Forgotten Magic

by Eden Butler

  The other guards, the cook, even Cari seemed antsy, not themselves. I didn’t care about her brother Ethan chaperoning the search, but found it verging on hysterical that the lines were making Miss Prim and Proper yank out the pins in her hair and run her fingers along Bane’s bare arms, near his waist. For his part, he seemed little disinclined to acknowledge her attention.

  Bane seemed, in fact, very unaffected by the raw, pulsing heat the lines sent out into the forest. At least, that’s what I told myself. That’s exactly what I thought until Bane walked away from Cari and joined a group from the Oxford coven down on the grounds below. Each wizard kept their distance from each other but still found it impossible to be still or keep their hands from their collars or the hems of their shirts. The witches, most of them, had tugged off their jackets and sweaters and walked among the dens and covens in nothing but their tank tops and jeans, despite the cold temperatures. It was the witches that caught my attention—particularly when two of them congregated toward a wolf pack from Jacksonville who seemed a little too eager to entertain them. I was considering the result of the missing amulet and wondering what would happen if there’d be a sudden rash of inter-species breeding and offspring when I sensed a warm, intense stare watching me from the grounds.

  Bane always had a way to pull my attention back to him. No one could scream at me with one slow gaze and have it be as clear as if he’d yelled my name into the open darkness. A slow turn of my head and I met his gaze, doing a little staring of my own. His eyes were tight, his bottom lip pressed hard against the top one. God, he was beautiful. Beautiful and compelling and so off limits, I reminded myself, bringing forward the scream of the attack and the recall of what else lay in that forest once we recovered the Elam.

  But I had to admit, Batty had woken up more than my nex. He’d reminded me of what I’d given up, of what I’d taken from Bane, and as the magnificent wizard stared up at me with his mouth relaxed and eyes scorching like a flame, I had to remind myself that what I had done had all been for the best. It had all been for the coven, for the Cove, for his own peace of mind.

  Not able to stand his gaze for another moment, I turned away, giving him my back as I watched the lake on the other side of the forest. Closer to the water, the lines were less evident, and I walked off the porch, eager to put some distance between myself and that sweet, haunting song. I nodded at Lennon and several of Bane’s guards I didn’t know as I headed toward the bank.

  The lake was calm, it barely moved at all, and a small swarm of fireflies danced above the water. They’d be gone soon, taken by the fall, then the winter, and the lake would grow black and still until spring. But for now I watched the insects zip through night to skid along that water like there was no threat beneath, as though their lives were endless, and nothing loomed on the horizon for any of us.

  “It’s a little too quiet, don’t you think?”

  Lennon seemed more relaxed now that Mai had disappeared back into the house, less formal than was his usual manner as he came to my side, joining me in my observation of the fireflies and their show, skimming above the water. “The calm,” I told him, not sure why my voice came out slow, small.

  The guard’s gaze was heavy, but nowhere near the intensity Bane seemed unable to keep from shooting my way every time he decided to gawk at me. Still, Lennon’s presence was a comfort I didn’t realize I needed until he was standing at my side. “You believe that’s what this is?” In my peripheral vision I noticed his quick nod toward the water. “The calm before the storm? Something is headed our way?”

  He couldn’t be serious. Maybe it was his inexperience with the Cove. Maybe it was because he’d spent so little time here that made him seem so naive. Still, he was a wizard. I assumed he’d have experienced his fair share of upheaval when magic slipped over onto the mortal world.

  “We’re magical folk living amongst the mortals. A witch from a highly respected family has just been murdered by a magical creature who was likely summoned.” A quick glance in his direction, that quick head shake I didn’t seem able to stop, and I stepped closer to the bank. “Something is already heading our way.”

  Lennon considered me a moment longer than I’d expected. Mine was a way of thinking realistically, based solely on the hurdles life had tossed in my way time and time again. It was just the way of things and I was surprised Lennon didn’t agree. He was from the UK, and every magical creature knew the suffering mortals had put magical folk through over the centuries. Hell, it’s what caused the mass exodus to the new world. So Lennon’s overtly positive attitude was a bit curious.

