A faint blush bloomed across Burgundy’s face. She had a dusting of freckles over her nose and cheeks that I’d never noticed before. “No. It’s a … passed down from my grandmother. A grounding. The symbol for earth combined with a healing rune.”
“That’s even better,” I murmured, hovering my hand over the stone. “It suits your magic more than brute force or a simple amplification … but let’s just add a little something, shall we?”
Burgundy exhaled in a rush, as if she’d been holding her breath even while speaking. “All right.”
Pressing my fingers to her inner wrist and the heel of my hand to the focal stone, I reached out for her magic. Feeling for what made her utterly unique, even among the powerful Adepts that waited impatiently in the hallway behind her. Her watermelon magic tickled my taste buds, sweet and thirst quenching.
“There you are,” I murmured. I twined my own magic around Burgundy’s, carefully coaxing the energy forward so as to not overwhelm the delicate watermelon power. “You’re already a healer. That comes to you naturally.”
“Yes,” Burgundy said reverently. “I like … helping.”
I pulled more of the young witch’s power forward, trying to not rush, trying to not just grab and shove. I channeled her sweet, delicate magic into the stone, cementing her inherent abilities with my own magic. Intensifying them. Then tying the stone back to her. A conduit. For her use only.
Burgundy gasped. “The stone is … it’s getting warm. And … can you … I can see it glowing. Just … a glimmer, a halo … is it … is that my magic?”
I smiled at her. “Yes. That’s you.” I closed her fingers around the stone, outlining the rune carved through its center with my forefinger. “You’ll be able to channel your healing through the stone now. It will ground your magic as it did before, but even more so. It will amplify that magic with focus and intention. But you must be careful not to drain yourself. And no one else will be able to take the stone from you, or use its power against you.”
“But if I give it to someone?”
“The magic can pass from you to another by choice. That’s always the way. Love is given freely. But it can’t be taken by force.”
“Yes. I understand.”
I straightened, meeting my grandmother’s disgruntled gaze over Burgundy’s bowed head. The younger witch was staring at the stone in reverence. “Sheer power isn’t always the way through a difficult situation.”
My grandmother stiffened her shoulders. “Yet you casually hand an object of immense power to a young witch who has no idea what she now holds. What she now commands.”
“I do understand,” Burgundy said, gently but firmly.
I opened my mouth to back the young witch up, to explain why I’d felt an instinctual need to protect her from the spell we were all about to cast. But my grandmother raised her hand to silence me.
“Fine, Jade. I’d like to save my daughter if you’re done making speeches.”
My tone grew low. Dark edged. “It wasn’t much of a speech, Gran. And we won’t make it through any of this by treating anyone as expendable.” I turned my back on my grandmother before she could respond. “Put the stone in your pocket, please, Burgundy.”
“Under your foot or in your opposite hand while you seal the circle,” my grandmother corrected. “Against skin is a better choice.”
I didn’t bother to counter that. My grandmother was the senior witch in the room, after all.
Magic shifted behind me as Burgundy applied her paintbrush to the carpet and closed the circle, sealing me in with my mother and the column of power.
A moment later, more energy bloomed, twisting through the next circle, then feeding back through mine, as Gran stepped forward and sealed the younger witch into the spell.
I kept my gaze on my mother’s face. She looked serene, but I could see a single track of tears across each of her pale cheeks.
Another circle was sealed, adding the taste of brown-sugar shortbread to the intricate spell circling around me.
“Get ready, Jade,” Gran whispered behind me. “It must be an equal exchange. Your mother for the rapier.”
Tart apple tickled my senses as Rochelle sealed her circle. The carpeted floor began humming under my bare feet. At the edges of my peripheral vision, the runes were glowing a deep sea-blue. Then they began to vibrate.
Angelica was murmuring something, needing to vocalize the spell that the witches and the oracle could simply channel through themselves.
I raised the rapier before me in my right hand, holding the blade just under the cross guard, point down.
