“Some people would call that the same thing,” he said in answer to my first question.
I arched a brow, a quizzical expression on my face. “Some people?”
He replied with a full and radiant smile that I so rarely saw and a little wink that just about undid me. “Yes, some people— myself included— believe that the Goddess has a hand in everything.”
“I wish she’d try a lighter touch where I was concerned.” I gave a little wink before returning his smile.
Lars got up to rinse out his mug. “I don’t feel so hot. I might lay back down.”
“Are you sick?” I couldn’t remember the last time Lars caught a cold.
“Nah, whatever this is,” Lars waved a finger back and forth between Nicholas and I, “is making me nauseous.”
Warmth spread across my face as a blush blotched up my complexion. Rather than dignify Lars’s comment and draw more attention to my growing attraction to Nicholas, I gave him the finger.
Nicholas’s complexion matched mine. “If we could get back to the photo for a second? I think we should go to the academy.”
“A field trip?” I was halfway to the door before I remembered pants. Two seasons came and went in the time I’d been cooped up in Nicholas’s apartment. My boxer shorts, tee-shirt combo made for comfortable confinement attire but outside? The first day of winter was just around the corner and jeans were in order.
“I’ll get dressed.”
Lars called after me. “Adeline, hold up.”
“I’m not listening.” I plugged a finger in each ear, doing my best to ignore him and walked off to my little corner of the apartment. I dug through my pile of mostly-folded clothes on the floor and threw an outfit together. Arms loaded with jeans, my favorite black sweater, socks, and my Mary Jane Docs, I squeezed into the single bathroom we all shared. With the open floor plan of Nicholas’s attic apartment, privacy was nonexistent so I mastered the art of getting dressed in a bathroom roughly the size of a linen closet. When I came out, Lars was waiting for me.
“I think the two of you should stay here. I have a better chance of slipping in unseen on campus than either of you.”
While the X-rated part of my brain contemplated all the trouble I could get into if left alone with Nicholas for an extended period of time, the logical part of my brain took over. I unfastened the safety pin I kept on me at all times if I needed a drop of blood for the immobility ward. Tattoo needles had been my method of choice but after accidentally jabbing myself in the butt while storing them in my back pocket, I switched to the safety pin. The ward went from an unused weapon in my arsenal to a fan favorite for protection. With a prick of my finger and a few well-placed swipes of my blood on Lars’s skin, I could drop him— or anyone else, for that matter— in the blink of an eye.
“Lars,” Nicholas called out a warning. Having experienced the ward himself, more than once, he recognized the shift in my body language.
My oldest and dearest friend looked at me with genuine disbelief in his eyes. “You wouldn’t.” Lars stepped closer.
“Take one more step between me and that sliver of freedom and you’ll find out.” I pricked my index finger, pressing on the tip with my thumb to well more blood to the surface.
“Adeline.”
“Lars.”
The standoff lasted longer than either of expected— which was saying something given our stubbornness. Neither wanted to give the other an inch and risk losing ground permanently. I took a swipe at Lars’s arm, landing my first mark on his forearm and ultimately ending the stalemate. Lars gaped at the small streak of blood. Two hash marks was all that separated him from temporary paralysis and me from crossing a permanent line in our friendship.
One I hadn’t even known existed until that moment.
“All I’ve ever done is look out for you.” Lars couldn’t take his eyes off the red line of blood crusting on his arm. “It’s my job to keep you safe, to keep you alive. You’re making that a pretty fucking impossible task.”
“You and Nicholas come and go as you please. Supply runs and scouting.” I licked my thumb and rubbed it on Lars’s arm, erasing the first mark I’d placed on him. “I. Never. Leave.” I waited a beat for that statement to sink in. “I probably have a vitamin D deficiency at this point. I need to get outside, Lars, or I’m going to lose my mind. You don’t really want to be cooped up with a mentally unstable warder, do you?”
“If it makes a difference, we aren’t going to the campus. I said the academy.” Nicholas chose a side in the debate. My side. Smart man.
