No Witch Way Out (Maeren Series Book 2)

by Mercedes Jade

  “So, the king wants to have the biggest toy for himself,” Elizabeth said, not meeting Kim’s censoring look as she disparaged the absent king. He was still married to her. “I want to know how to call my own familiar,” she added, looking at Victoria. “I also want to know how to get this dragon off of my shoulder. Claims can be broken, even if the mate bond thing is going to be more difficult to get rid of.”

  Kim’s deep brown eyes neither defended her son nor admitted he was dangerous to Elizabeth. They were calm.

  Elizabeth took another big breath and slowly exhaled.

  “Can I hurt his familiar?” Elizabeth asked.

  She actually didn’t mean that she wanted to kill it or anything that violent, but what if, accidentally, a vampire she was hunting cut her inked tattoo or her magic pulled too hard at the claim’s threads?

  What if another vampire really did feed on her?

  She clarified her question, so there was no misunderstanding.

  “Hurting a familiar is not possible. They aren’t real,” Victoria said. “A familiar that is manifested can be defeated by magic, but it will just retreat back into the soul of its elemental. The magic suck would be more of the problem since so much magic is used to manifest a familiar. Kind of like breaking a circle without absorbing it, but much worse. The only true way to destroy a familiar is to drain the soul from its owner.”

  “Like a soulless witch?” Jill asked.

  “The familiar is the soul and the soul the familiar, although it can be divided, temporarily. It’s still very perilous for Daemon to share his soul with you,” Kim said, sounding less calm now.

  Elizabeth fought a guilty blush. It wasn’t like she had known she was stealing a piece of Daemon’s soul when she left.

  Daemon had stolen her heart, so they were kind of even, anyway.

  Her mother had transferred a piece of her soul into Kim once. Had she realized what she was doing?

  Did Kim know what she had done?

  Questions burned on Elizabeth’s tongue, but she couldn’t ask them with Victoria here.

  “Would Daemon’s magic be transferred with his familiar?” Elizabeth asked Kim.

  Maybe that was why he had ignored her lightning all that time. He may not have been faking it when he said he tasted his lightning in her blood.

  Perhaps he even mistook the magic from the mate bond because of his own lightning.

  “Of course, he has to transfer his magic with his familiar, but it would be temporarily in the blood,” Kim said. “The power is in the ink on your skin.”

  “It isn’t enough to clear him,” her mother said, picking up on Elizabeth’s realization.

  Daemon was still a traitor who found out about Elizabeth’s magic and was going to use her for his own evil ends, as far as her mother was concerned.

  “But he didn’t try to move my room, either,” Elizabeth retorted.

  Victoria had cleared up that she had been the one to arrange the change of Elizabeth’s room in the castle to the more secure harem quarters, not Daemon. He hadn’t tried to lock her up.

  “Overthrowing a kingdom kind of trumps everything else,” Jill reasoned.

  “I already told you there has been some mistake,” Victoria said. “Daemon loves our father.”

  Victoria didn’t realize it, but she had just endeared herself to Kim with that defence of Daemon.

  “You are loyal,” Kim commented. She sounded surprised. “Are all of the children of Nicholas so filial?”

  This got a startled look from Victoria.

  Kim said the king’s name like a wife would, with soft familiarity and love, but Victoria was unlikely to have guessed the truth if she hadn’t figured it out with their hints over the familiars.

  “They scrabble and bicker as he greys early. Clans are powerful and push their sons forward. Those that want the throne stay close. My twin and I are too far down the line of inheritance to bother.”

  Victoria sounded like a forgotten child.

  “The struggle to hold his power has aged the king,” her mother said.

  “I will teach you how to bring out your familiar, Liz,” offered Victoria, changing the subject back. She looked at Elizabeth’s tattooed shoulder, even though it was hidden under her clothes. “Personally, I advise you to wait until you no longer have Daemon’s dragon on your skin. Otherwise, the consequences might be unpleasant.”

