Bonds and Broken Dreams (Amplifier 2)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  Another Azar sorcerer.

  I brushed my fingers over the rune Aiden had etched into the corner of my bureau, staring at it with a sinking feeling.

  The tension that had taken up residence in my chest while I searched the room had eased. The thought that someone had invaded my home, planting a device that allowed them to access my mind, had been slowly suffocating me.

  But as I pressed my palm over the rune, seeking out the magic that fueled it — and feeling nothing — that tension ramped up again, this time twisting and souring in my stomach.

  I glanced at Christopher as he stepped back into the doorway. His gaze was on my hand, already knowing the conclusion I was loath to draw.

  “I checked the other rooms on this floor,” he said, lifting his gaze to meet mine.

  I nodded. The clairvoyant was more sensitive to magic than I was. I could have had him check my room far more quickly than it had taken me. But I had to see for myself, know for myself. It had always been that way.

  I lifted my hand from the carved rune. Christopher stepped forward unbidden, brushing his fingers against it.

  “Dormant,” he murmured.

  “But it always is when Aiden hasn’t triggered it from his end.”

  “You said that you thought the black rose, the one Paisley ate, was witch magic. Magic learned from his mother.”

  “Yes. But that was set here, triggered by my touch. The letters are some sort of teleportation spell, aren’t they?”

  Christopher twisted his lips grimly. “Rune based, with a very narrow aperture. One that Aiden wouldn’t have left open if he thought it could be used to harm you in any way.”

  “Except runes like this one …” I tapped the carving, trying to address the issue rationally. “These are passed through families. And Aiden’s brother is in town.”

  “He never came upstairs.”

  “What are the chances he could have felt it? Say, from the kitchen?”

  Christopher nodded, just once.

  I held out my hand, silently asking for his weapon. He gave it to me, then turned away into the hall, heading downstairs. I laid the edge of the sword across the rune. Then, forcing myself to act, to remain rational, to ignore the clump of mixed emotions that had settled deeply in my stomach, I dragged the sharp blade across the rune, scoring the wood bureau deeply. Then I changed the angle and ran it across again.

  Destroying the rune. Breaking the tiny point of connection that Aiden had cast while hoping we could forge a deeper connection through it.

  I shoved the irrational thought away. I’d be seeing the sorcerer soon enough, and then we’d have no need to exchange letters. Discussions about his brother — and if the rune could have been accessed by him, or even Ruwa — would be had in person.

  I grabbed a sweater, swapping my robe for it and flicking off the light as I followed Christopher downstairs. Triggered by the sudden darkness, perhaps, the image of the witch girl — bleeding, dying on the floor of the warehouse — hovered before me. I blinked it away.

  I didn’t even know her name.

  Chapter 3

  Though Christopher and I found nothing pointing to any magic or any Adept having set foot on the property — the snowfall made that oddly easy — the dream about the botched contract job in San Francisco continued to haunt me through the early morning. I didn’t like being haunted. So instead of simply lying there uselessly staring at the dark ceiling, I grabbed my iPad from my sitting room and climbed back into bed with it.

  After finding me prowling the perimeter of the property and grumbling at me until I’d returned to the house, Paisley was now taking up the entire bottom half of my bed. I hadn’t argued with the demon dog. She hadn’t needed to bribe me with ginger snaps to bring me home.

  Four emails occupied my inbox, but I ignored them in favor of composing a new message to my lawyer, Ember Pine. Ember worked for the law firm of Sherwood and Pine, based out of their Seattle office. All the associates, as far as I knew, were witches. Ember was particularly skilled in contract law, but she also drafted and held my will, and would oversee my estate should I die. She would make certain that Christopher and Paisley would be able to stay in Lake Cowichan if they chose to do so. The property taxes and other bills would all fall to her to oversee.

  I had no doubt that any one of the other three would step forward to take my place — Fish, Bee, or Zans. But I wanted Christopher to have options, and to be able to stay in the home we were still in the process of building. Just as long as the blood bond we shared didn’t kill the others when I died. I certainly wasn’t in a rush to test that particular theory.

  That I had first come to Ember with the expectation that something or someone would eventually kill me had been a bit off-putting for the lawyer witch. According to her, Adepts in their late twenties rarely took such extreme precautions. But she hadn’t questioned me beyond that.

  Though the San Francisco contract had been broken by the sorcerers when they attempted to kidnap me — perhaps even kill me — the money that backed it, along with the damages clause that had seen to the care of the witch child, had been automatically paid out. The bulk of that contract, along with the four other jobs I’d previously done without incident, was the foundation of my estate, along with the property in Lake Cowichan that was in Christopher’s name as well as mine.

  Beyond managing that estate and crafting the contracts for the jobs I’d taken on, Ember Pine had turned into a valuable resource. She supplied me with information when requested, occasionally sending unsolicited magical tomes when she found a text that she thought would complement my research into the transference of magic and magical bindings.

  Before washing them off in the rest stop bathroom, I hadn’t taken the time to transcribe the runes that had been inked on my skin in the young witch’s blood. Nor had I tried to recall the runes that had anchored the pentagram itself, also fueled by her blood. But I was certain that I would know them, know the spell they represented, if I saw them detailed in the pages of a sorcerer spellbook.

