by Eva Chase
“It was last minute, and I had other plans,” I said. Like making sure Rose’s asshole ex-fiancé and father didn’t take over her life.
“How many of those plans had anything to do with your art?” She peered at me sideways. “I’ve been by the gallery, and you haven’t had it open that I’ve seen in at least a week.”
One of the downsides to having set up shop just a few streets away from my parents’ home—it was way too easy for her to keep an eye on my comings and goings if she decided to.
“I’m taking a little time off from the public side,” I said. “I’m still painting. I’m still working on my art. I couldn’t not do that.”
“Maybe not,” she said. “But have you been pouring your whole heart into it the way you used to? The way your father does with his music?”
No, I hadn’t really sat down and lost myself in my studio the way I used to all the time in the past. But I’d had other things on my mind. Sometimes you had to let other parts of your life take priority. Did she really not understand that?
“I haven’t set it aside,” I said. “I just have other things in my life that are important too.”
She shook her head. “It worries me, Jin, that’s all. To see you losing your artistic passion like that, all for a girl.”
“I haven’t lost anything,” I said. My hand tightened around my glass. I set it down without taking another drink. “Mom, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. You’re making up some huge problem where there isn’t one.”
She tapped her finger against the table. “It’s my job as your mother, no matter how old you are, to watch out for you. And I don’t think all the attention you’re giving to Rose is good for you. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Okay,” I said, standing up. “I heard you. I don’t agree. And I really don’t want to keep listening to you talk like this. I’m happy, Mom. That should be what matters to you.”
She just stared back at me, unwavering.
I sighed. “I’ll talk to you again soon. Hopefully you’ll be in a better mood then.”
Even though I was pissed off, I still brought my dishes back into the kitchen. Some expectations of behavior were hard to shake.
Outside, I hesitated, not sure where I wanted to go now. Maybe I didn’t agree with Mom, but I might have been spending more time at the Hallowell estate than was a good idea in general, as far as murmurs around town went. I could open up the gallery for the rest of the day. Why not? It would make for a good change of pace.
I set off for the two-story building that housed my independent art gallery, composed partly of my works and partly of those by local artists I enjoyed, and my second-floor apartment. An acrid smell tickled my nose. I frowned, glancing up, and noticed smoke streaking across the sky.
What the hell was that from? I grabbed my phone, ready to dial the emergency department, as I hustled over. My eyes started to water with the thickening smell. The streak of smoke turned into a billow.
I rounded the corner and stopped dead. An icy knife of panic cut through me despite the heat wafting through the air.
Flames were leaping from two buildings side by side at the other end of the block, their faces already charred. And one of those buildings was my gallery. My home.
Chapter Ten
Rose
“It can’t be a coincidence,” I said. My stomach churned as I looked at the photographs Ky was flipping through on his laptop. We’d all gathered around the dining room table to go over his findings. He’d hacked into the various networks to nab the fire and police departments’ records on the fire at Jin’s gallery—the gallery that now wasn’t much more than a blackened shell. “There hasn’t been a fire that bad in town in the entire time I’ve lived here. Now there’s a huge one, and it just happens to hit Jin’s home and workplace? Right after the Frankfords were making those veiled threats?”
“Those bastards,” Damon muttered, his hands balled at his sides.
“They shouldn’t be able to do anything like that, should they?” Jin said. His usual playful energy was subdued, his expression drawn. Seeing how the loss of all that work had shaken him made me even more queasy. “They swore in the oath not to do or order anything that would hurt us—including our happiness. It’s not like it takes much thinking to realize that a person’s happiness is partly tied to their home and the things they’ve made.”
He’d lost all the paintings he’d been keeping in his studio and displaying in his gallery. Dozens of pieces of art, some of which I’d never even gotten the chance to see. My jaw clenched.
“What do the reports say?” Seth asked Kyler. “How did the fire start? Are the police thinking arson?”
“They always consider that possibility when an insured property burns,” Kyler said. “It looks like they determined it was a freak accident. No one could find any cause of the fire, but it started with a couple of wires inside the wall of the neighboring building. The guy who owns that place just had the wiring inspected six months ago to make sure it was all up to code.”
Anger started to burn through my nausea. “That’s it,” I said. “That’s how they got around the oath. They sent a witch to work some magic on the building next door, and the oath didn’t stop them because technically it wasn’t directly harming us. The witch who did it probably didn’t have any clue what the real target was. Those cheating assholes!”
“We can’t know for sure that’s what happened,” Gabriel said in a low voice. “It could have been a freak accident. These things happen.”
Damon spun on him. “Oh, come on. You can’t really believe that these fuckers didn’t set this whole thing up.”
“I’ve got to say, I agree with Damon on this one,” Ky said slowly. “I also found…” He clicked through to a different set of photographs of a silver sedan. “I checked the traffic cams at the intersection where people usually come off the highway heading east. This car came into town about an hour before the fire started and headed back just a half hour later. I ran the plates. It’s registered to a woman on Frankford’s employee list.”
