“Jenni’s on her way,” Christopher said, stepping back into the sitting room from the dining room and the kitchen. He was carrying a tray with tea for the witches.
It wasn’t anywhere near teatime. But it hadn’t been me who had offered the witches refreshments.
Ember nodded, not looking up from her legal pad. She’d been jotting notes for the last half hour in a tiny scrawl that I had no doubt would have been impossible to read, even if it hadn’t been etched in ink that teemed with enough magic that even I could feel it.
But with Capri slowly pacing back and forth between the couch and the front windows, Ember could be as cautious as she liked. I was annoyed that the blond witch knew so much about Christopher and me already. Capri Pine was a security breach that I had no idea how to seal, other than by murdering her. And, raised to be a sociopath or not, even I knew going around killing people for what information they might leak in the future was morally shaky ground.
“Do you need an oath from the shapeshifter?” Ember asked, drawing my attention away from Capri.
“An oath?”
The lawyer waved her hand, encompassing her notes and the stacks of paperwork but still not looking up. “Of fealty.”
Christopher set the laden tea tray on the side table nearest the windows, but stepped back without offering to pour.
“Thank you,” Capri murmured, uttering the first words she’d spoken since entering the room. At least they were polite, because it was obvious the witch didn’t want to be anywhere near us.
Near me, to be specific. Even as she moved to pour, she was still having a hard time not just outright staring at Christopher. Though it was possible it was his magic that intrigued her, not his looks.
“Socks?” Christopher asked, calling me back to Ember’s question.
“No,” I said, pointedly looking at Capri. “Jenni Raymond wouldn’t betray us.”
Capri sloshed the tea she’d been pouring, tension running through her jaw and neck. But she didn’t glance at me, and her magic didn’t rise at my unsubtle challenge.
Ember followed my gaze, lingering on her cousin. “Capri is oath sworn to me in this matter.” The witch lawyer curled her lips, glancing my way. “My contracts aren’t broken lightly.”
I answered her smile with one of my own. “Neither are mine.”
Ember’s smile promptly faded.
Christopher grimaced. “Ouch, Socks.” He settled on the couch beside me, glancing over at Capri. “Though true.”
Capri passed her hand over the spill on the tray, wiping it away with a whisper of magic. Then she handed a mug to Ember. “The fact that I’m bound to Opal, and a blood-related Pine, should have been enough.”
“Paperwork just keeps everything simpler,” Ember said, taking the mug. Capri had heavily dosed its tea with milk and sugar.
The blond witch stepped back to the front window, gazing out. She hadn’t poured any tea for herself. Ember returned to sorting through her papers. Some needed Jenni’s signature, and then the shapeshifter was going to take the witches to look at the swamp. They would decide then whether or not anything needed to be done to expedite the evaporation of the residual magic.
“The Grant property?” Christopher murmured. “You want to take it on?”
I met his gaze, wishing we could speak to each other telepathically. “If that helps resolve the situation quickly.”
“We could put it in Opal’s name,” Christopher said, thoughtful.
I glanced at Ember. “Like in a trust?”
The witch lawyer nodded, making another series of notes on her legal pad. “I’ll look into it.”
I glanced back at the clairvoyant. “Either way, we’re going to need a necromancer for the woods.”
“A necromancer?” Capri asked without looking our way. “To do what?”
“Not relevant to our current situation,” Ember said coolly.
Capri’s shoulders stiffened, though she continued to stare out at the snow-encrusted yard. Presumably attempting to keep as much space between us as possible, rather than looking for anything in particular. If she was sensitive to magic, the cluster of power at the back of the property — namely Aiden, Opal, and Paisley — would have been drawing her attention more than anything else.
Christopher smirked, laughing. The wash of magic fading from his eyes indicated that he was responding to something my future self was saying in his mind’s eye.
I narrowed my eyes at him, resolving to keep my mouth shut. Again.
