by Mindy Klasky
I let Tony use his newly-recovered freedom of motion to take a full stride closer to Raven, but I drew the line when he settled his hands on his hips. Who knew what other weapons—astral or mundane—he might have at his disposal? I knew David kept a silver dagger in a sheath at his ankle. I had to believe other warders maintained similar stealthy arsenals.
Wondering how much longer I could hide my physical distress, I tested my voice inside my head. It was almost steady. Almost calm. I gulped a deep breath and then turned to the woman who had started all this madness. “Raven,” I said, simultaneously relaxing the magical bonds around her arms. I locked my knees to keep from swaying as more of my power drifted away. “Give me your phone.”
“I—” she started to argue.
“Now!” I extended my hand and waited, praying to Hecate that she responded quickly.
As it was, she wasted a moment looking from me to Tony and back again. Finally, though, she fished the device out of her too-tight T-shirt. She slapped it onto my palm hard enough to sting, and I forced myself not to react as I shoved the damned thing into the pocket of my shorts.
At the same time, I slipped my bonds from Emma. After all, she had not done anything wrong. As soon as she was able, she darted a glance to the foot of the stairs. When I followed her gaze, I almost swore.
Three men stood there.
They were frozen, watching me warily, as if they half-expected me to burst into flame. Or maybe turn them into newts.
No wonder the Word of Power had drained me so dramatically. I had snagged even more people than I expected in the clutch of my command.
I resisted the urge to shake my head as I realized how truly dangerous my position had been. Three of Raven’s allies had stood at the foot of the steps—and I hadn’t been consciously aware of their presence. David had been, I was sure. That was his job. That was the way his mind always worked.
But I had been so wrapped up in Raven’s little drama that I had not even registered the additional newcomers. I was certain to hear about that little oversight as soon as David and I were alone. And, truth be told, he’d be right when he read me the Riot Act.
At least it wasn’t hard to figure out the trio’s roles in our little tableau. The bluff blond guy who looked like a farmhand and wore a Diamondbacks baseball cap had to be Emma’s warder. The slumping one in the grey track outfit appeared to be her familiar; at least, he had his hand on Baseball Boy’s shoulder, as if he were lending a base for magical support. That left the last man, the one with the spray of freckles across his face and a crest of over-gelled red hair, to be Raven’s familiar.
No weapons in sight on any of them. No shimmer of magical power arrested by my own spell.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t see any reason to tip the odds, to make it four against one by setting all of them free at once. I settled for clearing my throat, masking another quick survey of my fitness. I could still speak without showing the strain, at least to those who didn’t know me well. I had to admit, I was gratified by how quickly I got everyone’s full attention.
“We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot here,” I said. “Let me clarify a few policies for the Madison Academy.” Policies. As if I’d already formulated anything quite that grandiose for my fledgling magicarium. I put steel into my voice. “Rule number one. No recording anyone without explicit permission.”
Raven obviously wanted to protest. At least, she wanted to wriggle seductively and toss her hair in disbelief at my unfairness. At the barest minimum, she wanted to roll her eyes like the world’s most exasperated teenager. But she wasn’t a complete idiot. Her lips pursed around the words, but she said, “Fine. No recording.”
“Rule number two.” I continued, tightening my focus. I needed to wrap this up now, or I was going to lose all face by falling flat on my own. “Warders introduce themselves before they set foot on the property of my safehold.”
Tony barely inclined his head, accepting my demand. “Anthony Morella,” he said, his tone flat. “Warder to Raven Willowsong.”
“Welcome, Anthony. In Hecate’s name, be welcome in my house.”
“In Hecate’s name, I thank thee,” he responded to the old formula, even though he looked as if he’d rather drink pure vinegar.
That left me scrambling for rule number three. Or, rather, scrambling to determine if I needed a rule number three. Yet. A single glance at Raven and Tony made me pretty sure I’d be needing rules three, four, five, and six, possibly by midnight.
