“What are you so giddy about?” he asked.
“I did it!” I grinned. “I put the barrel down without breaking it.”
“You tossed it down.”
“It didn’t break,” I said.
“It fell over.”
“It’s good enough,” I retorted, getting slightly irritated, though secretly appreciative. I couldn’t let him see I was enjoying myself. He might flip.
“Good enough is never good enough,” he said, then walked over to the remaining barrels, and pushed them farther away, getting ready to throw them up from a bigger distance.
“Do you recite that in the mirror every morning?” I asked dryly.
“No, it’s just something my mom—whatever. You’re looking at a lifetime of Mediocrity, anyway,” Finch replied.
That hurt a little, I had to admit it to myself. I exhaled and focused on the next barrel. I didn’t get more progress done by the end of the training session. His words had cut deep, even though I’d been resilient to his jabs before. This time, it felt different.
Whether it had something to do with what I’d learned about my parents, or sheer exhaustion and stressing over gargoyles wanting to eat me up, it was clearly affecting my magical abilities—absence of an Esprit aside.
By the time evening fell over the coven, I was physically and emotionally drained. I definitely needed my private tutors if I wanted anything that they were teaching me to actually stick.
I skipped the banquet hall in favor of eating alone. After an entire day of magical kids messing with my senses, magical kids plus adults were literally the last thing I needed. I settled for a quick bite from the science center café, since they were closing up soon, and their last two customers were finishing their lattes.
My phone buzzed.
Meet at 10:15 p.m. outside Luis Paoletti Room. Don’t be late. WC.
I couldn’t help but chuckle, wondering if I should tell Wade that signing his messages with his initials didn’t exactly make him sound cool. I felt a thrill of excitement at the thought of another late-night adventure—though I hoped this one would end on a happier note.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I found the Luis Paoletti Room on the third level, thanks to the map in my so-called induction package. Wade was waiting outside, along with the rest of our Rag Team.
“You’re late,” Wade said, prompting me to check my watch. 10:16 p.m.
“And you sign your text messages WC. We’re even,” I retorted, relishing the heat in my throat caused by his embarrassment upon realizing what else WC stood for, then nodded at the double doors leading into the Luis Paoletti Room. “What’s in here?”
“It’s a generally restricted area for coven members,” Wade replied, crossing his arms. “However, now that we’re the investigative team, we’ve got clearance. It holds a collection of forbidden spells, too dangerous to put in just anyone’s hands. I figured we could look through here for something to trace the spell disruptor back to its original maker.”
“Sounds good. I’m guessing a now-forbidden tracing spell could easily be used to literally stalk innocent people, and that’s why we need special clearance?” I asked.
Santana nodded. “Exactly. You catch on pretty quick.”
“What can I say? I’m a fast learner,” I replied with a smirk.
Wade said the words of a spell, placing both hands on the doorknobs. His rings lit up white, and we all heard the click of the lock turning. He pushed through the double doors, and we followed him inside. The room was relatively small in size, its walls covered with shelves—all loaded with antique boxes with paper tags. There was no magical computer thingy in the middle, so I figured we’d have to do a manual search.
“Raffe, Santana, you two take the north side,” Wade said. “Tatyana and Dylan can handle the west wall, and Astrid can check the south.” He pointed over his shoulder. I glanced over my head and saw more shelves covering the walls around the double doors. “Harley and I will take the left.”
We spread out as instructed. “What are we looking for, exactly? Just any tracking spell?” Tatyana asked, pulling out a box and browsing through its contents. I couldn’t see from that angle, but I could hear sheets of paper shuffling.
“Pretty much. We need to find something, and fast. Our deadline expires tomorrow, and Alton is right. If the Mage Council gets involved, our coven is pretty much done, not just for the rest of the year, but probably for the next decade or so,” Wade replied.
“Yeah, I get it.” Dylan sighed. “We’ll just pull out whatever’s in the ballpark and see which one works best.”
