Safe Hex: A Hexy Witch Mystery (Womby's School for Wayward Witches Book 16)

by Sarina Dorie

Elric paced, ranting about Thatch turning me against him. Thatch lounged in a chair beside the fireplace, his face expressing indifferent boredom.

  Thatch steepled his fingers under his chin. When Elric at last took in a breath, Thatch answered in his consistent monotone. “Here’s how the matter stands. When it comes to sovereignty and independence, Clarissa likes to get her way. She’s headstrong, and she’ll twist your words and bargain however she can just to know she has the freedom to make choices and be allowed to do as she wishes. It isn’t anything personal.”

  I did not twist words or manipulate people like the Fae did! I couldn’t tell whether he was saying this to appease Elric or that’s how he saw me. Maybe I truly was this way.

  “Her mother had a reputation for that as well,” Elric said.

  “You could say that,” Thatch said. “As clever as any Fae.”

  “All that may be true, but it doesn’t mean you need to help her.” Elric frowned, deep creases crinkling around his eyes, making him appear older. “You make your insinuations and undermine her feelings for me. Every time I think I’m making progress, she pulls back. Now I know why. If Dean Khaba hadn’t told me his suspicions when he came to repair the wards, I would never have gotten the truth out of you.”

  Khaba? He’d been here fixing the wards, and no one had told me? What had he suspected that he hadn’t told me? Now I felt betrayed by him too.

  Vega nudged her way closer, eyes riveted by Elric’s movements.

  “As we have seen, you are quite capable of turning Clarissa against you on your own,” Thatch said. “I should be grateful how inconsiderate you are. Your lack of empathy makes me look all that much more selfless. It makes my job so much easier to win favor over you when you’re such a . . . how does Vega phrase it? A fucktard.”

  Elric’s face turned red.

  Vega snorted.

  Thatch lifted his nose up at Elric. “As I said, I should be grateful. But I’m not. Every time you mess up, every time you say something insensitive, she’s the one who gets hurt. If you’d use the two brain cells you have left, you might consider how difficult this is for Clarissa. Not only has she just lived through a traumatic experience, coerced against her will to use her affinity for the bidding of the Raven Queen, but she has had her body torn apart from the inside out while they watched and laughed. She has suffered enough at the hands of the Fae. Can’t you see what you represent? You’re one more manipulative, heartless creature who wishes to use her. One more Fae who wishes to watch her trials and tribulations like a spectator sport.”

  My heart seized in my chest. Here it was. The secrets he’d kept from me. I knew the Raven Queen had been the one who had done something to me. I just didn’t know what.

  Thatch rubbed his hands over his face, looking tired. “If you used empathy, you might have given more thought to your words.”

  “Empathy. That’s the ability to imagine what it’s like to be like someone else. For example, if I imagined what it would be like to be a lying husband who kept my parentage secret, kept my bargain with the Raven Queen secret from my wife so that she wouldn’t know I had traded my firstborn child away, and ensured she wouldn’t become pregnant for that very reason—”

  Vega’s husky voice next to me startled me. “Did Thatch truly do that?”

  “I-I don’t know.” I tried to listen to the words, but they didn’t want to sink in. His parentage. His bargain. His firstborn child.

  What was Thatch’s parentage? He’d told me about his mother and being raised in the woods before the Raven Queen had taken him and his siblings in. He’d told me years ago he had traded part of his soul for his sisters’ release. I didn’t know anything about this bargain for a firstborn child with the Raven Queen. Was this why he hadn’t wanted children?—So the Raven Queen couldn’t collect them?

  Then again, I thought I remembered something about him implying to the King of the Pacific he couldn’t trade his firstborn for Maddy’s freedom because he had offered it to someone else. I had thought he was being flippant.

  Thatch wasn’t denying Elric’s accusations. I didn’t understand why my husband would have kept these things from me. It would have made me understand him more. I wouldn’t have gotten so mad at him when he’d said he didn’t want to have children. I tried to remember when that was, but I came to that blank spot in my brain again.