“What?” Lars and I asked in unison.
“I didn’t have a chance to explain before you took off like a rocket.” Nicholas pulled the old photo out of his back pants pocket. “Look at the crest embroidered on their blazers.” He handed the black and white picture over to me. “That’s not Providence’s.”
Nicholas was right. The emblems on the blazers were different.
“I never noticed it before. How did I miss that?” I asked aloud, chastising myself for overlooking such an important detail.
Lars took the photo and examined it for himself. “That’s Hallows Hill Seminary isn’t it?”
“The school in New York?” I leaned over, peering at the picture again. “So, what were they doing on campus?”
Lars shook his head. “I don’t know. But I guess we need to find out and if we can’t get on campus, our next best shot is in Sleepy Hollow.”
Nicholas pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “I’ll just go make some reservations and travel arrangements.”
“Make them for three.” Lars looked less than pleased but finally gave in.
Not that I’d left him with much choice. Afterall, I was a grown witch with more than one spell at my disposal and I wasn’t afraid to use them.
Chapter Three
The first availability for the only bed and breakfast within a ten-mile radius of the academy was a week away. Hallowed Hill Seminary sat just outside the city limits of Sleepy Hollow, nestled in the woods where the dark witch raised her headless horseman. Between the magical community and the rise in popularity of all things paranormal, beds were at a premium. If I thought time passed slowly cooped up in the apartment before, the seven days leading up to my release felt endless.
The three of us killed time scouring the apartment for enchantments Nicholas had yet to discover that his father may have built in to hide his deepest secrets. When we weren’t looking for magical layers within the construction of the apartment, Nicholas poured over old journals while Lars and I went through what little we had left of Grim and Something To ‘Ink About— in other words, our memories.
The seventh and final sunrise in the attic before we were due to leave for Sleepy Hollow felt like any other— except for the pinch in my back just below my right shoulder blade and a crick in my neck from falling asleep on the couch. Rather than wake me, Lars left me where I was and took the bed for a change. After pressing my feet against one arm of the couch and burying my shoulders into the other, I stretched out my back. I needed a healing charm or a chiropractor after one night on the couch. Lars slept there for weeks— which may explain his general irritability as of late.
A chill settled into the apartment as winter’s icy tendrils worked their way inside. Frost spread across the small dormer windowpanes distorting the view of the city below. After wrapping a multicolored afghan around me, I padded toward the kitchenette in sock-covered feet only to stop short when I noticed a peculiar light on one of the floorboards. I knelt down, ignoring the cold seeping into my bare knees from the floor, and examined the symbol emitting an amber glow.
It was a ward. Which meant I should have been able to unravel it. So, the resulting zap of electricity when I traced the intricate design with my pointer finger was unexpected. The jolt was enough to knock me back several feet. I laid on the floor doing my best impersonation of a starfish while trying to recover. The sound of my body hitting the hardwood was enough to wak
e both Nicholas and Lars.
“Oh good, you heard me.” I sat up, pulling my oversized Friars jersey down to meet my knee-high socks in an effort to cover up. “I found something.”
Nicholas knelt down to check on me, momentarily forgetting about the ward on the floor. “Are you okay? You look a little dazed.” He raised his hand, alternating the number of fingers he held up. “I’ll get you an elixir.” Nicholas rushed to his workspace, grabbing one of the small vials off the shelf, despite the fact that I passed his tests.
“I’m fine.” I waved him back over. “I don’t need the elixir. I don’t have a concussion.” I gave Lars a look, pleading for back up. “Tell him I’m fine.”
“If you consider a welt on your neck and chest in the same pattern as the ward on the floor fine,” Lars pointed to my chest and the singed fabric I hadn’t noticed until he said something, “then yeah, you’re fine.”
The moment he brought my wounds to attention they started to sting. I took the elixir Nicholas handed me and downed the silver liquid without question or argument. Victor Marks’s wards packed one hell of a wallop.
“So, what’s different?” I asked between coughs and fighting my gag reflex. The elixir coated my throat like cold molasses and had a rancid aftertaste that reminded me of the way dumpster water smelled. “Why did the ward reveal itself now?”