His laughter deepened. Then he abruptly shifted from the couch, crossing into the front hall toward the entranceway.
“A police vehicle just pulled into the driveway,” Capri said.
No one answered her. The clairvoyant heading for the front door made that observation redundant. The door opened and closed, then Christopher stepped out onto the patio. I assumed he was going out to bring Jenni up to speed, not simply to chat. The shapeshifter hadn’t remotely forgiven Christopher for his multitude of recent sins, not all of which were actually his fault. Apparently, she really didn’t believe that a clairvoyant wouldn’t have known he was having sex with a stranger who happened to be wearing her face. Even though I’d explained to the shifter more than once that Christopher couldn’t see his own future.
I hadn’t thought Jenni was so emotionally invested in what I’d seen as a few casual hook-ups — to use Lani’s term. But sex had always been a calculated risk for me. A simple moment of pleasure, and a chance to touch another person without killing them, accidentally or not. Until Aiden. So my understanding of the emotional commitment it often triggered for others was limited.
Jenni crossed around the house, following the path Christopher had cleared through the now-melting snow. She stepped out of my line of sight, and I couldn’t pick up more than a murmur of the conversation that took place between her and the clairvoyant.
“I’m going to need Aiden Myers’s signature on three of these affidavits as well,” Ember said.
“I’ll get him,” I said, eagerly standing up. If I was going to be stuffed into the sitting room with Capri Pine any longer, I wasn’t going to be able to keep my mouth or my magic to myself. Her mere presence triggered me even more than Fish usually did.
Which was ridiculous, of course.
But not unexpected, given the way I so obviously felt about Opal.
“Get Opal as well,” Capri demanded, barely glancing at me. “I’d like to leave as soon as Ember makes a decision about how to clean up the mess you made.”
I forced my hands to relax at my sides, pinning my gaze on Capri but not bothering to reply. No one told me what to do. And they certainly didn’t do so in my own home.
The blond witch paled until no hint of the blush of pink that perpetually punctuated her cheeks remained. She had finally realized what her instincts had presumably been screaming since she’d set foot in the house. She had loathed me on sight, as expected. I was the type of monster most witches hated. But she’d been idiotic not to fear me as well. Or perhaps just sheltered. Insulated by all her mundane degrees and education.
Ember slowly capped her pen, set it to the side, and stood. Her gaze was on Capri, hands raised slightly to either side. Not standing between us exactly, but stepping in to moderate. “Capri?” she asked. “Would you prefer to wait elsewhere?”
“No.” The blond witch folded, then unfolded her arms, but she didn’t drop her gaze from mine. Her voice was surprisingly steady. “I’m duty bound to be here. For Opal. To protect Opal.”
I bared my teeth. “Little late.”
“The same could be said of you.” Capri gestured toward the papers strewn across the coffee table. “Of this. If you’d shown any interest in Opal previously, maybe this would have never happened. She was targeted because of you, something you did in San Francisco. Yes?”
My stomach soured at yet another reminder of my complicity. And for some reason, that reaction made me angry. But I wasn’t interested in filling in any of
the blanks in Capri’s understanding of the history between Opal and me, or the sequence of events that had led us to the present. It was bad enough that the witch was in my home, and about to take Opal out of my life.
It was bad enough that she had that right, that privilege.
“Really, Capri.” Ember sighed, taking a step around the coffee table to stand between us, closer to her cousin than me. “Your sense of self-preservation really should mitigate any obligation you feel for Opal. Especially since it was her birth family, and then the Academy who truly failed her.”
Capri raised her chin defiantly. “Self-preservation? From an amplifier?” she scoffed. “And a clairvoyant? Without the backing of a coven?”
I laughed at the witch’s ingrained prejudice. So I’d been wrong about her instincts kicking in. What a sad state of being, to be so assured in her supremacy without any power to back up that belief.
I could crumble her entire belief system with a brush of my fingers.
