by Sarina Dorie
Not that Thatch left me much time for anything else with all the tutoring he gave me. At one time sex magic had been fun, now it became a chore. I suspected that wasn’t the best thing for our marriage, but it was what I needed to survive. I couldn’t let anything stop me from becoming a powerful witch.
Even my love for my husband.
By the time he finished brewing his superior competency potion, I was already competent at divining. There always was about an hour delay between the time I swallowed the lozenge and it took effect, but when it began to work, the potion helped me learn and increased my ability at an exponential rate. It remedied the need to draw. All I needed was to hold a pencil in my hand and think about drawing to make the visions come to me.
It turned out a number two pencil was the ultimate magic wand.
Scrying was much like watching someone through the hallway of mirrors. It felt voyeuristic. I had warned Josie, Pinky, and Khaba I was learning a new skill, and I might practice remotely viewing what they were doing from a distance.
“Just don’t watch me while I’m in the shower in the morning, or after eight at night, or when I’m on the toilet,” Josie said.
I didn’t want to invade anyone’s privacy. Only in private, away from Thatch, did I scry my mom. I was afraid if I drew her in his presence, he would tell me it was too dangerous, that the Raven Queen knew I was watching, and she would use that to her advantage. I didn’t care if she did try to suck me through my drawing and into her castle. I needed the reassurance that my mom was alive.
Sometimes I found Abigail Lawrence locked in an empty room, shadows pressing in around her. Other times I found her in a garden of poisonous delights. Once I found her surrounded by delicious food, her eyes darting to pastries and a plate of bread, cheese, and roasted meat. From the way everything glistened, the colors vividly bright and beautiful, I suspected this was Fae food they were trying to tempt her with. If she ate it, she would never be able to leave the Faerie Realm. Her eyes were dark, the hunger making her expression drawn. She sat on her hands, shaking as she forced herself to resist.
She was so thin I didn’t know whether they were feeding her Witchkin-safe foods, or she’d been starving herself.
I wrote to Elric and informed him I intended to use my new magical skill to observe him in his estate and used him as a test subject while Thatch observed me. Elric was delighted and made no restrictions on when I used this skill.
Try as I might, I couldn’t use the skill without detection. Elric might turn away from whom he was speaking with and smile, looking straight out of the vision and into my eyes. He enthusiastically spoke as though I were right there beside him, though the conversation was one-sided. He couldn’t hear me respond.
Thatch urged me to reach into the drawing and see if I could take an object from the other side. “If you can transmit yourself past Fae wards in this manner, you might be able to open up a hole in the fabric of space and pluck up your mum without us ever stepping foot in her castle.”
He actually seemed hopeful this might work.
I tried to reach through the vision and remove the quill from Elric’s desk where he sat writing a letter to his father about his sister-wife Quenylda and her trial.
Elric set the quill aside, turning toward me. “Good day, Clarissa. So nice of you to stop in for a visit. I wanted to let you know I had a little sit-down with Vega yesterday. I asked her if she had done as I suggested and was helping you.” He shuffled papers on top of what he’d been writing, smearing ink on his fingers.
Elric was always discreet in our letters. He never mentioned anything that would be considered forbidden, such as the Red affinity or the Fae Fertility Paradox. I hoped he would be appropriately vague while speaking to me through this form of remote viewing. I didn’t risk glancing at Thatch to take in his reaction.
I attempted to grab the quill and pull it through to my side but couldn’t.
“Do you know what she said to me?” Elric asked, his exasperation evident. “My dearest Vega said I could take my royal authority and stick it up my—ahem—up a chimney. Or something along those lines but phrased in such a way only my beloved fiancée would be capable of. She told me that if I ever commanded her to do anything as her sovereign, she would break off our engagement. Can you believe her? I don’t know how you put up with her as a roommate for as long as you did.” He laughed as he said it. Despite the way he complained, I didn’t think he completely minded Vega’s forthright manner.
“In any case, there is no rush in pursuing this matter,” he said. “Not unless Vega fails to get with child again.”
Craparoni. Thatch was going to really wonder now.
Elric lowered his voice to a hush. “Though it would be useful to know for certain this method can be reproduced in others, it isn’t necessary at the moment. Only if Vega is unable to conceive again do I require further experimenting on your part.”
Craptacular. There was that word that everyone in the Faerie Realm despised. It was time to end the scrying before he said anything more scandalous that Thatch would want to know about. I tried to draw out of the vision but found I couldn’t. I was so immersed in Elric’s world, I couldn’t pull away.
I tried to speak, to ask Thatch for assistance ending the vision, but couldn’t.
It was only when Thatch spoke that it snapped me out of the vision. “What method, pray tell, is Elric referring to?”
CHAPTER SIX
Red Ahead
My awareness left the vision. I snapped back into Thatch’s office, blinking at my surroundings as my senses came back to me. He’d allowed me to sit in his comfy office chair while he’d leaned against his desk, watching the sketchpad. Now he stood at his full height, looming over me.
His stern expression hinted at his displeasure. “Tell me you haven’t done anything foolish.”