Jasmine sealed the final circle. Sweet peppermint topped all the other tastes filling my senses. A gentle breeze of energy twisted through each of the circles, swirling all the magic that had been called forth. Peppermint combined with apple, with shortbread, with lilac, and with watermelon into one gigantic bite. Then all those tastes mellowed into a single mouthful of power.
Power primed and waiting.
For me.
“Hey, Mom,” I whispered, lifting my left hand so it was even with my right. I was ready to grab my mother and to shove the rapier into the column of magic at the same time. But … I hesitated. The spell was so intricate, so delicate. Just shoving my hand and the sword into the center of it seemed violent.
“I’m the lightning rod,” I murmured. Angelica had called me that. But it wasn’t quite right. That wasn’t how my magic worked. It was more like I was —
Magic contracted around me. But it was the original boundary spell, not the one we were attempting to cast. My mother’s eyes snapped open, her face etched with silent agony as the column of power dimmed again.
“Now, Jade!” my grandmother shouted. “Reach into the magic with the sword. Free your mother. You can do this, dowser.”
Dowser. Alchemist.
I wasn’t a lightning rod at all.
I was the storm.
I gathered all the magic circling around and thrumming under my feet. All the magic in the runes painted across the floor. All that combined power, carefully keeping it separated from the spell holding my mother hostage.
I channeled that energy up through my body, feeding it through into the rapier already imbued with dragon magic and fortified with my alchemy. Then I took all of that energy, the entire sum of the spell painstakingly painted across the floor by Gran and Angelica, and I channeled it into the sword.
Burgundy slumped to the floor behind me.
Angelica let out a sharp cry.
I slipped both my hands and the rapier into the column of magic, allowing the power of the boundary spell to flow around me and the weapon. I closed my empty hand around my mother’s upper arm.
She opened her eyes.
And smiled.
“Hello, my Jade.”
“Hi, Mom.”
I gently tugged my mother from the column of magic. She slumped against me, unable to hold her own weight. But that was okay. I was strong enough to hold her for as long as she needed.
Then slowly, I loosened my grasp on the rapier. I let the energy of the column, of the boundary spell, lick along its edges. I let it sip at the blade’s magic. Then I allowed it to consume it.
I started to withdraw my hand. The boundary magic resisted, attempting to hold onto me and all my power as well.
My mother wrapped her hand around my forearm, her grip weak as she tried to add her strength to mine.
I tugged my hand free, afraid to breathe as I waited to see if the grid would accept or reject the rapier. Holding my mother upright, I waited to see if the spell would try to take her back — or whether its energy would lash out against her.
I was ready to step forward myself, to take her place in the central column, even though I knew I shouldn’t.
The magic held.
“Thank you, my darling girl,” my mother murmured.
Then, preceded by a teeth-aching wash of his guardian magic, my father was striding through the room despite my g
randmother’s weak protests. He lifted my mother, cradling her in his arms and gazing at her with a desperate fierceness. “Don’t you do that again.”
My mother laughed weakly. “I would do much, much more if needed. You know that. Plus, I knew our daughter would come.”
Yazi grumbled under his breath as he swiftly turned toward the door with my mother in his arms. “Healer!” he bellowed.
Qiuniu was already standing in the doorway. “I’m here, warrior.”
“A boon, if you please.”
The healer waved his hand as if brushing something away. “There are no favors between us, Yazi. I’m here by choice.” He reached for my mother, meeting my gaze over my father’s shoulder. “I’ll be back for the others.” Then he carried Scarlett from the room with my father on his heels.
I cast my gaze around the map room. The magic of the column held, writhing through the walls and crisscrossing the ceiling. But all the energy that I’d felt in the circles and the runes had faded. The black paint remained, but the spell was dormant, evaporated.
No … consumed. Channeled by me into the rapier.
Burgundy was curled up where she’d collapsed onto the carpet. She was cupping her focal stone in both hands and murmuring as if talking to it. And maybe she was. Who was I to judge?
The junior witch smiled at me softly when I caught her eye.
