It had been her intention to move in immediately after buying it, but life didn’t always go as planned. The day after she bought the cottage, Anton, Grand Dragon of Marylebone, the chief bigwig in the world of witches and warlocks had arrived unannounced in Alanna’s studio, frightening the living daylights out of her — she would never admit to a single soul she had been scared witless — and assigned her the task of crafting a jade dragon and could she do it as soon as possible, please? So she had done so, thinking she’d move into the cottage afterward. Anton had taken the finished dragon off with him, only to return with it the very next day. He’d instructed her to put him in the courtyard and extracted a promise from her that she would remain living in the studio for the duration the dragon remained with them.
How long will that be? Alanna had asked, knowing she couldn’t refuse the Grand Dragon anything.
Anton had merely shrugged. Who knows, he’d said. He’s been ensorcelled in several different types of stone over the past few years. No doubt, he’ll break his way out of this one, too. The final charge from Anton, and the hardest to keep, was not to reveal to a single soul that Anton had commissioned the dragon or that there was a soul ensorcelled inside the stone.
So stay in the studio, she did. She found herself strangely drawn to Gregori, as she’d termed him, within twenty-four hours of Anton’s departure. The name had sprung fully formed into her mind as she placed him on the stone lily pad in the pond in the courtyard. He’d seemed so lifelike. His ruby eyes had glowed eerily, and she had thought for a second he’d spoken to her. Gregori. So that’s what she’d named him. The name stuck and now everyone knew him by that name.
Why Marylebone had chosen her was a complete mystery. She was nowhere near to achieving Mastership. There was no way she was as responsible as Rosa, her elder sister. Weeks ago, Rosa had bound her magic with one of the most powerful Dragons to walk the earth and had been Called to Marylebone and made immortal.
“How am I going to advise Marylebone of the cracks?” Frustrated didn’t go halfway to how she felt. And it was all her damn fault. “I suppose I’m going to have to ’fess up to Goran. Surely that won’t be breaking any laws?” She scowled and kicked a stone with her slipper. It hopped across the courtyard to settle next to a hydrangea.
Goran’s presence in Raven’s Creek was why the wrath of Marylebone had descended upon her and Beth. They’d both Called down Goran Thoreaux — accidentally — and made him Earthbound. A magical misadventure resulting in a royal slap on the hand by Marylebone.
Calling down an immortal was forbidden in the world of Witchdom.
“They should explain the laws in finer detail,” she muttered, knowing full well all laws were taught before being allowed to perform a single spell and those laws had been drummed into her years ago. “Who knew thought was as important as action!” Where was the detailed explanation alongside such a rule? Something along the lines of Calling down a magical being can cause mayhem. Calling down a magical being can result in having your magic bound by Marylebone until further notice.
Magic was her life’s blood. She was born with great magical potential, and excelled as a young neophyte in training at Kowhai Coven, the governing body for witches and warlocks in New Zealand. She used her magic as a focus when sculpting. She’d crafted Gregori at night and managed to keep Anton’s secret, even though it had cost her. She was now guardian of a jade dragon with the soul trapped inside. Why Anton put Gregori in there she didn’t know, but she figured he must have done something really bad to be stuffed into the beautifully crafted stone casing. Something far worse than a case of magical mayhem.
She inspected Gregori one last time. His eyes flashed red fire and she wasn’t certain if the sun creeping over the fence caused it or whether the soul trapped inside had heard her thoughts and was attempting to communicate.
“Damn it!” she uttered for the second time that morning, not an uncommon phrase from her. “Witches’ Warts with knobs on,” she muttered another curse and rubbed her hands down over her silky red PJs as she stood. “When the hell am I getting my magic back?”
