by Eva Chase
A giddy laugh bubbled up my throat. I forced myself to swallow it. Using magic like this felt amazing, but my spark had already dwindled to half the level it had burned at a few minutes ago. I had more left to do.
I nudged the door with just the power of my muscles. It swung open silently, revealing the shadowed space on the other side. I eased the door shut behind me and felt along the wall for a light switch. The crystal globe of a light fixture gleamed on overhead.
Compared to Celestine’s office, her magicking room was spartan. Polished wood floor, a cabinet at the back for supplies, no other furnishings. The walls were bare and a neutral shade of gray.
My heart started to sink. I’d assumed if she had some evidence of the spell she was planning anywhere, it’d be in there. It hadn’t been in her office. Or Master Cortland’s house. Where else could she be hiding things? But there wasn’t much of anything in here.
The brush of my socked feet sounded horribly loud as I crossed the floor to the cabinet. The hinges sighed as I opened the door.
It was packed full—boxes and jars and other objects too big for either: a large bowl made of polished shell, a sword that stretched the whole length of one shelf, a bundle of folded silk that glimmered with shifting colors, the skull of some animal I couldn’t identify at a glance.
None of that was inherently suspicious. But if she’d taken notes, written down the procedure she was planning like Master Cortland had with his ideas…
I tugged out one box and then another. The first was full of feathers of various sorts. The second a jumble of semi-precious stones. The third had a heft that made my spirits leap, but when I opened it the books inside where clearly older than Celestine’s time. One of them was stamped with the name Brixton, another Redfield—volumes she’d inherited through her family’s line and her first husband’s, I guessed.
I opened a couple of the books just in case, but the pages were old and dry. The ink was growing dull. Nothing had been written in these in decades. The stale smell of the box suggested she hadn’t consulted them recently either.
As I pushed the box back onto the shelf, it jostled a small cloth bag I hadn’t noticed at first. I retrieved it and eased its mouth open.
A curl of black hair stood out starkly against the white fabric. I stared at it for a long moment, my stomach clenching.
I was the only one in this family and Celestine’s former one with black hair. What were the chances this lock belonged to someone important I’d simply never met, and not to me? Anytime in the last fourteen years since Celestine had come into our lives she could have snipped it—when I was sleeping or distracted.
With a part of a person you could work any sort of magic on them from afar. Track them down if you needed to find them. Cause them pain.
My fingers curled into my palm. I wanted to hurl the bag and its contents away. But the plan had been to leave this room as undisturbed as possible. Until Dad came home, she had to believe everything was completely normal.
If I took it, she’d just acquire herself a new sample. It wasn’t as if I could do much to stop her even with the brief bursts of magic I’d gained.
Grimacing, I tucked the bag back into its place and reached for the next box.
This one held a heap of smaller silk scraps. The one after, sticks of various lengths and woods, striped of their bark. Then I opened one to find a stack of paper waiting for me.
My pulse thumped faster. Magical contracts. Each one held a date and two or more signatures, glinting with a faint hint of the magic that bound those names to their written oaths. The one on top was old, from twenty years ago when Celestine had engaged the services of a tutor for my younger stepsister.
I pawed through the stack, checking the dates and the gist of their content. There was her marriage contract with Dad, promising her equal authority over the estate until it passed to my hands. There was her contract with the witch she’d hired to courier messages to a business client. Immense and mundane, all the commitments of her magical life were mixed in together.
As I neared the bottom of the stack, the edge of one page nicked my fingertip. With a hiss, I stuck my finger in my mouth. A dribble of coppery blood tingled over my tongue. I glanced into the box quickly to make sure I hadn’t smeared any inside—and my gaze caught on the word consort on the contract just below the one I’d turned.
As carefully as I could, I raised the stack of papers and slid out the contract I’d noticed. I propped the other sheets against the side of the box so I’d know where to replace it. Then I laid the contract on the floor in the full glow of the overhead light.
My eyes shot to the names first. Celestine Hallowell and Derek Conwyn. My stomach balled. Bracing my hands against the floor, I glanced up at the date.
Almost three months ago. Three months ago, two months before we’d even come here, they’d finalized this agreement.
Derek Conwyn hereby declares that he shall govern Rose Hallowell as his consort in accordance with the requests of Celestine Hallowell. He may not act against Celestine’s will or impose his will contrary to her intent. Where she has no stated intent, he may proceed as he pleases. He agrees to keep the Hallowell elders fully informed of the state of his consort and speak no word of this contract to said consort or any other outside party, including his benefiting family.
In return, Celestine Hallowell declares she will supply the elder Conwyns with fifty thousand dollars on the signing of this contract, and another twenty-five thousand each year thereafter provided all other conditions are fulfilled. These payments will be presented as dividends from an investment of Derek Conwyn’s. She will also do her utmost to ensure that Rose Hallowell remains pliant to her consort’s will, by means magical or otherwise as necessary.
Then their names, scrawled side by side. My stomach was churning now. I pressed my hand against my belly as if that would suppress the nausea.
