I wanted to drag him into the house with me, curl up on the couch, and just talk. Talk and talk like no one else was listening. I shook off the odd impulse, stepping away. Our still-linked hands stretched between us.
Aiden smiled at me, his teeth a flash of white in the darkness. Then he directed his attention over my right shoulder. “Go with Emma, please.”
Paisley stepped from between the nearest two apple trees, the darkness clinging to her in a way that let me know she hadn’t been traveling just through our dimension. She was still in her large pit bull aspect, but was now carrying her spellbook and her bovine bone in two of her tentacles.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cerise flinch.
Paisley chuckled darkly. Prowling across the grass toward Aiden, she offered the spellbook and the bone to him.
He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Do I need these?”
She pressed the spellbook into his hand, then tapped it with the thicker end of the bone. She then touched the bone to Aiden’s chest, over his heart.
He grinned down at her. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll ask you for it if I need it, but I think it’s more important that you keep it right now.”
Paisley grunted agreeably, tucking the bone and the spellbook away in her invisible mane. It had always been clear that the demon dog’s mane hid some sort of access to a storage space in another dimension, but I still had no idea how it worked.
“I need to focus, Aiden,” Cerise called out, using that soft, almost childlike tone she kept lapsing into.
“Good night,” I murmured, but just to Aiden. I ignored the witch treating my hospitality — our hospitality — as if it was her due. I reluctantly let go of his hand, turning back to the house. “Paisley?”
The demon dog lumbered alongside me without protest.
We crossed the patio, entering the house and catching no sign of Khalid. He wasn’t guarding the front door or the barn door. Perhaps, given Kader’s rejection, the sorcerer had decided to leave his father to his fate.
Isa had moved into the front sitting room, and was currently sprawled across the couch with his head thrown back, deeply asleep. Reference texts, notebooks, and paper — much of it folded or tucked into envelopes as if Isa had been magically sending and receiving letters for hours — were strewn over the sorcerer’s chest and legs, as well as the coffee table.
Paisley started nosing around the spellbooks.
If either Christopher or Aiden had fallen asleep with his neck cranked like Isa’s was, I would have woken him. But I was either feeling vindictive or not in the mood to deal with any sorcerers — other than the one who should have been in my bed. So I left Isa alone.
I likewise left Paisley to her rooting around, heading upstairs. I was exceedingly aware that the sorcerers weren’t going to be spending the night in their rented rooms at the lodge.
But they’d be gone tomorrow. And if Paisley had her way, Isa’s exhausted nap wouldn’t end well. I grinned at the thought.
Then I hesitated at the top of the stairs.
A gentle pulse of magic hummed around the edges of the closed door to my upstairs sitting room. I couldn’t sense what or who was within the room. Or what they were casting.
Honestly, who had decided to let these sorcerers and witches just run around my property?
Right.
Me.
I grasped the door handle. It resisted my attempt to turn it. Not feeling particularly diplomatic, I thrust my shoulder against the door — along with a pulse of my magic. The door opened. Hopefully, I hadn’t torn it from the hinges.
Inside, moonlight spilled in through the windows, gently lighting Grosvenor and Sky where they were tangled together on the couch. The curse breaker was partially on top of the witch, and naked to the waist. A circle of bright-blue symbols was tattooed on the back of his right shoulder. Runes, most likely, but it looked almost like a brand of some sort.
Sky’s right hand was deeply buried within the front of Grosvenor’s undone pants. The witch was also partly naked, her skin pale in the moonlight, her skirt bunched up around her waist. Grosvenor was cupping one of her breasts, and bent over the other.
The curse breaker spun toward the door, quickly discovering that he couldn’t move far without Sky releasing her grip on his genitals. And, before he could have possibly identified the intruder — namely me — he had already muttered a curse. It flew across the room toward me.
I could have sidestepped it. But again, there really were too many people in my house and it really wouldn’t hurt for them to understand who they were dealing with when they flung magic around without thinking first.