But I also had to make the Madison Academy a welcoming place for promising new witches. And strangers or not, Raven and Emma had been sent by my mother.
Clara might drive me mad. She might infuriate me with her blasé attitude and her crazy take on the occult. But in her heart, she knew me, the magical me, the witch I’d become over the past three years. We had successfully worked spells together, under pressure, with all the odds against us. If Clara said Raven and Emma should be students at the Madison Academy, I had to believe she was right.
“Enough,” I said, including everyone with the gesture that dispersed the last ripples of control from my Word of Power. “We can discuss other Academy rules later, after some dinner. Let’s go inside, where it’s cool.”
Our visitors sorted themselves out quickly. Tony leaped to Raven’s side and made a show of studying her wrist as the red-headed familiar looked on in purse-lipped concern.
“Caleb Weston,” Emma’s warder introduced himself as he stepped onto the porch. I welcomed him in Hecate’s name, then nodded as the familiars offered up their own greetings. The man in grey was Kopek. The red-haired man was Hani.
Formulaic responses given and received, I led the way into the house, automatically brushing my fingers against the door jamb. I didn’t whisper any spell to the marble stone, though. I wasn’t ready to spill a drop of power—not without a bit of grounding first, some food and drink to restore the prodigious amount of energy I’d spent.
David’s concern was tangible as I passed in front of him, even though he didn’t say anything. Subtly, he brushed his palm against the small of my back, lending a touch of physical support before he stepped back to let our guests follow me inside.
Spot stayed between me and the newcomers, as if he were under specific orders from David. No matter how he might have begged for a meaty second supper earlier in the evening, he understood his true role now—he was my protector, my guardian. He provided a service as important as any offered by my warder.
I leaned against my loyal canine companion as I opened the cupboards. It took more concentration than I was willing to admit to count out additional plates. I jumped when Emma whispered up to my side and said, “Well, that went a bit pear-shaped, didn’t it? May I help?”
Before I could answer, she handed off the dishes to Caleb. “Here,” she said to him. “Lend a hand.” There was a smile behind her clipped words.
I pointed Emma toward the silverware, on my way to retrieving wine- and water glasses. We were definitely going to need more than the single bottle of pinot noir. In fact, we might want to break out the hard stuff, to restore everyone’s shattered nerves. Right. As if David would let a sip of alcohol mar his reflexes now, with strangers in the house.
I couldn’t help but notice that half those strangers—Raven, her warder, and her familiar—were hanging back in the doorway to the kitchen. Their unease was infectious. Spot eyed them warily from his place by my side, and I felt more than heard the growl deep in his throat.
“Spot,” I warned, reluctantly pointing toward his bed. He obeyed, but only after glancing at David for confirmation. Canine traitor! So much for my believing I had any actual power over the beast.
It turned out that the dog was smarter than I was. I actually swayed without his support against my knees. I needed food. Food, and something to drink. And a chair. A chair would be wonderful. A chair would be heaven on earth.
I stared across the chasm of the kitchen, trying to calculate whether I could
reach the table without fainting. I needed David now.
He reacted as if I’d shouted, taking three quick strides into the kitchen and pushing past Caleb as if the husky man were nothing more than a cardboard cutout. Darkness surged along the edges of my vision, roiling, pulling me down.
Before I could fall, though, the back door crashed open, and I was assaulted by a wave of sultry summer heat. I knew I should clutch at the tattered strands of my powers. I should brace myself against this new threat. I had to react, had to work some spell.
But somehow my subconscious brain managed to process the actual scene before me.
Spot was leaping from his bed, his entire body wagging in joyous greeting. David was looking relieved at my side. Our six guests were caught in various stages of astonishment, shock, and disbelief.
Silhouetted against the moonlit night was a dressmaker’s dummy, clad in pantaloons and a fur-lined robe, with padded shoulders and a fake breastplate large enough to fill the entire door. Henry VIII, my mind stuttered. King of England, Ireland, and France. I’d recognize the clothes from the Holbein portrait anywhere.
