“Daemon showed me some cool magic this morning,” Jill said after taking a bite of her yogurt.
“He used magic around you?” Phillip asked. “Is that why you smell like lightning? Do you think it wise to use that kind of power around the witches? We don’t want to frighten them when they are new to court.”
He sounded protective and it was sweet, but he obviously didn’t know Jill’s strengths well by that comment.
“It was mostly my magic,” Jill said, spooning more yogurt.
There was no mistaking Jill’s annoyed tone of voice.
“She’s not another bird for you to cage, Phillip,” Daemon rebuked.
Elizabeth didn’t want Jill exposed to any more danger than necessary, but her sister was old enough to determine the risk she wanted to take herself.
They were both here for the same deadly purpose.
“Have you been hiding your magic?” Elizabeth asked, boldly using her lightning telepathy.
Daemon hadn’t said anything about it when she’d accidentally used her telepathy in her room. It had been an unintended trial by fire, but now, she had the freedom to use her secret magic.
If Daemon was unaware of it, then his fire-breathing brother would also be clueless. It was a relief, really.
“I had to downplay my magic a bit,” Jill admitted.“There are no blue witches left in the royal harems. What they consider a blue witch is really green pushing to the edge. It’s worse than we thought. All the blue witches are disappearing.”
“Disappearing as in becoming soulless? How many demons are they making? Did you talk to Mom about this yet?”
“She already knows. The Consort met with her when she heard about my blue fire to discuss harem choices.”
“Are we going to start arming witches with bows and send them soldiering?” William mocked, interrupting her telepathic conversation with Jill.
William passed Jill a hardboiled egg, still in the shell.
His cool, grey eyes flicked up to Elizabeth, as if he had intended the question for her.
Elizabeth stabbed a strawberry with her fork, letting the tines push through the fruit to hit the plate with a screech.
William flinched.
“From what I hear, witches don’t have to be on the front lines to get killed in the war. It wouldn’t hurt to learn some defensive skills,” Elizabeth commented.
“You need to listen to Daemon and get armed, Glinda. If you’re the only blue witch here, then it might be more dangerous for you than we realized,” Elizabeth more sagely told her sister.
She didn’t want Jill running headfirst into danger, but she also would do anything to stop her sister from being helpless again. It was a terrible quandary.
Daemon may have been doing her a bigger favour than he’d realized by showing Jill the black fire.
“Do you want to learn defensive magic, Jill?” William asked.
“Yes,” her sister replied. “I haven’t practiced much, but it felt amazing this morning when Daemon showed me how to make black fire.”
Phillip’s fork dropped to his plate with a loud clatter.
“Black fire?” William clarified.
“She’s a blue witch,” Daemon said. “Full-spectrum, able to burn as ice cold black as she can burn white hot.”
“Witches don’t burn black,” William stated, reaching for his water goblet.
“Some do,” Daemon challenged. “My mother was a full-spectrum blue witch.”
It was the first time she heard Daemon talk about Kim. His mother had famously held a shield against the king’s army for days.
Maybe, the black fire that Daemon had shown Jill was what had boosted the queen’s shield.
“Jill, we will practice with you, but alone. You can’t tell anyone you burn black,” Phillip said. He glared at Daemon.
Elizabeth thought it was brave of Phillip, considering Daemon could ash him where he sat.
She may have misjudged the strength of Phillip’s magic.
“I could show you some of the more physical aspects of earth,” William offered.
He seemed more reluctant.
Jill finished her yogurt with a smile. “I’d like that. Thanks.”
Elizabeth popped one last dipped strawberry into her mouth. She had finished them all on her own and there probably had been at least a dozen.
“Insatiable,” Daemon whispered to her, while Phillip and William were busy staring at Jill’s beautiful smile.
“Not true,” she whispered back to him. “I’m satisfied.”
She really was content.
Breakfast with Daemon hadn’t turned out to be the disaster she’d anticipated. Last night, she couldn’t have imagined coming to peaceful terms with him.
Her fury hadn’t scared him off, thankfully.
Daemon had her best interests and safety in mind. He was even extending his protection to her sister.
Romance here wasn’t easy. Maeren was different and dangerous, but also more a part of her than a few days ago.
Elizabeth wiggled a little in Daemon’s lap before getting up.
His groan was music to her ears.
She tossed her lap napkin onto the table and saw the red glyphs, pulsing on the inside of her wrist in warning. She’d painted the invisible spell on after her bath, late last night.
They were blood red now.
How suitable, given seeing them meant someone meant her deadly harm.
Daemon touched her forearm as she stood there frozen. He asked if she was okay.
She jerked away, unable to hide the fear in her eyes.
Nobody but her could see the glyphs.
Jill didn’t know.
“Too much chocolate,” she excused to Daemon. “I’m sorry, I need to go lie down.”
Phillip’s blue eyes seemed to pierce right through her excuse.
She broke off from his gaze.
“Jill, I need your help with that thing. Now!” Elizabeth barked at her sister, reaching rudely across the table to haul Jill out of her chair.