The curse hit me in the chest, exploding maliciously. It tried to chew on my magic, then withered, curled up on itself, and dissipated.
I kept my expression neutral and my eyes locked to the curse breaker for the time it took the magic to die.
Grosvenor’s hand still hovered in the air from flinging the curse. His jaw dropped.
“Immune to that one,” I said, smiling. “Good try though.”
Fear flickered through the curse breaker’s eyes. No doubt, he was trying to figure out how many times someone would need to be hit with the same curse, over and over again, to gain immunity to it. My resistance was mostly due to all the magic I’d stolen from so many different Adepts, over all the years that the Collective had controlled the Five, but Grosvenor didn’t need to know that.
“Emma?” Sky whispered, withdrawing her hand from Grosvenor’s pants and placing it on his shoulder. As if getting ready to hold him back. It also let me know that she was currently underneath the sorcerer of her own free will — as did the fact that the spell on the door had been cast by a witch.
“The spell sealing the door,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
They nodded in tandem.
“It only draws attention.”
“Okay,” Sky whispered. Her eyes were wide.
I stepped back into the hall. “And clean the couch when you’re done.”
“Of course,” Grosvenor said, his voice roughened by adrenaline.
The door scraped against the doorjamb as I closed it. Apparently, I’d loosened at least one of the hinges.
“Did you see her cast a countercurse?” Grosvenor asked in a low mutter.
“No. It just hit and rolled off her.”
“Fuck.”
“Do you … want to stop?”
“Fuck, no,” he growled.
I thought about calling out to tell them I could still hear them, but I continued on to my bedroom instead. I didn’t need to frighten the sorcerers and the witches any more than I already had.
Paisley was sprawled across my bed and appeared to be reading a multitude of Isa’s papers at the same time.
“You know Isa is trying to help,” I said, shutting the bedroom door. “And that cage never would have held you.”
Paisley snarled quietly.
I closed the space between us, maintaining eye contact. “I’d like you to return to Christopher before dawn.”
She narrowed her eyes at me.
“I know you want to help … but I …” I shook my head. “I don’t trust anyone other than Aiden. And I’m worried they’ll try to hurt you if you interfere with the casting in any way tomorrow. I need you to make certain that Christopher is okay. Will you do that for me?”
Paisley grumbled, shuffling through the papers disgruntledly.
I sighed, caressing her head. “And please return the papers to Isa when he wakes. Unless you find something that might help us.”
The demon dog pressed her nose into my inner elbow, then pointedly ignored me. I didn’t want to turn my requests into orders. But I would if she got anywhere near Cerise’s casting.
I left Paisley to her investigations, washing my face and changing into a short nightgown. The demon dog had wandered off again, with the papers, by the time I tugged my curtains closed and crawled into bed.
I lay in the darkness, thinking I
wasn’t going to be able to sleep with all the magic percolating through the house. But I must have dozed off, because the next thing I was aware of was Aiden crawling into bed with me. He was carrying enough residual energy that I could feel it radiating from him, even though he was careful not to touch me.
He set an alarm. The light on his phone winked out as he lay back with a sigh. I shimmied into him, and he curled around me obligingly.
We fell asleep.
Chapter 9
When it was time, I brought my blades. I had actually left the house, following Aiden out into the predawn, then turned back for them. I was tired of the games, tired of waiting. Either Cerise would untangle the working on Aiden and Kader, or I would hack through whatever stood in my way.
Experience also told me that whether or not Cerise lifted the spell on him, Kader wasn’t going to just walk away. And Isa’s and Khalid’s motivations were also unclear. Would they try to strike at their father in his weakened state? By that same measure, I didn’t completely understand Sky either — especially factoring in the secret relationship with Grosvenor.
It was fairly clear to me, and Kader, that Cerise was responsible for the strangeness I’d been feeling. The mood control. But maybe I was wrong. Isa or Khalid, or even one of Aiden’s sisters, could be playing a very long game. Pointing all the evidence toward Cerise for reasons that I couldn’t see yet.