  He kept watching me, moving his gaze over my face as though he half expected I’d poke him in the ribs and tell him I was teasing. Instead, I kept my attention forward, watching the lake as the wizard kept to himself. “That seems ominous.” His voice was gentle, kind, and bordered a little too near placation for my liking. “It makes the future seem hopeless.”

  “Not hopeless.” Another shrug and I waved my hand, passing off his claim. “Inevitable if we remain in the shadows.”

  Not seeming to like that response, Lennon stood in front of me, hands deep in his pockets and the most ridiculous, incredulous expression on his face. His green eyes sparkled against the moonlight reflecting off the water. That deep wrinkle between his eyebrows set harder, it seemed, as though Lennon fought to question my seriousness. “You think we should make ourselves known?”

  I didn’t pause to soften my response. I’d been repeating it for years because it was what I truly believed. “I think it would loosen some of our self-imposed shackles.”

  “They’d revolt.” Lennon’s mouth worked like a guppy struggling for water and I thought I’d tell him he’d started to look fish-like, but that shock and worry was far too serious to be teased. “They’d try to overtake us, Miss Benoit. On the whole, there would truly be nothing but disaster.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? You’re serious?” He touched my arm, looking very shocked, looking like he was generally concerned for my mental health. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, she is,” Bane said, coming up behind us. One glare at Lennon’s hand on my arm and the guard stepped back. “It’s the same assertions her brother has made for decades. Jani’s only repeating what she’s heard her whole life.”

  “Doesn’t mean it isn’t true,” I told him, narrowing my eyes when he laughed. I glared at Bane, but that didn’t lessen the smile on his face. I hated being written off as some dutiful sister not capable of thinking for herself. My brother’s opinion might not be popular, but I truly believed he was right. I didn’t need Bane being condescending to me because he didn’t agree.

  “No, I suppose it doesn’t.” He rubbed the back of his neck, nodding as though seeing at least some of my point, but then quickly dropped the argument before it led to something heated. “Right now, though, we have more pressing issues than whether or not we should jump on broomsticks and fly across the moon for the mortals to see.”

  Bane turned back, nodded toward the clearing beyond the house where several more dens and covens had arrived and were greeting each other. “They’re all here?” Two shifters immediately transformed as they came closer to the lines hidden deep in the forest, and I grinned at their enthusiasm.

  “All but Birmingham.” Bane’s expression was relaxed, a little pleased, but then he faced me again and that ease stiffened until his features became tight. “They’ll be here in a couple of hours and then we can leave.” Bane grunted, his attention on me, not his guard, and in my peripheral I noticed Lennon shuffling his feet before he cleared his throat. “Well then…I’ll see that the supplies are arranged.”

  “My brother here yet?” I asked when the stare Bane gave me went on too long. I’d thought we’d settled things the night before, but he seemed unable to keep his attention from me.

  “Five minutes out. He just sent me a text.” Moving closer, Bane’s shoulder bumped mine when he folded his arm and we both spott
ed the slow slide of a snake moving off a stump and into the black water. “I’ve…been thinking about that promise last night.”

  Jerking my attention to him, my chest automatically went tight. “You’re backing out already?” I turned, dropping my hands, fingers shifting as though the instinct to attack was something I couldn’t reign in. “It hasn’t even been…”

  “You don’t know what you’re…” Bane’s eyebrow shot up and instantly he grabbed my wrist, covering my entire fist with his hand. “Were you…going to hex me?”

  Swallowing, I tried to pull free, but his hold was tight, unrelenting. “I wasn’t going to do anything.”

  “I…think you were, little witch.” Head shaking when I frowned at him, he pulled me against his chest and leaned forward but didn’t try to kiss me. “The Janiver I knew was sweet, bit of a smartass, and very smart.” He let me step back when I yanked against him, but he still wouldn’t release my hand. “She wasn’t mean or cruel and she damn well didn’t have it in her to kill another living creature.” The glint of amusement that had just been on his face dimmed and something dark, something hard replaced it. “Taking a life changes you, Jani, and you don’t come back from it. You live with it, but you aren’t the same. So tell me, can you look in the eyes of a creature who may not be aware that they’ve attacked anyone and snuff out their life?”

