Every Witch Demon but Mine (Maeren Series Book 1)

by Mercedes Jade

“Now float each book an inch above the other. The last one is to stay on your head.”

  She narrowed her eyes at her mother.

  Jill had been asked to demonstrate that level of control with the heat from the coals on her feet and the floor. Revealing Elizabeth’s air wasn’t as weak as presumed, even if it was her secondary power, seemed risky.

  Was her mother trying to make up for her appearing so weak with spelling and glyphs?

  “You’re lucky I just came back from Maeren,” she loudly announced and performed the trick.

  It was harder than it sounded. The air currents were disturbed by her mother on purpose. As soon as she got one book lined up the prescribed distance, a shift in the air nudged it.

  She sent the top one flying towards her mother’s head.

  “Oops, slipped,” she apologized.

  Kim snorted a laugh.

  Elizabeth was so startled that all the books went tumbling down.

  “Perhaps, we are not striking the right tone with these lessons. I’m sure the demons sent here for nefarious purposes aren’t balancing books on their heads in Maeren,” Kim admitted.

  “Can you imagine a demon dressed up in a ballgown and asking a royal princess to take a taste?” Jill asked, laughter dissolving into hiccupped giggles as Elizabeth imagined just that for her sister.

  “I’ll take you both to town to get suitable attire for the ball and then we can practice a bit more practically,” their mother suggested.

  “Excellent idea,” Kim agreed. “Jill is almost finished here with the spell.”

  “All joking aside,” Elizabeth said, getting off the stool without using her air, “Jill and I appreciate the time to help us prepare for our debut.”

  “I appreciate your commitment to a realm where you may have been born, but were not really raised,” Kim said.

  “Time is running short. There was another demon that Elizabeth staked last night, and this one wasn’t looking for a feed. He went directly to the park she staked the last one and snooped around before she staked him to Maeren.”

  Their mother revealed this all emotionlessly, although she had been quite upset at the time, talking about capturing and torturing the demon for information.

  Jill had been more circumspect, reminding their mother that all the demon had to do to escape would be to use up his magic until he was drained enough to poof back to Maeren or get one of them mad enough to stab him back to hell.

  For once, her mother hadn’t complained about her daughters using the term ‘hell’ for Maeren.

  Kim fisted her hand around the chalk with impotent anger.

  “If Daemon knew what these demons have been doing . . . and now! Threatening a good, young witch?”

  Hearing Kim talk about her son out loud made him even more real. Not Daemon, the dark enforcer who was gossiped about in the wild pub tales . . . but Daemon, a guy who could live next door.

  If her neighbour was a six-and-a-half-foot-tall demon with lightning who would smite anyone pestering her because he was heroic and he even rescued kittens from trees in his free time.

  Jill cleared her throat.

  Hopefully, Elizabeth hadn’t been broadcasting that fantasy. She looked down with a blush and listened attentively as Kim spoke again.

  “It is imperative that you infiltrate the Maerenian royal house and find who is trying to overthrow the king. The culprit is undoubtedly the same one that is trying to fish you out with his demons. He is no friend of humans. I am afraid that the king’s tolerant attitude towards this realm would not be matched by a forced successor. Whoever it is has learned that humans make easy food for demons.”

  Their mother added, “We will do it together,” before the feeling of being overwhelmed with expectations drowned them. “There’s not enough time to teach you everything the warriors learn, but as Kim said, we will not be fighting a battle. A flash and stab, as you like to call it, only requires Jill to learn enough to be a persuasive distraction and for you to learn a few new tricks to flush our traitor from the pack.”

  “Tricks?” Elizabeth asked.

  “What’s an underdog without a few tricks?” Kim asked. “Your mother hasn’t shown you any spell work because of the weak magic here, but you don’t need to cast a spell to learn it. I have some more clever little pieces of magic to teach you after the tracking spell.”