“The solstice?” Lars picked up the afghan off the floor and wrapped it around my shoulders. With a finger under my chin, he tilted my head back to examine my neck and be sure the welts were fading and Nicholas’s elixir worked.
“Today’s the solstice?” I asked, my voice cracking as a sliver of fear worked its way into my heart. I made a promise to the Goddess. One I wasn’t prepared to keep. Short on supplies and out of practice, I needed Nicholas’s help to make good on my word of an offering. Hours before embarking on a trip to a Magistrate-owned seminary nestled in a historic witch community was not the time to break a promise.
“Yes.” Lars laid down more suspicion with one word than the whole of New England in 1692. “Why does that matter, apart from the obvious? We’ve never been big on tradition.”
“Well, maybe we should be. Given everything that’s going on?” Loathe to admit the truth about my promises, I did my best to recover and redirect. “I mean, it can’t hurt, right? Nicholas, would you mind helping me? I’m a little rusty.”
A look of surprise that I’d asked him for help flitted across his face before he covered it up with a smile. “Sure, we can do it together. I planned to do a little ceremony before we headed out today anyway.”
“No.” My response was too quick, too abrupt, only serving to add to Lars’s suspicions about my new-found interest in ceremonies, but at that point, it didn’t matter. He could have his suspicions as long as I could perform my own ceremony.
“I want to do my own. I just need a little refresher, that’s all.”
“Okay.” Nicholas arched a brow, a look of curiosity on his face as he drew out the word, putting emphasis on both syllables. He traced a finger along the pattern illuminated on the floor. “We can get started right after we open this ward.” He jerked his hand back and I instinctively scooted back in anticipation another bolt of electricity. “I got a splinter.”
“Well, that was anticlimactic.” My body relaxed and I moved closer, switching positions from sitting to kneeling. “I thought you were going to get tased, too.”
Blood welled up as Nicholas pulled a sliver of wood the size of a toothpick from his fingertip. A small rivulet fell to the floor, landing in the center of the ward. The color changed, shimmering from amber to blue with a purple hue— an interesting reaction that had only one conclusion. The blood was an offering for the magic bound to the floorboard. Whatever Vincent Marks hid beneath it wasn’t meant to be seen by anyone other than Nicholas.
“Lars, can you grab my athame off the counter?” Nicholas refused to take his eyes off the ward, as if he were afraid it might revert to its amber color or disappear altogether. “It should be by the jar of nightshade.”
Lars retrieved the blade and returned to his position on the floor opposite me. The bluish-purple light tinted the gray in his beard and softened his features to match the gentler side of him typically reserved for me. He caught me staring, made a funny face, and stuck out his tongue. That one gesture summarized our relationship. Lars was in tune to my feelings, knew my rhythms. He knew when I was anxious, tense, or stressed and needed to laugh— like when you’re about to watch someone open a boobytrapped ward guarding contents unknown.
Nicholas used the athame to open the existing wound from the splinter. Blood pooled on his fingertip before falling in large drops onto the floor. He traced the design, briefly dimming the magical light as his blood covered the lines of the ward. There was a sizzle and pop as he connected the last two points in the design. The ward flared, the light so intense it forced us to shield our eyes. Then it flickered out of existence.
“Your dad wasn’t a warder,” I said, stating the obvious as I blinked away the colored orbs from the flash of light. “I wonder who set it?”
“I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.” Lars looked at me, seemingly unphased from the flash, and waited for my guess.
“You think Grim set it for him?”
“I don’t know anyone else who could.” Lars shifted his attention back to the floorboard, waiting for Nicholas to pry it open.
“It makes sense.” Nicholas put all his weight on one side of the board, popping the other corner up. “They were friends, after all.”
“Yeah, but I don’t feel him. There wasn’t any trace of him in the ward.” I tried to recall if I felt anyone within the ward. The answer was no. There was no magical signature left behind.
