by Eva Chase
Exhilaration rushed through me. My spark. It was lit. I wasn’t letting it stop at that small burst of light this time. I wanted more.
I looped my arm around Seth’s neck. My other hand gripped the sleeve of his shirt. He adjusted the pressure of his mouth, softly encouraging, asking for entrance rather than insisting on it the way Derek had. My lips parted to deepen the kiss, and the spark inside me flared brighter.
Seth’s fingers traced up and down my side, trailing heat in their wake. I let my tongue slip between his lips tentatively. His teased out to meet it. They tangled together until I felt as if I were trying to devour him, or maybe him me, or both at the same time. Either way I was happy to be along for the ride.
The flare inside me danced higher, but it still wasn’t enough. I wasn’t halfway sated. I twisted my body toward Seth’s caressing fingers, letting them graze my breast. His chest hitched. As we kept kissing, his hand shifted to cup my breast completely. His thumb stroked over the side, sending shivers of pleasure through my sensitive flesh. Then it reached right up to the tip.
My nipple pebbled under the flick of his thumb. I whimpered, kissing him again. Pressing into his touch. Seth groaned.
“Rose,” he murmured, that one syllable so full of joy and longing it sent an answering wave of emotion through my body. The flame danced inside me, its power vibrating in time with the thump of my pulse. And just like that I knew, as well as I knew how to walk or speak, that it was there for me to use.
I drew back from Seth just slightly, my breath still ragged, and made a small flick of my fingers. A soft glow burst above my palm, shining and dancing like the spark inside me.
Seth stared at the conjured glow, his face softening with awe. “What is that?”
My lips curled into a giddy smile. “It’s magic.”
Chapter Sixteen
Rose
If you’d glanced into our breakfast room any given morning, the four of us would probably have looked like a happy family. Dad and Celestine on one side of the elm-wood table, Derek and I on the other, fine china all around and the scents of buttery rolls and herbed scrambled eggs filling the air.
Of course, if you stopped to watch a little longer, you’d notice that not a whole lot of talking went on during those breakfasts. Derek would remark on the weather and the food and I would say something agreeable in return, Dad and Celestine might briefly discuss some business around the estate, but mostly we just ate in our own little bubbles.
The morning after I’d snuck out to see Seth, my bubble felt particularly close to bursting. The glow of my spark had already almost entirely died out. Until it was fully kindled by a consort ceremony, any magic that sparked inside me would seep right back out of me like water through a sieve. But a glimmer of that power still danced in the middle of my chest.
A glimmer that had been kindled by an unsparked, non-witching man. How was that even possible? It went against everything I’d been taught. Not a single historical or modern witching record I’d read had mentioned such a thing.
Of course, it could be that this glimpse of magic was deceptive. Maybe affection between a witch and an unsparked man could bring a brief flicker, but never more than that. Never a proper consorting.
There wasn’t any way or anyone I could easily ask. Imagine all the questions they’d start asking me if I brought up the subject.
More distracting, though, were the questions I still had about two of the three people I was dining with. And the schemes they were making against me.
As I chewed and swallowed my eggs and toast, I tasted only blandness. “Pass the salt,” I said on autopilot.
“Of course,” Celestine said with a glitter in her eyes. She swiveled her wrist, and the salt shaker sailed along the table to drop in front of me. My back tensed.
A little show of her power—for me? To remind me that she still held the magic here, I guessed. Little did she know.
I scooped up another forkful of egg and studied my stepmother and my fiancé. Just how allied were they in this binding Celestine was planning? Could I catch any sign of their secret understanding?
So far I still hadn’t seen a hint of it. Derek smiled at Celestine when she offered him the cream for his coffee, but he smiled at everyone like that—me, my dad, the server who brought a fresh pot of coffee, that cleaning staff girl Polly who was gathering dishes as they were cleared of food. They didn’t say anything to each other except when Derek mentioned a music festival a few towns over he was thinking of taking me to, and my stepmother made a comment on the best route there.
I watched the morning light gleaming off my once-fiance’s bright hair, and my heart squeezed. Was there any chance he could be even slightly absolved in this? I might not have ever been thrilled about the idea of marrying him, but he’d ever seemed cruel. Celestine was unshakeable, I knew that, but if there was any appeal I could make to convince him to turn on her…
I turned back to my plate. By this evening I might have enough proof to go to Dad on my own. Better to focus on that.
“It’ll just be four days, and then I’ll be here right through the wedding,” Dad was saying. I realized I’d tuned out the conversation.
“Four days?” I repeated.
He gave me an amused smile. I could almost hear him teasing like he’d used to when I was a lot younger than now, Off in your own world again, my little lamb?
“On Thursday I have to go to Cairo on business. I wish the timing hadn’t worked out that way, but…” He spread his hands.
My stomach tightened. So if I didn’t come up with proof in the next two days, I’d have to wait almost another week before I could turn to Dad.
I couldn’t retrieve my proof any earlier. Damon was the one who could get into Master Cortland’s house, and Damon had curtly informed me that he was busy with “actual work” until late today.