  Head shaking, I glared at Bane, ignoring the warmth that had bubbled inside my chest the second he touched me. “I know what death does to you, Mr. Iles. I’m very familiar. Please don’t pretend to imagine you know anything about me anymore. And that thing didn’t attack. It murdered my friend. For doing that, I’ll look it in the eyes with my hands around its neck and watch it breath its last breath if it means no one has to feel what I do right now.”

  The tears burned in my eyes, but they did not fall. Bane must have spotted something in them that sparked some well of pity, because his grip loosened and he reached for my face, resting his hand against my cheek. “Gods, Jani, what happened to you?”

  Eyes closed tight, I shook my head, ignoring the nagging internal urge to tell him the truth, to explain what had turned me so cold. But I’d taken something from him and kept a secret. He’d never understand or forgive me.

  “I left the Cove. I had to survive.”

  “Here,” Mai said, handing me the bag she’d packed while I grabbed several bottles of cold water from the refrigerator. Outside, dozens of weres—wolves, ravens, panthers, and eagles among them—as well as a handful of skilled witches and wizards organized into groups of five, following Bane’s command as he pointed out markers among the vast acres of his coven’s property.

  My twin stood next to me, shoving the pack over my shoulders, and we both watched the activity through the large window in the kitchen.

  “That’s a lot of people coming here to find something that maybe can’t be found.” My sister’s voice vibrated as she looked up at me. That frown, the stupid, scrunched up dip between her eyes—there was real fear and worry in her expression. “I’d hate to be you.”

  “It does suck sometimes.”

  “But you aren’t worried?”

  The water was cold with the smallest flecks of ice floating around the bottle when I drank from it. I could deflect my response to my sister’s comment, but not for long. She knew me too well. She’d see right through me if I tried to deny I wasn’t generally concerned about how things could turn out during our search.

  “You worry enough for the both of us.” I took another swallow when she only continued to glare at me, forgetting for a moment that Mai wouldn’t let me hide my fear for too long. “Besides, this is nothing compared to the search party last year in Ohio. The mortals brought out the National Guard and four different sheriff departments from three counties. All of them going off of my direction.”

  Mai made a little sound of surprise and touched my arm to pull my attention to her shocked face. “You told them you were psychic?”

  “I told them I had a gut feeling. They didn’t much care how I knew, just that I did.” My sister relaxed with my explanation and leaned against the counter as I mirrored her stance. “Mortals see and believe what they want, you know that. It doesn’t matter if the truth is right there in front of their eyes. They’ll only see what their brain tells them makes sense.”

  Mai nodded at the crowd outside that window. “These aren’t mortals, Jani.”

  “Which is good. No need to lie to them.”

  When I straightened and turned back to stare out again, Mai joined me and we both watched the weres and covens tossing their packs and listening to Bane as he and his shifter friend Wyatt pointed toward the forest.

  “Yes, but that means they’ll expect more from you.” She paused, taking the bottle of water from me. “I’m worried about this. I’m worried that whoever took the Elam is going to target you.”

  “They won’t touch me.”

  “How do you know?”

  Mai didn’t fight me for the bottle when I took it. “Bane won’t let them.”

  My twin’s smile was wide and hopeful, advertising the intent behind that look. She wanted me back in the Cove, and I guess being around Bane gave her a little too much hope that might happen. I almost hated deflating that pretty bubble of anticipation. “Get over yourself, nosy witch. It’s not like that.”

  “So you say.”

  I stared at my twin, shaking my head when that wide grin didn’t falter in the least. “It’s like you forgot that we aren’t eighteen anymore.”

  “I know what I see, and I know what drove you away ten years ago.” She didn’t, not really, but Mai liked to think of herself as all-knowing when it came to love. More specifically, when it came to me and love. She’d been way off her game for a long damn time.

