Gabby and Peggy were downstairs in the bakery kitchen. The taste of the twins’ blackberry and raspberry jam intertwined, feeding and complementing each other. That was interesting. Something to investigate at another time, perhaps.
I could sense the bakery storefront so full of Adepts that I had no idea whether they’d left any room for nonmagical customers. I caught Gran’s lilac, Jasmine and Kett’s peppermint, as well as Burgundy’s sweet watermelon and Drake’s salted almond and honey.
I smiled. Then I inhaled deeply, merging all the different tastes, all the effortlessly gathered power with the breath. The exterior blood wards rippled. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn they sighed contentedly.
I exhaled, reeling in my dowser senses and tasting one lingering bit of magic. Magic I’d been ignoring for months now. Magic sitting right at the foot of my bed.
Tart green apple.
I opened my eyes, already rolling to the end of the bed and reaching for the art tube containing Rochelle’s engagement gift. I popped the plastic cap, carefully shaking the tube so that the rolled sketch would slip out into my hand.
A whisper of oracle magic shivered across my palm and up my wrist. Carefully touching only the edges so that I didn’t smudge the vision rendered in charcoal any more than it was already, I unrolled the thick art paper.
The drawing was large, easily eighteen inches across. It depicted two sets of entwined hands. One set was smaller, more delicate, and holding what appeared to be a small bouquet of chocolate cosmos. Each of the two left hands wore a wedding ring. Ribbons of magic — at least that was how I thought Rochelle depicted magic in her visions — twined around the hands where they clasped.
Warner’s hands and mine. Wearing what appeared to be two of the wedding rings that adorned my necklace. Rune-carved rings that were currently hanging directly between my breasts, resting against my heart.
Warner’s parents’ rings.
We hadn’t intended to use them. We’d had stacking rings designed.
I sobbed. Just once.
Then I laughed.
I was such a freaking idiot for not opening the sketch right away. The oracle didn’t sketch the mundane. She’d seen Warner and I married. Months ago. Had I opened her gift right away, I would have had some extra bit of hope — something to carry with me through all the world-ending craziness with the elves.
Carrying the drawing with me, I stood up on my bed. Turning back toward the headboard, I smoothed the sketch against the wall, coaxing the magic of the exterior wards through siding, concrete, and drywall to hold the vision in place.
A hint of lemon verbena drew my gaze to the right. A wedding dress had abruptly appeared in the center of the bedroom, hovering about a foot from the hardwood floor. My wedding dress. An ivory French tulle soft A-line gown, strapless with a woven crisscross bodice and gathered skirt. An ivory cross-grain satin sash was set at the waist, loosely looped into a double bow. It was pristinely pressed.
Preceded by the taste of their magic, Kandy and my mother bustled into the room.
“Wakey, wakey, sleepyhead,” Kandy crowed. “It’s time to get married.”
I laughed, stepping down from the bed. “Is this what Warner’s been planning?”
My mother stepped over to me, brushing a kiss to my forehead. “Yes, my Jade. Proper permits and all.” She turned to my bureau, setting down the small box she’d been carrying.
“Permits?”
Kandy grabbed my arm, gently dragging me to the bathroom. “For the alley.”
“The alley?”
“Yeah, dummy. You wanted to be married where you met, right?”
A sharp, almost painful feeling bloomed in my chest. But it was joy, not fear. Not grief.
Warner had just barreled right over my grandmother’s wishes, putting my happiness first.
“Oh, God,” Kandy groused. “If you’re going to get all mushy, I’m going to make you shower on your own.”
I barked out a laugh.
Kandy snickered, then hustled out of the bathroom. “Get moving. We still have to do your makeup and hair. And Blossom needs to fit the dress. You’ve lost too much weight.” Kandy turned back and sneered. “Ain’t nobody around here that likes you looking like skin and bones, dowser. Thankfully, Gabby’s been baking for hours!”
I waited. My hair and makeup were done, including antique hairpins tasting of grassy witch magic that had been worn by my great-grandmother and my grandmother when they’d gotten married. I was alone for a moment in my living room while Kandy and Scarlett hustled downstairs to make certain the groom and the guests were ready for me.
Ready for my wedding.
I laughed quietly, feeling a little … out of body.
Lemon verbena called my attention behind me, toward the front door of the apartment. I turned to thank Blossom for everything she’d done for me and for my family. But instead of seeing the brownie, I found myself blinking at an ivory-carved, three-foot-high smiling Buddha.
An envelope was propped in the crook of the statue’s arm. Delighting in the feel of the tulle skirt brushing against my legs, I crossed around the couch to retrieve the note.