Alanna trudged through the courtyard in her big fluffy slippers. It was going to be a hot day, but right now it was still early and the warmth was yet to reach the inner courtyard. The sky was turning a delightful blue. The bottlebrush tree in the corner of the courtyard was looking hopeful. She picked up the hose and turned the tap on at the wall. “I can no longer hear you, my friend,” she said to the tree, “but I know it’s going to be a scorcher today, so here’s a little liquid to keep you happy until tonight. Don’t drink it all at once.”
Alanna wandered about, chattering inanely, as she watered the rest of the plants. She would have to disappear upstairs soon. She didn’t want Rosa or Beth to find her mooching about in the courtyard talking to the plants.
She’d lied to her sisters enough. Living in the studio above the Gallery was one of them. She’d told them over and over about how much she loved living there, preferring it to Lavender Cottage. Privately, she longed to move into her home. Teasing Rosa about not wanting to live there had got her through the first two years of guardianship of Gregori, but that was wearing thin, even for her.
She wished she’d never clapped eyes on him. She was as much prisoner as he was. “Bastard,” she muttered, her temper flaring. Grabbing an old cloth, she tossed it over the offending dragon. She then emptied the remains of her coffee onto a rose bush and marched inside, heading upstairs to the confines of her studio flat.
Strange, but she thought she heard the dragon laugh.
• • •
Gregori could taste freedom. He knew the woman, Alanna, who came to check on him every morning was his soul mate. He’d known it when entrapped against his will. But right now all he cared about was freedom. When he finally managed to escape, he would be out of this tiny courtyard that had been his world for the past two years and he wouldn’t look back.
He’d been imprisoned in all forms of stone over the past ten years, but this jade one had been the most difficult thus far in his attempts to break free. Still so damned angry with Anton, Eleisha, and Zelda, he spent a lot of his time imagining how he could make them pay. He only hoped that freedom wouldn’t see him doing something stupid. They were wrong. All of them. He had nothing to do with the Greenwoods’ deaths and before they hunted him down, he would spend what time he had left finding out just who had done the despicable act of heartlessly killing Alanna’s parents, and not facing up to their crime.
Gregori looked around the courtyard through magically enhanced ruby eyes. An intentional kindness by Anton, but it turned out it was a cruel joke. Not only could he see, he could hear; he could sense emotions but wasn’t able to communicate with anyone. Except once, when he’d cried out his name to Alanna. She had heard him. She must have, as she’d started calling him Gregori the day after Marylebone placed him here. Frozen in this object, with only his will and the time to work out the spells surrounding him, he was in a living hell.
But not for much longer. He’d known how to dismantle the protection spells for some time. They were not strong enough to stand against his magic. It was the Maori blessing surrounding the entire Gallery that was causing problems. It was an earth spell, stronger and more complicated than anything he’d ever encountered. The blessing’s connection with spirit and the land were intertwined with the sister’s spells, and every time it sensed he had found a way out it rewove itself, repairing the links. But they were weakening. It would be a matter of days before he was free once again.
Chapter Two
Two days — and several more cracks later — Alanna met with Rosa and Beth at the Cookery Nook. Meeting for breakfast every Wednesday was a ritual they never missed, especially since Rosa had been Called to Marylebone. Life was different for all of them, as she no longer resided in Raven’s Creek every night of the week. Rosa still worked at the Gall
ery, made her pieces of jewelry, and pottered about in her apothecary kitchen in Rose Cottage, but as a neophyte and bound to the second-most senior Dragon; she also had her own apartment in Marylebone, a place neither Beth nor Alanna could visit. And would never visit, unless they, too, were Called.
“So what’s up?” Alanna tried hard to care what was going on in her sisters’ worlds, when all she could think about was Gregori. This morning, another thin line had appeared, right between the eyes, stretching down the bridge of his nose. There was another one, too, at the corner of his mouth and it gave the dragon an odd, lopsided leer.
Beth shrugged. “Not much. Although, I did dream about you last night.”
“What?” Alanna’s attention was diverted. “About me?”