  I wouldn’t tell her everything. Mai was my twin. We were connected, but if she knew I was also angling for this trip to be a hunt for the creature who killed Freya, she wouldn’t get a second’s rest. I had to play off the threat that loomed in that forest.

  “He’s engaged, Mai, and not interested in anything with me. Besides, this is a job. The money will help with my debt and doing well will help Papa’s business save face.” She frowned, as though only just remembering that it was her husband who’d ruined things for our father. “Stop with the grimace. You’ll get wrinkles.”

  “Ronan…”

  “You were stupid in love with him.” She didn’t loosen the tight set of her mouth when I nudged her, seeming unwilling to let me tease her a little. I hated Mai letting that guilt get inside of her. “He was a charmer and good looking. We’ve all done stupid things when our libidos are firing on all cylinders.”

  Finally, that frown eased, and my sister shook her head. “What have you done because of your cylinders?”

  “Stupid, stupid people, sis.”

  “You aren’t the only one.” Two shifters approached the door, pulling our attention away from talk of wayward cylinders, and I smiled at the slow grin that came across Wyatt Rimmel’s mouth when he nodded to us both.

  Ten years back, I’d met Wyatt one afternoon after I had ditched the last fifteen minutes of English Lit. He’d been waiting on Bane, a surprise visit, he’d claimed. “It’s his eighteenth birthday this weekend,” he’d told me as I nodded at the comfortable spot he’d taken up on the hood of my patchy, rusted, holes-in-the-bumper ’68 Shelby.

  “That right?” The shifter hadn’t moved, so I edged him off the hood and dumped my backpack onto the front seat. “This information should matter to me somehow?”

  “You’re Jani,” Wyatt had said, laughing when my face heated and likely went blotchy.

  I slammed the car door, which rattled the front window and the shifter finally slid off my car. “How do you know?”

  “Folks talk.” Eyes shifting to my tight grip on the door handle, Wyatt relaxed, seeming like he found my little bout of curiosity funny. “Especially smitten folk who try to play like no one touches them.”

  “W
ho on earth…” But I hadn’t needed to ask the question. I knew, of course I did, but couldn’t seem to bring myself around to thinking that Bane wanted anything other than to trade long, knowing, unresolved looks with me. “What’d he say?”

  With another laugh, Wyatt had leaned against my car. “Ah, beautiful, what kind of friend would I be if I let my boy’s secrets spill?”

  “Honest,” I offered. “Helpful.” My smile couldn’t quite match his, but Wyatt seemed to have gotten a kick out of my exuberance.

  “Shameless. I like it.” He moved in closer, too close for my liking and he knew, saw that he made me a little uncomfortable as I stepped back. He didn’t follow, but did offer a generous examination of my frame, my face, before the smile he wore turned genuine. “I see now. You’re something else.”

  “You’ve heard different?”

  “No. I haven’t heard anything but good. Maybe,” he’d said, sidling a little closer, “just maybe you should take initiative, jump before he can break away?”

  My go-to defense was always to curl a bit inside myself, and back then Wyatt’s confession had stirred up a lot inside of me. Still, I thought that maybe he was messing with me, just to get under my skin. Teenage boys did that. Hell, my brother still does that.

  When I didn't respond, Wyatt cut me some slack and stepped away, a decent enough distance that relief washed over me. “Listen, Jani, it’s only my gut instinct, but I know what I’ve been told and I know what I see in front of me. You like him, get him.”

  “It’s not like that. He’s…taken.”

  “Hell, beautiful, no one’s taken, not really. Especially not that one.” Wyatt nodded over my shoulder and I looked around, eyes blinking fast when I noticed Bane watching us closely as he came down the steps of the school. I kept my gaze on Bane and that curious, mildly irritated expression of his. But Wyatt moved closer, stepping to my side so he could whisper in my ear. “Sometimes, you gotta take what’s yours before anyone else can latch on to it.”