  Vega started to ask me something, but I shushed her. Even if I was overwhelmed and I couldn’t process it all, that didn’t mean Vega couldn’t. We needed to listen.

  Thatch stood. His face was red now too. “That would be empathy, yes. If you were capable of putting yourself in my shoes.”

  “Or perhaps it would be empathy if I imagined what it would feel like to be you when your trusting and innocent wife finds out the truth about what the Raven Queen did to her. I might imagine that I would feel guilty and remorseful—unless I was a heartless, soulless traitor.”

  “I am not heartless.”

  “No. Just disloyal, base, and selfish, and despicable. She might trust you, but that doesn’t mean I do. Anyone who would keep such a bargain from someone they loved isn’t worthy of that love.”

  “My bargains with the Raven Queen are none of your concern. I’ve paid my debt, and now I’m free of her,” Thatch said. “I am no longer connected to the Raven Court in any way.”

  “How did he pay his debt?” Vega asked.

  I shook my head. Had he forced me to use my magic as Queen Morgaine watched so someone else would get pregnant? Odette? Or perhaps I’d shown her how to get around the Fae Fertility Paradox so that any Witchkin could become a Red affinity and be fertile. I couldn’t piece it together.

  “Nothing is done,” Elric said. “I’m still reaping the rewards of your actions. I’m the one who has to figure out what to do to try to remedy the situation. You bring her to me, tell me she’s broken, and expect me to fix her, but don’t provide the information necessary to help her. It makes me wonder what else you’ve kept from me.”

  Vega placed a hand on my shoulder. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”

  “No.” I hugged myself, trying to keep that void in my core from consuming me. Is that what that emptiness was inside me? My broken affinity?

  If Vega was asking, that meant she didn’t know the answer. Elric hadn’t enchanted her tongue not to speak about this. Elric blamed Thatch for something he hadn’t told him until now. The secret Elric was keeping from me was something else. They weren’t just keeping secrets from me, but from each other as well.

  “Do you know what Thatch’s lineage is?” Vega asked.

  I swallowed. It wasn’t any of Vega’s business who Felix Thatch’s family really was, especially if he didn’t intend to tell even me. Only, I wished he would have trusted me not to keep it from me. I wished he would have known I’d love him even if his soul was incomplete or he’d made bargains he wasn’t proud of. He should have told me of the deal he’d struck with the Raven Queen.

  He could have spared me from heartache if he had. I almost smiled at the irony of that. Felix Thatch who hadn’t spared me from anything during magical training, who constantly told me to toughen up because the magical world would be far worse, he had tried to protect me from the truth. Tears filled my eyes. As angry as I was with him, I loved him even more.

  I missed Elric’s dig at Thatch, only knowing it for what it was because of his snotty tone and Vega’s chuckle.

  Thatch’s fists were clenched. Any moment I expected he’d draw his wand.

  “Maybe we should interrupt them,” I said. “They might start fighting.”

  “Let them sort this out between them. If they need to duel, maybe it’s for the best.” She shrugged. “It would be interesting to watch anyway.”

  I doubted she meant that. Not after the way she’d fretted over the penis trap when I’d left them alone.

  Thatch lifted his chin. “If you could imagine what it was like to know my will was no
t my own, to be magically compelled to hurt the one person I love beyond all others, and force my magic on her for someone else’s bidding, that would be empathy.”

  “Well, there are some things my imagination can’t fathom. I can’t place myself in the shoes of a man who would do that to the woman he loves. But I can try.” Elric offered a small smile. For the first time since spying on them, I wondered if this wasn’t going to end in a fight. “I can see why Clarissa is so suspicious, now that I have all the facts. It would have been easier to understand the secrets in her skin had you been forthcoming in the first place. The muscle holds memory.”

  The secrets in my skin? I closed my eyes and visualized that void inside me. It was separate from my affinity and my body, but it was there all the same, like a puncture in my soul.

  “I was trying to spare her from humiliation.” Thatch crossed over to the mirror. He ran a hand through his hair, gazing straight at us but only seeing himself.

  I edged back, afraid he would sense me. I tried to tug Vega back, but she stood her ground.

