by Alisa Woods
Whenever she thought of that bronze dragon thrashing mindlessly in its golden cage, her doubts flew away, and her resolution came back. She would not let that be Leonidas’s fate. If she ended up bonded to him for a lifetime, then so be it. She didn’t have to love him or anything, and once he was free of the curse, he could do whatever he had to in order to fulfill his treaty. That much Aunt Gwen had clarified as they’d boarded the coven’s private jet with Cinaed to head to London. This deep commitment spell was a bond to belong to each other, like master and slave only neither was higher than the other. Or maybe like family, where blood bonded you tighter than anything else. Only Rosalyn knew that family blood ties weren’t as strong as people liked to think. But this bond, this commitment spell, would be real, enforced by magic—like mating, only without the sex and babies part. If it stuck—it might not. She and Leonidas might both break free, and then they could do anything they chose…
Somehow that made her heart sink.
Leonidas was hot and sweet and funny, and she wanted to pay him back for all he’d done for her, but that didn’t mean she had to bond with him for life, right? This feeling was just because of the excitement and amazement and super, epic life-saving magic stuff they were doing. It would be a little disappointing when it was all over—that’s all that heartache was about, right?
Right.
Rosalyn focused on the small pile of white powder Aunt Gwen had collected in her palm from the pouches in her black bag—it was a veritable apothecary in her purse. Cinaed had quickly grown bored with their spell-making. He was currently at the back of the plane doing something on his phone.
“Many spells are assisted by powders of magically charged elements,” Aunt Gwen was saying. “But the magic isn’t truly in the substance. That’s just a channel that helps you focus your energy.”
“So it’s like a shortcut?” Rosalyn asked. “A magic hack.”
Aunt Gwen’s beautiful face lit up. “Exactly, love.”
A flush of happiness ran through Rosalyn whenever Guinevere called her that. She shouldn’t be so affected—she’d only met the woman the night before—but it was like they were long-lost family who somehow fit together perfectly. Rosalyn was already envisioning her return to the coven when this was all done. Aunt Gwen had said they would want her to join once they returned, and that she would teach Rosalyn the beauty and health spells Aunt Gwen obviously used to enhance that gorgeous head of ultra-black hair and her sparkling blue eyes.
“So what are we conjuring this time?” Rosalyn asked with a smile. “I’ll try not to set off the smoke alarm again. I don’t think Hector could handle it.” Hector, the flight attendant, nearly had a heart attack when the smoke from the previous spell had lit up all his alarms. He’d quickly brought out an extra-large air purifier, which made Rosalyn think this wasn’t the first time, and maybe Hector was just a little over-dramatic.
“This time,” Aunt Gwen said with a mischievous smile, “we’re going to give you some glamour.”
“What? You don’t think I’m glamorous enough as it is?” Rosalyn smirked and struck a faux vanity pose, sweeping back her unruly red mane. She’d spent the night with Aunt Gwen at her apartment in the city, and her aunt’s exotic shampoo and conditioner seemed to give twice the normal volume. She had hair floating everywhere… plus she was wearing one of Aunt Gwen’s trimly tailored, lusciously soft, cream-colored suits. Her aunt said it perfectly set off her red hair and fair complexion, and when Rosalyn had looked in the mirror that morning before they left for the airport, she hardly recognized herself. In this outfit, she could hold her own with any high-powered witch from any downtown coven. Although Rosalyn was still trying to navigate the four-inch, midnight-black slingback shoes her aunt had insisted she wear. They were gorgeous too, but treacherous.
“You are preternaturally gorgeous even without spellwork,” Aunt Gwen chastised her lightly. “Surely, you know that, love. But I’m talking glamour… as in a magical disguise.”
“Really?” This was just getting better all the time.
“Yes, really.” She held up her palm with the tiny pile of mixed powders. “This preparation is geared toward mimicry. I want you to conjure a glamour that looks like me… then go to Hector and order a martini. Tell him you want the usual. If you can maintain the illusion, you’ll come back with an ice-blue concoction he knows is my favorite.”
Rosalyn grinned at this small deception. “How do I do it?”