“No tussling in the house,” Christopher said, stepping back into the doorway leading into the hall. He leaned against the wall, Jenni standing slightly behind him, stripping off her coat. She was in uniform, her dark hair pulled back in a low ponytail, and her light-brown-eyed gaze on me.
I nodded at her.
She stepped into the room, offering her hand to Ember. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Jenni, yes,” Ember said pleasantly. They had been exchanging emails for the last three days, with Ember working to back up Jenni’s cover story and help tidy the loose ends.
Oddly, I’d never stuck around long enough to be involved in cleaning up any magical incident. Though I doubted that revelation would have come as a surprise to the blond witch standing all the way across the room from me.
Jenni glanced at Capri Pine, then looked away dismissively. “You’ve got paperwork for me to approve?”
“Yes.” Ember reached for her pen and one of the piles of paper, already back to business.
Christopher plucked the coat out of Jenni’s hand. She allowed it, but otherwise ignored the clairvoyant. He winked at me, nodding back toward the kitchen.
I gave Capri one last look. She avoided my gaze, though only because she was watching Christopher crossing into the dining room.
Jenni grinned at Capri nastily, presumably noting the witch’s distraction as well. “You must be new here.”
Capri blinked. “Excuse me?”
Jenni snorted.
I laughed, following Christopher into the kitchen.
I was stuffing my feet into my lined boots when Jenni Raymond wandered into the laundry room, leaning back against the dryer with her arms crossed.
“The blond is Opal’s foster mom, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah. I guess that explains it.”
I nodded, tugging on my coat.
“That’s a lot of paperwork.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to need to read it through.”
“Of course.”
Jenni nodded to herself, thoughtful.
I paused, my hand on the door handle. “Anything to report?”
She grinned, then shook her head. “Just … feeling like this isn’t done, you know?”
“I know. I feel it too.”
“Is Opal okay?”
“Magically and physically? Yes.”
Jenni snorted. “And Aiden?”
“You’ll see him for yourself if you’d let me go get him.”
Jenni shook her head. “Heaven forbid we have a conversation.”
“Do you actually have some information I need to know?”
“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”
That was obviously rhetorical, so I didn’t bother responding.
Jenni grimaced, casting her gaze in the direction of the kitchen. Then she closed the space between us, lowering her voice. “I’m worried about Lani … and Christopher.”
I eyed her, then nodded. Her concern for Lani Zachary was well founded. I had amplified the mechanic’s latent witch magic — once without knowing that was what I was doing, and a second time after coercing her permission. Christopher, Paisley, Opal, and Jenni would have died if I hadn’t. But Lani’s magic was no longer dormant as a result, and that would need to be addressed. “Why Christopher?”
“Can’t put my finger on it. His magic smells different.”
“A vision is brewing.”
“That’s what that is?”
“I can’t smell it like you, but yes.”
“Something more is coming that he can’t see yet. That can’t be good,” she muttered. “And Lani? You’ll get her to talk to the witches?”
“Ember. Yes.”
“Good call. The blond is a piece of work.”
“Because she’s married and can’t stop looking at Christopher?”
“She’s married? Fuck. Wait until she lays eyes on Aiden.”
I laughed quietly. “She won’t look twice.”
Jenni raised an eyebrow. “You seriously underestimate the sorcerer’s looks. Even Lani looked twice, and she hasn’t been into boys since our first year of university. Actually …” She chuckled quietly to herself. “Maybe it was our first year that put her off.”
“You overestimate the witch.”
“Oh, yeah? Like sorcerers and witches don’t mix?”
I nodded, opening the exterior door to end the conversation. Then I paused. “Ember wants to transfer the Grant property to me. Christopher asked her to see about putting it in trust for Opal.”
“Yes. Smart. Too much magical shit has gone down there.”
“If the trust isn’t feasible, you could take it instead.”
She shook her head emphatically. “Not on my salary. It would look suspicious.”
