My mom stared at me for a tense beat. Her flat expression lifted into a smile so broad that it scored her face. “Funny. You’re as bad as that butler of yours. Do you want some breakfast?”
I sagged. “Yes, please. Let me just check in with Mr. Tom.”
They’d need to be forced into safety, clearly, which was fine. Maybe we could just tell them we suspected a tornado or something. No, we didn’t get tornados here, but they’d probably believe that a whole lot faster than they’d believe in magic.
Nineteen
“Here you go, Jessie.” Ulric bent over my position at the kitchen table and handed me a small brown box covered in glued-on stones. He bit into a sandwich as he watched me ease it to the table without breaking off any of the decor.
“Why?” I asked, and I wasn’t sure if I was asking about the decor or why he was handing me the box.
“Edgar told me to give it to you. He checked in with Agnes earlier. They’ve been trying to re-create the potion. They managed to put together this elixir.”
Heart in my throat, feeling a surge of newfound energy, I flipped the metal clasp and pulled open the light wooden lid. I took out a little vial resting on a purple pillow, the liquid inside iridescent magenta. “They’re trying to re-create the potion? I thought she said she wouldn’t have enough power?”
“Yeah, they didn’t have enough to properly duplicate the spell, but this gives a low-level idea.”
A folded-up piece of paper rested next to the pillow. It had a list of ingredients, followed by instructions, like a recipe. I pulled up the pillow to find the plain brown wood beneath.
My mother bustled through with a pile of laundry just as I was lifting the vial to the light. For once Mr. Tom wasn’t chasing behind her, demanding she hand over the laundry and go sit down.
“Ooh, pretty.” She nodded at the vial. “Do you want a sandwich, hon? It’s after twelve o’clock.”
“No, I’m good—”
“Yes, she does, Mrs. McMillian, if you please,” Ulric said. “Or we can get Mr. Tom to make it.”
“Don’t be silly. I’ll be right back.” My mom left the kitchen.
“You need to eat, and you need to sleep,” Ulric said, sitting down at the table with me. “You’re worn out. You won’t come up with anything in this state. Give your brain a rest. They aren’t attacking yet.”
I sagged against the table. “I know, but they could come at any time and I’m not positive the spell I rigged up will work.” I turned over the piece of paper, seeing more directions for the potion. “If they don’t have enough power, how’d they get anything at all?”
“Reverse-engineering a spell is possible if you have the brains, ingenuity, analytics, and guts to pull it off. You don’t necessarily need the power. These people can’t make the full-fledged potion, but they can figure out how it was done and empower others to do what they can’t.” He held up the slip of paper. “Agnes has a good network of people, even though she’s clearly…” He fingered the crystals glued to the side of the box. “She’s not my speed, at any rate.”
I blew out a breath. “So you’re saying I can probably mostly trust this.” I shook the vial.
“Yeah. They would have told us if it would kill you. You can think about the spell while you eat, and if you refuse to take a nap, I’ll drink this vial—I also have guts—and you see if you can counteract it. Obviously this one will be easier to remove than the one Elliot’s using on his people, but it’ll give you an idea.”
Ulric proved to be correct—he did have guts, and not just because he ingested a glowing pink elixir made by a stranger. He also stood in a small, never-used sitting room on the second floor, with the shades drawn and furniture cleared away, and allowed me to try out various renditions of counter-spells. When those didn’t work, I started using the tear-away spell I’d been practicing earlier, attempting to pry it from his body.
“Now that you have the recipe, you can fashion a spell from opposites,” Ivy House practically yelled at me, her words vibrating through my body and echoing around in my cranium.
“I’m trying!” I paced the room as Ulric sat in a chair off to the side, waiting. “Nothing’s working. The spell I practiced earlier doesn’t seem to rip it away.” I rubbed my puffy eyes, my brain mush right now. It felt like I was swimming through wet cement, I was so tired. I’d been healing the tired away most of the day, for myself as well as those who’d been awake with me, but I’d hit the wall. My energy level couldn’t sustain the magic to continue healing, even with Ivy House’s help. And just like that, the last of the pink glow surrounding Ulric wore off.