As a Spell Weaver, her sister dreamed people’s futures and wove them into tapestries. She was often commissioned to make wedding and christening pieces even though none of the sisters encouraged the public to believe the rumors they were witches. There were very few in Raven’s Creek who knew the truth and they preferred to keep it that way. It didn’t hurt business though. The Gallery was highly successful and brought a lot of tourists and visitors to the small community.
Beth looked at her intently. “You need to start sculpting again. It’s your creative outlet. You need something to do while there’s no magic in your life.”
The only outlet Alanna wanted was to be free of Gregori. “I have no creative talent to speak of anymore. It was all entwined with my magical potential.”
“You must try. I’m weaving. I’m even dreaming. It’s helping. The fairies in the garden are beginning to return. I can’t see them, but I hear them occasionally. They’re a comfort.”
Alanna fought hard not to lose her temper. “I’m not a Pollyanna like you. You see the best in everything and I see the worst. That’s how the game is played between us. That’s my role.”
“Life isn’t a game,” Rosa frowned and stared intently at her, as if she could see the worry in Alanna’s aura. And maybe she could. “If you don’t like the life you have, change it. Don’t wait for someone to change it for you.”
Alanna hated it when Rosa went all know-it-all on her. She was the eldest and the bossiest. Well, actually, that wasn’t strictly true. “I wait for no one. I control my own destiny.”
“Then start sculpting.” Rosa had been their protector, the one who they looked up to during the darkest time in their lives. Without Rosa’s sheer grit and determination to keep them together as a family after their parents’ death, they would have been put into foster care. She’d needed to be strong and, at times, bossy.
“Rosa’s right,” Beth insisted. “I’d almost forgotten I wove things long before I learned any spells. At least this way, when my magic comes back, I’ll be prepared.”
“I thought I was prepared,” Rosa said, the truth shining in her eyes, “until the bells tolled for me.” She spoke to Alanna. “You’re strong, and you’re powerful. They’re likely to toll for you, too. Are you prepared for them if and when they do?”
“Give me a break. That’s not going to happen without magic to back me up.” Alanna was definitely feeling antsy, ready to flout authority wherever she found it. It was a game with her, and now it had become a habit hard to shake.
Rosa was deadly serious. “And you don’t think that would make an interesting test?”
Beth was horrified. “How would she bind herself to her mate? What if that happened to me? Marylebone is still untangling our magical mayhem.”
“They’re not going to do something so silly,” Alanna paused as a waitress placed a creamy omelet in front of her. “Thanks.” She waited for the waitress to move away. “You’re plucking at straws. Besides, Goran said you’ll get your magic back soon and surely, the fact you can hear fairies and are dreaming means you won’t have long to wait.”
“And we all know yours could take years,” Rosa reminded her, not so kindly. “Goran said that, too. The sooner you realize the precariousness of your situation, the sooner you’ll be back on the path to regaining your power. What are you going to do until then? Sit around and complain how you’ve lost your mojo? It’s not very attractive.”
“That’s downright nasty. Your role is to lift my spirits, not depress them.”
“My role, as you put it, is to train neophytes at Marylebone and make jewelry for the Gallery. I can suggest things, but what you do with my suggestions … well, that’s entirely up to you.”
Rosa shrugged as if she didn’t believe Alanna would ever listen to anything she said. But Alanna was listening. She just wasn’t about to admit it right this second. Obstinate? Maybe. But only when it came to being told what to do by Rosa.
And yet she’d asked for advice, and she’d gotten it. She just didn’t happen to like this particular advice or the censure in Rosa’s tone, despite deserving it.
Chapter Three
Gallery Courtyard - Thursday morning, 5:13A.M.
It was early. The sun was yet to rise. An eerie silence descended in the courtyard as if the wildlife in it were aware something significant was about to occur. Gregori breathed in, stilling his mind, harnessing all the magical elements he possessed and focused his intention on making his final crack in the jade. He could taste freedom and the knowledge gave him additional strength.