We all nodded and resumed our search through each shelf. I glanced around the room, while Wade checked an antique copper box with intricate gem details mounted on the rectangular lid. A section on the northern wall caught my eye, mainly because it was encased in thick glass with brass edges, and familiar symbols had been engraved on each side. It covered one fourth of the wall, and I could see it was filled with very old, leather-bound books.
“What are those?” I asked, pointing at the case, just six feet away from where Raffe and Santana were doing their search. Wade followed my gaze, stilled for a couple of seconds, then resumed his hunt for a tracking spell in another box.
“Grimoires. Those are strictly forbidden. We don’t have clearance to look in there unless Preceptor Ickes is present to supervise,” Wade replied, flipping through the brownish pages of an old pocket diary.
“What’s a Grimoire?”
“A magical’s own book of spells. Like a journal and a manual, all in one. Elder witches and warlocks have been keeping Grimoires since the beginning of time. Some of the spells are brand new, others are adaptations, customizations, and alterations of existing ones. You can change a single ingredient, for example, and a spell could go from healing a cut to inflicting horrible damage to one’s nervous system,” Wade explained. “The ones in the case were captured from evil magicals throughout the years.”
“You’re keeping them there because they’re full of, well, evil magic?” I asked, then checked a small wooden box with various runes carved on all sides. There were small jars inside filled with what looked like charcoal powder, colored sand, small animal bones, and dried up seeds and fruit.
“That, and the fact that they’re loaded with toxic, dangerous energy,” Santana said. “Thing is, Grimoires are very personal items. There is a ritual through which we, as witches and warlocks, can start a Grimoire in the first place. We literally pour our thoughts, our memories, and our ideas into that book. The majority of Grimoires are beautiful, inspiring, and insightful, because they’re collections of spells and notions of kindness, common sense, and rational thinking. Grimoires left behind by evil magicals are just as dark as their owners. Their pages are drenched in poison similar to that which we Purge… memories of horrible things they’ve done. Thoughts of hatred and rage. Difficult stuff to be around, in general. So, we keep them here.”
“Every coven has a case with dark Grimoires, though ours is much smaller. You should see the New York one, it’s freaking huge!” Astrid added.
“I wonder where my dad’s is,” I murmured, my fingers absently digging through small scrolls tied up with red string in another box. Exhaling, I gave up. “I don’t know what the hell I’m looking for, exactly. I don’t know what a tracking spell is supposed to look like.”
I was frustrated on many levels, and the whole deadline pressure wasn’t helping. Skewed dreams of my father killing my mother and other magicals had already screwed with my sleep—they weren’t real memories, just my brain’s interpretation of everything I’d learned over the past couple of days.
“Your dad’s Grimoire is probably in New York,” Wade replied, his gaze softening a little. There was warmth coming from him, the kind that soothed me—and it was most needed. “As for tracking spells, look for anything that lists items. The spells that aren’t in that case with the dark Grimoires are excerpts from journals and manuals, mostly, al
ong with samples of specific ingredients, and ready-made charms and hex boxes. It’s a wide pool to look into, but we don’t have much of a choice at this point.”
“We should search for anything containing Anirin beads,” I said, remembering what Preceptor Bellmore had told me. “It might help narrow down the search.”
It didn’t, though. There were many spells using Anirin beads, from what I quickly learned. We kept looking for about an hour, during which time I occasionally found myself staring at the Grimoire case. I could almost hear whispers tickling my ears, beckoning me to go over there and browse through their pages. There was an invisible string tugging at my stomach, pulling me toward them. Maybe that’s the dark energy they’re talking about.
“Am I supposed to get this urge to break through the glass and read those Grimoires?” I asked, my brow furrowed as I browsed through yet another box. I’d found all kinds of charms and hexes, most of them very powerful and intricately designed. They were right to keep them here—most could be used to do a lot of good, but, in the wrong hands, they could easily flip and kill thousands with a single incantation. Preceptor Ickes’s curriculum did include a study of forbidden spells, but I had a feeling it wasn’t as in-depth as an actual listing of ingredients and instructions. Nobody wanted a rebellious student to go out and try one of these on their own.