“Like I said,” Lars helped Nicholas pull the floorboard free of the nails still holding it down, “I don’t know anyone else who could set that kind of ward.”
That gave me pause. I knew that Grim’s magic was strong, that his abilities far exceeded mine and I still had a lifetime of learning ahead. But to set a ward without a trace? The only thing that could fully eradicate any evidence that I set a ward was witch fire. I didn’t understand, from an apprentice standpoint, how much I lost until that moment. Grim knew how to ghost his magic. One of the rarest skills a warder could master.
A skill he’d never be able to teach me.
Nicholas reached beneath the floorboard and pulled a bundle of old letters held together with twine. “That’s it? Just a bunch of notes to a pen pal?” Nicholas tossed the stack of envelopes aside and rooted through the opening in the floor again, only to come up empty.
“Maybe your father was having an affair.” I withered under the glare Nicholas shot my way in response. “Or not. I’m sure he loved your mother.” There was something familiar about the handwriting on the top envelope. It was a mash-up of print and cursive with a particular curve to the ‘V’ and ‘M’ in Vincent’s name. “This is from Grim.”
Nicholas stopped feeling around under the floor and picked up the bundle. He pulled on one end of the twine, freeing the letters. “There’s no return address.” He took the first letter off the stack and handed it to Lars. “Do you recognize the handwriting?”
I tried not to be offended by Nicholas’s need for confirmation and pointed to the upward slope of the lettering. “The way this curves? Tell me that’s not Grim’s handwriting.”
“Are they all from him?” Lars opened the envelope and pulled out a letter, reading it aloud.
“Vincent, you’ve been on that dissertation for months. I have it on the authority of a beautiful and lonely woman that you need a break. Get your head out of your ass and meet me for a drink.” He folded the letter and stuffed it back inside the envelope. “There’s no signature, but it looks like Grim’s handwriting to me.”
“Are they all that mundane?” I estimated at least twenty letters in the stack. “There has to be more to it. Your dad wouldn’t have hidden a b
unch of old letters from his pen pal warded under the floor of his secret workshop and I highly doubt Grim would have wasted the energy to ghost his magic to keep them that way unless it was something worth hiding.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Lars divvied up the letters between the three of us.
“We’ll have to take them with us.” Nicholas returned the plank of flooring to its rightful place and whipped up a quick glamour to cover up the fact it had been disturbed. Just in case someone discovered our hideout.
Caution was the word of the day. Every day.
The sun rose higher in the sky while we sat on the floor and forced it to give up its secrets. We burned more daylight than we had to spare prying up old floorboards. Hallow Hills awaited with secrets of its own.
Chapter Four
Three overstuffed backpacks waited by the front door with a very agitated Lars to keep them company. Nicholas and I were in the workshop putting the finishing touches on our Solstice offerings. The differences in our altars were glaring and spoke to the differences in our personalities and lifestyle. While Nicholas’s was organized with every item carefully placed, mine was a hodgepodge of ingredients and candles placed where I liked them rather than significance.
Boughs of holly wrapped around the altar, the bright red berries adding a splash of color appropriate for the solstice, around the altar I prepared. I burned incense of cinnamon and clove along with two red taper candles. Pinecones and bloodstones were strewn about inside the barrier of holly separating my half of the counter from Nicholas’s. Last but not least was a gold plate piled high with short bread cookies sat next to an etched goblet filled with mulled wine. I pulled a safety pin from my back pocket and pricked the tip of my left pointer finger to add the final ingredient to the offering plate. Two drops of my blood, one for each of my friends, in thanks for protecting them when we escaped Block Island and all the days since.
Nicholas eyed my blood offering warily but didn’t question it. His willingness to overlook certain aspects of my magic was an enduring quality and one not often found in witches anymore. Indifference of those who were different grew into something else. Something ugly. Tolerance was sorely lacking within our community— which meant more business for me. There were few things worse than a dual-natured witch or the warder who “fixes” them. Blood magic was among them. Nicholas had been on the receiving end of not one but two marks requiring my blood. And now I offered blood to the Goddess.
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