“What’s going on?” Austin walked into the room, gray sweats adorning his bottom half and his bare torso glistening with sweat. He must’ve just gotten in.
I threw up my hands. “Nothing. Nothing is going on. I can’t figure it out, and now the elixir has worn off.”
“She’s too tired,” Ulric said calmly, somehow still upbeat despite the fact that his shirt had been torn to shreds with little patches of blood marring the rips. Toward the end, when desperation had started to set in, I’d gotten a little out of hand. Amazingly, he hadn’t ever flinched or told me to calm down. He probably should have. “She needs sleep and a fresh perspective. I think she has it; she’s just not putting it all together.”
“How can you possibly think that?” I pointed at his torso. “You look like you got caught in a briar patch.”
“I could feel you ripping at the spell, but you hadn’t dug in deeply enough. The next time you’d dig in deeply enough but forget to rip it away.” He shrugged. “You’re tired. Things slip when a person is tired.”
“Nonsense.” Mr. Tom walked into the room with a steaming mug. “She has a lot of mileage left in her. Here.” He handed me the brew, and I took a seat to drink it, fatigue pulling at me.
“Austin doesn’t need sleep,” I said.
“I was about to take a nap. Why don’t you join me?” Austin put out his hand to me.
I sighed. They were probably right—I was useless when I was too tired. I didn’t see things clearly.
That clock was ticking down in the back of my head, though. I could feel danger coming, just on the horizon. Dare I take the time to sleep when I wasn’t sure about a counter-spell?
“Do you know what would be best?” I said, then sipped the coffee. “If I could disintegrate the spell without them realizing it. You said you could feel that spell, Ulric?” I took another sip of the coffee, but it wasn’t perking me up like it usually would. Now that I was sitting down, my eyelids were growing heavy.
“Yeah,” Ulric replied. “It was kinda bubbly or fizzy. It felt like I was in a champagne bubble. I could see the glow around my limbs.”
“Right, so I’d need to strip it away while applying a harmless, fizzy, glowing spell. They’d continue on like nothing was amiss while Ivy House was targeting her missiles.” I took another sip and a wave of dizziness washed over me. I put my fingers to my temple. “I might need a cookie or something.”
The mug was taken out of my hand, and I was thankful because I was incredibly woozy all of a sudden. My eyelids felt like they weighed a hundred pounds and my body had already started to relax, like sleep was inevitable.
“What was in that coffee, Mr. Tom?” I asked, sagging in the chair. A moment later, Austin’s arms were around me, lifting me for the second time in twenty-four hours.
“A sleeping agent,” Mr. Tom replied. “The coffee was decaf.”
“Amazing. Not an ounce of guilt.” My head lolled against Austin’s shoulder.
“I am here to look after you, miss, even when you refuse to look after yourself,” Mr. Tom said as Austin carried me from the room.
“We have unfinished business, you and I,” I slurred at him. “Watch your back.”
“I think the defenses might be more dangerous in Jessie’s hands than with Ivy House acting as a free agent,” Ulric said, voice going dim as we moved away.
“Are you
really going to take a nap?” I asked Austin as he climbed the stairs.
“Yes. You’ve stopped healing me. I’m tired.” His voice was teasing. He dusted my forehead with a kiss. “No alpha in history has the benefits I do. The experience and intelligence of age, the strength and stamina of youth, and an incredibly generous powerhouse of a sorceress that makes sure I am always at my absolute best, even when it takes away from the healing efforts on herself. I’m the luckiest man alive.”
“You only have to get blown up and magically knocked around to earn it.”
“Anyone would trade places with me, even without seeing your beauty.”
I rubbed my eyes and then buried my face in Austin’s neck, my heart swelling.