  “Okay,” Elizabeth agreed. Victoria was willing to teach her something technically outlawed.

  Forbidden magic was a risk she was going to have to take, if her enemies had this kind of power.

  Hopefully her own familiar wasn’t a fluffy air bunny. She needed something with teeth.

  “Is there any other way to drain the tattoo faster? What about if I use a lot of magic? In Maeren, the first claiming tattoo faded when I used too much magic,” Elizabeth said.

  “It’s not a magical battery,” Kim said. “The claim’s magic is reserved for the protection of a witch from another male. If you were threatened and it triggered the claim, then it would drain it, but at the size of that tattoo, I’m not sure how long it would take to make it disappear. I’ve never seen a familiar tattoo. I didn’t even know it was possible to transfer a familiar, until I saw this. Every little tug on the claim for protection is going to be felt by Daemon. My advice is to run if something threatens your claim into triggering.”

  Do not poke the dragon unnecessarily. Got it.

  Repeating the same advice was getting through her thick skull.

  “Didn’t you say Daemon fed you?” Victoria asked.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth admitted, not sure where Victoria was going with this.

  “Daemon must have done something to the claim tattoo to transfer his familiar when he fed you his blood. Did the tattoo change?” Victoria asked.

  “Yes. It was a bolt of lightning, with some swirls, that I thought stood for air magic, like a tornado, but afterwards, it became the dragon. I thought the tattoo changed depending on what he was thinking at the time.”

  “The magic definitely decides. As if you would have put a lightning bolt on my shoulder on purpose, when you bound my services as your Lasier,” Victoria said.

  “Lightning?” Kim asked.

  Damn Victoria and her big mouth.

  Elizabeth had been so worried about revealing Kim’s secret identity, she didn’t think about the risk to her own hidden magic with their open conversation.

  “She has lightning and air? Kaila?” Kim asked, louder.

  Victoria had gotten on their mother’s shit list. She knew it because she looked trapped between the two older witches, who were shooting angry looks at each other over her.

  “Mom?” Elizabeth asked.

  She felt guilty for everything they had done to Victoria over the last week.

  Victoria had been justly mad at them and despite it all, still tried to help.

  “Can I take Victoria and Jill with me to Maeren, while you talk with Kim about magic? I think we all would like to recharge at the cottage.”

  The room had dropped ten degrees in less than a minute. Their mother’s air was reacting to her upset. The nod of permission she gave Elizabeth was like a runner’s pistol going off.

  Elizabeth snagged Victoria’s arm and yanked her up out of the danger zone between the older witches.

  Jill shot up as well.

  Their mother made her slower, more painful way off her floor seat, bending down to grab her high heels from where she had toed them off.

  “Do not move,” Kim said.

  Everyone froze. Except for Victoria, the rest of them knew the Blue Queen was giving them an order with her imperious tone.

  The room plunged even colder.

  Elizabeth tensed.

  “Jill, come kneel here,” Kim said, pointing to the circle.

  Jill kneeled, folding her body neatly before her sensei. Calm and sensible, Jill was just what this situation needed.

  “If you’re going back to Maeren, then yo
u should have protections as well. You fed some of the princes your blood to transfer the earth potion, right?” Kim asked.

  Jill nodded.

  “Do you accept the same protection your sister was given?”

  Jill looked over to her mother. “Yes, please,” she said.

  The circle went up in blue flames without a touch from either witch, the shield going up as soon as Kim crossed into the circle.

  Jill was clothed, but Kim only touched three fingers to her forehead and spoke. The circle blocked her words, but Elizabeth had no doubt it was Maerenian high magic she sang.

  The circle flashed as wave after wave of magic crashed into it.

  When she was done, Kim just walked through her circle’s shield and it instantly resorbed.

  “Liz, your lightning is no longer the scariest shit I’ve seen,” Victoria whispered.

