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

by Lena Mae Hill

  “He did what?” Quill leapt to his feet, sending out a shock-wave of anger and pain that made her step back. He grabbed his head in both hands and turned away, breathing hard.

  “Let me see,” Raina said, slinking from the bed and approaching. She bent Sagely’s fingers back and peered at the stone lying on her palm.

  Sagely cut her eyes at Quill, silently asking if he was okay, but Raina still wouldn’t look her face in the face. She pinched the stone between the tips of all her fingers and picked it up.

  “Are you okay?” Sagely asked Quill. “He said it can show me what happened to my parents. That’s the only reason I took it.”

  “I’m fine,” he said, dropping his hands and slumping onto the bed. “It’s fine. I wasn’t there to protect you, and he was.”

  “Um, if by protect me, you mean try to gnaw a hole in my throat, then yeah. Otherwise, no.”

  “Right.” He raised his eyes to hers, and she could feel the wounded edge still under his words, although he sounded normal enough. She had already filled him in on everything else that had happened, on the meeting between the witches and fae. Though she didn’t stick around for the treaty-signing, she’d told him everything else. Except for the stone.

  She didn’t know why she’d kept it secret. Maybe because she knew it carried some weight even when Fox gave it to her. She shouldn’t have taken it, she could see now. Not if it hurt Quill.

  “I can give it back,” she said. “But I want to see what happened first.”

  “No,” he said, holding up a hand. “This is part of being a warlock. Being one of several, or many, husbands to the woman we love. Supposedly, it makes us stronger. But that’s a strength I haven’t yet mastered.”

  She went to him then, and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her lips to his. “You’re the only one I want,” she told him. “You’re the man I love, and I want to make you happy as much as you want to make me happy. So stop worrying about a stone I took without knowing its meaning.”

  “Then stop worrying about someone I was with before I met you,” he countered. “Yes, I had a relationship with Raina, but we’re only friends now. There is absolutely nothing between us. Absolutely nothing I would ever do to jeopardize what I have with you, Sagely.”

  “He’s right,” Raina said from behind her. “I meant what I said last night, when I told you he’s all yours. I can see this is what you both want. I won’t stand in the way of that.”

  “See, you have nothing to worry about,” Quill said, smiling and rubbing the tip of his nose back and forth across Sagely’s. “I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you that I had to save you, even if I was killed trying. I knew you were someone who mattered. Someone who was going to change my life. I just didn’t know how much.” His hands slid around her back, and he pressed her body to his, his lips finding hers.

  The magic between them was different now, darker and more animal, but also stronger. She couldn’t tell which was their promise to join in a collective, and which was the fact that they’d both killed someone now. They were both “impure” witches.

  Raina cleared her throat, and Sagely dropped from her tiptoes and pulled away quickly, her face flaming. She’d forgotten Raina was there. Even if she still didn’t completely trust Raina, she respected her. And she didn’t want to rub this in her face when Raina was obviously hurt that Quill had chosen Sagely over her. But she just had.

  Raina frowned down at the cloudy white stone, still pinched between her fingertips. “You have to put it into your mirror somehow. Like into the frame, or bind it on somehow. Then you look into the mirror and open yourself. Open the channel of your witch magic the way you did yesterday. Give your faerie powers permission to show you.”

  She dropped the stone into Sagely’s hand. Though she’d been holding it for a few minutes, it was still cool to the touch, the iridescent shine churning slowly inside it. The muscle in Quill’s jaw clenched, and he looked away.

  “Thanks,” Sagely said.

  “You know that’s very powerful,” Raina said as she turned away. “You can basically spy on anyone, anytime, unless they’re blocking you somehow.”

  “Which means Fox gave up his ability to spy on you,” Quill said bitterly.

  “I guess that explains how he found us both times at just the right moment.” Sagely was relieved to know he couldn’t see her now, although he could have another one. From the reaction when he’d given it to her, though, she doubted that was the case.