My name and title, including a new attribute that I could have done without, were scrawled across the envelope in black ink:
Jade Godfrey
Wielder of the Instruments of Assassination, Dowser, Alchemist, Elf Slayer
I cracked the seal, tasting a hint of Pulou’s magic — strong tea and heavy cream. Opening the thick parchment envelope, I pulled out the plain card tucked within it. It read:
On the day of your wedding, I gift you with this Buddha. It appears to already have an affinity for collecting that which belongs to you. Should it ever be necessary, it will keep what you bid it to hold.
— Pulou, the treasure keeper of the guardian dragons
“Huh.” I patted the rounded, smooth head of the Buddha. “Welcome to the collection of misfits. We love cupcakes and tend to draw a bit of magical mayhem our way … like, constantly.”
The magic of the statue shifted, tasting of Asian coconut-jelly dessert. And I would have sworn the Buddha licked my palm, teasing and tasting my magic in turn.
Delightful.
That was what I got for talking to inanimate magical artifacts.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs from the bakery, then Mory burst into the room. The necromancer was finally and thankfully free of her casts, and dressed in the sweetest dark-red baby-doll dress. Over army boots and paired with a multicolored, speckled shawl, of course. “Oh! Good. I thought I was going to be late.”
She was holding what appeared to be miles of delicate, cobweb-thin golden lace. She strode toward me, unfolding an absolutely gorgeous shawl as she neared. The triangle was so large that it dipped in the middle even when Mory held it stretched out before her.
“It was still drying,” the necromancer muttered as she circled around me to drape the shawl over my shoulders.
I had to bend my knees so she could reach over my head. She then secured the wings at my back with a lightweight gold pin, from which I could feel a hint of residual magic. Dragon magic, judging by its spicing.
I touched the beaded lace edging, feeling overwhelmed by the gift — and therefore oddly speechless.
“Warner collected the beads for me.” Mory crossed around me to fuss with the way the shawl was decorating my shoulders and chest. “I think they might actually be diamonds. Which freaked me out, so I had to practice a lot on a swatch before I got to the edge.”
“This … Mory … this must have taken you months.”
She bobbed her head, not meeting my gaze. “I’ve been working on it since I got your engagement party invitation. The broach at the back is from your dad. Well, your grandmother.”
“My father’s mom?”
“Yeah. He says there’s a story to go with it, but he wanted to tell you himself.”
I smiled. I didn’t know much about my father’s family, other than th
e fact that he didn’t have many blood relatives. I looked forward to the tale.
Mory flicked her dark-brown eyes up to meet my gaze, whispering, “Do you like it?”
“It’s perfect.”
She grinned, then she danced away to the stairs. “We’re late!”
I trailed after her. Slowly, carefully, and deliberately taking the first steps into the next chapter of my life.
The alley was decorated with magic. Swooping, delicate ivory-and-gold banners shielded the small party of friends and family gathered just beyond the back door of the bakery from sight and from the rain. Everyone I truly loved — Kett, Kandy, Gran, my mother and father, and Drake — was in attendance. Mory pressed a small bouquet of chocolate cosmos into my hands. Then she stepped over to join Rochelle and Beau. Blossom was hiding behind the exceedingly pregnant oracle.
But from the moment I stepped through from the bakery kitchen, I only had eyes for Warner. My sentinel stood a few feet away, situated on the exact spot where I had called him forth. Twice, in fact. He looked absolutely delectable in a dark-gray suit, but it was the smile etched across his face and the way his golden dragon magic flecked his eyes that captured every ounce of my attention.
The tiny group gathered around us. A steady rain supplied the music as I stepped forward, reaching for my love, my soul mate.
The man, the dragon, who had pulled me from death. Who helped hold me in the world. Who helped me create and keep the life I’d carved out for myself.
Marrying him was just the icing on the cupcake.
I leaned in, brushing my cheek across Warner’s smooth jaw. “Is the suit real?”
“Oh, yes,” he murmured. “You can prove it to yourself a little later.”
“By undoing every single button with my teeth?”
Warner laughed huskily.
Kett cleared his throat, surprising me when he spoke. “Jade and Warner, you are gathered here, surrounded by those you love, to cement your commitment to each other with vows. And, I have no doubt, with magic.”
I laughed. “So you’re an ordained minister now, executioner?”
My vampire BFF raised an eyebrow at my interruption. “We all have dark moments in our past that, on occasion, can be useful to resurrect.”
Kandy cackled. “Especially when you’ve got a thousand years to collect them, eh?”
“Do you have the rings?” Kett asked Warner.
The sentinel reached into his breast pocket. “I do.”
