“Opal, this isn’t the time or place for this conversation,” Mom said. “Give her time and let’s get some food into her. Then we’ll all sit down and have a nice little chat about where to go from here.”
I’d always thought Opal was the dominant one of the sisters, but not this time. Then again, I was Mom’s daughter. Her word should be the deciding factor in anything regarding me.
I wanted to know what was going on, and why everyone seemed to think that life-saving magic had come from me, when I knew it had been Arc’s power to begin with. But first . . . food.
When we came out into the kitchen, I smelled the most heavenly of scents. “Is that . . .?”
“Carnie’s pizza with bacon and mushrooms. Freshly nuked to just the right warmness, too.” Opie grinned at me. “I wanted you to wake up to something good.”
I returned his grin and dug in. The others just watched. It was probably quite a sight. I wasn’t that graceful of an eater when I wasn’t starving. Now? All that mattered was getting food into me as quickly as possible.
And soda. That helped too. As I ate and drank, the dull headache subsided too. I felt great. Possibly better than I had ever felt in my entire life.
And after demolishing a full half of a large Carnie’s pizza, I was finally ready for the talk.
UNFORTUNATELY, THE others weren’t ready for me. Not quite yet.
It appeared as though now my family had grown substantially. It wasn’t just the four of us Ravenswinds anymore. We had others. They might not all be related to us by blood, but they were family all the same. Mom had seen to that for most of them.
And Opie, well, Opie was staying too. If he was going to be a big part of my life—which I fully intended—then he needed to stay up to date on what was going on in the witchy world. It was important. There was also the possibility that including him would help ease his shock and awe syndrome too. It was just magic, after all.
While we set up some extra chairs and got ready for our other guests, the others filled me in on what all I’d missed the last couple of days.
They had charged Roger Hendrickson with the two murders. That special forensic DNA test had been done, and it was pretty proof-positive that he was guilty of the crime. And, as he had access to the key to Arc’s apartment, it was easy to guess that it wouldn’t take long for the police to gather the needed evidence to slam dunk Sonya’s murder on him as well.
As for Stan Grayson, he didn’t quite receive the get out of jail free card that you might have expected him to. The local police force had used his charge to get a search warrant for his home and business. Grayson was into some pretty nasty stuff. Enough to keep him locked up for quite some time.
Once the trial was done, of course. The man had money and had already made bail. Personally? I kind of hoped he jumped it. It would be fun going after that slimeball. After all, I hadn’t even gotten to use the taser on him. That had been all Opie.
On an unrelated note, I knew what I was getting my new boyfriend for Christmas this year.
With their normal perfect timing, Lily drove up in her shiny, undamaged van, and she and the two older Minehearts climbed out.
After everyone got settled into seats with drinks, Opal turned to me once again. No more putting this off.
It was time. I decided to take the lead.
“Before you say anything, yes, I do remember the question you asked earlier. And for the record, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” I glanced over at the Minehearts. “Opal seems to think I have this massive amount of magic and that I might have been hiding it from her all these years. How ridiculous is that? Would one of you guys please tell her that I was only pulling the magic from my familiar.” I gave Arc a small smile. “Sorry about that, by the way. That much magic being pulled had to hurt.”
My brother—boy, did I like calling him that—was giving me an odd look. “What the bloody heck are you talking about? I pulled magic from you.”
“But the magic you pulled back was the power I’d already drained off you.” I mean, come on, if there was one thing I was fairly sure of in my life, it was that I had about as much magic as a toaster.
Not that toasters weren’t great. Who didn’t like toast? But they just weren’t magic.
“We seem to have a difference of opinion here.” Mom stepped in before Opal could get anything out. “I think the easiest way to solve the problem would be to do the unbinding. Then, if Amie keeps her magic, the riddle will be solved. At least in part.”
Opal hesitated but finally nodded. “I guess that makes sense.” She looked over to me and Arc. “Are the two of you up for this?”
I glanced at Arc and smiled. “I’m ready to go back to the old Amie at any time. As long as we’re sure that doing this won’t hurt you.”
He swallowed and nodded. Everyone knew that a familiar binding was usually a life-long thing. There was a reason for that. Breaking the binding was considered to be a death sentence for the familiar. Not something a witch would take lightly. Especially one with a familiar who happened to be another witch.
“He should be fine,” Lily said. “I’ve checked his cat over very closely, and she doesn’t seem to have suffered any damage from the unbinding. It appears the trick is to just form another binding rather than trying to undo the first.” She snapped her fingers. “Which reminds me.”
Merlin nodded and went out to the van. When he returned, he had a large cat carrier filled with Momma cat and her three little kittens.
“Time to choose your real forever familiar, dear,” Lily said softly. “I thought one of the young ones might do nicely.”
I nodded, strangely choked up for some reason. “Can I take a minute to choose?”
“Take all the time you need, dear. Even if we do know now how to undo a binding, it isn’t something to be done lightly. There has to be some repercussions from it.”
“Repercussions?” Arc’s voice squeaked just a bit.
She patted his hand. “Don’t worry, dear. We’ll help the two of you through this, no matter what happens.”