He entered my room and closed the door behind him. “Do you mind if I sleep in here with you?” He laid me on the bed and moved around the room, closing the windows and drawing the shades.
“No, that’s fine. I’m about to pass out, though. Whatever Mr. Tom gave me, it was strong. Two sips and I’m about done.”
Austin kicked off his shoes. “My sweats are clean. I put them on when I got here.”
With great effort, I shimmied out of my jeans and slipped beneath the covers. There he met me, his arm out, welcoming me in. I scooted in until I could nestle my head in the hollow between his shoulder and his neck, curling up against his big body. Any other time and I’d probably feel the fire of his warmth, the deliciousness of proximity, but this time I just felt comfort.
“Don’t let me sleep too long. I need to tackle that spell,” I muttered, blinking. It felt like they were becoming stickier and stickier until they finally wouldn’t open anymore.
“No sweat. Sweet dreams.”
I didn’t have sweet dreams, though. Images flashed through my mind of Edgar’s crazy setup near the crystals, of random words floating off the orange paper, of Agnes’s elixir, of Ulric standing there as I poked and prodded him with spells, of the gaping hole in my reasoning.
I sat up in a panic as the light dimmed within the cracks of the shades. Austin stirred beside me, reaching for me and dragging me back down to him. I curled up into his arms for one moment, his warmth soothing, my brain still firing. My subconscious had been working in overdrive the whole time my brain was powered down.
Facing the door, with Austin spooned around me, I closed my eyes and envisioned the sort of spell Elliot had been using. Something to contain the heat and energy of a person. A bubble of sorts, fizzing because of all that heat and energy. Glowing from the contained power.
But a bubble didn’t need to be torn away, per se—it needed to be popped. Perhaps my attempts at stripping Ulric of the spell hadn’t worked because of the way I was tearing at it. A sharp, focused prick of power was the way to go.
I wondered if the potion would then dissolve away, or hang out on the body. The latter would be the best-case scenario for me, for sure. I wanted the trespassers to have a false sense of security and I doubted I’d have time to come up with a replacement fizzy spell. The beat of threat was pounding in my head, almost like a palpable thing. I couldn’t feel anyone on my property, but my gut said they were out there, focused on this house. Focused on me and the prize of my magic.
Austin stirred again and rubbed his eyes. He nuzzled into my neck for a moment, as though breathing in my scent. He rolled away, standing.
“You feel the pressure too, huh?” I threw my legs over the edge of the bed.
He ran his fingers through his hair and opened his mouth to answer.
The feeling of movement stampeded through my chest. The basajaun was running. Toward the house.
Something was happening.
“Time to go.” I stepped into my jeans as a lone howl drifted through the air, one beautiful note, wavering in the air. A wolf singing its song. One last placid moment before everything went to hell.
“That’s Logan.” Austin jogged to the door. “He’s reliable and savage, and he has a good head on his shoulders. I put him in the woods along the entrance of the court to let us know if anyone was coming.”
“The basajaun is running from the back. They’re closing us in.”
“Now we’ll get to see if it is one faction or two.”
I didn’t see how it would really matter.
I felt Niamh set foot on Ivy House property, moving as though she wasn’t in a hurry. Knowing her, that meant she felt pressure and was too stubborn to give in to it.
“Niamh is pulling in,” I said. “They must be nearly at her house. I have to get that spell finished off.”
“You better put on that muumuu, too. You might need to fly.”
I breathed through the tremors of anticipation, adrenaline, and fear.
There was no reason to freak out. Even if we couldn’t get those potions off those bodies, I could trigger the house’s defenses. We’d be fine. As long as we were on this property, we’d be good.
“Jessie, come quick,” Ulric said through the newly fixed door.
Austin pulled it open, pausing for a beat to let me through first before following me out.