“Start by summoning your magic, like I showed you before.” Gwen carefully dumped the pile of whitish powders into Rosalyn’s palm.
Rosalyn held it up and waved her other hand over it, feeling her magic gather like a small storm deep inside her. The powders rose up and swirled in a tiny tornado, just like her magic. As she continued to stir and conjure, blue sparks of magic skittered along her hand, leaped from her fingertips, and darted into the small cloud. The sparking reminded her of that pleasure-filled touch whenever her skin met Leonidas’s. This conjuring of her own magic didn’t have that direct sex-charged stimulation straight to her lady parts, but the mere act of practicing magic was lighting her up inside in a very similar way—it was bringing her alive. It welled up something that had long lain dormant and couldn’t wait to break out into the world.
“Excellent,” Aunt Gwen said, flushing more pleasure through Rosalyn with the approval in her voice. “Now look at me, love.”
Rosalyn lifted her concentration from the magical tornado in her palm to her Aunt’s blue eyes. The small dust devil in her hand wobbled, but she kept it spinning.
“Look hard at me,” Aunt Gwen said. “Every detail of my face and lips and hair. My clothes, my skin, even the way I hold my head. Now recreate it and slip it on, as you would a dress that floats freely over your skin, sliding on smoothly and effortlessly.”
It seemed impossible to Rosalyn, but she’d done five impossible things already on this flight. She focused, doing exactly as her aunt instructed, sitting a little taller as she pulled an imaginary version of Aunt Gwen’s appearance over her fresh-scrubbed hair and silky new suit. The tiny magical cloud dispersed and swept over her, but Rosalyn couldn’t tell if she had succeeded until Aunt Gwen’s eyes went wide, and she clapped her hands in delight.
“Perfect!” She grinned, and Rosalyn felt like she was floating much higher than the 40,000 feet their airplane was flying. “Now, go get me my drink!”
Rosalyn rose up and hobbled across the lush carpet of the jet toward the front, where Hector was intently studying a men’s fashion magazine, his legs primly crossed, barely wrinkling his neatly-pressed navy-blue uniform. He was probably late-twenties, wiry in build and tall. Rosalyn assumed he wasn’t a witch, but he had to know about magic, given he worked for the coven full-time. She wasn’t at all sure she’d be able to fool him.
“Hector,” she said, trying to take on that coolly confident air that her Aunt Gwen seemed to wear like perfume. “Be a love and make me a martini. The usual.”
He looked up, quickly set his magazine aside, and rose from his fold-down attendant’s seat. “Of course, Miss Guinevere.” He smiled at her in a way that was just a little off, but then he turned to open the mini-bar just behind him and started preparing a blue-colored drink in a sparkling martini glass. He snuck a look at her with a gracefully arched eyebrow. “Well done, Ms. Rosalyn.”
Her shoulders sank. “It’s not working.”
“No, no, sweetie,” he said in a hushed voice. “You look fabulous. The spitting image of her royal witchy-ness.” That almost made her laugh. She had to admit there was an arrogance in Aunt Gwen—she was the strongest witch in her coven after all.
“What gave me away, then?”
Hector dropped his voice to a whisper and leaned forward to hand her the drink. “Your voice, darling. Next time, make sure Ms. Gwen teaches you the voice-masking spell.”
Rosalyn flushed, suddenly feeling off-kilter. What was she thinking she could pull off any of this—the spells, the heels, th
e whole small-fish-in-a-big-pond deal with the coven. Even the non-witch flight attendant knew more about magic than she did.
“Right. Okay.” She clutched Aunt Gwen’s drink and noticed that her hand had reverted back to her own regular one—no fire-engine-red perfect manicure, just her plain short nails. She’d lost focus, and the glamour had disappeared.
“Oh, sweetie, don’t take it so hard.” Hector’s rich brown hand had landed on her arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. “You have the best teacher. Trust me, you could have gotten that awful Esmerelda or that nasty Irina as a mentor, and just heaven help you, then!” His eyes went wide with faux horror, and a smile was wrenched back onto Rosalyn’s face.
“Thanks for the tip.” She grinned.