“Wait.” I passed the bouquet of chocolate cosmos to Kandy. I slipped my hand under the shawl Mory made and tickled my fingertips, along with a dollop of alchemy, across the lowest two wedding rings on my necklace. I turned as I did so, seeking out Rochelle in the tiny crowd standing behind us. “The oracle has spoken.”
Warner’s parents’ dark gold, rune-marked rings dropped into my palm. I held them out toward my husband-to-be.
He grinned. “You opened the vision in the art tube.”
“I did.”
He offered me his left hand. I rolled the larger of the two rings in my fingers, filling it with my magic, binding it with my alchemy. Then I slipped it partway up Warner’s ring finger, pausing as it resized to fit him.
“For better, for worse?” He teased, grinning at me. “Till death us do part?”
I laughed softly. “Nah. You aren’t getting rid of me that easily, sixteenth century.”
“Promise,” he growled.
“I do.”
Warner swept me forward into a blistering, soul-searing, life-affirming kiss.
“Apparently, we’re doing everything out of order,” Kett said coolly.
Kandy practically busted a gut laughing. “Did you expect anything less, old man?”
Kett eyed her, then pointedly cleared his throat to take command of the ceremony again.
Only half listening, I reached up and stroked Warner’s smooth jaw, tasting his magic. Tasting all the magic of all my loved ones surrounding us. And knowing I was exactly where I was meant to be in this moment, in this life.
When the ceremony was done, Gran happily presided over a storefront reception with all of the Adepts that now firmly called Vancouver home — including Burgundy, all seven Talbots, and the necromancer elders. Though, of course, my grandmother was already planning a second reception for out-of-town guests. Benjamin slipped in just after sunset.
After mountains of cupcakes, courtesy of Peggy and Gabby, gallons of dark-chocolate shots, and many, many congratulations, Warner carried me through the portal in the basement, which had been apparently realigned to open into his bedroom in Stockholm.
I didn’t have much time to notice the rest of the furniture, but the bed was covered in more chocolate cosmos, the mattress was firm but bouncy, and the suit was definitely real.
Then together, with limbs and lives entwined, we moved into our own version of happily ever after … with a cupcake on top.
Acknowledgments
For Michael
My happily ever after with a cupcake on top.
* * *
With thanks to:
My story & line editor
Scott Fitzgerald Gray
My proofreader
Pauline Nolet
My beta readers
Terry Daigle, Angela Flannery, Gael Fleming, and Heather Lewis.
For their encouragement & general advice
SFWA
RWA
The Office
The Retreat
About the Author
Meghan Ciana Doidge is an award-winning writer based out of Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada. She has a penchant for bloody love stories, superheroes, and the supernatural. She also has a thing for chocolate, potatoes, and cashmere yarn.
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NEW RELEASE MAILING LIST
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Please also consider leaving an honest review at your preferred retailer.
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For recipes, giveaways, news, and glimpses of upcoming stories, please connect with Meghan via:
www.madebymeghan.ca
[email protected]
Also by Meghan Ciana Doidge
Novels
After the Virus
Spirit Binder
Time Walker
Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser 1)
Trinkets, Treasures, and Other Bloody Magic (Dowser 2)
Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (Dowser 3)
I See Me (Oracle 1)
Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4)
Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser 5)
I See You (Oracle 2)
Artifacts, Dragons, and Other Lethal Magic (Dowser 6)
I See Us (Oracle 3)
Catching Echoes (Reconstructionist 1)
Tangled Echoes (Reconstructionist 2)
Unleashing Echoes (Reconstructionist 3)
Champagne, Misfits, and Other Shady Magic (Dowser 7)
Misfits, Gemstones, and Other Shattered Magic (Dowser 8)
Gemstones, Elves, and Other Insidious Magic (Dowser 9)
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Novellas/Shorts
Love Lies Bleeding
The Graveyard Kiss (Reconstructionist 0.5)
Dawn Bytes (Reconstructionist 1.5)
An Uncut Key (Reconstructionist 2.5)
Graveyards, Visions, and Other Things that Byte (Dowser 8.5)
* * *
www.madebymeghan.ca
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GEMSTONES, ELVES, AND OTHER INSIDIOUS MAGIC (Dowser 9)
Copyright © 2018 Meghan Ciana Doidge
Published by Old Man in the CrossWalk Productions 2018
Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada
www.oldmaninthecrosswalk.com
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be produced in an
y form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, objects, and incidents herein are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual things, events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Library and Archives Canada
Doidge, Meghan Ciana, 1973 —
Gemstones, Elves, and Other Insidious Magic/Meghan Ciana Doidge — SMASHWORDS EDITION
Cover design by: Elizabeth Mackey
ISBN 978-1-927850-88-6
Gemstones, Elves, and Other Insidious Magic (Dowser 9) Page 30