  “There’s no such thing as lightning witches,” Elizabeth said, repeating the family motto.

  Impossible things.

  Could a soulless witch get back her soul? Check.

  Jill looked more confident as she stepped out of the circle, standing back on the dojo floor.

  She stood straighter, and when she met Elizabeth’s eyes, some of the shadows that had been there since their escape from Maeren seemed less dark.

  Elizabeth should have known her sister would want protection, as well.

  Jill had been the one to poison all of the princes, although it was completely against her nature. There would be consequences.

  “Wicked, do you know how to put a magical muzzle on Tor?” Jill asked.

  Elizabeth connected Victoria to her’s and Jill’s minds, so they could have a three-way conversation that was private from the older witches.

  “I didn’t know Elizabeth’s lightning was secret from your family friend,” Victoria said in a guilty tone.

  Elizabeth grabbed Victoria’s hand and gave it a squeeze. She knew it had been an honest mistake.

  Victoria didn’t have a malicious bone in her body. If she was mad at you, then you knew it, but she would never backstab Elizabeth.

  “How about we give you a pass if you stop reminding us how unhappy you are about our little road trip and your twin? We’ve all made some mistakes. I swear you can leave once the claim is off of me, if you want to go,” Elizabeth said, playing the peacemaker for once.

  “The bond isn’t the only thing keeping me by your side. And I’ll keep my mouth shut from now on. I can’t do anything to protect Blue from Vic when he gets here. That’s between them,” Victoria warned.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d told Jill she had it coming.

  “Vic is never going to find me, Tor. We’ve hidden here for more than twenty years and no one has come close to discovering us. I pranked Vic at most, anyway. He will recover,” Jill said with confidence.

  Jill walked past them, waving goodbye to her sensei and then their mother. She had a bounce to her step that defied wasting time worrying about Victor’s revenge.

  “I really wish you had talked to me first,” Victoria insisted.

  Elizabeth gave Victoria’s hand another squeeze as the other witch sent her belated wish in her thoughts, pulling her to follow behind Jill.

  A little more talking could have been had on all sides. Time didn’t flow backwards, however, despite regrets always coming from the past.

  “Play nice,” Elizabeth called back to her mother as they exited the dojo.

  The door slammed shut behind them with her mother’s air.

  The Blue Queen may not know it yet but she’d definitely met her match.

  Ashes to Ashes

  Maeren

  Undeclared

  He hated earth magic. It was filthy, common, and reminded him of his mother.

  Most earth clans lived in mountains. Mines were their livelihood. Earth was one of the few magics that could be used best for menial work.

  Human technology and machines were impossible to replicate, in Maeren, in order to dig for metals like earth allowed.

  Earth generals were little more than hillbilly miners, whenever the king called them up to serve.

  One had to dust them off before letting them near the troops, although they did well at forging the green recruits into soldiers who knew how to wield their swords.

  Metal practically sang to earth. To see a two-hundred-pound general wield a broadsword like it was a lightweight rapier was to see their true strength.

  An earth general could cut an armoured dragon in half with little more than his broadsword and a shield.

  Metal reinforced by earth only hardened under the heat from dragon fire.

  If they didn’t need earth for the front, then it was best to leave the earth clans to their mining.

  Healing was important, but there were enough witches with a little earth in their blood to meet most of that need.

  Without a major war, there wasn’t as much a demand for healing. Peasants died from their plagues and common illnesses. It wasn’t worth wasting expensive healing on them, when more could be bred to work the fields.

  There was one other forgotten role of earth.

  One that had shaped the kingdom as much as the battlefields that were glorified.

  Poison wasn’t something that was whispered about in the same sentence as the heroic deeds of fire generals, but it had helped the king keep his throne all the same and his father before him.

  The dragons had learned, most of all, the power of earth potions that most Maerenians mocked as the human idea of hocus-pocus.

  Spelling pots and esoteric ingredients had been used to silence the laughter of dragons.