As far as I could tell, Paisley wasn’t on the property. The demon dog rarely missed a chance to study magic, but I was hopeful that she’d stay away as I’d requested.
Cerise was waiting for us all, dressed head to toe in white lace. She stood, feet bare, in the orchard grass of the broad clearing, along the western curve of the large circle, facing east toward the rising sun. Her dress glowed softly — as did the eight smaller secondary rings set outside the main circle. As I drew nearer, the second-last to arrive, I realized that the smaller rings were actually large lace doilies, each one a different design. All of them pulsing with light.
Moon-fueled?
There was no way that Cerise had knit or knotted — or however lace was made — eight doilies big enough for an adult to stand on overnight. She’d been building the elements of this removal spell since she’d arrived. Perhaps even before that.
Except she couldn’t have known that eight Adepts, plus Kader, would be at the house before she’d arrived herself.
We’d each been assigned a doily — directed to our proper places with a nod from the elder witch — just as we’d been assigned seats at the first dinner. Mine was directly opposite Cerise’s. An empty spot sat to my right, then there was Aiden, then Sky. Grosvenor was on my left, then Isa, and then Ocean. Each of us just close enough that we could have touched fingertips, but too far to link hands.
Kader was standing within the main circle, but close enough to my assigned spot that I could have reached out to take his hand. He was wearing his tan-colored suit, but his feet were bare in the grass. I would have expected Cerise to have placed him in the center of the circle, not closer to one side, since he was the focus of the spell. But I had never seen a moon-fueled, dawn-triggered spell before, so I had no frame of reference.
Khalid was the last to arrive. Like the rest of us, he paused a step away from the lace doily that had been assigned to him. Its design was simple, with just two thick lines of lace slashed through it. My own doily was intricate — lace flowers and leaves adhered to a spiderweb of tiny stitches.
The flowers looked like apple blossoms. Though it was possible that my overactive brain was trying to sort through all the puzzle pieces that had led up to this point, and I was now reading into everything I saw and heard.
But if I was admitting that — even if just to myself — I could also admit that all the lace patterning reminded me of the game the witches and sorcerers had been playing in the kitchen.
“Join me, please,” Cerise said, opening her hands outward and then sweeping them in cupped toward her chest. Her voice was heavy with magic, nothing remotely childlike about it now. “It is time to end the discord between our families. Kader is right.” She nodded her chin toward the elder sorcerer benevolently. “The union between us resulted in Aiden, and he … is … cherished.”
I glanced at Aiden. He was watching his mother closely, but didn’t appear thrown by her abrupt change of heart. Presumably they had talked while setting up the spell. Perhaps he’d helped his mother sort through the situation?
Or whatever power Cerise was channeling prevented him from seeing the change, even as my immunity was deflecting it.
Though the tension in Kader’s shoulders informed me that I wasn’t the only wary one. Both Sky and Ocean looked even more serene than Aiden. Grosvenor was listening intently, scanning the layout and structure of the spell circles as if committing them to memory. Isa was expressionless, stone faced.
Beside me, Khalid’s eyes were narrowed on Cerise.
“Your place, please, Emma,” Cerise said. “Before the dawn breaks. And Khalid …” She gestured with her right hand, as if guiding us into place. Then she cried out, “No! Not the blades! Emma!”
My bare foot was hovering over the lace doily. I paused, just looking at the witch. She was going to have to explain herself if she wanted me to put down my weapons.
“The … spell …” She stumbled over the word. That was telling. “It is far too delicate to bring a sharp edge to it. Set them within reach if it gives you comfort …”
That was some sort of dig. Thankfully, I was also immune to stupidity.
Mostly.
“Aiden?” I asked.
The dark-haired sorcerer looked thoughtful. “All blades?” Aiden asked his mother. “Or just the ones that Emma is carrying?”