He gave her a crisp nod then fluttered his fingers at her. “Now go back there and give Headmistress McStuffins her drink and tell her to teach you all the magic. I hear you have a sexy man to save, and a day just doesn’t get any better than that.”
She smiled so wide, it felt like it might break her face. “You heard that, did you?”
Hector rolled his eyes. “In a coven like Damon, trust me, girl, you’ve gotta keep your ears wide open if you’re going to navigate the witchy minefields of drama.”
A giggle was threatening to rise up in Rosalyn’s chest. “So you’re the one I should come to, you know, if I need to know the skinny on something?”
He gave her a dramatic nod. “You got that right, sister. Now shoo!” He waved her off.
Rosalyn took her drink and her smile and focused on not falling in her heels as she teetered her way down the length of the luxurious jet to her Aunt Gwen. That floating feeling was back. Like this was some kind of amazing dream filled with amazing people and amazing possibilities. Unreal. That was the word that kept coming back and haunting her. But that didn’t matter—she would make it real. She would work hard and learn every spell and win her way into the coven even with all its tricky politics.
Her Aunt Gwen’s forehead wrinkled a little when Rosalyn returned and handed her the blue drink. “Well, it must have held for a bit at least,” she said. Rosalyn took a beat to remember—her glamour was gone.
She dropped into the couch next to her aunt. “Yes, but I got the inside scoop from Hector about who’s the best witch in the coven.”
“Oh, did you?” Her aunt threw a scowl in Hector’s direction, but he already had his nose buried in the men’s magazine again.
“He said it was you,” Rosalyn said, drawing her Aunt’s attention back.
A wide smile blossomed on her face. Holy magic, her aunt was beautiful—she had to be Rosalyn’s mother’s age, but she was super-model gorgeous and didn’t look a day over thirty. “Well, maybe I’ll keep him after all,” her aunt said, then she took a sip of her martini and set it on the small table built into the couch next to her apothecary bag.
Rosalyn’s smile dimmed a little. She wanted this so badly… and that felt like dangerous territory. Because her luck had never been good before, and it felt like tempting the fates to think that had changed. “Do you think I can do this, Aunt Gwen?” she asked, the words feeling like tiny explosive devices that might blow back and wipe away this magical dream that was happening.
“The glamour spell?” Aunt Gwen arched a perfectly manicured, pencil-thin eyebrow.
“The glamour spell. The deep commitment spell. Saving Leonidas. All the magic I’ve never learned.” She dropped her voice to a tremulous whisper, feeling like her chest was cracked open, and her heart bared and vulnerable. “Do you think the coven will really accept me?”
Aunt Gwen’s expression softened. “I won’t lie to you, Rose. You deserve to know the truth. It won’t be easy. None of it will. This spell with the dragons… I have no idea. I know you’re capable of it, love, it’s just whether…”
“Whether I can stay focused,” Rosalyn nodded, fervently. “Like the glamour. It faded because I lost focus.”
Her aunt’s beautiful hand scooped up Rosalyn’s and held it. Rosalyn hadn’t realized hers was shaking. “Yes, exactly. Focus. Reach inside for your true magic. It’s strong, Rosalyn, my dear. I think much stronger than you know. And with that, you can do absolutely anything you set your heart on.”
Rosalyn was lighting up inside again. This was exactly what she needed to hear. “And the coven?” she dared to ask again. Was her aunt skirting that? Did Rosalyn have to worry? She would almost rather know now before her sky-high expectations got any higher.
Aunt Gwen lifted her chin. “Be yourself. A powerful witch with Damon and Thorne blood. Do that… and any coven would be lucky to have you.”
Yes! It really was a dream—an amazing, fantastical dream coming true before her very eyes. “How much longer do we have? Before we get to London, I mean,” Rosalyn asked, her voice a little breathless with the thrumming of her heart.
“A few more hours yet.”
“Teach me everything, Aunt Gwen. Everything. I’ll need it to do this.”
Her aunt’s eyes took on a shine that Rosalyn prayed to magic was something like pride or enthusiasm or simply hope this might actually work. Although, Rosalyn’s own hope was big enough and bright enough for both of them.