  “Look at him admire himself in the mirror,” Vega muttered.

  Elric directed his gaze in our direction. “A lot of good sparing her did. You say you care about her, but you don’t even have the decency to ensure I don’t say anything that will hurt her. Everything functions more smoothly when I have all the facts.”

  Thatch looked himself up and down in the mirror. His eyes widened with recognition. I stepped farther from the glass, certain he knew I was there.

  Vega leaned forward, inches from the glass, examining him as his eyes tracked me. “Does he know you’re here?”

  “Probably.”

  “How is that even possible? We’re disguised by brownie magic.”

  “I think it’s a kind of Red affinity magic. Something to do with projecting your awareness out of your body. At least that’s why I think he can sense me.”

  “Can that fucktard hear us?”

  “Um… .” I glanced at him.

  His eyes scanned where I stood, obviously not seeing me. I doubted he could hear us, but even if he had, it was unlikely he would have reacted to Vega’s insult.

  “Probably not,” I said.

  Felix Thatch smiled like some kind of wicked Fae creature, all moroseness from him gone. He turned back to Elric. “This is why I think you should be honest with her. Explain to her the breadth and depth of her contract so she will have all the information.”

  “No,” Elric said firmly.

  Thatch turned back to the mirror, his eyes locked onto mine. “You asked me for all the information about what happened to Clarissa. I gave it to you. Don’t you think it’s your turn?”

  From the way he swallowed, belying his calm, I knew he feared I’d heard.

  “That’s different,” Elric said.

  “Is it?”

  Vega chewed on her lip. “You know what Thatch is doing, don’t you?”

  “I think . . . Thatch wants Elric to say what he’s been keeping from me. Thatch is bound by contract—by magic—not to tell me whatever it is Elric doesn’t want me to know. Just like you.”

  “No. I can’t talk about something different. It has to do with what Thatch doesn’t want you to pineapple hand grenades. Fuck! There it is again.”

  The tongue-twister jinx had struck again. “You’re saying that’s all Thatch. He’s the one who doesn’t want me to know what happened at the Raven Court with my fairy godmother. Now there’s something else. But what Elric doesn’t want me to know—”

  Her voice turned to venom. “I don’t know what that sneaky son of a Fae doesn’t want you to know.”

  I shushed her so I could hear them bicker. She shoved me and shushed me back.

  Elric plopped into a chair. “Everything you’ve just told me has cemented it in my mind. Clarissa will hate me. She’ll think I’m being manipulative and accuse me of keeping her here forever. And then there’s Vega to think about. This is terribly unfair to her.”

  “It sounds like you’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t,” Thatch said. “You only have yourself to blame.”

  Was that his plan? To keep me here forever? Had he made Thatch promise to keep something secret from me, and that was why he hadn’t told me himself?

  “No. Don’t pin this all on me. You agreed without giving me all the facts.” Elric threw his hands up in exasperation. “After all her experiences with Fae, she’ll see me as no different. I will simply have to be more . . . flexible. I will have to be more subtle with my magic.”

  “Sneakier, you mean,” Thatch snorted. “Because that’s going to make her trust you.”

  I turned to Vega. “Do you know what they’re talking about now?”

  She shook her head and put a finger to her lips. “I don’t want to miss one moment. This is better than a soap opera.”

  “I’m glad my life entertains you.”

  I only caught the second half of what Elric said. “—ensure she is happy. That’s all I’m trying to do. I don’t want her to panic. And you will help me. You agreed when we made this deal that you would make this as easy as possible.”

  Thatch grimaced. “Yes, I agreed I would play my part, the pawn in your elaborate human chess game.”

  “I am Fae. Even if I am a rebel and would throw as many customs as I can to the wind, I am bound by the rules that govern my magic. Just as pain fuels your affinity, and pleasure hurts you, there are intangible strings that rule mine. I granted a great favor with the last wish of the amulet, and when the debt wasn’t collected at once, it caused an imbalance in my magic. Were I still part of the Silver Court, I would manage with other magics to restore me.”