“It does happen, yes,” Wade replied, carefully scanning my expression. “You can hear them, can’t you?” I nodded slowly. “That’s okay, just ignore them. You can’t break through that glass anyway. Focus on your search, and you’ll be fine.”
“Harley’s quite sensitive,” Tatyana mused, staring at me. “Not everyone in this coven can feel or hear the dark Grimoires like that.”
“Wait, is that a bad thing?” I asked, slightly concerned.
“Not necessarily,” Tatyana replied. “It just means you’re highly receptive to Chaos, in all its forms. Including the darkness. I wouldn’t consider it something to worry about, especially not now, when you’re still climbing that steep learning curve.”
“Yeah, more like tumbling, falling, and breaking my neck,” I said bitterly.
“Hey, we all had it hard in the beginning. Do you know how long it took me to get the Orishas under control?” Santana chuckled, then proceeded to explain her abilities better, once she noticed my befuddled expression. “Orishas are deities of Chaos. In the Santeria culture, they’re considered minor deities, spirits of magicals that have passed on. They’re wisps of energy, and a Santeria bruja or brujo has to form a relationship with them in order to get them to comply.”
“And what do the Orishas do?” I asked, my mind going back to the church incident from the other day. The bright wisps of light I’d seen smacking the gargoyles before bursting into fireworks…
“Pretty much anything, though they’re most adept at physical attacks and defense,” Santana said. “They’re concentrated energy, and they can mimic matter. They’re also fully conscious, so they’re able to discern what needs to be done. As a Santeria bruja, I summon them, I connect with them, and they’re able to read my mind. They understand what I need in a split second, and they help. Of course, they have limits, and they require a lot of my own energy to break into this mortal plane. Orishas live in Chaos, and they need someone like me to pull them into the physical world.”
I nodded slowly, then resumed my search through yet another box. I wasn’t getting anywhere with this, but Dylan and Raffe had managed to find three potential tracking spells that we could use. By the time we finished searching each box, there were twelve options, scrawled on waxy scrolls and in the pages of two small pocket diaries.
“Now, the question is, which one do we use?” Santana said, her arms crossed as she studied the spells, which were carefully laid out on the reading table in the middle of the room. “Some of the items required here no longer exist or are incredibly rare and hard to find.”
I followed her gaze across the texts, and one element jumped up at me. “Do we have all of these ingredients, by any chance?” I asked, pointing at an open scroll.
Wade leaned forward to get a better look and frowned slightly. “Diamond powder, mercury, wolfsbane root, dried cypress leaves, ground yellow jasper, feathered serpent’s venom… I’m sure about all of them, except for the last one.”
“Quetzi,” I said, remembering one of the monsters in the Bestiary. “The former Aztec god!”
“What are you talking about?” Tatyana, like the others, seemed confused.
“The feathered serpent. Quetzi. I don’t remember his full name. My tongue gets tied up when I try to pronounce it. The giant snake with bright pink-and-white feathers, big turquoise eyes, and jaws big enough to swallow a cow,” I replied, trying my best to describe the slithering enormity that, according to Tobe, seemed to like me for some reason.
“Quetzalcoatl,” Raffe said, his eyes widening with the same realization. “Holy hell, we have it. We have a full tracking spell!”
He grabbed the scroll in question and read it over and over, then handed it to Wade and put on a satisfied grin. Wade was both amused and relieved. “Raffe’s right. We’ve got a tracking spell.” He smirked, then gave me a brief wink. “Well done, Harley.”
Pride blossomed in my chest, while a voice inside my head cackled with joy. See? Almost no knowledge of magic, and yet you still kick ass. Hah!
“Okay, so let’s get cracking then!” I declared, hands on my hips in a confident pose. I would’ve looked great on a motivational poster.
“Not so fast. Preceptor Gracelyn is out,” Wade replied. “She’ll be back in the morning, and she’s the only one with access to the poison repository. That’s where we keep the wolfsbane.” He then went over the list again. “And, crap, where do we have yellow jasper?”