For a second, I was so furious I couldn’t breathe. “There you go. We couldn’t ask for more proof than that. What else would she have been doing popping into town?”
“Checking up on us?” Gabriel suggested, but he didn’t sound all that convinced. “It looks bad. But we knew they might try something. Now we need to figure out what we can do for Jin—and how to make sure nothing like this happens to anyone else.”
“Other than the art, nothing in the building was irreplaceable,” Jin said. “I had back-ups on the cloud of all my important info. I even have pictures of the art I lost.”
Not that a photograph was quite the same as having the original paintings and sculptures. I looped my arm around his and leaned my head against his shoulder.
“That doesn’t make it okay. They swore that oath. We haven’t done anything to them, and they’re still trying to hurt us any way possible. They—”
My throat closed up with a magical pressure. Someone who wasn’t meant to hear the terms of that oath must be nearby. I gritted my teeth and strained to say the words anyway, but my vocal chords wouldn’t budge. The oath bound me too tightly.
Footsteps whispered outside the room. Lesley poked her head in. “Is everything all right?” she asked, her eyes widening when she took in our assembled group and our dark expressions.
My stomach twisted tighter. What about her and Imogen? The Frankfords hadn’t sworn to leave them alone at all. If they were willing to go this far without even being provoked, where would they stop?
Witches had been killed to cover up their conspiracy. Even witches who’d once been a part of it, like my stepmother.
“We’re figuring that out,” I said, trying to keep my voice relaxed enough not to worry her more. “No matter what happens, we should at least be safe in here.” Between my morning routine of magicking and Jin’s new decorations around the house, I didn’t think any witch could threaten u
s without us having plenty of warning to fight back before they did any real damage.
But that didn’t protect anything or anyone we cared about outside these walls. I couldn’t expect them or us to live inside the estate for the rest of our lives. What about the staff? Were the Frankfords going to target those totally unknowing unsparked people too?
Lesley was still wavering in the doorway. I went over to her, showing as much calm as I could manage even though my emotions were running wild. “Stay in or close to the manor for now, and you’ll be fine. If you want to go somewhere else, just let me know, and I’ll work out the safest way to do that. All right?”
She gave me a nervous smile. “If it’s like that out there, I’m happy staying in here, Rose. Thank you.”
She ducked her head and turned back to the hall. I waited until I’d heard the steps stop creaking on her way upstairs, and then I whirled to face the guys. My earlier anger rushed up through the calm front I’d been holding in place.
“It isn’t enough,” I said.
“What, Rose?” Seth said, reaching to rub my shoulder.
“What we’ve been doing. Even the new plans we’ve been making. It isn’t enough to just expose them. If we wait until we can do that properly, who knows what they’ll do, how many innocent people they’ll hurt, in the meantime.”
Gabriel had gone still. “Where are you going with this, Sprout?”
The use of his childhood nickname for me cooled my temper for a second—but only for a second. Had they tried to burn down my home here first? All our history could have gone up in flames so easily if I hadn’t been prepared for them to launch some sort of attack. I’d known I couldn’t trust them. The demons in the cave had been monsters, sure, but the real monsters were the people who’d summoned them, who’d used them, who’d trapped other witches into being a part of those schemes.
“They’re going to play dirty?” I said. “We can too. We have to fight back, any way we can. Let them see their homes burning to the ground. Destroy the entrance to that damn cave so they can’t even get to the portal. Stop them, as quickly as we can. Make them regret ever stooping this low.”
Damon cracked his knuckles. “We can, right? We never promised not to tear them up like that.”
“Rose.” Gabriel grabbed my hand. “We’ll make them regret it. But we don’t have to stoop to their level. You’re better than that.”
I squeezed his fingers and let them go. “That’s what they’re counting on. No. They have to see there’ll be consequences if they come after us. I won’t find a way around the oath like they did. I’ll hit them where they never even expected it.”
His expression was so fraught I had to add, “I’m not going to kill anyone. I can…”
The idea sparked in my head as I looked at that picture of the damp charred ruins of Jin’s gallery. I spun around and hurried for the stairs. The guys trailed after me, Kyler closing his laptop with a snap and bringing it with him.
I strode into my father’s former office and pawed through the books on the shelves. He had one section where he kept documents and books that were from his various colleagues’ external endeavors. I knew he’d shown me it when he’d first gotten it— There.
I grabbed the booklet and slapped it down on the desk. A brochure for an upscale clothing boutique in downtown Portland.
Damon looked at it and raised an eyebrow. “Uh, I’m not sure dress shopping is going to make much of an impact on these bastards.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “That’s Helen Frankford’s shop. The business she runs. She’s spent years building it up, cultivating the richest clientele in Portland. Unsparked dollars count to them even if unsparked people don’t. And based on what we’ve seen in their files, I’d guess she cozies up to anyone who seems to have the sort of business or political influence they need at any given time.”
“What are you going to do with that?” Kyler asked.