  And once I found that spell, I’d find the way to break it. Find the way I could have broken it without killing the child, without needing to be rescued by Christopher and Paisley.

  Because one day, the clairvoyant wasn’t going to see clearly. Some tricky predator was going to block his sight, and I would die.

  Hence the will and the estate.

  But I wouldn’t die trapped in a blood-magic-fueled pentagram by some sorcerer wielding runes that could be countered with a little knowledge. That, I could control.

  I started a new email, typing ‘Various questions’ into the subject line. Then I paused, thinking through the most concise way to ask about the witch girl, and to request information about Aiden’s visiting family members.

  I settled on:

  Ember —

  For your eyes only.

  I’m requesting any information you can obtain about the young witch who was extracted from the warehouse the evening the contract was broken in San Francisco (October 2017). Do you know of her whereabouts? Has anyone else enquired about her or about her connection to me?

  The second part of the second question was probably unnecessary. Ember would have informed me the moment anyone contacted the law firm asking about an amplifier connected to anything, not just specifically the witch. And as for the first part, if Ember was officially the witch child’s lawyer, she might not actually be able to speak to me on specifics.

  I’ve also recently been visited by Isa Azar and Ruwa (last name unknown), both of the Azar cabal. I am aware that Isa is the eldest son of Kadar Azar as well as Aiden Myers’s eldest brother. Ruwa is a cousin of Isa’s, though her mother was adopted. They share a grandfather. Would you please provide any other information you deem pertinent for both sorcerers?

  Specifically, would you look into any connection either of them might have to the witch child?

  Thank you in advance,

  Emma.

  I sent the email
, taking the time to delete three of the four others sitting in my inbox unread — all from Karolyn Dunn. Karolyn was the recruiter who’d arranged the previous contracts I’d taken. I didn’t blame her for San Francisco in any way, but I also wasn’t interested in taking any more jobs. But someone, or multiple someones, had been persistently looking to hire an amplifier of power. I averaged about an email a week from Karolyn. Three was unusual.

  I didn’t recognize the email address of the fourth message, so I tapped it open, scanning down to the signature.

  Fish.

  I hesitated, finger hovering over the Trash button. This was the fifth time that Fish — aka Daniel, aka Nul5 — had reached out electronically to me. He used a different email address, or at least he masked his main email address, each time he wrote. I had deleted the first four such messages unread, knowing that the nullifier was also in contact with Christopher. If there was anything we needed to know, any danger heading our way, Fish would tell Knox, not me.

  I just didn’t want to read yet another appeal to reunite the Five. Fish was volatile in person — mostly because I deliberately set him off. But I had no doubt he’d be persuasive in written form.

  And honestly, the dream had left me feeling vulnerable. Everything about the botched contract in San Francisco put me on edge, made me question the decisions I’d made leading up to that job. The ease with which someone had invaded my mind, pulling forth that memory in the form of a dream, then leaving no trace of their presence behind bothered me. Worried me, even. And worrying wasn’t a comfortable state of being for me. At some point, I would start alleviating my concerns, and bodies would start hitting the ground.

  Because the best way to stop an attack was to cut it off before it had even begun.

  That was Amp5’s decision-making process.

  If we had still been the Five, San Francisco never would have happened. If we were the Five, the entire property would have been shielded from magical attack, courtesy of Fish’s power. Against the Five, two unknown sorcerers would never have had the courage to pull up our driveway, let alone knock on the door.

  If we were the Five, Bee would have picked up on the psychic assault from the previous night, shredding the mind of any Adept who dared to walk through any of our dreams.

  But …

  If we were the Five, we wouldn’t have settled on a property in a small Canadian town in the first place. We wouldn’t have been slowly forming friendships with the locals.

  And there would be no Aiden in my life. No confused emotions or churning need. No desire. No letters or thoughtful gifts. No whispers of something that might be love. Chosen love — chemically triggered or otherwise. But not just a bond that had been foisted upon me, tattooed under my skin.

  A box announcing a new email flashed at the top of my screen. I’d never seen the program do that before. But then, I rarely emailed, then sat with the iPad open for any length of time. Somewhat glad to have an excuse to ignore Fish’s message a little longer, I clicked on the new email, opening Ember’s dashed-off reply. The witch lawyer was working before dawn.

  The child’s name is Opal. Born January 27, 2006.

  I blinked at the date, mentally calculating that the child who haunted my dreams was actually thirteen, not the nine-year-old I’d seen in my head.

  No surname that I was able to verify, nor was her birth registered with the Convocation. Parents/extended family also unknown (obviously). I placed her, with the Convocation’s blessing, with my cousin Capri Pine, whose family is based just outside Seattle. Opal ran away three times in the first six months, but passed the entry exam for the Academy with a high ranking last summer, and has been attending full time since September 2018. Last we spoke, about a month ago, Capri feels the focus has been good for Opal. She’s excelling. I believe there has been talk of a specialization, which is unusual for a first year.