“Kim’s spell—the red glyph one to warn or danger—it’s red right now,” she secretly informed Jill.
“Yes, of course,” Jill said, startled, but making her excuses. “Thank you for breakfast. I’ll see you later,” her sister added as Elizabeth started marching her back into the castle.
They raced to their mother’s room like death was on their heels. If Kim’s spell worked, it was close enough to the truth to count.
Welcome to the Jungle
It had to have been a glitch.
Her mother had been ready to pack their bags. Well, her bags and Jill’s luggage, since Elizabeth had never unpacked.
Jill had wanted to knock noggins and ask questions later.
It was the most violence her younger sister had expressed since Tommy Nielsen had locked Elizabeth kicking and screaming into the school’s janitor closet because she refused to give him her lunch money.
The broken tooth and black eye she gave Tommy had almost cost Jill an expulsion. Their mother had insisted Jill take martial arts with Kim the next day, ironically, to learn control over her temper.
Kim had helped. Perhaps not in the way their mother had anticipated. Jill was a real force to be reckoned with now.
Elizabeth washed her arm as soon as she confirmed that her mother and Jill couldn’t see the glyphs.
She quickly reapplied them with Kim’s ink.
Within another minute the glyphs were red again.
Either, the spell’s range was for the whole castle or something had gone wrong with it.
She must have finally pissed someone off enough to want to ‘wring her neck’ and that was enough to worry her family.
This was supposed to be a ‘red warning’ of danger.
The princes that had eaten breakfast with her and Jill were cleared. The spell had turned the glyphs red again, without their presence.
Proximity didn't imply guilt or innocence.
She convinced her f
amily to stay, although they all would be more on guard. There was no plan B for them.
If they gave up now, the threat to the human realm and the Maerenian court would continue unchecked. The rot had to be excised before it consumed everything.
The temptation to use her lightning was strong, to check every friendly smile for the hidden daggers.
Her mother counselled her to be cautious. She was displeased when she heard Elizabeth had risked using in front of the princes.
The amount of power to be reading everyone all the time and at once was still an insurmountable barrier for her. She couldn’t constantly be checking each smile for hidden thoughts.
Elizabeth had to pulse her power in small, directed glimpses of the minds around her. A peek here and there, conserving the rest of her magic, in case everything went kerflooey—Jill’s words, not hers.
The extra degrees of caution left them all feeling jumpy.
When Victoria surprised Elizabeth by showing up at her exercise class, she almost turned back around.
This wasn’t a coincidence. Only curiosity and knowing that she would have the opportunity to peer into Victoria’s thoughts kept Elizabeth from escaping before Victoria spotted her.
Elizabeth walked in on Victoria juggling her knife. The groups of girls that had been chatty and warm yesterday watched on silently.
Victoria wasn’t blending in anonymously like Elizabeth.
The princess had the same dagger she had been playing with in the library. Her expert manipulation of the dull and sharp edges at whirling speeds didn’t betray any nervous energy, but Elizabeth could feel it all the same.
The elf was like a small, wild animal. Her practiced dagger routine disguised the rapid increase in her heart rate as Elizabeth walked into the room.
Victoria’s body was ready to leap into action in the flight or fight response that all small creatures shared to survive.
Only, Victoria was far from helpless, despite her cute appearance.
Lightning pinged the electrical signals of every heartbeat, breath, and the racing thoughts of thirty different minds simultaneously.
The stimuli were all sent in a jumble of information against Elizabeth’s barriers.
She’d relaxed her mental shield to find Victoria’s mind when she’d spotted her waiting.
Quickly shutting it down after achieving her goal, she blocked everyone once more. She tried to narrow her focus to Victoria.
It was easier to do this with Jill and her mother. Her magic knew the way to their thoughts and their electrical signatures were as familiar as the sound of their voices and steps were to her ear to recognize.
Victoria was the only fire user in the group of witches, however, and it was that magic that let Elizabeth lock in on her.
‘Daemon was going to kill her.’
Elizabeth kept walking forward, greeting the two girls that had talked to her briefly, yesterday, at the beginning of the run.
She revealed nothing of Victoria’s fearful thoughts hitting her. It was as if she hadn’t even noticed Victoria was in the same room.
Maybe instead of Daemon, Victoria should be worrying more about what Elizabeth would do to her for the library attack yesterday. Clearly, the twins had bought her helpless act.
‘She’d rather die by a lightning bolt in an instant than in slow, smothering fire.’
‘Daemon would ash her for even thinking about touching the witch he’d claimed. Vic had blisters on his fingers from brushing against her skin.’
Elizabeth refused to feel guilty over burning Victor. He’d put his hands on her first and forced her to nearly reveal her magic, putting the mission at risk.
It had all happened so fast that she didn’t recall doing burning him.
The way the tattoo had heated, she wondered if the claim had released a little lightning when Victor brushed against it.
Killing Victoria still seemed a rather extreme punishment for that scare in the library yesterday.
Especially compared to the little spanking Daemon had given Elizabeth for her part in the mess.
She was pissed off because of the indignity of it all, but it hadn’t been particularly painful.
