by Lucy True
“That was the day.” Burgundy sat back in her chair as those words tugged a memory from her mind. “Cass said something like that last fall. We were talking about the Pied Piper thing and she said something about it being a day... Well, she didn’t elaborate, but now I wonder if that’s what she was getting at – that she knew something was going to happen to reveal my true nature.”
Charlotte finally moved from her chair, tossing the plastic container in the wastebasket behind the desk, then giving Mr. Knight an apologetic grin. “You say ‘true nature’ like it’s a bad thing, like someone told you you’re a rabid animal that needs to not exist.”
“Yeah, well.” Burgundy forced out a breath. “That’s kind of the way this makes me feel.”
Mr. Knight raised his hand. “Don’t. There are many reasons why the Council distrusts warlocks, such as your ability to extricate yourself from most situations, and because most spells and defenses don’t work on you. In fact, the only things that work on warlocks are potions, enchanted objects, and nullifying wards. But this isn’t because you’re more powerful than witches. This distrust is because they don’t understand warlocks, don’t give them a chance to prove they’re not a threat.”
“Wait. What’s a nullifying ward?” Even though Aunt Iris had tried to teach Burgundy magick, she had a feeling the woman held back on the more interesting stuff. And a nullifying ward sure sounded interesting.
“Your father could explain it better than I could, but it’s basically a circle. Any magick circle will dampen a warlock’s power, but one specifically intended to contain them can render them helpless.”
Yikes. That didn’t sound good at all, but it also explained why Burgundy couldn’t perform in a ritual. Her aunt cast a circle before working magick. The moment Burgundy stepped into one, the energy of it dragged at her, made her want to lie down, and take a nap. “That explains so much,” she said. “I guess there’s no hope of me ever being a witch, of that part of me somehow overriding the warlock side?”
“You are what you are, Burgundy. Instead of trying to run away from it, why don’t you find a way to embrace it?” The way Mr. Knight cocked his head to one side, Burgundy wondered what else he knew. Certainly, it had to be more than he was telling her now. But if she wanted more answers, they weren’t coming, because Mr. Knight waved her off. “I wanted to have this little talk with you, so I could get you thinking about what you want. Like I said, you can embrace what you are and learn to be the best warlock possible or you can hide, cower here in Rock Grove until, someday, the Finders figure out what’s going on and come after you anyway. The choice is yours.”
Burgundy left the library torn between the options, wondering when everything had gone from shades of black and white to more gray tones than she’d known could exist in their world. Even her sundae had gone uneaten into Mr. Knight’s trash can. Chocolate couldn’t solve every problem. Not like when she and Charlotte were kids.
A gentle hand brushed over her shoulder, followed by a soft, “Hey.”
“Hey.” Burgundy bumped up against Charlotte and jammed her hands into her pockets. Ahead of them was Main Street, still filled with people at a time when the last thing Burgundy wanted to do was be around anyone.
“I know we can’t get everything back to normal, but it’s nice to try.” Charlotte’s eyes dropped slightly as she searched Burgundy’s expression.
“Yeah, well, you’re right. There is no back to normal at all for us.” Burgundy pouted up at the sun, still shining brilliantly overhead. “Maybe this is for the best. We have to grow and change. It’s inevitable. But I wish it didn’t have to come with a decision like this.”
Charlotte reached out again, this time her fingers curling over Burgundy’s shoulder to stop her. “Would it help to know that, whatever you decide, I’ll support you?” she asked.
Maybe it was a trick of the light, but Burgundy thought her friend leaned in a little closer, angled away from Main Street and toward her. She gave herself a moment to get lost in the illusion of it being just the two of them. If only that were the case. Then there wouldn’t be a tough choice.
Burgundy nodded. ‘Yeah, it helps. Thank you.”
Charlotte’s lips parted, as if she wanted to say more, but then she backed away. “I have to get back to the grill. I promised the cook we’d take turns flipping burgers and it’s about time for his break. Promise you won’t get into any more trouble without me, okay?”
Finally, Burgundy laughed. “When do I ever do that?”