I tapped the photo on the front of the brochure. It showed the storefront, sleek dresses and a trim suit visible through the glass. “I’ve been there a few times. I have a good sense of the place. Between that and the picture… I think I can work a magicking from here to there.”
“It’s the middle of the day,” Gabriel said. “Those ‘unsparked’ people are probably shopping there right now.”
And I didn’t have any plans to hurt them. My hands clenched and opened. A smile crossed my face. “That’s fine. I have the perfect approach. I’ll just put out the fire they started. There’s a sprinkler system. I can flood the place.” Freak out all those posh clients. Destroy all that sensitive fabric. Yes. It didn’t come close to paying them back for what they’d done to Jin, but it was the best I could do from here, right now.
If I could do it.
“I’ll need space,” I said, spreading out my arms. “This is going to take a lot of work.” I’d never done a magicking like this, transmitting the energy of the spell through a token like the picture. But it should theoretically work, the same way you could use a voodoo doll to harm a person if you connected it to them properly.
The guys stepped back to the edges of the room. I picked up the brochure, staring hard at the picture, and then clasped it to my chest. Closing my eyes, I summoned the memories from my visits to that place. The faint jasmine scent always drifting through the cool air. The rustling of the dresses as other patrons shuffled through them. The lilting classical music Helen liked to play.
“From me to there,” I murmured, my fingers tensing around the brochure. “From me to there.”
I swept into the form, picking each move just a step beforehand, finding my flow as I focused on my purpose. All those pipes running through the ceiling. The pressure of all that water. As my spark flared inside me, I imagined it rushing from me into the sprinkler system’s trigger point. Wrap around it. Hold it tight. More and more. I wanted to send enough that it would keep that water gushing until the entire space was drenched through.
My feet spun me on the hardwood floor. The power sang through every inch of my body. My lungs seared, my breath stuttered.
Then I jerked to a halt and smacked my hands together with the brochure in between them.
Magic crackled through my veins with a faint popping sensation in my ears. All the energy in my body seemed to wrench away from me. My legs wobbled as a wave of exhaustion surged over me in its wake. But then, just for an instant, I could hear the distant shrieks as the spray poured down on customers and clothes alike.
I sagged, catching myself against the desk. A laugh burst from my mouth. We’d gotten one small sliver of victory.
And this would be only the beginning.
Chapter Eleven
Rose
I spun around Gabriel, sending out a lick of magic to pull him with me, and came to a stop on the magicking room’s polished floor at the end of the form. My chest was heaving from the physical exertion, but my spark blazed joyfully in my chest. The strength of our bond, the one between me and my most recent consort, hummed in the air around us.
Gabriel set his hand on my waist and tugged me closer so he could bow his head over mine. His dark red hair was damp along his forehead. The smell of him, darkly mossy with a hint of sweetness, filled my nose. “Are you sure you should be pushing yourself this hard?” he said.
“It’s good,” I said. “You can feel it, can’t you? The way the magic wells up even faster between us?”
“Oh, I can feel it.” He dipped his head a little lower, his lips brushing the sensitive skin between my eyebrows. “I just mean after you extended yourself so much the other day…”
Two days ago, when I’d called down a torrent of rage on Helen Frankford’s prized business. It’d taken so much energy casting that spell that I’d been wobbly the whole rest of the day. But I’d felt pretty much normal by the next morning. Better than usual, really, when Kyler had brought me the news reports mentioning the apparently spontaneous flooding at the shop.
All the merchandise ruine
d. Store closed until further notice. It wasn’t half the damage she and her husband had done to Jin, but it should remind them that I knew how to hit back—and I wasn’t bound by any promise to protect anything except that one secret of theirs. Maybe while they were scrambling to deal with that loss, they’d have less time for conspiring against other fledgling witches.
“This kind of practice will just help me bounce back faster if I need to cast another spell like that,” I said. “Come on. You want to try another one?”
He chuckled. “All right, but I think one more is about all I have in me for today. Are you working all of us this hard?”
“It wouldn’t be fair if I gave you special treatment, now would it?” I said, gazing at him through my eyelashes.
Heat lit in his bright blue eyes and where his hand rested against my side. But there was something hesitant under the teasing note in his voice. “Trying to beat us into shape like a little army, are you?”
The words made me hesitate for a second, but they weren’t exactly wrong. “Anything that makes my magic and our bond stronger… I need to be able to call on as much power as possible, maybe without much warning, if we’re going to tackle the Frankfords.”
“You’re talking like we’re going to battle with them instead of trying to expose them. Wasn’t destroying her store enough?”
“If it makes them back down. We don’t know that yet.” I leaned into him, wishing I could completely lose myself in his warmth, that the worries wouldn’t follow me there. “And… maybe I’ve been going about this wrong from the beginning. Always trying to do things as much by the rules as possible. Trying to rely on justice and fair play. It’s never worked. I gain a little ground and then they hit back even harder.”
“But we’ve won,” Gabriel said. “You’ve won. Eventually we’ll win the whole war, without it becoming an actual war.”