He needed to smell fresh air, feel the brush of wind on his skin. He needed to raise his face to the coming sunlight — it would be here soon — to warm his chilled, almost frozen soul. Today, the rays would warm his skin first and not the stone in which he was encased.
Today was a day to rejoice.
• • •
Alanna bolted upright in bed. Something was terribly wrong. She hurt like hell all over. She’d felt as if her body had been pinged by a thousand rubber bands. Her heart thumped an erratic beat against her ribcage. She pressed her hand against her breast. Her pulse sounded unnaturally loud.
She sucked in a deep breath. Focus, Alanna. Focus. She closed her eyes and went inwards, hoping to see and confirm which ward surrounding the courtyard had been broken. But she saw and felt nothing. Her magic was an empty silent hole that gave her no solace. Only further disquiet.
“Gregori,” she whispered. It was dark still. Eerily silent. No early morning bird chatter. She peered at the digital clock at her bedside. Five fourteen winked at her. She tossed the covers aside and slipped into a lightweight dressing gown and her fluffy slippers before looking over towards the window once again.
She hesitated. Why bother going to see what she already knew; Gregori had broken free of the jade dragon. She wondered whether Marylebone, too, had felt their prisoner break his bonds, break the Maori Blessing, break through their wards.
Surely Rosa would have felt something?
Wait until daylight, the sensible side of her brain told her. Don’t be such a wuss, the not-so-sensible side muttered. She fisted her dressing gown at the neck with one hand and marched downstairs, turning on lights as she went, each flick of the switch illuminating the way ahead. She punched in the security code to turn off the alarm and headed across the Gallery floor to the courtyard doors.
The automatic sensor lights were on. Her skin crawled. She stared through the beveled glass door, her hand on the handle, and looked to the pond where Gregori should have been. Instead of his familiar statue, all she saw were hundreds of jagged shapes, no piece any bigger than a small coin littering the courtyard.
“Sweet Goddess,” she murmured. “What kind of power does this person have?”
She stayed on her side of the locked door and systematically surveyed the courtyard, but the sensor lights switched off, once again plunging the area into darkness. She waited for her eyes to adjust then inspected for any shadows, foreign shapes lurking in corners. Nothing.
“Thank you, Goddess!”
She recited a prot
ection spell, knowing it wouldn’t work, but it made her feel better all the same, and then, because she refused to be a coward, she pushed the door open and stepped outside.
There was an odd stillness to the air. No early chitter-chatter of birds broke the silence. “What the hell do I do now?”
Gregori — or whoever he was — had escaped and she had no way of informing Marylebone without breaking her oath of secrecy to Anton.
“Witches’ Warts! Looks like I’m going to have to break witch law again.”
• • •
A cynical sneer lifted one corner of Gregori’s mouth upwards as the lure of Alanna’s essence reached out to him. There was fear in her aura.
What kind of protector was she? He’d noticed over the past few weeks she was visiting him more often, investigating the cracks in the shell he’d just cast aside. He’d looked forward to seeing her each morning.
He watched her as she searched the courtyard. She was surrounded by the most incredible aura of magic, but she wasn’t using it. He paused, finally understanding why.
My God, her magic was bound! What in the name of Hades had she done?
Cursing softly, he melded further into the shadows, not wanting to be discovered. He’d fought too hard for his freedom. He was never going back into that stone, no matter how much Marylebone pleaded with him. No matter the lure of his future mate standing only a few feet away from him, even if this meant his life was forfeit.
The bells be damned. He was sane and still in control. The prolonged stay inside the dragon had given him time to build the strength to escape. Now, after his exertions, his physical energy was depleted and his magical energy virtually spent. He would need time to recover and recharge.
He’d used the last of his energy to cast a shielding spell, making himself invisible. The spell would give him the chance to escape undetected from the courtyard, but the walls surrounding it were high and the only way out was through the Gallery. His spell was weakening already and would soon dissipate.
The Jade Dragon Page 2