I gulped down the rest of my breakfast without tasting it at all. Derek got up when I did. He caught up with me as I wandered toward the doors to the back garden.
He slung his arm around me with a proprietary confidence that set my nerves on edge. It took all my willpower to stop my back from noticeably stiffening. I might be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but that didn’t mean I wanted to get cozy, not ever again. Whatever Celestine was planning, he had to be mixed up in it somehow.
“Off on another of your walks?” he asked.
“Some fresh air and pretty scenery always seems like a good way to start off the day,” I said. I didn’t want him to offer to join me. Or maybe I did, so I could try to pry for proof in other ways? My stomach twisted, my emotions torn.
Derek let go of me, and what I felt then was definitely relief. “I have a few work things to catch up on,” he said. “But don’t forget this afternoon we’re supposed to decide on—what is it? The tablecloths? The name card designs?And then perhaps I can challenge you to another game of chess.”
“Perhaps this time I’ll win,” I said, with a laugh I had to force. I breathed easier the second I put a door between us and ventured into the gardens. The moment I could feel safe dropping this charade and seeing the back of him, the happier I’d be.
“Ugh,” Philomena said with a shudder, appearing beside me. She was carrying a dainty parasol that she was enjoying twirling more than she was actually using it to keep any sun off her head. “Good riddance to him.”
My feet carried me on into the woods. As the trees closed around me, the rustling of the brush and the calls of the birds covering any sounds from the house behind me, my nerves settled more. I needed to be settled—settled and calm and ready for whatever came at me.
I wasn’t exactly surprised to find myself approaching the old towers hidden deep in the estate grounds. The deeper stillness around them drew me right up to their vine-draped stones. I dragged in the scents of fresh earth and newly grown leaves. The spark inside me flickered again. Just a tiny sliver of magic left. If I didn’t use it, it’d fade by the end of the hour.
&
nbsp; Without really thinking about it, I let my body move into the forms I’d drawn with my body the last time I’d been here. A call to the one still not with us. Gabriel would have known what to do if he’d been here, wouldn’t he? He’d always been unshakeable.
Was he even still carrying the torn page I’d given him more than a decade ago? It probably hadn’t been half as significant to him as it had been to me. It wasn’t as if I could have told him how I’d hoped it would keep me connected to him. I wasn’t even completely sure how it would work now.
But I reached out to that snippet of story I’d given him, sending my last glint of magic into the air, to wherever he might be. As the glimmer left me, my chest went fully dark. The way it had always been until last night, other than that incredibly brief moment with Kyler. But now I felt the hollowness so much more sharply. Philomena watched me from the edge of the glade, rotating her parasol slowly and giving me my space.
I didn’t really want to head back to the house yet. Idly, I brushed at the lichen that had covered the etchings on the stones. So many glyphs carved here. What had this symbolic gate been used for before it had been abandoned?
The etchings I uncovered twined glyphs for connection and communication, defense and loyalty. Then my fingers stumbled over a patch of stone that had been crudely scratched. I paused, my forehead furrowing.
“What’s wrong?” Phil asked.
I traced the bits of stronger lines I could make out where other symbols had been carved. “It looks like someone purposely gouged out some of the carvings,” I said. “Destroyed them.”
Phil’s eyebrows shot up. “Why on earth would anyone do that? Is this heap of rock really that important?”
“It’s more than a heap of rock,” I said, rolling my eyes at her. “I think it must have been used for some magical purpose… a long time ago.”
“A very long time ago,” Phil put in.
I tugged aside the vines, ducking under branches to get at more of the stones. Farther around the first tower, I found a few more etchings that had been scratched out. Someone had gone to a lot of work to hide part of this structure’s meaning.
My gaze rose to the crumbling peaks of the towers. They stood about ten feet tall. I’d climbed higher than that in trees as a kid.
Before I could second-guess the impulse, I grasped onto the lower branches of one of the trees that surrounded the tower. My muscles twinged from lack of practice as I hauled myself upward, but I managed to scramble from one branch to the next. The trunk was just narrowing to the point that I was getting a little nervous when I reached the tower’s ragged top.
“I hope you don’t mind if I just wait down here,” Philomena called after me. “I think tree climbing is a little more excitement than I’m up for today. I am wearing one of my favorite dresses, after all.”
“All of your dresses are your favorites,” I reminded her.
“Well, that’s the only way to properly live one’s life, isn’t it?”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I’m not even sure I should be doing this.”
I peered over the rough stones. The tower wasn’t just an empty cylinder. A set of narrow stone steps wound down the inside in a spiral, down to a soil-strewn floor mostly swallowed by shadow. The lines of more etchings caught sunlight and shadow along the walls all the way down. All of them appeared whole.
Whoever had scraped away the ones outside hadn’t made it this far—or hadn’t realized they’d need to.
“Well, what’s up there, then?” Philomena’s voice followed me. “I might not want to climb trees, but that doesn’t mean I’m not curious.”
The corners of my mouth curled up. “There are stairs inside. I’m going in.”
