The Cursed Fae (Accessory to Magic Book 2)

by Kathrin Hutson

  ‘Hey, it’s standard security. No key, no entry.’ The bank’s slightly high-pitched, joking male voice entered Jessica’s mind.

  She let the door fall shut behind her and rolled her eyes. “I’m literally the only one with the keys.”

  ‘But if someone took them from you…’

  “You’d still know it’s me.” Jessica unzipped her jacket and pulled the blue pendant from beneath her shirt, shaking it at the walls of the lobby because the sentient being that was Winthrop & Dirledge Security Banking didn’t actually have a face. “This thing pretty much makes that a done deal, right?”

  ‘Yeah.’ The bank tittered. ‘Technically.’

  “So you’re still screwing with me. Awesome.” Trying to hide a smirk, she pointed at the front door. A flash of yellow light bloomed at her fingertip, echoed immediately by the same light on the lock of the front door. The bolt clicked back into place with a metallic thunk.

  ‘Don’t take it personally.’

  “How do I not take that personally? That’s literally what screwing with someone is supposed to make them feel.” And she hadn’t seen this place screwing with Tabitha the same way.

  ‘Tabitha didn’t leave my premises after only five days on the job.’

  “What’d you do? Chain her to the walls?”

  ‘She didn’t leave the second weekend, either.’

  “We’re closed!” Jessica peeled off her jacket in the blooming warmth pumping through the bank’s central heating as she headed across the lobby toward the narrow hallway in the back.

  ‘Huh. Come to think of it, Tabitha didn’t really leave on the weekends, either.’

  “Well I’m not Tabitha.”

  ‘You’ve made that painfully obvious, witch. She stayed right here where I could keep an eye on her.’

  “You mean where she could keep an eye on you.”

  ‘Yeah. Same thing.’

  Jessica had the distinct impression that if the bank had shoulders, it would’ve been shrugging them at her.

  ‘Too bad I don’t, right? I bet I could shrug the hell out of a nice strong pair of shoulders.’

  She snorted and turned onto the half-landing of the staircase at the back of the bank before taking the creaking stairs up to the second floor. “I think it’s safer to leave your general physical makeup exactly as it is. And again, if I’m not actually thinking something to you, stay out of the thought pool, okay?”

  ‘Come on, Jessica. We’ve been at this level of headspace intimacy for a week—’

  “Don’t call it that…”

  ‘—which is plenty of time for you to get used to me.’

  When she reached the top of the staircase, Jessica shot a quick glance at the iron door reinforced with metal studs filling the end of the hallway six feet in front of her. She forced herself to look away from it and turned right instead to open the door of her bedroom. “Easy for you to say. You don’t have a disembodied voice in your head weaseling into all your thoughts and memories.”

  ‘You’re right.’ For a bank without a nose or a throat, this one pulled off a successfully convincing snort. ‘I just have a stubborn witch with no idea what she’s doing living inside me and running all my functions from the inside.’

  She stopped and absently reached out to hang her brown leather jacket on the coat rack beside the door. “Fair point.”

  ‘I know.’

  “But if it really bothers you that much, feel free to alleviate me from my duties.”

  ‘No can do, witch. You know what’s at stake.’

  “I really don’t, actually.” She slumped onto the gray couch in the center of the room that had materialized right there the day she’d become the new owner of Winthrop & Dirledge, just like everything else she owned. Which was also right here in this room. “Somehow, everyone keeps failing to hand over specifics about the Gateway, what it does, or why I’m apparently the only one who has to protect it.”

  ‘You know I can’t talk about that,’ the bank whispered.

  “Yeah, yeah. You get all staticky and clam up. I know.”

  ‘Okay, let me rephrase. Maybe you don’t know everything that’s at stake, but you know there’s something at stake. And before you even bother asking, yes. That is your responsibility. And don’t insult me by trying to tell me I picked an incompetent, useless dimwit of a witch to take Tabitha’s place. As fun as it is to call you names, we both know that’s not what you are.’

