Magic of the Void: A Reverse Harem Witch Series (Winslow Witch Chronicles Book 1)

by Lena Mae Hill

  “That one’s not friendly.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They’ll come to you if they want to play or help. Send them a message.”

  Feeling incredibly witchy, she tried to telepathically communicate with the trees.

  Nothing happened.

  “Try asking out loud,” he said with a grin.

  “You said I didn’t have to talk to a tree.” She gave him a doubtful look, but turned back to the trees. “I need a ride, please.”

  A vine swung towards her, and Quill laughed. “Just kidding. You don’t have to say it out loud. I summoned that one for you.”

  “You bastard,” she said, reaching to punch him again.

  This time, he ducked away, swinging away on his vine, laughing all the while. She wrapped her hands around her vine and jumped, sure it was going to drop her on her ass. But it obeyed her intent, conveying her along after Quill. He whooped like Tarzan, holding on with one and one foot, leaning out from his vine as it swung. And he was afraid she’d get hurt.

  After she got the hang of swinging solo, she let go with one hand, too, and held her arm out like she was flying. It was not a broomstick, but who wanted a hard stick of wood for a seat anyway?

  By the time they get back, she’d decided she was never taking any other mode of transport again if she could help it.

  Fifteen

  When they stepped through the door into the basement, the familiar smooth wall where she first saw her power reflected lit the way for them. At the bottom of the stairs, the cavern waited, just as she first saw it. The coven was all gathered, including a hunched old woman she hadn’t seen before.

  “How’d she know we were coming?” she whispered to Quill. “Is she telepathic?”

  “Maybe a little,” he said with a smirk.

  Great. She was probably going to hate Sagely when she saw what was in her head. As she approached, she couldn’t help but think the old woman looked a little like an ancient tree, with her hair hanging down in wisps like Spanish moss, and her millions of wrinkles like the bark on a tree. The way she sat over the others, perfectly still, waiting for them to join her at the table was a bit tree-like, too.

  Crap. Stop thinking! She can read your mind.

  “Come, little sister,” the Wise One said, not moving a muscle.

  “Hi. It’s an honor to meet you.”

  The Wise One’s eyes were rheumy and clouded white, and Sagely realized she couldn’t see her. But her eyes crinkled at the corners with a kind smile when Sagely sat before her. Blind or not, she definitely sensed Sagely’s presence.

  Her hands rested on the table, palms up. With an almost imperceptible nod, she said, “Put your hands in mine.”

  Quill rested a large, comforting hand on Sagely’s shoulder and gave her a nod of encouragement. She swallowed hard and rested her hands in the gnarled claws in front of her. With lightning speed, the Wise One’s wrinkled hands snapped shut on Sagely’s. With a start, Sagely tried to pull away, but the older woman’s hands clamped down like they were made of iron instead of brittle old bones. Magic zinged up and down Sagely’s arms as the Wise One dragged her towards her until the edge of the table dug into her belly.

  She leaned down, examining Sagely’s squished palms the same way Quill had done by the waterfall. Sagely wondered what she was looking for with those cataract-eclipsed eyes. Suddenly, she pictured the white film over the vulture’s eyes, and she shuddered.

  The Wise One didn’t seem to notice. “Fascinating,” she muttered. “Your magic…I remember your magic.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible,” Sagely said with a nervous laugh. “I didn’t have magic until a few days ago.”

  “Ah,” the Wise One said, lifting her head and raising one hand to shake a finger at Sagely. “But your magic has existed since the beginning of time.”

  “Right,” Sagely said, letting out a breath of relief that the old woman had released one of her hands from her death grip. “Magic can’t be created or destroyed.”

  Quill gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

  “Exactly right,” the Wise One croaked, sounding pleased. “And your magic…I have not seen this type since I was a little girl.” She sat back, her milky eyes going somewhere far away. “They said it was all gone. That all the void magic was bound and given to the fae to hide where it would never be found.”

  “Fae? As in faeries?”

  “The very same.”