  A particularly ingenious poison, targeted to their females in the water supply, and their suckling children, in turn.

  Earth magic could give and take life.

  This wasn’t a den of assassins he had tracked down. As he slid out of his saddle, he was surrounded by common earth folk, who had spent their whole lives mining.

  A young boy eagerly grabbed the horse’s reins, probably hoping for a coin.

  There were a few harder looking, older males, in front of a pub, who looked like they had spent time in the army during the clan wars.

  He’d have to ask the older elementals. They would know where to find the general he’d come here to talk to about the Norwoods.

  Nobody poisoned him and got away with it.

  Pennies for your Thoughts

  Maeren

  Elizabeth

  “This is a horrible dress,” Victoria complained.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d voiced this particular dislike since they’d given her the borrowed clothing to help her blend in at the Maerenian edge town they often visited.

  They would buy her another dress to replace it.

  “We didn’t have any children’s clothes available on short notice,” Jill said, enjoying the dig.

  Also, not Jill’s first taunt of the day.

  They were driving Elizabeth crazy.

  To be honest, the dress was one of Elizabeth’s teen castoffs. It was dated, but the material was too sturdy to throw out.

  Their mother tended to hoard, appreciative of their blessings and all too aware of how quickly they could disappear.

  “I’m sure we can find something at the market more to your tastes,” Elizabeth offered, having already planned to purchase a new dress for the princess.

  Was this how her mother felt when her daughters bickered?

  If so, her mother should have knocked their heads together more often.

  “Tor will be the best-dressed hostage in Maeren,” Jill muttered.

  She was kicking up more dust than necessary as they walked and it was getting all over Victoria’s borrowed, white dress.

  Victoria didn’t seem to care. She was the type that got grass stains into all of her clothes, growing up.

  “While you’re at it I want some chalk. None of the cheap stuff from the city. Only hand-milled limestone from Pare. I also would like a t
attoo set,” Victoria demanded.

  “This is the Edge. Nobody uses magic circles, or glyphs, or speaks a word of high Maerenian. You would have better luck finding chalk in the human realm. Ditto, anything to do with claiming, but doubled. Absolutely nobody here has anything to do with claims. Rich folk stuff is for the cities, with the nobles,” Elizabeth explained.

  Possibly, they could get what Victoria wanted, but they definitely couldn’t afford it anyway, nor the attention such an unusual request might bring them.

  “The dress better not be wool,” Victoria huffed at her.

  “I’m sure they have something in cotton,” Elizabeth assured her.

  She hoped Victoria wasn’t planning on silks.

  “If you’re done trying to distract us with pointless demands, I would like to hear more about your demon brother. In case you’re wondering, I’m not talking about your evil twin,” Jill said.

  “Glinda, let's tone it down,” Elizabeth privately sent to her sister.

  “What? She started it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Perhaps I was too hasty in calling you the nice sister,” Victoria said.

  “Trust me, Jill is harmless,” Elizabeth said, playing peacekeeper, which really didn’t suit her.

  She kept herself positioned between the two adversaries. If she had to give them little shocks to ensure good behaviour, she was ready.

  She let her hands flicker with power.

  It did feel good to be back in Maeren, even if the magic was still thinner at the edge.

  “We have different definitions of harmful and violence,” Victoria said.

  She’d noticed the sparkler hands.

  “One of us is a princess that grew up with a healer to fix her if she broke a fingernail,” Jill accused.

  Elizabeth remembered the memories of torture that she’d pulled from Victoria’s unguarded thoughts. The hundreds of scars she’d felt her mother painfully heal from Victoria’s delicate skin.

  The princess had only known horror and violence, growing up.

  Jill was way off, accusing Victoria of softness.

  “Be quiet,” Elizabeth shushed Jill. “Not everybody shows their scars on the outside. You should know that the worst monsters leave the wounds on your soul and heal the flesh, so they can tear into it again.”