deception flaring up again. Now she wasn’t even good enough for a fucking tree. “It’s because I’m charmless, isn’t it?” It seemed the most obvious explanation.

“You have to stop calling yourself that. And no, it’s not because you don’t have magic. I don’t care about that. It’s because you’re... lovely.” Emerald did a double take, utterly confounded, as NJ continued, “Seriously, you’re a total sweetheart. You’re kind, and thoughtful, and so so submissive... and I have absolutely no interest in that. Sorry, I just don’t.”

“Umm... well, thank you,” she replied awkwardly, unsure how to take the combined compliment and rejection.

“Honestly, I’d rather have her,” the tree elaborated. They were suddenly standing between the frozen Freya and Livi, pointing to the latter.

Emerald’s eyebrows shot up. “Livi? What the hell do you want with her?”

“I have my reasons,” they replied with an enigmatic smile. “But I can assure you, I would much rather wrap up this bitch inside me than you. No offence.”

“No, none taken.”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re super cute - and some of your memories, like this one, are just delicious... but you’re really not my type. Sorry.”

“I assure you, I’m absolutely fine with that!” Emerald almost laughed, shaking her head in astonishment. She couldn’t quite believe she was having this conversation, with a tree from the Dark Woods of all things. “What do I call you, by the way? I mean, I can’t exactly keep calling you ‘Juniper’...”

They looked nonplussed. “Why not?”

“Well, firstly, because you’re not Juniper. Not my Juniper, my friend. And secondly - are you even a juniper tree?”

“No,” they said incredulously, as if they couldn’t understand why she was even asking. “I’m a cedar tree.”

“Then why don’t I call you ‘Cedar’?”

They arched an eyebrow. “I... don’t care. Honestly, you mortals and your names. You realise they make you vulnerable, right? Count yourself lucky you ran into me and not an actual fae, they’d take your name and your identity with it. If your kind were really smart, you’d embrace anonymity.”

Emerald chose not to argue the point, but she’d already mentally rechristened the talkative tree. This conversation was getting stranger by the minute. But she couldn’t help feeling relieved, for a couple of reasons. First of all, the woman she loved wasn’t a vicious psychopath who’d condemned her to a fate worse than death. The elation she felt at that was mitigated by the knowledge that the woman she loved was being controlled by the actual vicious psychopath who’d condemned her to a fate worse than death, and could very well end up meeting the same fate while Emerald was embedded inside a tree.

But the second reason gave her hope - the tree didn’t want her. And if they didn’t want her, maybe there was a deal to be done. If she could convince them to release her...

“Uh, no convincing necessary. Like I said, I don’t want you. It’s your lucky day, little fishie, I’m throwing you back in the sea.”

Yes! Emerald’s heart leapt. She raced forwards to give the being she now thought of as Cedar a big hug. “Oh thank you, thank you thank you thank you!!”

“Don’t mention it,” the entity laughed awkwardly, sounding almost embarrassed. (Could trees get embarrassed?)

This was amazing. She was going to be set free. She wasn’t going to remain trapped in a wooden embrace forever! For the first time in history, a denizen of the Dark Woods was allowing a captive to walk free.

Even better, this meant she could still save Freya. She could race back to Hexbourne Academy and raise the alarm - she could get a Professor, someone who would believe her and trust her word and act to stop Livi...

But no - too much time had passed by now. She might already be too late. And if she wasted any more minutes fetching help, she’d definitely miss her chance to save Freya. She would have to confront Livi herself.

And get turned into paste, she thought, her heart sinking all over again. It was hopeless. She couldn’t save Freya.

Cedar snorted derisively. “Well, not with that attitude.”

“But I can’t,” Emerald lamented. “I can’t fight Livi! She’s one of the most powerful witches of our generation. An accomplished dueller. And I’m...”

She trailed off, unable to finish her sentence. It didn’t matter - she knew Cedar was picking up her thoughts and feelings anyway.

She wasn’t a real witch. She was a charmless. Powerless. Worthless. She couldn’t do anything to help the woman she loved - the woman who’d done her best to make her feel better about herself. Freya might not have betrayed Emerald, but Emerald was inevitably going to betray Freya’s faith in her.

It didn’t even matter if Cedar set her free. Because she was still going to lose what truly mattered. She couldn’t save her owner, her Mistress, her wonderful Freya. She had nothing to offer, nothing to give, nothing to fight with.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Cedar’s outburst finally made her look up again, to meet their scornful stare.

“‘Nothing to offer’? You know I’m in your head, right? Which means I can see everything that’s in here. And what I can see is a vast repository of magical knowledge. You’ve spent your short life learning everything you can about magic. You know every spell, every hex, every enchantment ever written down, and plenty that aren’t. You’re more of an expert than any of your peers, and probably a bunch of your teachers, too. That’s what you have. ‘Not a real witch’,” they scoffed, rolling their eyes.

Emerald swallowed. “OK, fine, but I can’t use that knowledge! I can’t fight Livi with facts and figures, I need pow-”

She stopped suddenly.

A thought had just struck her. A seed that grew rapidly into an idea...

And then, into a plan.

“I think I know a way for us both to get what we want,” she murmured.

Cedar’s illusionary eyes lit up. “Ohhh... I see that. Yes - that could work. I like that. There’s the brilliant mind of Emerald Kane!”

“Would it work?” she asked eagerly.

“If you’re fast. I can’t keep up the link for long - not from that distance.”

Emerald smiled, and it was a very unusual smile for her - a wolfish, predatory grimace. She’d only grinned like that once before - when she and Freya had formulated their plan to enthral and publicly humiliate Livi, Jemma and Georgie half a year ago.

“I won’t need long,” she said firmly. “I’m one of the best fucking witches of my generation.”

“Oh, hells yeah,” Cedar sniggered. “Love the confidence, squish. This is going to be a riot...”

Yet again, without Emerald noticing, something had changed - her surroundings had begun to disappear. All too quickly, the well-lit corridor had been plunged into darkness. The frozen crowd faded away, swallowed by the shadows. Turning to glance at Freya and Livi - to give herself a reminder of what she was fighting for, and what she was fighting against - she saw no sign of them.

Now it was just her and Cedar in a dark void - but in the distance behind them, cracks of light began to appear, spreading wider and wider. Emerald could feel the roots wound around her more vividly than ever. She could feel the close confines of the cavity where she had been enclosed.

She could still feel the self-assured smile on her face.

“I think you’re going to enjoy this, sapling,” Cedar chuckled, just before they, too, disappeared into darkness.

Yeah, Emerald thought to herself, as her bonds began to slacken their grip. I think I might.