  “When we get back, then I’ll show you both more about magic,” their mother said. “Kim has pointed out that I’m not doing either of you any favours by holding back on knowledge witches of your strength should be taught. Maeren is much more than the edge town you know now. If you really want to learn about your power, we will have to spend time in the deeper areas. I can’t hide you forever.”

  Whoever this traitor was, he had forced their mother to question their safe world, which she had worked so hard to create for her daughters.

  “We love you,” Jill said.

  “Absolutely,” Elizabeth piped up. “With you beside us, the traitor won’t stand a chance.”

  “Your daughters must give you great pride,” Kim said. “Thank you for entrusting them to this duty for the sake of Maeren.”

  Kim smiled at Jill and Elizabeth.

  “I think this calls for a drink to commemorate our first lesson.”

  They all hustled back through the courtyard and into the tea room with the short tables and chairs.

  Elizabeth wondered if she was going to embarrass herself if Kim served them alcohol. She had always been a cheap drunk. A few sips of anything with alcohol was all it took to redden her cheeks and leave her feeling woozy.

  “I’ve been waiting to try this out,” Kim said, sounding as excited as a kid on Christmas.

  She pulled out four little teapots and measured out loose tea, putting metal mesh spoons—which held the scoop of leaves—over the tops of the pots. When they were all seated with a teapot in front of them, she put a big coffee carafe under the spout of what appeared to be a large thermos with a bunch of buttons and dials that plugged into the wall.

  There was a picture of a kitty on it, naturally.

  “Did you get that from Amazon?” their mother asked. “Sometimes, they sell cheap knockoffs.”

  “This is straight from Japan. I had to pay duty,” Kim proudly declared.

  “What does it do?” Jill asked, the excitement catching.

  “It pours hot water,” Elizabeth announced, ruining the mystery.

  Her anticlimactic declaration couldn’t take much away from the adorableness of a tiny Asian woman going into raptures over an electrified tea kettle.

  Elizabeth wanted to laugh but she couldn’t, coming from a household where she had been taught that tea was serious business.

  It was the closest Kim had come to identify as one of them, a part of the family.

  Their mother would start exchanging cookie recipes with Kim next.

  “No,” Kim gently corrected her about the hot water. “It pours water at exactly the temperature you want it for your tea. Depending on whether you are making white or green or black or rooibos or one of those fruity-herbal ones, which aren’t really tea if you ask me, the steeping temperature and time differ. I haven’t had a truly good cup of tea since I lost my fire.”

  “It looks nice,” Jill said, breezing over the mention of Kim’s loss of magic. There had been sorrow there, still. “Japanese technology is really the best.”

  Everyone thanked Kim as she filled up their little teakettles, waiting until she gave the okay to remove the basket of brewing leaves.

  “Oh, Kim,” their mother said after her first sip. “It’s as good as at the royal tea gardens.”

  “Human technology is wondrous,” Kim praised.

  The green tea had a hint of sweet ginseng in the aftertaste that smoothed the slightly bitter notes as it slid down her throat.

  It really was an excellent cup of tea, but that wasn’t what made it so enjoyable. The pleasure on Kim’s face as the rest of them expressed delight brought
such happiness to the room that was beyond the simple refreshment.

  “It is a fine cup of tea,” Elizabeth shared, feeling her muscles relaxing with each sip.

  Kim smiled at her. “The tea leaves are from Maeren, of course, but I wonder if they might taste a bit nicer here.”

  Finally, Elizabeth felt her porcupine bristles settling down on her back, although she wasn’t in her safe burrow.

  The tea tasted like a promise from a powerful queen and witch of Maeren, of trust and faith.

  Kim would probably always put Maeren first, but not at the cost of the human realm, where humans with their ingenuity and technology had a rightful place.

  The banished Blue Queen had asked for Elizabeth to join her for lessons, to learn and, perhaps, to gain a better balance over straddling the two realms.

  “Well, then a few witches from the human realm may be just what Maeren needs right now,” Elizabeth replied, letting Kim know she had gotten her double meaning.