He looked at us, his eyebrows hopefully raised.
“Out of all the fancy schmancy jewels and decorative objects in this place, surely there’s yellow jasper mounted around here somewhere,” I mused, then crossed my arms, slightly deflated.
“It’s not like we’re jewelry experts,” Wade replied.
“I might be able to help,” Tatyana chimed in, then brought her hands together. The sapphire on her Esprit glowed blue as she muttered something in Russian, her voice low and chilling—toward the end of that incantation, I wasn’t even sure if that was her speaking.
“What… Um, what is she doing?” I whispered, as darkness gathered around us like a thick cloud, drowning out the dim lights.
“That’s right, you don’t know,” Astrid said, grinning. “Tatyana’s a Slavic witch. Her people tend to specialize in seeking the dead to assist with various tasks. She summons the spirits of those who have died in her specific location—in this case, the coven—to enter her body and help her out.”
“Whoa, she loans her body out to ghosts, basically?”
“Pretty much. Most of the time they’re just spirits filled with energy, and she uses that to temporarily amplify her physical abilities and her spells. Sometimes, however, they’re really powerful entities, and fully conscious, so they take over and bring their knowledge and memories with them,” Astrid replied.
Tatyana’s body glowed a cold, bluish white, as she took deep breaths and opened her eyes—two shimmering, pristine pearls. A gasp slipped from my throat. “Is… Is that—”
“A spirit, yes,” Wade confirmed. “She just summoned a spirit from the coven, and, by the looks of her, it’s a powerful one.”
“She’s going to collapse after this,” Raffe added. “They always take a toll on her. Stand by, Dylan.”
Dylan nodded and inched closer to her, just as Tatyana looked at me—but it wasn’t Tatyana, per se. Someone else gazed at me through those blank, white eyes. “Ah. A Merlin still lives? I’m impressed!” She chuckled softly, the Slavic accent gone, replaced by a Southern drawl.
“Who are we speaking to?” Wade cut in, while I instinctively and quietly moved closer to him, taking comfort in the protection that his broad
frame provided.
“Eleanor Hession-Doren, at your service, I suppose,” Not-Tatyana replied. Her voice was different, rougher, like nails scratching the inside of a chimney. She didn’t sound too happy to be here.
“It’s definitely a strong one. It won’t even let Tatyana speak,” Astrid said worriedly, and I caught a whiff of her underlying concern.
“Relax, I’m not staying for long,” Not-Tatyana drawled. “I’ve got better places to be, and, frankly, whatever this girl is eating, it’s doing a number on my spirit! Now, tell me what you want to know!”
“We’re looking for yellow jasper,” Wade replied. “It’s a big coven, with plenty of jewels. We were hoping you might be able to help us, Mrs. Hession-Doren.”
“Oh. That’s… That’s actually very sweet.” Not-Tatyana was pleasantly surprised, fluttering her eyelashes at him. “I’m guessing my reputation precedes me?”
“I don’t know. Tatyana didn’t tell us who she was summoning,” Wade replied with a shrug.
Not-Tatyana pursed her lips, then shook her head. “I was the preceptor of Alchemy here before I got myself murdered by that Shipton shrew… Then Jacintha Parks took over and plunged the entire subject into mediocrity,” she said. Had her eyes not been fully white and beaming, I would’ve seen her rolling them with dismay. “If anyone knows anything about gemstones in this wretched place, it’s me.”
“Wait, Shipton? As in Katherine Shipton?” I asked, unable to stop myself from deviating from the subject once my aunt’s name came up.
“Yes. Horrible woman. I swear, if I ever get the chance—”
“Yellow jasper,” Wade interrupted her, then gave me a stern sideways glance. “We need some. Now.”
“Ugh, fine. Hold on,” Not-Tatyana replied, frowning slightly. “What floor is this?”
“Third,” Wade said.
“Ah, good. Follow me.” She smirked, then glided toward the door. Wade rushed past her and chanted the necessary spell for the locks to turn again.
Harley Merlin and the Secret Coven Page 30