Arc’s gaze met mine. Suddenly, neither one of us were in too big of a hurry to do this.
Not dying was good, yes. But neither of us liked the idea of possible repercussions. The guilt started flooding in again. I’d done this to him.
I hoped if there were repercussions, they would affect me, not him. He hadn’t asked for this.
Chapter 24
The backyard wouldn’t do for Opal. No, we all had to traipse all the way into the woods and up to the hilltop where we held our monthly full-moon meetings.
I understood her reasoning. There was a lot of power in that place. And an almost overwhelming presence of the Goddess too. Kind of one and the same, when you really thought about it.
Once we all made it to the top, they instructed me to create a circle. Arc stayed out of it, but my soon-to-be new familiar and I were dead center of it. I’d decided on the calico kitten.
Or rather, it had decided on me. We’d let them out to play and explore, and the other two had run off and started checking things out pretty thoroughly. Normal little kitten behavior. The tiny calico headed straight my way. She climbed up in my lap and settled in, content to just watch the antics of the others.
Seemed like a fit to me.
“Do you remember the spell?” Ruby asked.
I nodded. It was ingrained on my very soul.
The calico kitten was already in my lap, purring up a storm. I looked down at her and smiled. Who knew I could be a cat person?
A glance at Arc to be sure he was ready for whatever might come, and I spoke the magical words that would bind us forever.
I pledge to thee my life and love
Through thick and thin, magic and blood.
Bound to you and you to me,
Forever more, so shall it be.
This time, I was paying more attention as I bent down to kiss the little furry head. I saw the blue magic form around us, connecting
us.
The little kitten raised her eyes to mine, and I swear upon the Goddess, she smiled at me. Cats can do that?
A cough brought me back to the reality of the time. Arc. I turned to him with my heart in my throat, but he looked fine.
“How are you?” I asked.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “It feels weird, but I’m okay, I think. Just a little . . . empty, I guess is the best way to describe it.”
“So, don’t you think your new familiar needs a name?” Lily asked.
I was thinking about going with Destiny, but that didn’t seem right. After all, that had been the name I had used for Arc’s cat form. Back when he’d been a cat.
I like Destiny.
The three words weren’t actually words. More a very strong feeling that I was having a hard time describing, even to myself. The one feeling them. I glanced down at the little creature in my lap. She blinked up at me and tilted her tiny head at me.
“Destiny?” I made it a question, and I got my answer too. She purred even louder and rubbed her tiny little noggin against my arm.
Destiny it was, then.
“Kind of unoriginal, but hey, what do I know?” Arc was grinning when he said it, so no hard feelings there. Besides, he hadn’t been too fond of the name when I’d used it on him.
“Okay, I know we should give you time to get familiar with your new . . . well, familiar,” Opal said. “But this magic thing has been driving me crazy.”
She did a brief chant and then nodded. “The binding between you and your brother has been well and truly severed, child. Now pull some magic—but slowly. Try something small this time.” She gave me a smile. “Even if that hasn’t exactly been your way of doing things up till now.”
She wasn’t wrong. It seemed my magic didn’t do anything halfway.
I took a deep breath and handed Destiny to Ruby, outside of the circle. Then I concentrated and tried to pull a tiny bit of magic from the air surrounding us. Nothing. Looking over at Opal, I shook my head.
“I’m sorry. There’s nothing there.”
Her chin jutted out. “Oh, there’s something there all right. You just have to find it.” She took a step toward me, but Mom reached out a hand to stop her.
“My daughter, my way.”
Opal didn’t look too happy, but she nodded.
Mom smiled at me and stepped into my circle, reaching down to re-activate it. “Now, dear, I want you to do exactly what I say, all right?”
I nodded. She was my mom. If I couldn’t trust her, who could I trust?
“Close your eyes and feel the air surrounding you.” I did. After a full minute had passed, she said, “Now feel the air giving you a touch of its power. Let it flow into you.”
I tried, but again, nothing. I was back all right. Right back to my non-magical self.
Then Senior stepped up to the circle. “May I?”
Mom’s eyes widened and glanced over at Opal, who didn’t look at all happy now. But Mom nodded, and she and Senior changed places. Now it was him in the circle with me.
It felt a bit awkward. I knew now that he was my dad, but it still didn’t feel right to me. Taking a deep breath, I waited.
He smiled at me. “Do you trust me, dear?”
I thought about it and finally nodded. I trusted Mom, and if she trusted him, that was good enough for me.
“Okay, then here’s what I want you to do. Concentrate and release the touch of air’s magic.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. What air magic? But to humor him, I went through the motions, anyway. Again, nothing. But at least that was expected this time.
“Now, take my hand.” I did. “Close your eyes and imagine the earth beneath you.”
I might be slow on the uptake, but I finally got it. The fact that Senior was my father, coupled with the look of distaste on Opal’s face, could only mean one thing. They thought I was an Earth witch. When I thought about it, it kind of made sense. Who said a gal couldn’t get her magic from her father?