  Sagely took a moment to process that, but she decided it was not her main concern just now. “But I have Quill’s magic,” she reminded the Wise One.

  “Yes, there is that, too,” the Wise One said with a mischievous smile deepening her wrinkles. “And no small amount of it. It’s no wonder you are so smitten with each other. It makes for quite a bonding experience. Among other…benefits.”

  Sagely’s face flushed hot.

  “What about her ability to create something from thin air?” Quill asked.

  “Ah, yes,” the Wise One said, smoothing Sagely’s crushed palm out in her hand like a crumpled note. “Our magic is always creative or destructive. As is yours. But you, my child, you have magic that is not of this world.”

  Sagely shook her head. “No, that’s not possible.”

  “And yet, it is so.”

  “I’ve never had magic before. If it didn’t come from Quill, where did it come from?”

  “Have you had strange coincidences?” Raina asked from behind her, as if she was coaxing Sagely to give the right answer. “Something you wanted that happened seemingly by magic? Are you lucky beyond normal odds?”

  “No,” Sagely said, shaking her head. “Nothing. Believe me, I could have used some luck in my life.”

  The Wise One leaned down to study her captive palm again. “Your magic, it is the stuff of legends. We called it void magic. It is the magic of nothing, not of any element. The magic between stars, of the silence between music notes that makes the song, of the spaces between atoms.” She traced the lines in Sagely’s palm with a long, yellowed fingernail.

  “Long ago, it was confused with dark magic, because much destruction and chaos came about when it was used. But like all magic, it has the potential to be used for either destruction or creation.”

  “But where did it come from?” Sagely insisted. A memory slammed into her, jarring her teeth together. That man standing over her, like…

  The space between atoms. The void between stars. A black hole.

  “It was from that man who attacked me, isn’t it? He did something to me.”

  “No,” the Wise One said, patting her hand. “Bound magic cannot be used. It is trapped within, passed from one generation to the next.”

  She swallowed hard. “So my parents…?”

  “Yes, that must be it,” the Wise One said, nodding slowly. Her bones creaked and popped at the slight movement.

  “Okay,” Sagely said. “Okay. Let me get this straight. Some weird kind of magic that was mostly used for evil was bound up and stuck in random people, including one of my ancestors, and it was passed down every time one of them had children.”

  “Not random people,” Quill said, his voice rough and deep with emotion. “Faeries.”

  “Great. Lovely. Two days ago, I was just a regular person. A commoner, as you so snootily put it. And now I’m some kind of weird witch-faery hybrid. This is a lot to take in.”

  “The faerie blood is faint within you,” the Wise One said. “That has been diluted. But the magic, it is bound in one parcel. You have the same magic as the first faery who was gifted it. It passes from first born to first born.”

  “My mother, then,” Sagely murmured, a memory rising. Her mother lying in bed with her, reading her fairytales over and over until she fell asleep. Sagely never reached the argumentative or rebellious teen years with her mother, so their relationship would always remain as it was when her mother died—sweet, simple. As a child, she’d thought her mother as beautiful as a queen, the fairest
of them all, with her auburn hair falling against her pillow in the warm lamplight, and her voice that never ran out no matter how many times she read Rumpelstiltskin.

  The Wise One smiled and released her aching hand at last. “Tell me about this man who attacked you.”

  Sagely quickly filled her in on the attack that she’d thought was random. The attack that still might have been, or it might have been someone trying to find Quill, trying to steal his magic.

  “No,” the Wise One said, shaking her head. “Trying to steal your magic.”

  For an instant, Sagely was too startled to speak. Then she remembered. The old woman could read her mind.

  “Why would anyone want my magic? You said it can’t be used.”

  “I said bound magic can’t be used,” the Wise One said, shaking her finger at Sagely, her wrinkles creasing even deeper with her smile. Little pouches of skin hung above and below her milky eyes, almost obscuring them when she smiled. “Void magic, however, can be used like any other. Once it is unbound.”