“Oh, please. I’ve got my eyes on you.” Charlotte pointed at both of her own eyes with two fingers, and then pointed back at Burgundy.
“Trust me, I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have watching me. Except maybe Robert DeNiro. That’d be pretty badass.” Somehow, the words slipped out easily, a reminder of Burgundy’s old self. The self that hadn’t been pushed into surrender by people who thought they knew what was best.
After Charlotte rounded the corner, turning onto Main Street, Burgundy backed up a few steps. She’d go the long way around to get back to her car, avoid people – especially the Luscious Crones – and go home for some peace and quiet. There were still too many thoughts jockeying for position in her mind and she needed to decompress.
She rounded the opposite corner to walk past the front of the library, when she saw the blonde sitting on the building’s steps.
Not just any blonde, though. This one had perfect platinum hair, and a smoking-hot body clad in sleek black pants and an off-the-shoulder sweater. Her blue-eyed gaze lifted from the coffee cup in one hand to rest on Burgundy.
Ignoring her fluttering heart wasn’t an option as Burgundy folded her arms and asked, “What are you doing here, Jenna?”
Chapter Eight
“What? Did you think I’d miss Rock Grove’s famous spring hoedown?” Jenna rolled her eyes, and then raked her gaze up and down Burgundy. “You’re looking good, Burg. You’re also walking in the wrong direction. Main Street is that way.”
“Thank goodness I have the woman who dumped rural living for the big city to remind me how to get around here.” Burgundy sank onto the steps next to Jenna and wiggled her fingers at the familiar cup. “Where did you score a Dunkies?”
“Corner of 72nd and Cornhusker, of course. I had an interview in Papillion this morning and thought I’d grab a drink on my way here. Some of us don’t spend our time wandering around quaint little podunk towns, drinking subpar coffee, anymore.”
Burgundy accepted the cup when Jenna thrust it at her, muttering, “Our diner coffee isn’t subpar.” But the moment the French vanilla goodness hit her tongue, she swallowed her protests, along with a healthy hit of caffeine.
“It’s good, isn’t it?” Jenna grinned and elbowed her. “Can I pick ‘em or what?”
“Oh, yeah, baby. It hits the spot.” It was good that they could joke like this, especially after Jenna dumped her so harshly last year. Dumped her, ripped her heart out, stomped on it with stilettos heels, and then ran over it a few times with her car. Water under the bridge, right?
Jenna leaned back on the steps, completely at ease in the small-town, despite her big-city attitude. Even now, she managed to look like a natural part of Rock Grove, the same woman who’d teased Burgundy about her hair when they were kids together in school, and then been her first long-term relationship as an adult.
Until the incident Burgundy had taken to referring to as The Bitter End. Because few things sucked worse than the girl who gave you crap in high school becoming the woman who dumped you with a text message.
She blew out a breath, reminded herself they’d been able to kinda-sorta remain friends, and chased the next inhale with more coffee. It was good stuff. Probably worth the forty-five minute trip to Papillion, if Burgundy really wanted some.
“You need to get out of here,” Jenna remarked, elbows resting on the step behind her and legs stretched out in front of her, crossed at the ankles.
“No I don’t.”
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“Yes, you do. The annual spring festival will do fine without you. Come on. Let me take you somewhere else.”
Burgundy fixed Jenna with a stare. “What is this?” she asked, pushing the coffee back at her, skin now prickling. Jenna was a journalist with the Supernatural World Herald and Burgundy knew her well enough to hear the subtext. This wasn’t just a visit to her hometown. Jenna wanted something.
“Easy, Burg. It’s nothing nefarious. I’ve been thinking you should get out of this town for a while, now. Enjoy a change of scenery. It’s not healthy to stay in one place all the time. Come on.” Jenna tugged at Burgundy’s shirt, thumb and forefinger snagging the fabric and pulling it toward her.
The last thing Burgundy wanted was to feel any kind of reaction to Jenna’s proximity, but the touch sent her heart racing. She looked down at her shoes, a favorite pair of comfortable brown boots, and said, “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, girl. Don’t make me play the lemur card with you. I’ll drag you to the zoo, if that’s what it takes. Those red ones are still the cutest babies ever.”