  Jessica stared at the blank wall of her new bedroom and raised her eyebrows. “Well go ahead and tell me how you really feel.”

  ‘I just did. How was lunch?’

  Rolling her eyes, Jessica slumped back against the cushion and shook her head. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

  ‘Because you didn’t wanna talk to Mel about everything you think you so cleverly buried. Nice try. But I was talking about the good parts.’

  She huffed out a wry laugh. “What good parts?”

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Let’s see…’ A small pinch at Jessica’s temples made her eyes flutter for half a second. ‘Okay, how about the part where it was so good to see her, that you remembered how much you missed your friendship, that you don’t care about anything she’s done in the past, because it was the two of you doing it all together as—’

  “Stop! What the hell?”

  ‘You asked for the good parts.’

  “That was sarcasm. Stay out of that.” Grimacing, Jessica nestled against the corner of the armrest and shook her head. She needed to stay out of that part of her mind too. It was all in the past, and Mel had obviously moved on. Which was good.

  ‘Oh, yeah. With that mystery guy, huh?’

  “I said stop.”

  ‘You don’t know who he is, and it’s… Whoa. Did I just step into some kind of love-triangle thing happening in this—’

  Shut up! Jessica screamed soundlessly at the bank. When it worked, she took in a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair. You have no idea what you’re talking about, and this isn’t something we’re gonna explore or bring up or even think about again. Ever. Got it?

  She scanned the white walls and the wooden beams of the domed ceiling, waiting for the bank’s reply.

  ‘Oh, was that… Was that a rhetorical question, or is the shut-up ban lifted now?’

  Jessica closed her eyes and made her mind go blank. Mostly blank, anyway. She’d been practicing slipping into that mental state during the day whenever she had a few spare minutes of silence between the seemingly constant onslaught of magicals stepping into the bank for their transactions with the witching vault. The most time she’d tallied in a single day was about an hour so far, and it was getting easier and easier to slip into.

  ‘Except that you can’t actually think about nothing for longer than sixty seconds,’ the bank quipped.

  “Okay, either we move on with a different conversation or you keep your mouth shut.”

  ‘No mouth, Jessica…’

  “You know what I mean.” Her phone buzzed in her back pocket, and she took it out to find a text from Mel.

  Opening Tuesday night 7:00 at View74. You’re already on the list. I’ll be looking for you.

  Wow. She was serious about this.

  Jessica couldn’t think of anything to say in reply; she wasn’t even sure she’d decided to go. And if she had, she still had two days to change her mind. So she sent a winking-face emoji and called it good. Mel didn’t send anything else after that, which could have meant anything. Dropping her phone on the couch beside her, Jessica sighed again and leaned back.

  ‘Well?’ the bank pestered. ‘Are you gonna go?’

  “You already know I have no idea,” she muttered. “But if I do wanna go, hypothetically, are you gonna be a good bank and let me leave after we close up?”

  ‘As opposed to being a bad bank and keeping you here to protect us both and every single life form on Earth? I’d say all of humanity, but we both know there are plenty of non-humans over here too.’


  “That didn’t answer my question.”

  ‘Yeah, ’cause I’m still thinking about it. When you give me your answer, I’ll give you mine.’

  “Great.” A small smile lifted the corner of her mouth, then her eyes flew open and she frowned at the blank wall in front of her. “What do you mean ‘over here’?”

  ‘What?’ The bank’s voice was clipped and short.

  “You said ‘there are plenty of non-humans over here too.’ That implies an ‘over there’.”

  ‘I…just mean on the planet. Don’t tell me you actually think all the little critters running around on this one are the only critters in the universe.’

  “Critters.” Jessica snorted. “You might wanna try a different term.”

  ‘Why? You’re the only one who can hear me.’

  “And you’re deflecting. What other side, bank?”

  The voice in her head remained silent.

  Great. This damn bank just loved to do the opposite of what she wanted. The perfect bodiless partner.

  With a sigh, Jessica turned to look at the open bedroom door and thought she saw a glimmer of green light.