I swung one leg and then the other over the crumbling stones at the top and found my balance on the steps. The air felt a few degrees cooler simply easing inside that darker space. I edged down just far enough to make out the carvings here.
“Still alive?” Phil inquired.
“Yep,” I called back. “Nothing too exciting yet. Just more etchings.”
These ones weren’t all glyphs. A few, like the ones below, were scattered across the stones, along with others I hadn’t seen on the outside: passion and power, trust and loyalty, openness and cohesion—how did those two even work together? But the rest of the etched images were closer to pictures, though rough ones. Figures standing with arms raised or held out to each other or linked by the hands. Most of them were pairs, with a flame carved inside one’s chest. My heart leapt.
These were pictures of consorting. Witches and their partners. But then…
My gaze stuck on one image that showed a woman with a flame filling her entire chest. Not one but three other figures stood around her, reaching toward her in the start of an embrace. I stared at it, my breath catching in my throat.
“Oh!”
“What?” Philomena said. “Don’t leave me dying with anticipation down here, Rose.”
“There’s… there are pictures of consorts. I think. But some of them…”
“Some of them what?”
“Some of the witches appear to have more than one. Consort, that is.”
If that etching in front of me was meant to represent one woman with three consorts, no wonder her spark flared so brightly. But taking more than one consort would never be allowed, if it even worked that way. There were only so many witching families, only so many witching men. If some witches had taken multiple partners, too many others would be left without. And once you’d bound your spark to one consort, no other man could light it, even a flicker.
“My goodness,” Phil said. “That sounds rather exciting.”
“Well, they’re not doing anything in the pictures, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Hmph. That is a bit of a shame.”
I stared at the etching. Who had carved this, and when? I didn’t remember ever reading a story, even one of those questionable folk tales, where a witch took additional consorts. Could you bind your spark to more than one man simultaneously?
That picture wasn’t the only odd one either. As my gaze darted down, I spotted another that showed a woman with two consorts, a second with three, one with four, and—was that witch surrounded by seven? Holy Spark, I couldn’t imagine how anyone could keep up with that number of partners.
But at the same time, a tingling warmth crept through me, pooling at the base of my belly. Even if I couldn’t imagine it, something about the idea did feel rather… appealing.
Time seemed to have stilled around me with the air and the sounds of the forest. I was only broken out of that dazed reverie by the crunch of footsteps somewhere beyond the tower walls. Real footsteps, not Philomena getting restless.
My pulse stuttered. Bracing my hands against the gritty stone, I eased up to peek over the top of the tower.
A man was walking through the woods, circling the towers and the arch between them. Tall and gangly, with hair not quite as dark a chestnut as my father’s and a face much more sallow—oh, it was Douglas, Celestine’s assistant.
Normally he acted as her ambassador of sorts, going off to meet with clients when she couldn’t be bothered to. What was he doing prowling around in the woods? And why here? He almost looked as if he were specifically checking for any signs of recent trespassing.
A scrap of rock broke free under my clutching fingers and slipped from my grasp. It tumbled onto the stairs with a soft rattling. Douglas’s head jerked up, and I yanked mine down. I held there, lungs clenched, praying he hadn’t seen me.
“Hello?” he called. When I didn’t answer, he let out a huff of breath. “Damned squirrels.”
I didn’t move again until the sound of his footsteps had retreated beyond my hearing.
Chapter Seventeen
Rose
Damon was waiting in the thin evening light by one of the last houses at the edge of town. When he saw me coming, he flicked the glowing butt of his cigarette into the gutter. He didn’t sa
y anything, just lifted his shoulder in a Let’s go gesture and started walking down the country road that passed Master Cortland’s property about five minutes outside town.
I fell into step behind him on the narrow shoulder. A hint of nicotine smell wafted off him, mingling with the battered leather scent of his ever-present jacket. The gravel rattled under our feet. I shrugged my own jacket, thin and cotton, tighter around me against the cool dampness of the breeze.
The other guys were waiting to meet up with us after, but we’d figured for a quick in and out mission, it didn’t make sense for everyone to come.
I felt a little awkward just walking in silence and looking at Damon’s leather-clad back. I weighed my words, wondering how to start a conversation without hitting on a sore spot accidentally.
“You said you were working today,” I went with finally. “What kind of work are you doing these days?”
Damon made a scoffing sound. “Not anything you’d approve of, angel.”
The nickname should have been sweet, but the way he said it made it sound like an insult. I glowered at his back. “I don’t think you know what I’d approve of. You’ve hardly talked to me at all since I’ve gotten back.”
“How much do you really think we have in common to talk about? You’re off in that big house with everyone catering to you… Most of us don’t have lives like that.”
“I know,” I said. Even I didn’t exactly have a life like that. But I wasn’t going to argue that mine hadn’t been a lot easier than Damon’s. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear what you’ve been through.”
He kicked at a larger pebble. “Which part? Watching my mom get beaten down trying to find work so she could put food on the table for me? Getting kicked out of school? Fencing stolen goods to make ends meet?”
“All of it, I guess.” My curiosity was stirred now. “Is that what you do? Steal stuff?”