“Lemurs. My only weakness.” It had been a long time since Burgundy last visited Omaha’s fantastic zoo. Thinking back, she realized it’d been over a year. But that still didn’t explain Jenna’s gentle nudge to get her on her feet and walking down the street. “Seriously, why are you even here?”
Jenna shrugged, her gaze focused at a point on the ground, instead of ahead. She tucked her silken blonde hair behind one ear, still clutching the coffee cup in her other hand until she reached the trash can in front of the fire station and pitched it. “Just go with it, Burgundy. That’s all I ask. We’re two women the same age who’ve known each other all our lives. Does there need to be another reason for this?”
“Yes, there does.” Burgundy stopped in her tracks and stood her ground. “I haven’t heard from you in months, Jenna, not since last winter. After everything that went down, I’m not exactly keen on having people treat me like I’m helpless or not telling me things. So excuse me if my trust meter when it comes to you is somewhere in the negatives.”
Hands on her hips, Jenna returned her glare. She pushed out her lower lip and said, “Fine. It’s called subtlety, which you obviously don’t get. Would you at least turn the trust up to ten if I told you this is about last winter and it’s big? Bigger than Rock Grove?”
“I’ll turn it up to eleven if you throw in a full coffee, along with the lemurs.” Burgundy folded her arms and waited. There was no way she’d let Jenna haul her up to Omaha for anything less. They weren’t a couple anymore. They certainly wouldn’t be one again in the future, now that Burgundy had been there, done that. She supposed, however, they could actually be friends. If Jenna gave her a good reason.
Jenna stepped close and whispered, “I didn’t want to be this obvious, but check your texts.” Then she turned and sauntered down the street, hips shifting left and right with each step.
Texts? Burgundy’s phone hadn’t vibrated the entire time she’d been downtown. Despite that, she dug it out of her back pocket and grimaced. She’d had notifications turned entirely off – not a bad thing, she supposed, considering people were too connected as it was. Yet there they were, two texts from Jenna telling her she’d be at the library and asking if Burgundy was free to do a little recon.
Burgundy jogged to catch up with her and opened her mouth to question the texts. “Re—”
“Don’t.” Jenna waved her hands frantically in front of her face and then grasped Burgundy’s wrists. It wasn’t that their lips met. Exactly. It was more that their noses bumped, Jenna zigged, Burgundy zagged, and then their mouths sort of collided.
If Burgundy thought life couldn’t get any more confusing or frustrating, she’d thought wrong. Every inch of skin tingled with desire. Only because it’s been so long, she reminded herself. Not for Jenna. Not for Jenna. NOT for Jenna.
“Get in the damn car,” Jenna huffed as she pulled away from Burgundy, “and I’ll buy you all the coffee you want.”
A little dazed by the sudden intimate contact, Burgundy followed her orders. They left the spring festival behind, a riot of people and color that blurred together in the side mirror until they turned the corner. A few more turns brought them out to Route 75, northbound and crossing the Platte River.
And then, something around Burgundy cracked. It was as if she’d been contained under glass all this time, because the moment they crossed the county line, the air somehow smelled fresher, the colors looked brighter, and the energy coursed around her visibly, layers of it surrounding everything in sight.
“What’s going on?” Burgundy asked, twisting in the passenger seat to stare out the window.
“Exactly what I thought was going on. You, my dear, were contained in a nullifying circle. It’s all around Rock Grove, dampening magick, inhibiting your natural abilities.”
“My...” Burgundy clamped her mouth shut. Jenna didn’t know. She couldn’t know.
“I know.” The statement made Burgundy swing her head around to glare at the woman driving the car. “It wasn’t hard to figure out. I am a journalist, after all. What with that whole thing last winter, I dug deeper and put two and two together. Anyway, the Finders set up the circle after we captured that guy – your father, right? They figured Rock Grove was harboring him intentionally or that he went there for a reason. I covered his hearing for the newspaper. I wanted to tell you all about it, but after everything I learned, it had to wait a while. The town needed time to heal and to get some distance from the incident. Especially you. Now I can tell you that you’re not safe, especially since they stationed that Reginald Weber guy down there. He is vicious. The kind who casts first and asks questions later.”