“You could call it an inheritance.”
“From who? I grew up around here, Emma. No one is going to believe that I have a long-lost aunt.”
I stepped out onto the back patio.
Jenni held the door open with splayed fingertips. “I’ll ask Lani for lunch. Maybe you could drop by with the lawyer? That would make it feel less … forced. At the diner.”
“Text Christopher the time. I’ll ask Ember, if it works out.” I turned away, but then added, “We need to start training together. Report back when you get off shift. Wear loose clothing.”
“Report back,” Jenni grumbled under her breath. But she closed the door behind me without further protest.
The world quieted. The air was crisp, but not cold. Except for the path that Aiden had carved through the snow and the crisscross of trails Paisley left behind during her daily rounds, the whited-out expanse of the property beyond the covered patio was pristine.
Dozens of icicles, formed sometime late yesterday, dripped from the patio overhang. The snow on the roof was melting as the morning warmed up, no matter that I’d had it well insulated when I replaced the shingles with metal.
I was feeling more settled — being away from the brush of Capri Pine’s low-grade magic was apparently all I’d needed — as I zipped up my coat, stepping off the patio. Traversing the path that led toward the barn, I turned sharply right, following the secondary path alongside the snow-shrouded garden. Moving silently, even in my oversized boots.
A light breeze stirred my loose hair, and I breathed in the moment. And even as I did, I knew that such peace would be fleeting. The vision threatening to manifest for Christopher ensured that, even more than usual. So I would take every breath I could.
Chapter 2
I picked up the low murmur of voices as I approached the southwest corner of the property. Three sections of cedar fencing there had been replaced after Silver Pine’s greater demon had torn through them during its attempt to kidnap Aiden and Christopher. The newer wood had only just begun to gray.
Opal was standing next to Aiden, so tiny compared to the tall sorcerer — and that despite the fact that she’d layered a ski jacket over the two sweaters she’d already been
wearing.
I faltered, needing to absorb the intense emotion that had overtaken my ability to breathe as I watched the two of them together. The attentive tilt of Aiden’s head as he gestured toward the series of runes he’d carved on the fence post, and Opal’s quiet follow-up question. The way she gazed up at him. The blue of both their magic simmering in their eyes, Aiden’s darker and deeper. Despite being more than powerful enough on his own, he’d let Opal help him, adding her immature magic to the property wards he was fortifying.
I pressed my hand against my chest, fighting through what I thought might be joy. Except I still didn’t understand why joy would burn so sharply and deeply.
Aiden glanced back over his shoulder, sweeping his bright-blue gaze over me. Likely picking up my magic, since I hadn’t moved.
He smiled. But the expression was tight, filled with the aching loss that he must have seen reflected in my own face.
I shut my eyes, needing to calm myself before talking to Opal. The young witch needed stability. She didn’t deserve to live, to grow, wrapped up in the uncertainty of our life.
She didn’t deserve me.
She needed someone like Capri, with her quiet, comforting magic.
That train of thought didn’t help me breathe any easier.
Magic erupted to my right, only a few strides away.
I spun, ready to meet whatever assault was —
A ball of packed snow hit me full in the face. I gasped, taking in Paisley’s abrupt appearance even as I lunged for her.
She was in her large pit bull form, though shortened versions of her tentacles writhed freely around her head and shoulders. Those tentacles were armed with four more snowballs.
She pelted me with three of her projectiles as I ran toward her. I scooped up two handfuls of snow, mashing it into one large ball without breaking stride.
Opal screeched joyfully, dashing back across the yard toward us.
I released the huge, loose snowball I’d made, smashing it directly into Paisley’s face. The demon dog’s final snowball went wide, missing me and taking Opal in the shoulder.
Paisley snarled at me playfully, hunkering back as she shook her head free of icy, wet snow.
Mystics and Mental Blocks (Amplifier 3) Page 4