  Though Quill offered to watch with her in case the scene upset her too much, she turned him down. She needed to do this alone. He looked a little hurt but stayed back, assuring her he’d be right there if she needed him. All she had to do was call to him through their bond.

  The mirror atop her old dresser was an attached oval one with ornately carved vines around it, painted pale yellow like the dresser. She slipped behind it and pushed the stone into a carved loop, but it slipped through and fell to the surface of her dresser. After retrieving it, she wedged it in a tight curl at the top of the mirror.

  When she sat in front of it again, she closed her eyes and set her hands on top of her dresser, palms up, as if meditating. She opened herself, letting in the flow of magic in the caverns and all around her. Making herself receptive to whatever it showed, no matter how scary or upsetting it might be.

  When she opened her eyes, she was startled to find herself somewhere else. It was as if she was transported from the cavern to a mountainside. This was definitely not where her parents were killed. Snow was thick on the ground, and a biting wind whistled nearby. Her heart was hammering painfully, and something was coming. She recoiled in fear, only to drop back into her body. Her heart was racing and her breathing came short.

  Taking a deep breath, she tried again. Again, she was on the mountain. This time, she knew she was in someone else’s memory, that it wasn’t real, and she made herself stay. Someone was crouched beside her—someone safe, whom she loved. They were waiting together, sharing their fear like a last slice of bread. When a sleigh came into view, her heart pulsed so hard black spots appeared before her eyes.

  “Wow,” the boy beside her breathed. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  She was. The woman looked like a queen, riding in her sleigh, pulled by two snow-white horses. As if she could sense them, her head swiveled their way. A crown of lilac braids circled her head, dusted with snow like powdered sugar. Though the day was dark and wind howled across the snow, when the woman smiled, the air around her seemed to brighten, as if a sunbeam was coming from within her.

  But Sagely felt only sickening dread when the woman smiled, her teeth like needles.

  “A faery,” she breathed.

  “She’s calling me,” the boy said, standing unsteadily.

  “NO!” Sagely whisper-screamed, grabbing his coat sleeve. But it was too late. The faery had seen them, and her eyes fixed on his with the intensity of a laser. As if in a trance, her brother—because she knew that was what he was—stepped forward.

  “I’m coming,” he said.

  “What are a pair of water witches doing on a mountain in the snow?” the woman asked, her voice teasing and chiding at the same time.

  “We live here,” her brother said.

  “You must live near water or your magic will freeze as solid as this horrid stuff. I should know. I’m a sea faery myself. Only by special enchantment am I able to come here. But as luck would have it, I’m on my way back to the sea now. Come along, I’ll take you with me.”

  Sagely felt the truth in the woman’s words, even as terror immobilized her. Her magic had not been unlocked, so she did not yet know her element. But despised the cold, hated the snow and the frozen ground under her feet. In all her life, she’d never seen the sea, but in some deep part of her bones, she knew that was where she belonged.

  “She’s right,” her brother whispered, crouching next to her. “If I don’t go, I’ll die, Raina. I know I will. And you will, too. We don’t belong
here. I’ll go with her and find ways to stall her. You go home and tell mother where I went. Then follow the tracks of the sleigh and join us.”

  Raina crouched behind the boulder, her fingers aching hatefully with cold. She wanted to leap out and drag her brother to safety. Their mother had warned of the Goblin King and the Snow Queen, who would take them away and steal their power. But although she knew better, she also wanted to dive into the sleigh with him, whip the horses into a frenzy, and fly down the mountain and away from this god-forsaken cold. She would never look back.

  And so she watched, envy sinking into her very bones, as her brother climbed into the sleigh. As soon as they disappeared into the snowy mountain pass, she leapt to her feet and ran after them, calling for them to wait. She’d come so close. She had to get out of there, too. They could send word back to their mother when they arrived at the sea. But already, the sleigh’s tracks were nearly gone, as if the horse had been dragging nothing more than feathers. When they disappeared altogether, Raina fell to her knees, sobbing.