Ulric led the way without a word, bringing us to the closest bedroom with a view of the front yard. Four people, two men and two women, rolled a large device up the street toward us. Four tree-trunk posts at angles sat on a rolling platform, with a tree trunk at the top holding them all together. Swinging between the legs was a sixth trunk with a pointy end.
“Is that…” I leaned closer to the window. “Is that a battering ram?”
“Time to get your parents to safety,” Austin said, his voice rough. “Time to fight.”
Twenty
Austin watched panic roll across Jess’s face, something that happened right before every major skirmish. It was her sense of Jane reality taking the helm for one brief moment. In the past it had stressed him out. Now he just waited.
A moment later, he was rewarded with what he’d come to expect: the panic faded from her intelligent hazel eyes, and a look of stubborn determination took its place, that attitude also apparent in her clenched jaw and lowered brow. She leaned closer to the window again, her eyes surveying the front yard. Brilliant green grass shone in the late afternoon sun. Pink and blue tulips waved from beside the front path, moved by the light wind. Bushes and hedges stood tall. They were deep in the calm before the storm.
Teams of people emerged from the side yards of the houses up the street, forming what looked like a horde, a mass grouping of armed people in battle leathers. They marched toward Ivy House, sheets of soft, glittering air sliding down on either side of their group, masking their sound and maybe their appearance from the outside world, keeping this fight magical so Janes and Dicks would be none the wiser. Austin was sure there was a sheet behind them as well, pulling tighter and tighter and tighter as they moved toward the house. He also wondered if there was an attack spell woven in there, keeping anyone from slipping out of the mayhem and making a run for it through the spell. He wouldn’t doubt it—they’d want to trap Jess in. They wouldn’t want their prize escaping.
A wave of pure adrenaline washed through him, followed by a heavy dose of rage.
That spell would keep them trapped in as well. With him.
“Jacinta McMillian!” Her father appeared in the doorway. Jess didn’t turn to look back. “Who are all these people in this house? More men with capes showed up. They’re underfoot every time I turn around. And now your mother says there are a whole bunch of people walking this direction from down the street. Look at me when I speak to you.”
“Kinda busy here, Dad.”
“Doing what, looking out the window? This place is like a bus station, Jacinta. If you need some money, your mother and I can lend you some. You don’t need all of these people living here.”
“Didn’t Ulric fill you in about why they’re here?” she asked in a faraway voice. She was likely planning which defenses she would enact to deal with the onslaught from the front. She’d need to set them and run, because the people in the
woods were almost certainly about to make their move. Austin didn’t feel much on this property, not like the others, but he could feel that basajaun cutting through the wood, straight for the house, probably with news of an invading army that Ivy House couldn’t feel.
“You can’t house the whole forestry school, Jessie. Didn’t I tell you that earlier? You’re not a hotel.”
Jess straightened up with a clenched jaw. She turned and walked quickly toward her dad, still filling the doorway.
“Dad, they aren’t living here, they are auditioning to join my team. That team is in charge of protecting me and this house. Go look out the front window. That’s what we’re protecting it from. Soon there will be a host collecting out back as well. They’re already hiding in the woods. Both of them want to take me for my magic. Surprise! The house is magical, and now so am I. Life has gotten a little more interesting for me since the divorce.”
“Oh, horseshit. What are you saying, that you live in a place like Willy Wonka’s?”
“Yes, only less fun and with much less chocolate. Come on, it’s time for you and Mom to get to safety.”
She tried to pass him, but his expression had turned stubborn. He clearly didn’t plan on budging.
Before Austin could step in to help, he heard a small electrical sound, like a bug zapper. Her dad jolted, made a sound like “hahorr,” and danced sideways as though on strings in the hands of a drunk puppeteer.
“See what I mean?” She walked through the door. “Things aren’t as they seem.”
“What was that?” her dad called after her.
Austin put his hand on her shoulder as she reached the downstairs landing, turning her to face him. “What do you need from me to help counteract the spell? A somewhat human guinea pig?”
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