  “Precisely,” Kim said, raising her cup in a little toast. “Now hurry up and drink your tea. We have a lot to do.” Kim raised her cup again in command and drained it.

  The chink of the finished cups hitting the table was like the horn sounding before the battle.

  Red Warning

  “Are you ready for another trick?”

  Elizabeth dipped the traditional calligraphy pen into a pot of black ink. She finished off her set of glyphs on 3-hole letter paper before answering. Focus wasn’t optional for this task.

  They were using a mix of ancient and modern for this lesson, although ironically it was the ink that wasn’t the proper medium for the spell. If Elizabeth had used chalk on the paper, the magic might come to life off of the pages.

  She found the faint, blue-ruled lines on the page were helpful for getting her proportions right. After the weeks of writing glyphs daily, first tracing and then reproducing them herself, the lines were more a reminder than a guide.

  Okay, she still needed the ruled lines.

  Kim made a polite little sound to remind her she was waiting for an answer.

  “Does this trick involve consuming vile concoctions with various, urgent gastrointestinal effects, similar to eating bad Chinese takeout?”

  Kim shook her head, lips twitching in amusement.

  Anyone they poisoned could be honestly told they had tried it out on themselves first. It had been a heroic effort.

  “Is there a chance that it will blow up in my face or take three washes to get out of my hair, leaving me with a slightly green tinge that is too early for Halloween?”

  Kim shook her head again.

  Elizabeth looked over at her mother.

  She was playing the role of a battering ram with a broadsword against Jill’s rapid flurry of katana blows all around her.

  They were the real culprits behind the exploding cauldron of an earth-potion that had proven too volatile to even get into their cups for a tasting . . . which was probably a good thing.

  It wasn’t meant to be worn, either.

  She had told her mother that the dried newts had smelled ripe in a bad way, stored in a paper bag that got damp.

  “Have you ever wanted to read someone’s thoughts?” Kim asked.

  She whipped her head back around at that question.

  Kim peered deeply into her eyes like the powerless witch was doing her best to get past her mental shields.

  Impossible!

  Elizabeth broke eye contact. She looked down at her trembling hand holding the pen, a fat blob of ink ruining her last glyph.

  Dropping the pen, she grabbed the cleaning rag to hide her fine tremor.

  “Of course, I would love a spell like that,” she answered with a forced smile. “It would come in hand every time I play poker against Jill. Earth witches have poker faces that are hard to break.”

  “I think determination to win is something both of you girls inherited from your mother,” Kim replied. She picked up Elizabeth’s discarded pen and another rag, disassembling it for cleaning. “I have a secret way for you to be able to detect mortal danger,” she casually imparted.

  “Like Bilbo’s sword from Lord of the Rings that glowed blue around Orcs? Please, let me call it Sting, too,” Elizabeth said, cautiously excited.

  Kim looked puzzled.

  “It doesn’t glow?” she asked.

  That was okay, glowing was too flashy.

  Head-shake from Kim.

  “It’s not a sword?” she asked, hoping for daggers.

  “They say words are mightier than the sword,” Kim joked.

  Elizabeth crossed her arms, frowning slightly.

  “It’s more glyphs, isn’t it?”

  Kim nodded. “And magic ink,” she added.

  The magic ink wasn’t going to stop her enemies unless it melted their skin off like acid.

  She quickly asked Kim and that got a look of horror.

  “Oh, no! It’s not going to hurt you at all,” Kim insisted.

  So, the magic ink, danger-detection glyphs were going on her skin.

  The ink that male elementals used to mark their witches contained a little of their spit or blood to transfer their magic and create a bond.

  Who knew what additives this ink would contain for a spell strong enough to read intent?

  “I’m not sure what my mother will say about me getting inked. I told her that all the witches were getting a little butterfly on their ankles, but she made it out to be a tramp—”

  Elizabeth cut off, remembering she was talking to a noble lady that had once been their queen.

  “She said good witches don’t get tattoos.”