Clutching the costume, needle and thread ostentatiously in hand, was a shadowy figure. Anne Boleyn, if I had to guess. Almond eyes. Hair slicked back beneath a lace headdress. A floor-length crimson dress, cut absurdly low and showing way too much flesh for historical realism. Way too much waxed flesh. Way too much waxed, male flesh, belonging to none other than Neko.
My familiar looked up, took in the astonished audience in the kitchen, and promptly belted out, “’E’s ’Enery the Eighth, ’e is”, in the worst parody of a cockney accent I’d ever heard. As we all gaped, Neko sashayed across the kitchen to drop into a curtsey before me. He took my hand with the same laughable formality, pretending to kiss some royal ring.
As our flesh met, Neko shoved a burst of mental energy into me. The power felt like an electric shock, brilliant and searing and pure. I stood a little straighter and breathed a little deeper before I said, “You seem to have forgotten someone.”
Neko shrugged. “Jacques was in the other room when David called.”
So David has issued the astral summons that had carried my familiar across the miles. My familiar’s boyfriend was probably standing in the middle of their D.C. apartment at this very moment, blinking and wondering where Neko had gone. I attempted to sound nonchalant as I said, “Nice costumes.”
Neko flushed with pleasure. “The fur’s a bit much for summer, but Jacques insisted. I think buttons make a much better decoration this time of year. Don’t you agree?” He took my fingers and forced them to the row of pearls that framed his chest.
Another blast of astral energy cascaded through my palm, up my arm, throughout my body. I could have soaked it up for hours, but Neko pulled back in poorly-acted surprise. “Oh! I didn’t know you were entertaining!” Then he whispered in a voce that wasn’t anywhere near as sotto as he apparently believed. “Jane! I thought we’d talked about ‘summer casual.’” He glared at my shorts and T-shirt. “And that hair! Girlfriend, what were you thinking?”
Self-consciously, my fingers flew toward my unruly curls. Neko reached out at the same time, encircling my wrist and pouring a third burst of magical energy into me. Finally, my own power kickstarted, leaping steady and bright inside my chest. With the ease of long practice, Neko reflected that energy back at me as if he were made of a million mirrors.
“Thanks,” I breathed.
“Don’t mention it,” he said.
David finally seemed to realize this would be the perfect time to distract our company. He barked out a few commands, barely disguising them as invitations. “There are two leaves for the dining room table in the hall closet. Grab those chairs from the kitchen table. No, let’s move the dining room chairs back so there’s enough room.”
Who would have thought it would take three warders, two witches, and two familiars to prepare for an impromptu dinner party? David played his role well, though. No one even thought to watch as Neko kept his fingers wrapped around my wrist for another minute, monitoring my steadiness, calculating my returning strength. Only when he was completely satisfied that I was restored did he say, “It looks like we’re going to have quite a party.”
“Can Jacques spare you?”
“He already has.”
Against his will, I thought. And not for the first time. “Won’t he need his costume?”
A momentary scowl marred Anne Boleyn’s high brow. “He’ll find something else to wear, I’m sure. And someone else to wear it with.”
“Neko! If you need to go—
He shook his head and gestured at his gown. “This was a calculated risk. It was fifty/fifty whether Jacques was going to shout ‘Off with his head’ by the end of the party. And don’t get your hopes up. That isn’t code for some new bedroom game.”
“Neko—
“Forget about it.”
His dismissive wave was charming, but I saw through it like a lace mantilla. I clutched his hands between both of mine. “Thank you.”
He nodded once. And then, he tore off his fancy headdress. The scarlet gown was equipped with Velcro strips for a hasty getaway, and I steadily forbade myself from speculating about Ms. Boleyn’s intended disrobing during or after the evening’s now-canceled festivities.