He’d shocked her, as he’d said.
Besides, she was used to people being rather dramatic in their thoughts.
She didn’t pay too much attention to Victoria’s image of Daemon sending a bolt straight through her heart. She did note a dozen daggers Victoria had imagined floating around her before the bolt went through her, in her in the fantasy, surprised but cautioned, and a little jealous that Victoria was bristling with sharp, pointy weapons.
‘All this bother for an air witch.’
Why was that?
Elizabeth could yank the reason from Victoria’s mind, but she held back, listening only to her conscious thoughts.
In another time, Elizabeth could have been friends with Victoria. She liked Victoria’s spunk and respected a powerful witch that didn’t rely only on her magic.
Pulling deep into Victoria’s thoughts felt like a violation. It could lead to unwanted consequences.
Most people thought exactly what they didn’t want you to know, anyway. It was unavoidable.
Elizabeth turned her back on Victoria and continued to pretend to listen to the other girls.
Jessica was a water witch and her friend, Melly, was an air witch. They both were here on behalf of their families, hoping to land well paying jobs as demon handlers.
Neither of their clans had demons, but the castle was always hiring new handlers.
Hazard paid well, but it didn’t promote long-term retention. Six months of handling could pay for their family’s living for at least five years.
‘It wasn’t too late to run away. She and Vic could be gone by nightfall.’
Elizabeth’s afternoon just got complicated.
This was why she hated listening to other’s thoughts. You couldn’t take back hearing them.
The responsibility to do something about Victoria’s plan to run away would nag at her now.
Jessica pulled her attention from Victoria by asking which demon Elizabeth wanted to handle.
The girls gushed about the eligible demons like they would celebrities: rating magic, clans, and looks.
Demon-handler relationships were discouraged. Those forbidden relationships were what sold the bodice-ripper romances by the hundreds.
‘George could track them, but he would have to be close. Distance would weaken the blood trace.’
‘They could never come back. Never see their mother again.’
‘Vic would have to leave his harem. His children were too young to bring along, would be left alone with their mothers.’
‘Janelle would be all alone. George’s mother had ignored Janelle, but if Tor was gone . . .’
Sweet brown eyes full of tears, with round toddler cheeks and pink, bow lips.
Victoria was probably remembering seeing the little girl from a past event.
The chill of fear, when Victoria thought of George’s mother, made Elizabeth feel like there was more imminent danger.
She looked back over to see Victoria flipping her knife, faster and faster. The deadly habit took on new meaning.
Elizabeth knew what it was like to have someone to protect.
‘Finally, Liz was coming over. She had to stick to the plan.’
Elizabeth couldn’t hide in the crowd any longer. It felt too much like cowardice, especially with that sweet little face in her thoughts.
Daemon’s warning about not confronting his siblings couldn’t apply to the exercise class that he had asked her to join.
Surely, even he would have difficulty blaming her for this situation. Really, it was half his fault.
Action justified, Elizabeth walked up to Victoria and confronted her.
“Hiya, elf.”
“Hey,” Victoria casually replied.
Victoria’s heart was racing again. Neither of them mentioned the library.
/>
“Wanna run together?” Elizabeth asked.
She figured Victoria wouldn't talk unless they were alone.
Victoria shrugged, flipping her knife.
The rest of the class was pairing up and heading out for the warm-up run.
Their instructor glanced back at them, but didn’t approach, standing uselessly at the door.
She didn’t blame him. The princess looked close to either bawling her eyes out or stabbing someone.
Elizabeth knew which one she would choose and stepped back a little.
“I’m hurt,” Elizabeth prompted.
Victoria nearly fumbled the knife, catching it by the water core before she impaled her own hand.
Holy crap! Victoria was fast with her magic.
“I thought I was special,” Elizabeth continued, casually, like she wasn’t intimidated by Victoria’s show of power and skill. “I didn’t know you threatened all the girls with pointy weapons.” She glanced around. “Where’s the evil twin?”
“Girls only. Demons have female handlers. They’re less aggressive with females. Something about their beastly instincts.”
The demons Victoria imagined were truly monstrous.
They used fire to chain a witch to a round metal loop, welded to the wall. They took turns feeding on her, tearing at her wrist and neck.
Elizabeth realized with a start, the chained witch was Victoria, when she shouted for her brother, just before fainting from blood loss.
“Demons won't bite the hand that feeds them,” Elizabeth commented, blinking away the nightmare before it triggered her own memories.
It was difficult to focus on the conversation they were having on the outside when she was privy to Victoria’s innermost thoughts.
Why couldn’t the petite witch think of something calming and sweet—a field of wildflowers, the ocean lapping at white sands?
Did everyone have to be so doom and gloom?
“Demons are rabid dogs that are mad with thirst,” Victoria countered.
Well, that was a no, then.
Violent fantasies while playing with weapons were what Elizabeth was going to get if she spied on Victoria’s thoughts.
This time Victoria imagined Daemon feeding on Elizabeth while a long line of feeders waited behind her.
Every Witch Demon but Mine (Maeren Series Book 1) Page 29