“Let’s go back to the glamour,” Aunt Gwen said with a growing smile. “And this time, we’ll conjure you a voice to match Hector’s along with that ridiculous all-leather outfit I know he keeps at home.”
Rosalyn beamed, and her heart soared.
She was a witch—and nothing would stop her from making this dream come true.
The flight to London was long and harsh, but less so than the return to the city itself.
The nameless dread in Leonidas’s chest grew darker as he and Leksander banked over the London Bridge and glided down the Thames. They were cloaked so the pedestrians on the streets wouldn’t look up to see a hideous bronze dragon returning after four hundred years’ absence. London was unrecognizable to him now, a modern city overlaying his memories of the quaint bustle and vibrancy of the past. Of course, the Globe theatre and the witch he happened upon there were long gone—a replica had taken the place of the theatre, but it was moved a couple hundred yards away to a suitable location for modern theatre-goers on the bankside.
Leonidas dropped to glide closer to the street level but remained cloaked.
How will you find her? Leksander asked, the rustle of his wings in the nighttime breeze the only indication of his presence at Leonidas’s wingtip.
I know exactly where she is. The city was modern now, with buildings of glass and chrome as well as brick and mortar, but the magic of the tomb Leonidas conjured for Meridi, and the deathless spell that was her burial shroud was a beacon he had long ago tried to shut out of his mind. But now that he was back in the city, her grave called to him, like a haunting lighthouse in the fog.
Leonidas banked down Maiden Lane, the street upon which the original Globe lay, only now the half-lit sign on one of the modern buildings called it Park Street. All that remained of the rounded theatre, long ago burned to ash, was a memorial of sorts to the bard and his plays. The glass-and-granite building opposite it showered light upon the ancient bricks. A black iron gate surrounded the small sweep of patio that marked what remained of the theatre’s grounds. A three-story apartment block on one side and a four-story one on the other hemmed in the small vestige of the Globe, reduced to a historical marker. Half of the original grounds still lay buried under the modern building to the right.
Leonidas landed with a scrape of his talons on the modern-bricked sidewalk. He had to tuck his wings to avoid knocking over the bicycles parked in their stands. The street was empty of pedestrians at this time of night—almost ten o’clock—but lights shone from the apartment complex.
The one that stood over Meridi’s tomb.
Leksander landed next to him, shifting human and dropping his cloak. “Are you sure this is it?”
She’s buried under the apartments.
“That sounds like a problem.” Leksander
scowled at the white-walled and brown-bricked building. It was older than the surrounding buildings but nothing like the bricks that encased Meridi’s body.
She’s not deeply buried. The pain of having to even think that thought was making itself known in his chest. His wyvern was churning again, seething under his skin. I sense her, though, so I know my magic kept her tomb from being disturbed. It’s just inside the front wall. He was still cloaked, or he would point out the exact spot where he could taste the residual spark with his fae senses.
“Right. I can feel it, too.” Leksander pulled out his phone and dialed the Damon witch, per their prior agreement. “Go ahead and get inside,” he said to Leonidas. “I’ll let Rosalyn know we’re here.”
Rosalyn. Leonidas cringed as he lumbered toward the apartment, magically unlocking the black-shuttered service door and creaking it open. What would she think upon seeing Meridi? Would she demand to know what had happened? Cinaed must have filled her in on the details by now. Or perhaps not. He was artful with women, if nothing else, and probably figured it was Leonidas’s story to tell. It was just more evidence of the horror of the curse that breaking it would require him returning here. Although he held little hope for breaking free. The curse was a heavy cloak that had settled on him long ago, and he didn’t know what it would even feel like to have it lifted.
Leksander quickly followed him inside, taking the half step down into the maintenance room that was apparently the portion of the building constructed over Meridi’s burial spot.
“They were waiting for us over by the new Globe theatre,” Lekander said, closing the door to the street. “They’ll be here in a minute.” He banished the darkness of the room by flipping a switch on the wall. It was cramped between Leonidas’s bulky wyvern form, an ancient boiler, a more modern heating system, and a variety of pumps, piping, and a shelving unit of supplies and tools. It smelled of grease and exhaust, dingy in a way that spoke of modern machinery rather than the ancient coal-smoke of the original London.