Neko wore his usual attire beneath the dress—a sleek black T-shirt and matching jeans that left nothing to the imagination. He draped his Tudor costume over the dressmaker’s dummy and stowed both in the corner. Dusting his hands together decisively, he stepped up to survey the food on the center island. His resulting sigh was gusty enough to shake the rafters of a lesser home. “You’re going to need a lot more than that,” he said.
“Oh, will we?” David asked as he returned from the dining room. His voice was resignedly dry.
“Bread,” Neko ordered. “That loaf over there. And a green salad—you have all the makings in the back of the fridge. I saw everything at lunch. Don’t forget the cheese either—the Saga Blue will be nice. And bring out the Irish butter, while you’re at it.”
Spot came to stand beside my familiar, whining as if he understood the feast that was being composed. Neko stopped just short of snapping his fingers as he issued his commands. Under any other circumstances, David would have told him exactly what he could do with his Irish butter.
But now David pulled the salad and cheese and butter from the fridge. And then he filled one of his handblown Riedel goblets with the whole milk we kept on hand solely to satisfy Neko’s cravings.
My familiar took the glass with a flair before he whirled into the dining room to explain to Raven that she absolutely, positively could not sit beneath the painting on the far wall—the art would clash with the purple stripe in her hair. Even Tony was bemused as his witch was made to switch seats not once, not twice, but three times.
David shook his head as he met my eyes. “You’re all right?” he asked, keeping his voice low enough not to steal attention back from Neko.
“I’m fine.”
“That was dangerous.”
“I couldn’t have my magicarium getting off on the wrong foot! Not when Clara worked so hard to get my first students out here in the first place. I haven’t even had a chance to find out what my witches are capable of.”
David’s smile was tight as he nodded toward Raven. “That one is capable of a lot of trouble.”
I shrugged. “Everyone’s trouble,” I said. “One way or another.”
Before David could respond, Neko called out from the dining room. “David? We’re really going to need the camembert, to round out this meal. And the cheddar wouldn’t be a bad addition, either.”
My warder rolled his eyes. “Yes,” he said to me as he turned toward the refrigerator. “Everyone is trouble.”
I could tell he wanted to say more. He wanted to extract a promise from me, a pledge not to use any Word of Power ever again, at least not without proper arcane support. He wanted to protect me and keep me saf
e from any possible hint of danger in the future.
Instead, he settled for brushing his hand down my arm, and then he turned to do Neko’s bidding.
CHAPTER 3
I HOPED EVERYTHING would somehow be perfect in the morning. I would awake with a flawless understanding of my role as magistrix of the Madison Academy. A perfect class schedule would have appeared out of thin air, transcribing itself on my calendar. My witches and I would thrum with energy, ready to work all sorts of powerful spells in dedication to the glory of Hecate.
Alas, I spent a restless night jerking awake from an endless series of bad dreams. Three separate times, I startled David out of a sound sleep, and it took him longer to settle back each time. When I finally crawled out of bed at dawn, my boyfriend had abandoned me. I had a crick in my neck, a fog over my thoughts, and a nasty taste in my mouth.
At least toothpaste solved the last problem.
I tried to convince myself that a long shower would banish my other woes, but I started sweating even as I tried to towel myself dry. The farmhouse’s air conditioning simply could not compete with the heavy blanket of June humidity.
When I opened the bedroom door, Spot was lying in the hallway. He raised his massive head from his front paws and pounded his tail against the floor. I assured him he was a good boy, and he pranced as he accompanied me down the stairs. Leading the way into the kitchen, he kept himself between me and the witches who were seated at the table.
Raven had exchanged her tight blouse for an even more body-skimming black T. Her skinny jeans made me wonder if she actually had room inside her body for all her organs. She’d wrapped a deep purple scarf around her waist, and the fabric matched the streak in her long, wavy hair. She looked more like a sexy pirate queen than an up-and-coming student of witchcraft.
Emma, on the other hand, looked cool and composed and utterly, completely ordinary in denim shorts and a loose-fitting pink blouse. The guys—both warders and familiars—were lounging around the living room, keeping conversation down to a dull roar.