  This side. The other side. How much was she willing to bet there wasn’t an actual room on the other side of that creepy door?

  ‘Nothing. You don’t wanna bet anything, Jessica.’

  “I wasn’t talking to you.” She stood from the couch, staring at the wooden floor of the hallway and waiting for another flash of green light to confirm what she thought she’d seen. Everyone was trying to get their hands on the Gateway. Why shouldn’t she?

  ‘Hey. Stop,’ the bank whispered. ‘I’m serious. You are nowhere near equipped to handle anything down that hallway.’

  “You have no idea how equipped I am.” Jessica moved slowly toward the doorway.

  ‘Not running on half a magical battery, you stupid, stubborn—Jessica stop!’

  Chapter Three

  Just as she reached the doorway out of her bedroom, the pendant resting against Jessica’s chest flashed with bright blue light and jolted her like a hot poker pressed against her flesh. She cried out and jerked the necklace up from under her shirt, holding it out in front of her. “Are you serious right now?”

  ‘Very serious. You need to listen to me, witch. Or we’re both going down in a blaze of glory without any of the glory. Now is not the time.’

  Rubbing her chest even as the searing heat faded away beneath her hand, Jessica scowled at the hallway. The green light she thought she’d seen didn’t return. “Then when is the time, huh? ’Cause I’m already sick of waiting to figure out what the hell I’m doing hiding that stupid door up here.”

  ‘So many things need to happen before we can even have that conversation.’ The bank’s voice was hushed and airy, like the thing was afraid of the entire idea. ‘If I even can have the conversation.’

  Jessica folded her arms. “Can you talk about when the right time to approach that damn thing really is?”

  ‘Dunno, honestly. I’ve never tried.’

  “No time like the present.” She raised her eyebrows and tapped a foot against the floor, gazing around the room. “Seriously. I’m waiting.”

  ‘Yeah, and you’ve been waiting, and you can wait a little longer. Even if I told you what needs to happen first, and I’m not saying I can, you still don’t—’

  A loud thump came from Jessica’s right. She jerked her head toward the wall beside the bedroom door and scanned the floor, her dresser, the blank white paint on the other side of the furniture where Tabitha’s secret magical closet opened up at the new bank owner’s touch. “What was that?”

  ‘Uh…’

  “You sound guilty—”

  The thump came again, louder this time, then the top drawer of Jessica’s dresser rattled. A skittering sound like rocks rolling around inside punctuated another series of swift, urgent knocks against the drawer’s frame, and the whole dresser started shaking.

  “Shit. No, no, no.” She leapt toward the dresser with a cold knot of dread settling in her belly. The Shattering had been perfect. She knew it was perfect. There was no way it had sat still for a year and a half just to start falling apart now…

  ‘I don’t think that’s—’

  “Shut up!” Jessica’s panic made her fingers clumsy as she struggled to get a firm grip on the dresser’s knobs. When she finally jerked open the drawer, the dresser rattled again, and an angry brown-green snout emerged from the folds of underwear and bras and socks with a startlingly loud hiss.

  “What the—” She reeled away from the dresser, then recognized the massive Halibus Racerback lizard staring at her with amber eyes. “Hey! Get out of there!”

  Confucius hissed at her again and blinked.

  The bank tittered in her mind. ‘Hey, speaking of critters…’

  “We weren’t.” Jessica looked down into the drawer and saw one of the lizard’s claws resting on the battered tin box. She had not left that box right on top for anyone to find. “That’s mine.”

  The lizard’s tail thumped against the inside of the drawer in warning.

  She stared him down and cocked her head. “If you don’t get out of my underwear drawer right now, you’re gonna get it.”

  Confucius narrowed his eyes and slowly curled one of his long claws beneath the lid of the box.

  “Out!” Jessica thrust her finger at him and sent a burst of red sparks toward the top of the drawer.

  The lizard croaked in surprise and scrambled over the edge of the drawer to avoid her warning spell, dropped like a stone with an even louder thump, and scrambled madly to right himself and get his footing. When he did, he looked up at her and hissed.