  “So, you’re saying that wasn’t an accident? Someone didn’t just run me off the road because my car was the one that passed at that particular moment? And it wasn’t someone after Quill.”

  Her head swam with a million questions, thoughts, furies. For some reason, knowing that the man had run her off the road intentionally, that he’d slit her throat as part of a premeditated plan, made it so much worse than if she was just a random girl who got attacked on a dark road at night. It was worse than being killed senselessly, as a mistake, because someone stopped her car and not Quill’s.

  It wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t random. He knew exactly who she was. And he’d slit her throat like she was nothing more than a hog at a slaughter.

  This shit just got personal.

  “Be careful,” the Wise One said. “Anger is a fuel that more often burns up the host than the intended victim.”

  “I thought I was the intended victim here,” Sagely reminded her. “I’d be dead if it weren’t for Quill.”

  “He’s a good one, isn’t he?” the Wise One asked, the crinkles at the corners of her eyes deepening further when she smiled. “He’ll be a fine addition to anyone’s collective.”

  “Okay, that’s probably enough for now,” Quill said. “You both need rest, and I’m sure you need time to process all this, Sagely.”

  “For sure,” Sagely said. All she wanted was to crawl into bed and curl up with Muffy and take a long nap. To wake up and find that there wasn’t some psycho out there trying to kill her for a parcel of magic she didn’t even know she possessed. “But first, I need to get my cat.”

  Sixteen

  After breakfast the next morning, they all gathered in the main cavern, and Sagely addressed the coven for the first time. “I admit, I was unsure about staying here. I like my life back home. But now that I know that guy was trying to kill me, I accept that I probably do need to stay here. Not because I can do crazy magic stuff, but because this guy is still out there.”

  “And now he’s going to come here,” Raina muttered. Majori Yordine gave her the evil eye, and she shut up, though Sagely could see she did it grudgingly.

  “But I do need to go home and get my stuff,” Sagely went on. “I give you my word, I’ll come back. I’m not trying to escape. We’ll do the induction ceremony as soon as I get back. But I need to say goodbye to my Tae Kwon Do students, give notice to the studio, get my clothes, pay out the rest of my rental contract on my apartment. I can’t just waltz off and join a coven like I don’t have responsibilities back in the real world.”

  “Out of the question,” Quill said. “I’ll go and take care of those things. You can’t leave here, Sagely. Not two days after a dark warlock basically murdered you for your magic.”

  A couple of the other witches nodded.

  “I need to do this myself,” Sagely said. “I’m not passing off my obligations to someone else. Whoever he was, he’s not going to jump me the second I leave this burrow. Obviously, since we left yesterday.”

  “That’s different,” he said. “We’re all here. We can protect you. Now that we know you have a lost magic, we have a duty to protect you.”

  “We do,” agrees Majori Yordine.

  “I can protect myself.” She stared Quill hard in the eye, but he didn’t back down.

  “No,” he growled. “I’m going. And you’re staying here.”

  “Like hell,” she said. “I have an obligation to those kids. I’m already leaving them. The least I owe them is an explanation and a goodbye. And besides, my cat won’t come with a stranger.”

  “I’m sure I can manage a cat.”

  They stared each other down. Sagely was not used to this side of Quill, so commanding and domineering, but on her behalf. He was scared for her welfare, she realized as she caught the strains of their magic flowing between them. She softened a little when she felt the concern and protectiveness coming off him.

  “You can come with me,” she said. “That’s as far as I’ll relent.”

  “That’s fair,” Majori Ory said.

  “No,” Quill shouted, slamming his fist down on the stone table. Sparks exploded from his fist. “She’s not safe out there. If I hadn’t come along at just that second…” He stopped and drew a shaky breath. “What if I can’t protect her?” His voice was low now, so low they could hardly hear the question, which he’d directed at the Majoris.

  “Then no one can,” Majori Yordine said just as softly, as evenly.

  “I will go in her place,” Quill said, his eyes locked on Yordine’s. “There is no reason she needs to risk her life just to sign some forms and pay some bills.”