  “This won’t be permanent,” Kim assured her, lips twitching again. She hadn’t missed Elizabeth's implied crudity. “In fact, you’ll have to replace it every time you wash or to reset it.”

  A wash-off tattoo, like the ones that came with gum when she was a kid. Less exciting by the minute, but the spells Kim had shown them so far were mostly simple yet powerful.

  A preemptive warning of murderous intent could be helpful in a treacherous court full of vampires, demons, and possibly, other assassins.

  Who knew if her mother had left behind a long-forgotten enemy, or if Jill would garner a few deadly rivals with her powerful mix of magic that was sure to attract at least one of the fire princes?

  “Are you going to show Jill how to do it first?” she asked, prepared to listen to Jill’s smarty-pants tone while she demonstrated the glyphs back to her stroke-by-stroke.

  “No, this spell is only for you,” Kim replied, surprising her.

  “Like, for air witches? My mother should—”

  “Just for you,” Kim interrupted. She leaned closer, whispering into Elizabeth’s ear. “I custom made the ink to your aura.”

  “My aura?” she whispered back.

  Did that mean Kim knew about her lightning?

  “Blue like a robin’s egg, with sharp red, bright and crisp, cutting through at the edges,” Kim described, leaning back to put some distance between them. “The blue usually represents happiness, close family or friends, and the red, tragedy and matters of the heart that leave wounds.”

  “Oh, not a magic aura?” she clarified.

  “Magic specificity can’t be seen,” Kim said. “That’s why there are tastings.”

  Well, duh.

  She flushed with embarrassment.

  She was so on edge trying to hide her magic that, ironically, she might make a bigger mistake to reveal her lightning.

  There would be no tastings for her. The secret in her blood was going to stay in her body.

  “If the ink is specific to my aura, does that mean I can’t share this spell with my sister?” she asked.

  “I only had time to make ink for you. It is rather laborious. I know you’re at greater risk of getting involved in fighting, and you do have weaker air, so I decided you were best suited to this last magic trick,” Kim explained. “You don’t have to if you feel uncomfortable. I�
�ll understand. Painting glyphs for a spell that binds to your chi is asking a lot.”

  Kim had done nothing to earn her mistrust.

  “No, I’ll do it. I appreciate you thinking of me,” she said, gratefully.

  She had grown a little closer to her old math teacher over the last few weeks, although she knew a lot of that had been due to Kim’s efforts.

  Jill still had a closer bond with her sensei, but Elizabeth’s blossoming spell skills under Kim’s guidance had forged a relationship between witches.

  It wasn’t quite the same as Jill’s student-teacher relationship, possibly because Elizabeth had met her old teacher again as an adult, adding a level of maturity to their lessons.

  Elizabeth wasn’t the adult book club friend to Kim that her mother had become, but also, not another child student that had slowly grown up in front of her.

  Their easy camaraderie was a wonderful mix in-between.

  “I’ll paint them on with inert, washable ink. You can use a brush or a dip pen, but whatever tool you use to apply the magic-imbued ink ought not to be shared with other spells. Anything you use for the magic, which touches your body, should never be shared.”

  Elizabeth nodded. It made sense. The glyphs that Kim painted were very simple in nature, three separate ones that she didn’t recognize, although they had elements that seemed familiar.

  “Is that a glyph for fire?” she asked, confused as she pointed to the last.

  Kim shook her head. “Fire is simpler,” she said, demonstrating a little further down her arm.

  She was learning so many glyphs that they were all starting to look the same.

  “Okay, does the order matter?”

  A few weeks ago, she wouldn’t have worried about order or proportions.

  Kim seemed pleased by her question and nodded.

  “You need to speak some Maerenian to ignite the glyphs and connect them to your chi,” she instructed. “I want you to keep practicing the glyphs with this washable ink a few times and then we’ll use your special ink to cast, once.”

  She looked up from her arm, where she had been focused on tracing the practice glyphs.

  She hadn’t activated a single of the spells in the weeks Kim had been teaching them. Their mother had said the effort may be wasted with the weak magic of the human realm.