Gran was sitting cross-legged behind the younger witch. She looked exhausted, but she held my gaze steadily. “A magnificent casting, Jade.”
Angelica was kneeling behind my grandmother, looking at me as if I were … well, some kind of dreadful monster. “You … you pulled all the magic from the spell …”
“What did you think she was going to do, sorcerer?” my grandmother snapped. “She’s an alchemist. How else was the weapon to take Scarlett’s place?”
Angelica shut her mouth, then smoothed her expression. “The barrier won’t hold for long now. I’d estimate we have two days at the most.”
“But it won’t bounce back,” Jasmine said. The golden-haired vampire was leaning against the wall next to the door. Her eyes were closed. “It won’t consume Scarlett.”
“No. It won’t,” Gran said smugly. “It should simply fade. Or we can turn it off. Jade can easily retrieve or replace the weapon now.”
Ah, there it was. The other shoe dropping.
Somehow, my grandmother had gotten her way after all. The witches’ grid had been weaponized, albeit accidentally — but still courtesy of me. Kandy would be pissed. Thankfully, I didn’t feel tied to the grid in the same way I had been when it was first created, but Gran now thought that I could control it. Fuel it.
Rochelle, who’d been standing quietly and listening to us chatter, suddenly gasped. Her eyes glowed with a bright, searing light.
“Here we go,” Jasmine murmured. “Time to see which way magic wills us. Again.”
“I see … I see …” Rochelle murmured, reaching out with both hands. “Yes. I see.” The oracle smiled, deeply satisfied. “Gather the misfits.”
Jasmine snorted. “They’re on their way.”
“What?” I asked. “The misfits? Like who? Mory? Ben? The twins? That … that can’t be right.”
Beau strode into the room, carrying Rochelle’s army-green satchel. Angelica’s flinch let me know just how quickly the shifter was moving. He was also carrying a sketchbook. But before he could pick Rochelle up or hand over her drawing supplies, the white of the oracle’s magic faded from her eyes.
She gazed at her husband, reaching up and touching his cheek adoringly. “It’s going to be okay, Beau.”
He grunted noncommittally, but Rochelle just smiled and laid her hand on his arm, allowing him to lead her from the room.
No one had answered my question. “What misfits?” I asked again, a bit more caustically.
Jasmine smiled tightly. “All of us, Jade. It’s going to take all of us. You know there was no chance of it being any other way.”
Gran sighed, reaching for me. I stepped by Burgundy and helped Pearl to her feet. She patted my shoulder as she stood. “It’s not always about you, Jade.” Then she turned away. “Come, Angelica. I believe we deserve some tea.”
Angelica nodded, rising, then following my grandmother into the hall. I listened to the satisfied murmur of their conversation as they traversed the hallway and mounted the stairs.
Jasmine met my eye, smiling sneeringly. “Piece of work, your gran. But believe me, she doesn’t even hold a candle to my mother in the nastiness department.”
“It isn’t ever all about me,” I said belligerently.
Jasmine laughed. “Of course not. But it shut you up, didn’t it?” She turned her head slightly, listening to something I couldn’t hear. “Benjamin just arrived. Unfortunately, he brought his mother, speaking of pieces of work. I think Teresa Garrick might eat souls for breakfast.”
Before I could figure out how to respond, Burgundy reached over and touched the back of my hand lightly. “I’ll stay here, Jade. And keep an eye on the map.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She dropped her gaze to her focal stone, holding it reverently before her. “Thank you for this gift.”
I touched the smooth stone lightly. It felt … pleased. Contented. “Thank you, Burgundy. For being here when I couldn’t be. For doing what I can’t.”
“We all have different talents.”
“Yes. Neither more important than the other.”
The junior witch grinned at me.
I tried to smile back, but my face felt tight, so I didn’t force it any further. Meeting Jasmine’s gaze with a nod, I strode past the golden-haired vampire, exiting into the hall.
“I’ll stay,” Jasmine said to Burgundy behind me. “Go with Jade. You might never get another chance to learn from the most powerful healer in the world.”