  They glared at each other, a silent communication seeming to pass between them. A flare of jealousy lit up within Sagely. She liked sharing Quill’s magic, picking up on his emotion. She didn’t want someone else doing the same with him, or having some telepathic link to him that she didn’t have.

  “My cat,” she said. “She’s my familiar. I need her, and she needs me. And I’m not going to let you put some sleeping spell on her to get her here. I’ll pack up and take care of my business, and you can come to protect me, or you can stay here. Those are your choices.”

  Of course, he had other choices. He was stronger than her in every way. He could bind her magic, or her body, or put a sleeping spell on her. He could probably overpower her in a hundred ways.

  But the fight seemed to go out of Quill then, and she felt a little bad—but only a little. She was not going to let this coven run her life just because she was new at this whole magic thing. She refused to let a man dictate who she saw and said goodbye to. But she had to admit, it was hot seeing him get so passionate at the thought of any harm coming to her.

  “If you’re afraid you can’t protect her on your own, take a few others for backup,” Majori Yordine said quietly.

  “I can protect her,” Quill growled. But after a second, he said, “Raina and Shaneesha? Are you up for a field trip?”

  Raina? Was he serious? If the man in black showed up, Raina would probably throw her in his path and take off running, all too happy to be rid of her.

  Seventeen

  The next morning, they headed out. The four of them squeezed into the cab of a Datsun pickup truck, leaving the bed empty for Sagely’s stuff. She’d never been overly attached to her things, probably because she wasn’t able to take them with her to move from one foster home to the next. But she would like to have her clothes, her cat, and her litter box at the very least.

  Halfway there, her magic suddenly began to tingle, on high alert. Raina’s familiar, a baby seal with big adorable eyes, made a honking noise. Sagely sat up and looked around.

  “No magic,” Quill said, turning to frown at her, his own familiar slipping from his shoulder to stare out the window. When they’d loaded up that morning, Raina had raced to grab the front seat next to Quill, so Sagely was stuck in the tiny back seat like a kid. At least Shaneesha was friendly, making small
talk and asking about Sagely’s life in Fayetteville.

  After Sagely told her she was terrified of snakes, she put away her shiny green familiar. They’d spent most of the trip in comfortable silence, listening to the radio and dozing after the first part of the drive, when Sagely memorized each turn so that she could make it back when she needed to. But now, she sensed a flash of unfamiliar magic.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “We passed someone with magic, that’s all,” Quill assured her, reaching up to pat her hand, which was resting on the top of the front seat. “You don’t need to worry about it. If anything happens while we’re there, let us take care of it. That’s what we’re here for—to protect you.”

  Again, she glanced at Raina doubtfully. She wished Quill had chosen someone else, even if they had less power. Raina would probably trip her in the path of a bullet and say it was an accident.

  Quill squeezed her hand. “You’re safe with us,” he said, and she wondered how much of her emotion he could pick up. Did he know her suspicion was aimed at Raina alone? It pained her to think that he might feel it as suspicion towards him or the coven.

  “If that guy is out to kill me, he might have looked up where I live,” Sagely said, shivering. She imagined her meek roommate trying to fend off Viziri, if it really had been him. If Sagely was helpless against him, Annie has no chance. Finding her chopped up in their apartment as a warning suddenly became a possibility.

  “We won’t let anyone hurt you,” Quill promised. “Just lay low, don’t draw attention, and take care of whatever business you have. We’ll keep a lookout. And under no circumstances show your magic.”

  “What if someone is about to murder you, like last time?”

  “I don’t think you could get away with blowing up a guy in the middle of a town,” he said. “I mean it, Sagely. No magic. It’s the one sure way to lead every dark witch in the state to you.”

  “Fine,” she said, slumping back.

  “He’s right,” Shaneesha said. “A strong pulse of magic like that is a beacon for other witches. You felt that one drive by. What if they’d been broadcasting a signal, doing magic right then? You’d have felt it even stronger. And it takes a lot more to alter the course of life—to save or end a life.”