Here it was. This was all the proof I needed and more. The second Dad laid eyes on this…
I had to make sure he did. I couldn’t take any chance of Celestine hiding it somewhere else, if I made the slightest slip and she realized what I’d found. And it needed to be the real thing, not a photo on my phone she could claim I’d doctored.
How often would she be checking on the contract anyway, buried down there in this box? She had no reason to believe I was even capable of getting past her magic. Dad would be home in just a couple days.
A small risk against a big one. I had to take it.
Breathing slow and even and trying not to think about what I’d just read, I set the stack of paper back in the box and replaced the lid. Then I slid the box onto its shelf exactly where I’d found it. Derek’s contract I carefully folded until it was small enough to fit in my jeans pocket. I wasn’t going anywhere without it on me, not until I could show it to Dad.
I walked back to the door on wobbly legs. Shouldn’t I be relieved? I had what I needed. I’d gotten what I’d come for.
But reading the terms of my stepmother and my fiance’s agreement so starkly laid out had hit me harder than any suspicion could have. The way they’d written about me, as if I were just a tool for them to use as they liked… A shudder rippled through me.
I had two more days to get through, two more days of pretending I didn’t know, to protect myself.
And underneath both of those concerns, the dread that had been nagging at me from the first moment I’d suspected Celestine squeezed around my gut.
I had my proof. I had the means to convince Dad to break my engagement and see that Celestine was banished from our lives. But I still had no idea what happened after, when I had no consort and no real hope of finding another to properly kindle my magic.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rose
Pulling Celestine’s spell back into place over the lock took almost all the magic I had left. I pressed it steady against the deadbolt and paused, bowing my head. My breath was coming quick from the effort, a light sweat cooling my sk
in.
Despite all those practice exercises I’d done, all those forms I’d propelled my body through, nothing completely prepared a witch for magic usage. In time, I’d find it came easier and easier.
If I kept my spark.
The tiny glimmer that remained sent a tickle of sensation down to the base of my belly. A memory flared up, as hot as my spark had been last night. Damon touching me there, then filling me so completely…
Even if being with him hadn’t lit my spark, I’d have wanted to do that again. Oh, yes, indeed.
And not just with Damon. What would it be like to come together with Kyler, or Seth, or Jin? Or all of them, all at once? A flush washed through me as I headed down the hall.
Philomena would have called me a wanton for thoughts like that. But she’d have said it with a smile and a wink, like a compliment.
I had been planning on going downstairs and into the gardens, to bask in the sun a little and pretend that any warmth coloring my cheeks was coming from the outside. But just before I reached the stairs, I spotted Derek on his way up. My heart lurched.
Derek Conwyn hereby declares that he shall govern Rose Hallowell as his consort…
A man has needs…
“Rose,” he said with his usual smile, as if nothing could possibly be wrong. By my light, he was such an actor, wasn’t he? I guessed Celestine must have been looking for that quality when she’d chosen her accomplice.
I made myself smile back, but my heart was still jumping like a trapped frog in my chest. The folded contract in my pocket might as well have been burning a hole through my thigh. “Hey! I actually just— I promised one of the records people I’d get some info to them—”
I motioned toward my bedroom. Maybe I should just not talk for the next hour… or day... or century.
But Derek bought my weak excuse. “Of course, don’t let me stop you. I thought maybe we could look over the seating chart before dinner?”
The seating chart. For the wedding. The wedding that was absolutely never going to happen. A slightly hysterical laugh twitched in my chest. I managed to hold it down.
“Yes, sure, that sounds good.”
I ambled over to my room even though every muscle was urging me to bolt. That wouldn’t look suspicious at all.
The second I’d closed the door behind me, I walked to the bed and collapsed on to the mattress.
“Does that mean your covert mission went well or poorly?” Philomena inquired from where she was standing over me.
“Both,” I muttered. I pushed myself into a sitting position. “My stepmother and my fiancé are scheming to turn me into their puppet. I can prove it to Dad now, but I have to play along with them until he’s back.”
“Can’t you just disappear until he returns?” Phil suggested.
“And go where?” Anywhere I tried to hide, Celestine could track me to. If not with that lock of hair in her cabinet, then only slightly more slowly with a piece of my clothing, a cup I’d drunk from—there was no way to wipe my essence from this house completely. And the very fact that I’d gone into hiding would tell her that I knew enough to be a threat.
“I can’t beat her or escape her right now,” I said. “Not while she has full use of her magic and I don’t. The second she realizes I know what’s going on, I’m screwed.”
“What about those official type people who were here before?” Philomena said. “The marriage interrogators. Can’t they do anything about it?”
“When I can get them involved, they can. They won’t trust just a photograph. They’d need to see the actual contract before they took action against the current Lady Hallowell.” I could make a run for Seattle to present it to the Assembly… but what were the chances I’d make it there before Celestine caught up? She’d bring all her power to bear to stop me. Her whole life, her power, would be at stake.
I knew how desperate that idea could make a person feel.