  “Off limits, lizard. I mean it. Go rummage through someone else’s junk.”

  Confucius took two slow steps toward the dresser again.

  “You little…” Jessica lurched toward him, and the lizard scrabbled around with wide eyes before scuttling away in his zigzag pattern to disappear through the doorway. The bump and click of him dragging himself down the stairs at rapid reptilian speed faded. Something downstairs clanged and wobbled noisily, then everything was silent again. “Jesus.”

  She grabbed the doorknob and pulled her bedroom door shut with a little more force than she’d intended. Running a hand through her hair, Jessica returned to the open top drawer and forced herself to breathe evenly again. “The door’s closed for a reason. How did he even get in here?”

  ‘Tunnels,’ the bank replied matter-of-factly. ‘In my walls. I think.’

  Blinking away the ridiculousness of that statement, she stopped in front of the drawer and peered down at the tin box—at half the force of her own magic she’d removed just over a year and a half ago with a single spell.

  Well this was a first—considering a lock for her own magic.

  ‘I’m not sure locks would do much of anything to keep the reptile out of your stuff.’

  Jessica snorted. “A lock won’t keep a lizard out of a box, but he couldn’t open the dresser drawer to get himself out? Wait. How did he get in there in the first place?”

  ‘You left the drawer open before you zipped on out of here without so much as a goodbye—’

  “Right. And he just closed the drawer on himself.”

  ‘Of course not. Don’t be stupid. I closed it.’

  Great. The bank had control over its owner’s personal items too.

  “Well keep your…magic out of my dresser. Got it?”

  ‘And what about your magic, Jessica?’

  She swallowed and stared at the beat-up tin box nestled on top of her unfolded underwear pile. I can’t.

  ‘Sure you can. The Shattering isn’t permanent. You’re smart enough to know that. And even if you didn’t know, you’re not dumb enough to keep something as volatile as your powers locked up in a dresser just because you felt a little sentimental.’

  “You don’t know that,” Jessica muttered.

  ‘Hey, I can read your mind.’
<
br />   “Well stop.”

  ‘You’ve been holding onto that huge, severed chunk of Jessica Northwood in that little tin box since before you went to prison because you know—’

  “I said stop!”

  ‘—you’ll end up using it again eventually.’

  “Shut up!” A burst of crackling black magic exploded from Jessica’s fingertips when she tossed her hands in the air. One thin streak of it like an electrical charge raced across the circular bedroom and struck the wall beside her dresser. The handprint that opened the wall to Tabitha’s secret artifact closet flared to life with a blue glow, then instantly faded.

  Jessica drew in a slow, shaky breath, and the black aura of wavering energy rising from her flesh settled back down again and disappeared.

  ‘Ow,’ the bank said nonchalantly. ‘Good thing I don’t have the same organic parts as your other victims, huh, Jess?’

  “Don’t call them that.” She slammed the top drawer shut and clutched the top edge of the dresser with both hands. “And we’re not talking about my magic.”

  ‘We should. What if you need it to protect me?’

  “I’m pretty sure we’ve done a good enough job protecting you with your magic, thanks.”

  ‘But if we had both…’

  With a heavy sigh, Jessica stormed across the bedroom and flopped down on her twin-sized bed along the righthand wall. “Change the subject, or I’m going blank.”

  ‘You can only do that for so long, witch. And I’ll always be here in your head. At least until you start listening to me and prove you don’t need the voice in your head to teach you right from…’

  She spread her arms out on the blue and gray comforter and closed her eyes. Slow, steady breaths. That was the trick for blocking out the bank’s incessant yammering in her mind and keeping her own thoughts locked up tight within her head.

  ‘Hey, that’s not fair. You can’t just turn me off whenever you feel like it.’

  Oh, yes. She could.

  Jessica counted to six through her next inhale and exhale. Then seven the next time, then eight the next. When she got to ten seconds in and ten seconds out, she didn’t have to keep counting. She just let the tide of meditative breathing wash over her and let her mind go blank.