“Of course not,” I said quickly.
He arched an imperious eyebrow upward. “Explain.”
I pushed back the chair and stood up, not liking how small I felt sitting down. “No. It isn’t any of your business.”
His voice remained even, but he couldn’t mask the vein throbbing in his temple. “Based on what Elric said, I am going to deduce you wished to assist Vega in getting pregnant through unnatural means. Again.”
I backed away, the chair between us. “It was natural. They had sex.”
“You used forbidden magic so that Vega would be able to make up for Elric’s infertility.” He’d found out that much from Elric himself. “Now you wish to replicate the experiment. No good will come of this. Other Fae will find out you have this knowledge.”
I tried to dodge around his desk for a fast getaway. His long legs overtook mine, and he blocked me from escaping.
“Why would you do such a thing?” he asked.
I backed away, into his desk, the hard corner pressing into me. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“Help me understand.” He took my arms, his long fingers closing around me like shackles. His eyes softened. “If you’ve gotten yourself into some kind of scrape, I should hope you would trust me to help you.”
He knew just what to say to weaken my resolve. Either that, or it was the touching. I never knew when he was willing to use my weakness against me to bend me to his bidding.
“Let go of me,” I said.
He released me. His gaze flickered to the green stones of the amulet around my neck. “Did he threaten you?”
“Elric? No! He would never threaten me.” Now that the cat was out of the cauldron, I wasn’t going to be able to avoid the issue. I should never have practiced spying on Elric.
Thatch’s brows drew together. “Vega, then?”
Perhaps it was time to tell him the whole story. Or at least some of it. “Vega made me change her into a Red affinity. She said it was to help me figure out how the Fae Fertility Paradox worked to give me leverage with Elric so that I would have something to barg
ain with him about, but really I think she wanted to become a Red affinity so she had something worthwhile to hold over the Fae. I made her into a Red affinity to see if it was possible to change a Witchkin’s affinity. She was willing.”
I hated the concern in his eyes as I went on. “I didn’t know Vega wanted to get pregnant—I didn’t know she was really sleeping with Elric. I just thought she boasted about being intimate with him to try to get under my skin. But now she’s under his protection because they’re engaged, and she’s considered to be part of his household. And because I delivered in the bargain I made with him—I ensured he had an heir that carried on his bloodline—I was free of that debt. But I’m not free anymore if Vega isn’t pregnant, am I?” I almost believed my own lie, that I was doing this to be free, rather than to help Maddy.
Rather than to hand it over to the Raven Queen.
He studied me thoughtfully. “You are speaking of the debt you acquired the night of the All Hallows’ Eve Open House? The night Elric ‘saved’ your reputation by announcing you had agreed to ally yourself with him?”
“I’d pretty much agreed before that night.” But my own blundering to conceal what Imani was when she had danced on stage and Fae had witnessed the Red affinity magic had sealed the deal. “I wouldn’t agree to marry Elric, and he wanted me to join his ‘family’ to be under his protection. He said if I gave him an heir, he would keep me safe from the Raven Queen. He promised me if I agreed, he would drop his allegations against you.” I swallowed the lump in my throat when I remembered how deeply it had hurt Thatch when Elric had insulted his professional reputation.
Yet Elric’s bias had been based on Quenylda’s interference, making Elric see Thatch molesting me during my meditations when he hadn’t been. I had thought Elric had been lying when he’d told me. Now I knew his concerns weren’t completely unfounded.
Thatch reached out to me, but he didn’t touch me. He waited for me to come to him. I wrapped my arms around his waist. I appreciated that he didn’t force touch on me, even if I would have liked it.
He kissed the top of my head before releasing me. “It sounds as though Vega isn’t interested in being experimented on again.”
Vega didn’t need to be experimented on again. She was a Red affinity. It was possible she was fertile without drinking the potion again, though I didn’t know that for certain.
He leaned against his desk. “Who were you going to test this process on this time?”
I pressed my lips into a line.
“You?”
“No.” I shook my head vehemently.
We’d never even discussed having a child. It was one of those things I still didn’t know what his thoughts were about the matter. All we ever discussed these days were lessons and magic.
“It wouldn’t be necessary for you,” he said. “You’re already fertile because you’re a Red affinity. As am I.”
I already understood how it worked. Unless there was something I was missing. “Then why haven’t I gotten pregnant?” Not that I wanted to get pregnant, but I suspected there was more to it.
“Because I don’t allow myself to ejaculate. I told you before I don’t want to burn you. The only reason I didn’t . . . damage you before when the Raven Queen captured us was because I was of sound enough mind and ability to divert that magic into an energy that would transport us from her castle.” He took my hand in his. “Is that what this really is about? Do you want a baby?”
“No.”
He must have thought I was lying, which wouldn’t have been a surprise in itself if I had been. I lied as much as Vega these days.
His eyes were so sad, I suspected he’d given this far more thought than I ever had. “If you want a child, we can adopt. There are plenty of children in the world without parents. There are many Witchkin orphans who don’t have homes because their parents have died or abandoned them.”