Frustration flashed across Cerise’s face before she smoothed her expression. “Emma is going to need her hands. If she raises the blades to the sides, she might compromise the spell. Hurry, please.”
I crouched to set the blades on either side of the lace doily when Cerise spoke up again.
“Behind you would be better, dear.”
I set the blades behind my feet, hilts toward the circle. I could pivot and grab them just as easily as dropping into a crouch.
I glanced over at Khalid, the two of us the last to step into our individual circles. “Anything you’d like to share with the rest of us?” I asked him, since he was the most sensitive to magic among us. I didn’t bother to be quiet about it.
He opened his mouth as if it took effort to do so. “The spell looks fine to me. I would have thought it to be overkill for a simple reversal.”
“If it were simple,” Sky snapped, “you’d have figured it out months ago.”
“Please,” Cerise murmured. “Breathe. Release the negativity. Just breathe. Breathe love in and breathe love out.”
I stepped onto my doily, feeling the dawn slowly creeping up behind me. Khalid took his place to my right. Grosvenor was already standing in place to my left. Now that I was a step closer to Kader in the main circle, my view of Cerise directly across from both of us was partially impeded.
“Feel the ground beneath your feet,” she intoned. “The strength of your physical body, rooted, solid. Breathe from deep within.”
Cerise’s directions were starting to sound like a few of the yoga classes I’d tried. Witch spells were generally more arcane. Or at least more poetically bent.
The sunrise was right behind me now. I wasn’t certain why I was feeling it so acutely.
Magic rustled around us, as if the trees and the earth were waking from a long slumber. All the hair rose on the back of my neck and across my arms. Something was coming. Stalking forward.
Something that had been stalking … me.
For days.
I’d been trying to figure out which one of Cerise or Aiden’s other family members had been trying to control me, to gently beguile us all. But this … feeling … this flare of pure instinct was something else. I looked to Aiden to see if he was sensing what
I was, but his gaze was on his mother as he took deep, full breaths.
Ocean, Sky, and Grosvenor were doing the same. Isa and Khalid were watching Cerise, though the wariness had drained from their expressions.
The sunrise was creeping across the yard, hitting the back of my heels. Triggering the moon-fueled spell on which I stood. It flared across the intricate lacy webbing of the doily under my bare feet. Energy hummed up my legs. Then, as the dawn continued to slip forward, it ignited Grosvenor’s and Khalid’s circles, then the large central circle.
Bright-white magic, slightly tinged with blue, began to spiral around me as the spell gained power. It rose to my ankles, then my knees, then my thighs. Encasing me, but not touching.
The lace doilies under Isa and Aiden flared. Nearer to me, magic spiraled around Grosvenor’s and Khalid’s ankles and began to slowly rise.
The circles around Ocean and Sky flared.
Kader glanced around, turning just enough that I caught sight of Cerise’s lace doily flaring under her as well. The power in the doily appeared slightly dingy in contrast to Cerise’s pure-white dress.
Wait. A white lace dress.
Was Cerise dressed as a bride?
And white power, white magic. Was moon-fueled witch magic white? Shouldn’t it still be a shade of blue?
I turned to Khalid. “White? Does the spell look white to you? Khalid!”
The dark-eyed sorcerer blinked, shaking his head, then looking at me.
“Does it look white to you?” I asked again.
He nodded, then frowned.
The central circle flared, energy streaking upward into the ever-brightening sky. I had to blink to regain focus. When I did, I found myself staring at Kader. He was examining the circle that now contained him.
Except he didn’t appear to be tied to it in any way. Not yet.
The energy churning around me settled slightly, intensifying into a spiral around my knees.
“Now,” Cerise intoned, not sounding at all like herself. “Now.” She began muttering quiet and lilted words that didn’t sound like French to me. Witches often spoke their spells out loud, though usually not —
Idols and Enemies (Amplifier 4) Page 26