Burgundy’s heartbeat finally settled into a steady, normal rhythm, as did her breathing. She blinked, relieved to see that the energetic layers around her merged into an easier-to-process single aura outlining the trees and grass, and people in their cars. One more blink, and it went away entirely. But when she decided she wanted to see it, there it was.
“What’s going on with me?” Burgundy asked.
“You’re realizing your full potential. Power is filling your body, uninhibited. It’s been dampened all this time, first by your aunt trying to protect you, then the Finders casting their spell around Rock Grove. I’m sure they suspect by now that there’s more than meets the eye in our town, but they can’t prove anything until you do something that outs you as a warlock. We’ll get as far away as we can and figure things out tonight once we’re settled.”
The surrealness of the situation set in and Burgundy straightened. This was a well-intentioned kidnapping, apparently. “You’re trying to get me out of here?”
“Yeah. You can thank me later.”
“No!” Burgundy didn’t mean to shout, but the idea that Jenna had taken it upon herself to rescue her from a situation that didn’t require it? She needed time to think about this, to decide what made sense. Mr. Knight hadn’t said anything about a nullifying circle actually being in place; just that they existed. Was that a warning to her? Or were Jenna and Mr. Knight working at cross-purposes without even realizing it?
Jenna sliced a glance at her. “You want to stay there? Honestly, Burg, I don’t think it’s safe for you back home. Once they figure out what you are, you’ll end up in jail, like your old man. Is that really want you want?”
Rhetorical questions were about as useful as Burgundy’s magic, and she folded her arms over the seatbelt. “Of course not, but I’m only starting to understand everything about my family and myself. I’m not sure leaving is the best way to get to the bottom of things.”
“Well, what’s your bright idea – stay and wait for the Finders to accuse you of being a warlock? It’s only a matter of time before they figure out that Cian Black wanted to have a warlock for a child and made it happen. Though why anyone would do that and lose a piece of themselves is beyond me.”
“What’s that supposed to mea
n?” Burgundy straightened and rolled her shoulders. They were nearly to south Omaha, which meant more distance between her and home. In a way, it was freeing to no longer be under her aunt’s watchful gaze. On the other hand, though, everything she loved was now miles behind her.
“All that research I did last year? It was fascinating so I kept digging, even after the whole Cupid thing was over. Turns out, having a child splits off some of a male warlock’s power, which is why it has to be a conscious choice. Only a female warlock can give birth to another without losing some of her power. This is what’s so nefarious as far as the Council is concerned. Your father basically made you a warlock intentionally. Otherwise, you would have been a witch, like your mother. You can read it in all the anti-warlock brochures the Council puts out for the general supernatural public.”
Burgundy licked her lips, hoping Jenna would keep the promise about coffee, because her throat was drying out and closing up. “Mr. Knight doesn’t think that’s how it works. The power thing is news to me, but I guess that doesn’t make things any better in the eyes of the Council. Brochures, though? That sounds like propaganda, not a legitimate source of information.”
“Well, if there’s another explanation, the warlocks aren’t saying a word, and I doubt Mr. Knight is an expert on the kind of reproduction that doesn’t involve a blood exchange.”
Burgundy rolled her eyes and folded her arms over her seatbelt. “Regardless, I don’t care what the Council thinks. It’s not like I asked to be born this way, you know. I wish I could find a way to make them listen to that argument.”
Jenna snorted and flicked on her blinker before guiding the car to the off-ramp for Cornhusker Road. “Tell me about it. Everything I’ve found so far points to the Witches Council being the least reasonable supernatural organization on the planet. Of course, I also wonder why a male warlock would want to do that in the first place – sacrifice a little bit of his power, considering their reputation is that all they want to do is amass it. My guess is, because there aren’t any more female warlocks, ever since the purge, so someone had to step up and try to make one.”