“I’m not ready to have children,” I said.
He waited, clearly wanting me to explain. He was being so open and genuine I was tempted to confide in him. I knew it was a mistake telling him, but I also knew it would eat at our relationship if I didn’t. I hated these secrets between us.
“If I tell you, will you promise not to yell?” I squeezed his fingers.
“I never yell.” His face remained neutral.
“Do you promise not to forbid me?”
He didn’t answer.
“You have to promise not to coerce me into making an oath not to do this. I’ve already promised her I’ll help her. You can’t make me unpromise that.”
His face blanched. “Merlin’s balls.”
He knew.
I squeezed his hands harder, trying to reassure him. Or perhaps a small part of me thought I could make him complacent with pain. “Don’t get all mad and in my face. It’s the only solution I knew might fix her problem.”
“You’ve promised the Raven Queen, haven’t you?” he asked.
Once again he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. Why did he assume I would make that kind of bargain? Then again, that was what the Raven Queen wanted. She would have given anything to have children again.
His eyes crinkled up in concern. “Please, tell me you didn’t make a blood oath or a magical oath that requires you to fulfill your end of this contract.”
“It wasn’t the Raven Queen,” I said.
“Then who?”
“Maddy.”
The horror on his face shifted to confusion. “I don’t follow.”
“Her bargain with the King of the Pacific. He wants her firstborn child, but she’s afraid he’s going to send men with shark heads to rape her if she doesn’t give him a baby soon.”
His brows knit together. “She’s too young to start thinking about having a baby.”
“She’s going to graduate in a year, and then she won’t be under the school’s protection. She’s afraid of what will happen because she hasn’t gotten pregnant yet.”
“You mean to tell me she’s been trying already?” His reaction wasn’t that different from my own. With time, I expected he’d see reason. It was the only logical solution.
And he was all about logic.
I had all the ingredients. I simply had to make the potion. “Will you help me make her into a Red affinity so she can have this baby?”
“I will not.”
“So you’ll risk me doing something dangerous that might kill her accidentally because you don’t want anyone else to become a Red affinity?”
“She doesn’t need to become a Red affinity. There are other ways.”
“I don’t know of another way. Are you going to show me?” It was possible he’d been in on my biological mother’s experiments. He might have figured out the answers.
“Merlin’s balls.” He drew back from me. “No. And you will not persist in this matter. Think about how bad this will look if Mr. Khaba or the principal discover you are performing experiments on students and encouraging them to have sexual relations. You will lose your job. Possibly you will be prosecuted and imprisoned.”
“You promised you wouldn’t tell me what to do.”
“I made no such promises. You only wanted me to promise.” He continued to rant.
I was too angry with him to listen. I walked out of the office as he blustered.
After I’d calmed, it was his words about the Raven Queen and what she wanted that stuck with me.
What if the idea behind the finger trap applied to dealings with her as well? More and more, I felt certain I knew the answer to my problems. Instead of pulling away from the Raven Queen, I had to give her what she wanted. I needed this cure to be able to bargain with her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
If You Can’t Beat ’Em, Hex ’Em
Thatch made several batches of his competency lozenges, which we put to use immediately. It was hard to imagine anything could improve our sex life because physical intimacy was already incredible, but the pi
ll heightened my control of my affinity—and heightened the pleasure for both of us. I had hoped I would be able to master one ability per lesson, or that it might take several nights of practice to accomplish a task.
Instead, I was able to tackle multiple difficulties: lack of will power to resist temptation, ability to control my magic instead of being distracted by pleasure, siphoning my magic to use it for spells, using other people’s magic that I had intensified, and even managing to create wards—all while lying in bed.
Repetition with and without the competency lozenge helped me perfect my affinity. I grew confident in my abilities and less fearful that the Raven Queen would be able to use my magic against me.
I also noticed how the pill improved my memory. I could recall with vivid clarity the ingredients in Alouette Loraline’s journal and how to use the spell to cure the Fae Fertility Paradox. I put together details that she didn’t write down, drawing on what I knew about her life. With the distance of a stranger, I was able to see her motives.
My biological mother had wanted a child. She could easily have conceived with a Witchkin man, possibly with a Fae as well. But she hadn’t wanted to. She hadn’t trusted anyone. And the one whom she did trust—I gathered she did trust Felix Thatch—she held at a distance because he had been her student, and she didn’t want to cross that line.
As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t allow herself to trust anyone.
As Felix Thatch made love to me, one line from her journal nudged my brain.
If I am able to succeed in this spell, I will be able to create life solely with my magic, without needing to rely on the act of procreation.
She had been a lonely woman, my biological mother. For the first time ever, I felt bad for her.
I also understood how to replicate her spell in the same way Vega had in order to solve the Fae Fertility Paradox. I wrote it down while Felix Thatch slept one night after I’d exhausted him. I collected ingredients from his pantry and hid the start of my spell in my art supply closet.
He was out of unicorn semen. It didn’t matter. I had the unicorn horn. I didn’t need to use inferior ingredients.