Sending my thoughts deep into the earth under my feet, I reached out my magical fingers for a sign of . . . anything. This time, I’d admit I was a little disappointed. It would have been nice to have just a touch of magic. But, no. Nothing.
Now everyone was looking at me. I shrugged.
“I tried to tell you all. I pulled the magic from him.” I pointed to Arc. “Now do you believe me?”
The others looked confused, but when my eyes hit Lily’s face, they stopped dead. She didn’t look confused; she looked scared. That terrified me even more than when Opal had felt that way. Lily didn’t seem to get scared, not even when facing almost certain death.
Only now she was. And it had something to do with me.
When Senior went to step out of the circle, Lily held up a hand. “Wait.” Her eyes held mine. “For this next thing, I want you to think very, very small. I want you to grab hold of just a wisp of air magic. Don’t try to grab a whole handful, just a hair’s breadth.”
I frowned at her, but it was Lily, so I lifted my hand and pinched the air in front of me. That should do it.
“Good. Now, with your other hand, touch your father’s arm. Use him to connect with the earth. Again—and I can’t stress this enough—pull a tiny little bit of Earth’s magic. Think of holding a few grains of dirt in your hand.”
My frown only deepened, but I did as she said.
Or rather, I tried to. As soon as I connected to the Earth magic while holding on to that of Air, magic started flooding into me. Senior stepped away quickly, but it was too late, my body had made the connection it needed.
Arc had been right. The power hadn’t been his. It had been mine.
What I didn’t understand was why that fact seemed to terrify everyone around me. Having magic was a good thing, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that what Opal had wanted for me all along?
“By the God and Goddess,” Mom whispered. “She’s a Light Witch.”
I looked over at Opie. At least there was one person in the group who was as clueless as to what that meant as I was.
“What’s a Light Witch?” I asked. Witches matched the elements they got their power from. But I only knew of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. Where did Light factor into it? It wasn’t an element, was it?
“A Light Witch is a very powerful being, dear, which explains a lot,” Lily said slowly. Then she looked around the group, making sure to meet everyone’s eyes as she did. “But for now, I think it’s a very good idea that no one mentions this to the council.”
“Mentions what to the council?”
We all whirled around to see Patricia Bluespring stepping into the clearing behind us.
Crapsnackles, but I had a very bad feeling about this.
Chapter 25
“Patty, what are you doing here?” Senior forced the words out with a smile. That had to be hard.
She stood a little taller. “I’m here because Opal invited me. When there was no one at the farmhouse, I went out back and heard noise coming from up here.” She shrugged. “So I came.”
We all looked to Opal.
“Yes, I invited her. And then I got so caught up in other things that I totally forgot about her coming.” She turned to her visitor. “I’m sorry. Let’s go back down to the house. I have something for you.”
Patricia stood firm. “Before we go, I’d like my question answered. What is no one to mention to the council?”
For what it was worth, Opal never batted an eye. Instead, she shrugged and shook her head.
“Personally, I don’t see any reason to hide it from the council any longer.”
“Opal . . .” Lily’s voice was quiet, but there was a lot of stress behind that one word.
“Don’t worry, Lily, I think the witches’ council will understand that Amie truly thought Archimedes Junior was a cat at the time.” She turned to Patricia. “That’s the reason none of us could lock onto Arc here. He turned himself into a cat to get away from us, and then
Amie found him in an animal shelter and adopted him.”
Patricia’s eyes widened. “She made another witch her familiar?”
The woman was smart. She didn’t have to have someone dot the I’s and cross the T’s for her.
“Yes, but as Opal said, you really can’t say that I did anything wrong. He was a cat at the time. I had absolutely no way to know otherwise.”
“Seems funny that the single witch you ‘accidentally’ made into your familiar just happened to be your brother.”
“She didn’t find that out until much later,” Mom said. “Archie and I kept that from her all these years.” Her eyes drifted over to Opal and back. “We know it isn’t really an accepted practice for Air and Earth to mingle.” Her back straightened. “But I think that’s more than a bit racist of everyone.”
Patricia looked around the group. Opal had been smart. With her cover story, everyone here had a right to look a little guilty. Hopefully, it would be enough to appease the woman.
I wasn’t all that sure why Lily thought we should hide me being a Light Witch, whatever the heck that entailed. But I was quite sure she had her reasons.
The council woman thought about it for a minute, then gave a small nod. “All right, then. The matter is closed.” She fixed her gaze on Opal. “But that would be a different story if he had ended up being guilty, you know.”
Opal nodded. “The Goddess works in mysterious ways. Somehow, she wanted Arc and Amie together. It’s just too coincidental to be anything other than the Goddess’ own hand at work.”
Patricia took a deep breath and rubbed her temples. “Okay, I’m ready to go back to the house now.”
THE FIRST THING PATRICIA noticed when she walked in was the kittens. We had forgotten to cage them back up and had left them roaming freely in Mom’s apartment.
The little white one walked right up to the woman and started trying to climb her pants leg. She bent down and picked it up, snuggling it into her chest.
“What a beautiful creature, Opal. I don’t suppose you’d be looking for a home for her?”
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