  I’ve sent an email to Capri and will send you a more updated report later on today or tomorrow.

  The Academy. I didn’t know much about the Academy aside from its name and its existence. Part boarding school, part magical training center — and a part of the Adept world that the Collective had been set up to oppose.

  As for Isa Azar, I will write up an inquiry to a representative of the sorcerers League after I send this email to you. You currently have more information than I can offer without further investigation. The name Ruwa is unusual enough that I will attempt to source information for her as well, including the request into the League.

  That was as expected. Apparently, outside of the confines of the Collective, witches and sorcerers rarely mixed. Unless the sorcerer needed a lawyer, of course.

  Emma — on a personal note, I advise you to be cautious when interacting with any of the Azar cabal. After you informed me that Aiden Myers was actually a sorcerer of the Azar bloodline, I gave you what information I could source on him personally, then continued my investigations into the background of his familial lines, just in case you wanted to follow up. The Myers witch reputation is stellar among the Adept, as I’d mentioned. It has been centuries since a black witch has cropped up through their bloodline, as far as what has been documented through the Convocation and the law firm’s records. The same cannot be said for any of the other major witch bloodlines, excepting the Godfreys.

  But while I uncovered very little concrete intelligence about the Azars, the speculation and rumors are dark. Deeply so. Granted, witches are known for categorizing all sorcerers as uniformly dark. A sorcerer’s fundamental need to source and build their magic through the accumulation of artifacts and spells is completely at odds with how a witch draws her power, hence the built-in prejudice.

  None of Ember’s misgivings about the Azars was news to me, of course. But the fact that she was willing to reach out to a member of the sorcerers League indicated just how concerned the witch lawyer was. The Adept weren’t known for sharing information between species. And as far as I knew, the League held none of the power that the witches Convocation or the shapeshifter Assembly wielded over those under the authority of those bodies.

  And now that I’ve told you nothing you likely hadn’t already known, I shall endeavor to source some useful information.

  Ember Pine.

  I laughed quietly. We rarely communicated in person, or even over the phone, but I had long felt that the witch lawyer had known everything there was to know about me — Emma Johnson, not Amp5 — from our first conversation. She might not look up from her notepad all that often, but she was exceedingly bright.

  I read Ember’s email a second time, then turned off my iPad, leaving Fish’s email unread but not deleted. Then I wandered down to breakfast to distill what I’d learned for Christopher.

  I made ginger snaps, baking the entire batch instead of rolling and freezing two-thirds of the dough.

  It snowed.

  I cleaned. All three bathrooms, changing the sheets on all the beds, vacuuming and mopping all the floors.

  It continued to snow.

  Christopher cleared the front walk, started a fire, then went to check on the eggs still waiting to hatch in the incubator.

  I followed him out to the barn, pulling a large steak out of the barn fridge and practically forcing Paisley to eat it. We had relocated the older-model fridge to the barn after it was pulled out of the kitchen during the renovation. The demon dog was obsessing over watching the chicks hatch, though Christopher thought they still had three or more days to go.

  Then I scoured the suite in the loft of the barn, making up the bed and adding a heavier jacket, thick socks, and an extra pair of boots to the clothing already hanging in the closet.

  It was still snowing.

  I turned on the baseboard heater in the main room of the suite, then in the bathroom. I double-checked that there was still shampoo and soap in the shower.

  Christopher wordlessly appeared in the doorway of the suite as I stepped from the bathroom. The magic ringing the clairvoyant’s eyes silently informed m
e that I was triggering him.

  “Going to make him sleep in here, are you?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  The lights flickered suddenly.

  We paused, waiting. They settled, still on.

  Christopher grimaced. “I’ve set up the smaller generator for the incubator. Even an hour without power could ruin the entire hatch.”

  Lani had mentioned — multiple times while driving me home — that we should expect the power to go out if the snow started weighing down tree branches, or if the wind picked up.

  I turned off the lights, grabbing my bucket of cleaning supplies and stepping past Christopher, who was still lounging against the doorframe. “I should check the mail.”

  “It won’t have been delivered today. Not with the snow.”

  I glanced back at Christopher. “Not that kind of mail.”

  “Ah. I’ll walk with you.” He trailed behind me down the interior stairs.

  “The sorcerers wouldn’t be stupid enough to attack me on my own property.”

  “They showed up on our doorstep yesterday without a hint of concern.”

  I laughed quietly. “Not to worry. Isa Azar was far more on edge when he left than when he arrived.”

  Christopher snorted. “You do have that effect on people, Socks.”

  “I think it might have been you this time.”

  He chuckled.

  I dropped my cleaning bucket at the back door, stepping over to touch Paisley on the top of her broad head. She was sitting with her eyes directly in line with the incubator set on the wooden workbench that spanned the western wall of the barn under the loft.

  “Want to walk to the mailbox with me?” I asked the demon dog. I really needed to have a conversation with her about tracking the sorcerers to the hotel the previous day, but I wasn’t certain what to say. We three protected each other, so it was hard to ask her to go against her instincts. I was just slightly concerned that she’d left the property out of boredom. Because a bored demon dog was bound to draw attention we really didn’t need.