  She knew in her bones they were never coming back for her.

  Sagely jerked back into her body, hiccupping. Her cheeks were soaking wet. It was so real that it took her a moment to remember why her cheek were warm when she wiped away the tears. She was not in the snowy mountains, a childhood version of Raina. But now she knew why Raina hated faeries so much. She had as much reason to be bitter over old losses as Sagely did.

  Shaking off the memory, Sagely took a deep breath and put her hands on the surface of the dresser again, in front of the mirror. Later, she could disect the reasons Raina had shared that memory with her. All she knew was that when Raina had taken the stone, she’d imparted that memory. A peace offering, perhaps, something she couldn’t say out loud, but that she wanted Sagely to know. It was the closest to apology she could offer.

  Pushing the memory aside, Sagely settled herself, wiped her hand on her shorts, and looked into the mirror again. This time, she didn’t just open a channel to it. She didn’t know who had put memories in this stone, but she was only interested in one of them. Raina said she could see anyone, at any time. So she opened herself and concentrated as hard as she could on her parents’ last moments.

  The memory swam up at her, and her heart clutched so hard she almost lost it. But she relaxed, and it came back into focus.

  Her parents were hiking on a trail that she recognized too well. The lookout trail at Devil’s Den—the same state park where she’d been the evening Viziri attacked. She shivered, and the memory began to slip. Grasping it firmly, she sank into it fully, so fully she was no longer herself. Like the last time, she became someone else, someone who had witnessed her parents’ death.

  Fox, she assumed.

  They walked up the trail towards him, over the stony trail and onto the ledge that jutted out over the valley below. It was fall out, and the valley was awash with reds, oranges, yellows, and rusts. Her dad had his arm around her mother.

  Somewhere far away, tears wet the lashes of a girl in a cavern bedroom.

  “I have to tell you something,” her mother said as they settled onto the flat stone, a good five feet from the precipice. They didn’t use picnic blankets, but her father untied a flannel shirt from around his waist and lay it down so her mother could sit. Her hair spilled in auburn waves over one shoulder, shining in the sun.

  Sagely watched from the eyes of someone transfixed, in awe of her mother’s beauty. Even though Fox knew he should get up and leave, that he was witnessing a private moment and he’d had his share of time alone on the point, he couldn’t leave.

  “Is everything all right?” her father asked, slipping an arm around her mother’s back.

  “I don’t know,” she said, laughing and sniffling at once. “I know we said one was enough, but…I’m pregnant.”

  Disappointment colored Fox’s admiration, though he could clearly see her mother was already taken. Being married and having a child were two separate things. One bond could be broken, the other could not.

  He started to turn away, deciding he’d had enough. It would only hurt to see this beautiful stranger sharing her life with someone else.

  Somewhere, Sagely’s body was screaming no, clinging to the memory. Was this all she’d get to see?

  But then she slipped back into it completely, because the person driving this memory wasn’t leaving. Footsteps approached at a quick clip, almost like the steps of a shod horse, sending shivers of dread spiraling along Fox’s spine. The terror was suffocating. He jumped to his feet, on high alert. Something evil was approaching.

  Sagely wanted to close her eyes, to scream, to tear herself out of this body that was not her own, but she was trapped, helpless to stop it, helpless to unsee what she was seeing.

  A man came bursting up the trail, out of breath, a long black coat swirling behind him. He had the same cloak and hat, but he wasn’t a black hole. He was very much a man, with an angular face that would have been handsome if not for the frenzy in his eyes. Ice turned her veins blue as he charged forward, gripped the woman who was her mother, and dragged her backwards on the stone.

  Stunned, Fox let out a single cry before Viziri punched her mother in the face. Her head crunched against the rock with a solid, sickening thud. Fox leapt forward, but her father had already grabbed Viziri by the shoulder, spun him around, and punched him in the jaw. Viziri reeled backwards, then grabbed her father by the arm and slung him around. Off balance, her father’s arms pinwheeled. He wrenched free, but he was too close to the edge.