No. It was safest to wait. “When Dad is here, he’ll know how to handle it,” I said. “She’s got contractual obligations to him. She can’t use her magic against him. Once he’s seen what I have, she won’t be able to cover it up.”
In the meantime… An impulse propelled me off the bed. I nudged the base of my bookcase and fished out my phone.
Nope, no new messages. The last one, from Damon, floated there on my screen. My lips curled into a real smile as I looked at that silly little heart. How much had it cost his pride to send that?
I hoped he’d get his head on straight. I wasn’t looking forward to any repeats of the emotional whiplash he’d given me last night. But when he let down his guard… Now that was its own kind of magic.
The flutter in my chest turned into an ache as I brought my thumb to the delete button. But I had rules. Nothing that would lead the way back to my boys.
With everything I knew now, that precaution no longer seemed like paranoia.
“Well, there,” Philomena said, teasing her imaginary fingers over my hair. “You’re not alone even now.”
A lump rose in my throat. No, I wasn’t, was I? Not completely. Maybe not at all. If only I knew…
I’d been going to ask Meredith to help me investigate the records, but I had other options. I had the contacts I’d worked with while I was digitizing records. There was that whole database of witching historical aficionados I had access to for cross-referencing facts as needed.
But if I was going to ask about a historical fact so obscure and in defiance of everything taught by today’s witching society… I was going to need an oddball.
I opened my laptop up my desk and dug into the file the historical society had sent me. This was perfect. On the off chance anyone was monitoring my computer usage, they’d assume I was just looking up people for a job or for my book.
Most of the listings were esteemed academics or professionals like lawyers and doctors who dabbled in witching history in their spare time. But down toward the bottom of the database I found exactly what I was looking for.
Margo Elands. A witch living out on Staten Island who ran a literal New Age shop while also collecting supposed “historical artifacts” as an avid hobby. The database’s notes said, Elands may contact you hoping to acquire information on your projects or offering her own insights. Our recommendation is to disengage. Many of her sources are questionable, and her enthusiasm outweighs her care.
That was code for She believes a bunch of wacko things we’d rather you didn’t hear about if I’d ever heard it. But it would be an awfully big coincidence if she’d just happened to hear about the wacko things I could say unquestionably were going on in my life right now, wouldn’t it? A coincidence too big not to give some credence to.
The database, of course, didn’t give any contact information for Ms. Elands. We weren’t meant to be seeking out her advice. But it wasn’t hard to look her up via her shop on the internet.
Wouldn’t Kyler be impressed if he saw me now? Well, no, probably not, given that Google was pretty basic compared to hacking into banks. But I was impressed with myself. So there. I even wiped my browser’s history just in case.
I wrote out a quick message to Ms. Elands on my secret phone, pausing over every second word to consider my phrasing. I am one of the sparked. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more than that right now. I’ve heard that you’ve investigated areas of witching history beyond what our community might consider appropriate. Could you tell me if you’ve come across any mention of unusual practices when it comes to taking consorts? With humble thanks.
I grimaced reading it over, but I could live with it. Breath held, I sent it off.
My computer dinged with an email alert before I could close it. I blinked at it, my first thought behind to wonder how Margo had managed to reply quite that quickly. Then I remembered that she wouldn’t have been replying on my laptop.
It was an email from the Consorting Advisership at the Assembly. From the woman who’d come to interview me and Derek, I thought, from how familiar her name l
ooked. I maybe hadn’t been paying quite as much attention to that meeting as I should have.
Ms. Hallowell, the email read. Thank you again for your time answering our questions last week. This is a standard letter, but rest assured that if you have any questions, you may reach out to our advisers at any time. The transition a young witch faces when claiming her spark is a time of high emotion, and a little confusion is almost to be expected.
We like to remind witches on the verge of consorting of three key points:
-Any spark you gain before your initial consorting ceremony will be only a pale version of what you will experience afterward. If you have engaged in some physical intimacy with your consort-to-be, don’t let that limited taste of magic worry you. This is exactly why we discourage much intimacy among young witching couples prior to becoming official consorts.
Yeah, I would have been awfully worried if my only experience had been with Derek. That was, no effect on my spark at all.
The email went on: -The most important factors in a good partnership with your consort are developing a strong emotional and physical bond with trust, respect, and mutual regard. In the time leading up to your consorting ceremony and afterward, approach your partner with open and positive intentions, even if tensions arise. This will ensure harmony and the strength of your spark.
I wondered if they’d sent Derek a note reminding him of that. He was trampling all over my trust, and he sure as hell didn’t respect or regard me very well. My jaw tightened. I read on.
-When you’re uncertain, look to your parents as a model for a strong witching relationship. Think back on how you’ve seen them resolve conflicts over the years. Take your guidance from your elders, and they will help you find the right path.
Celestine as my model? No, thank you. And my actual mother…
My gaze drifted to the photo hanging near the foot of my bed. A family portrait of my father, my mother, and me as an infant. My mother beamed at me from the image. With her black hair, pale skin, and large dark green eyes, she looked like a slightly older, slightly curvier version of me. The only way I took after my father to look at us was his lankiness and height.