  The last wish. I touched the place where the amulet had been. He had lied to me when he said he’d removed it at Thatch’s request. He hadn’t wanted me to know.

  “Yet I am not able to draw on an unlimited amount of magic and power,” Elric said. “The longer I go without collecting my debt, the stronger the imbalance builds. Already those in my house can sense something is off with my magic. They know I’m weak. The Witchkin servants are too imperceptive of Fae magic to understand the imbalance, but Errol has guessed it, as has Mr. Khaba. My father certainly has—he was the one who made the damned amulet in the first place. If only you had allowed me to collect my debt as she slept, I would have been strong enough to prevent the attack from the Raven Court.” There was so much grief on his face, I knew he must be thinking of Imani and Dora.

  Thatch stiffened. “We discussed the matter of consent. She couldn’t, therefore it was dishonorable to collect your debt. Your motives since will not endear her to you if you don’t tell her what she owes you and why.”

  “I think you want her to despise me.”

  A hint of amusement touched Thatch’s tone, though I couldn’t see his expression. “It would be in my best interest.”

  Elric’s shoulders slumped. He looked so sad and lost. They lapsed into silence. Thatch turned back to the mirror. His eyes burned with impatience. From what I could tell, he was helping me as much as he could—or getting even with Elric for unwittingly revealing his own secrets. I tried to puzzle out what I owed Elric. My soul? What did that mean?

  Vega was quicker than I was. “That fucker!” she said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Elric healed you when you were unconscious. There was a price, but he never told you when you woke. Maybe he didn’t even know—he wasn’t the one who made the amulet. Now there’s an imbalance. It isn’t just because he didn’t collect, but he didn’t bind you to an agreement in the first place. That’s why he’s weak.” She ran through a string of curse words. “And he kept this from me.”

  From the anger in her eyes, I suspected she knew what the price was.

  “Well? What was the price?”

  “Think about it. What has Elric always wanted from you?”

  “For me to marry him? To tell him the secrets of
the Fae Fertility Paradox?”

  She shook her head, eyes intent on the two men. “Elric understood the Red affinity before he ever met you. He didn’t need your secrets to the Fae Fertility Paradox. He had that already. What he needed was a Red to give him more heirs.”

  “I thought that was why he married you. He doesn’t need me.” I thought better of those statements. “I’m sure he married you because he loves you too.”

  Vega wasn’t listening. “That selfish bastard doesn’t need you. But he’s always wanted you because he’s greedy. One Red isn’t enough for him. Nor for his father. No wonder he’s encouraged me to start a school for Red affinities.”

  I didn’t want to believe that was the bargain, but Elric’s every word seemed to support that. He’d said collecting his debt would be hard on Vega. Thatch hadn’t wanted him to collect his debt while I’d been asleep.

  Vega kicked the wall.

  “Maybe it’s something else. . . .” I didn’t know what Vega would do if she kept going with that train of thought. “Try to give him the benefit of the doubt until you can ask him yourself.”

  “As if I’ll believe a word that comes out of his mouth!”

  Thatch stared off into the distance.

  “Why isn’t Thatch prompting Elric?” Vega pointed a lacquered nail in my direction. “Are you certain he knows you can hear and see him?”

  “Probably. It isn’t the first time I’ve spied on him through a mirror like this. Though before it was always at Womby’s.”

  “Really?” Vega squealed. “Who else have you spied on? Me? Elric? Me and Elric? Together?”

  “No,” I said quickly.

  “Think of all the naughty peepshows you could watch with these mirrors!”

  “No.” Okay, so I had accidentally caught sight of a few clandestine acts among staff, Julian Thistledown’s inappropriate liaisons being one of them.

  Thatch pressed his palm against the mirror. He leaned his forehead against the glass.

  “Ugh, he’s blocking the view,” Vega complained.

  Elric started ranting again. I kept hoping he would say something useful like what this big secret was, but he didn’t. I suspected Thatch couldn’t say any more than he already had. He sighed despondently. There was only so much of Elric he could take when Elric was in a good mood. I could only imagine how difficult it was for him when he wasn’t.