  NO!

  Sagely couldn’t do this. She couldn’t watch, but she coudn’t stop watching as he stumbled backwards, terror ripping across his face as his feet scrabbled against the rocky edge of the precipice. But gravity was a force he couldn’t overcome, and he went down all at once. He was there one moment, and then gone.

  Sagely ripped herself back from it, tears streaming down her face. She was breathing so hard she had to grab the edge of the dresser to keep from keeling over. Her stomach churned, and she had to fight not to vomit.

  At last, she sat back, but the second she did, she saw the mirror, where the scene was playing on without her. The man in black was now hurling her mother over the point of the lookout, her head already bashed in and hanging at an impossible angle for a living person. Viziri was screaming and raging, running back and forth on the point, oblivious to the peril of the drop.

  With an anguished, enraged roar, he fell to his knees, clutched his head in his hands, and sobbed.

  Sagely pulled back from the vision, her veins clear as crystal and cold as arctic glaciers. She would find that devil and murder him with her bare hands if she had to. Just like he had murdered her beautiful, pregnant mother.

  She felt a tug. Startled, she looked up and saw Fox in the mirror. “I’m sorry I didn’t help,” he said, his face sober. Through the glass, she could study him without the unnatural attraction, which apparently did not convey secondhand. He was still gorgeous, with round chocolate brown eyes, red lips, and wavy black hair. “I was a child, and still, I knew what he wanted,” he said. “He wanted the void magic. Unlike your parents, I knew I had it within me. It is a burden to our people, not a gift, since we cannot use it. I was burdened with possessing this magic, and taught all my life to cloak myself with invisibility should someone come looking for it. So that’s what I did, although I wanted very much to help your mother. If you hate me, I’m sorry, though I doubt I could have saved her. I did what I had to do to save myself. I was a coward once, but I will make it up to you, if you’ll let me. I will protect you in a way I didn’t protect your parents.”

  She wanted to blame him, but she couldn’t. She knew exactly how it felt to be a helpless child against a stronger adult. When she’d been put in the bad foster situation, she’d done everything she could to protect herself. Everything an eight-year-old could. But it wasn’t always enough. So she knew all about being powerless against an insurmountable enemy.

 
; “If you have questions,” Fox said. “My troupe is gathering in three days. You may come then and speak with us about it, the truce, and which of my people have void magic. They will be anxious to return it to your kind.” He grinned. “I’ll be looking forward to seeing you especially.”

  With a swirl of mist, he vanished, leaving Sagely staring at her pale, stricken face.

  Thirty-Three

  The morning of the faerie visit dawned cool and smotheringly damp. Sagely could feel the air in the underground caverns clogging her lungs, the moisture sweating off the walls.

  “Hey,” Quill said sleepily from beside her, toying with her tangled red hair. “You look sexy in the morning.”

  “Hey, back,” she said, smiling up at him. “You look sexy all the time.”

  “Grrrr…” He growled and buried his face in her neck, inhaling her scent. “You better stop that.”

  “Stop what?” she teased.

  “Stop being so irresistible, damn it.”

  “Sorry,” she said lightly. “I can’t. I was born this way.”

  “Then we better get up,” he said. “We’ve got a big day ahead, and if we stay here another minute, we’re going to have to do something that takes all…day…long.”

  She laughed and sat up, pulling at the hem of her t-shirt. “You’re right. We better go. I need to talk to your sister, anyway.”

  “Well played, Little Red,” he said. “Mentioning my sister. Clever fox, you.”

  She laughed, but her mind strayed to Fox. Was he thinking about her visit, too?

  She had already told Quill what happened with the mirror. He’d been pissed that she hadn’t let him be there for moral support. But he got over it when she gave him the play-by-play, and let him comfort her for the rest of that day, and the night, of course. She had to admit, she’d been a mess, and it was a testament to his feelings for her that he could still love her after seeing her ugly cry for three hours straight.