“But … you said Benjamin was here … don’t you need … um …”
“Just go, witch,” Jasmine said. “Let the rest of us sort ourselves out.”
Coming from another vampire, addressing Burgundy as ‘witch’ instead of using her name might have sounded derogatory, but I could hear the smile in Jasmine’s tone. And I could imagine the answering grin on the so-called witch’s face.
Eager to check on my mother, I jogged up the stairs, leaving the rest of the overheard conversation behind me.
8
Following the taste of the healer’s and my father’s magic, I slipped into the guest bedroom where I had found and fueled the rapier. My mother, looking more petite than she had ever appeared to me before, was lying in the center of the queen-sized bed with a guardian standing to either side. Qiuniu hovered his hand over Scarlett’s forehead, but her indigo-blue gaze was glued to my father on her right. Yazi reached down to touch her hand, but Qiuniu warned him off with a quiet murmur. They were speaking Mandarin, or maybe Cantonese, in hushed tones. I really had to figure out the difference. And, like, learn the language. Because it was becoming apparent that the guardians liked to use it to exclude the rest of us from their discussions.
Warner spoke fluent Cantonese. He’d be able to translate, to teach me. Then I …
A wave of grief gripped me, freezing me in place as I tried to fight it and appear unaffected at the same time.
“Jade,” Gran said, calling my attention to my left. Her magic was so muted that I hadn’t tasted her lilac under the chocolate and coffee permeating the bedroom. She was holding the neatly folded blue-gray silk duvet in her arms. It had likely been torn from the bed by my father when he’d carried my mother in. “You will not be going running off now that Scarlett has been removed from the grid.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but Gran decided I needed a spanking on top of orders.
“You running amok in the city is what got us to this point. This impasse.”
All of my anger, all my fear, rose. I wanted to let loose, to defend my choices and decisions. But Burgundy stepped into the room before I could speak, so I
curbed my ire, knowing I was on edge for all the wrong reasons. Knowing that the same was true for Gran.
“Healer. May I assist you?” Burgundy asked formally.
My grandmother looked aghast. She stepped forward as if to admonish the young witch, likely over some perceived breach of protocol. But Qiuniu simply nodded and waved Burgundy forward.
My grandmother snapped her mouth closed.
The junior witch stepped to the opposite side of the bed from the healer, bobbing her head to my father shyly. The warrior of the guardians stepped aside for her, begrudgingly joining me at the foot of the bed.
“Hold your hand over Scarlett’s chest,” Qiuniu prompted softly. Burgundy did so. “Can you feel her magic?”
The witch tilted her head to one side, then shook it.
“Try with your focal stone.”
Burgundy gently placed her stone on my mother’s upper chest, resting her fingers on it. “I see,” she murmured. “So … drained.”
“Yes,” the healer said. “And your instinct is to try to fill that reservoir, yes?”
Burgundy nodded eagerly. “Yes. Shall I?”
“No. When someone is this depleted, their magic might not be receptive. And you might drain your own resources attempting to …” He paused, searching for the correct term. “Attempting to fill a leaky bucket. Do you understand?”
“I should test the connection first.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
Qiuniu gazed at Burgundy intently. “You must never give more than you have to give. It is far better to heal slowly and efficiently than to harm or even kill yourself in order to heal swiftly.”
My mother shivered.
Gran bustled forward, shoving herself into the lesson. “Might I cover my daughter now, healer? So she doesn’t freeze to death while you chat?”
“Of course, Pearl.” The healer stepped to the side, meeting my father’s gaze with a wry twist of his lips.
Gran clucked her tongue at Burgundy, and the younger witch helped her spread the silk duvet over my mother. Apparently, somewhere between seeing him heal me on the beach in Tofino, then waking to find that Vancouver had gone to hell and almost killed her daughter in the process, Gran had lost her shine for the healer.
Gemstones, Elves, and Other Insidious Magic (Dowser 9) Page 14