Unlike our Samhain ritual, this time the liquid glowed a bright blue. I didn’t know if I believed that did the trick, but for Sophie’s sake, I hope it worked.
When Sophie drank down the potion (after I took the hair out of it), we promised to give her shelter through the Hallowed Locus.
“What if people ask questions?”
“If the Coven sets you up as a favor, then no one asks questions,” Maddi said, “but you’re going to have to tell him soon.”
“I can’t…”
“You don’t have to today. Work up to it. There’s a place here for you, trust me,” I assured her.
“I’ll walk with you,” Maddi volunteered. “Just two friends going to The Hallowed Locus.”
“Friends?” she asked.
“Absolutely. And Rose and Helaine too. And Stanley.”
“What? Oh yes, me too.”
In a few minutes, when Sophie was done with her sandwich and Rose had backed a bag chalk full of items for her, Maddi left with Sophie, and I sunk into the couch, shattered. Rose and Stan weren’t saying much either.
I sighed out with so much force that the red strands of hair framing my face blew out from it. How could someone as nice as Sophie be related to Jaime?
“So who’s her mum then, Stanley?”
“You don’t even want to know,” he replied.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Takeaway
Rose
On a particularly sunny afternoon that put winter to shame, Maddi and Helaine had yelled for me to come up to Helaine’s room. I peeked out of mine and climbed the next flight of stairs. The radio was playing and they had paint brushes out. Three cans of paint remained sealed on the floor. Helaine was getting along famously with Maddi and Gregory, but to me, they both remained more like acquaintances. I was also having a harder time during elemental lessons, regardless of only have been training for about a week. My lessons were always in the courtyard since my power was the most volatile.
“You’re next,” Helaine told me, pointing a clean brush at me.
“What are you doing?”
“Feng Shui and giving Laurence’s room personality. Now that we know you’re staying for good, it’s time to make this look like a home.”
“I spent two months of pay on this room, and it’s going to be perfect,” Helaine added to Maddi’s statement.
She had already set up her four-poster bed frame, but the curtains surrounding it weren’t out of the box yet. It looked like she was going for red by what peeked out of the box, but knowing Helaine, her color scheme could be anything. It was more grown-up than the mint green her room had been since she was a baby. I hadn’t given any thought to my own yet.
“How about magicing paint on the walls?” I asked. “That’s what I was going to do.”
Helaine’s face fell a moment.
“Clever…”
“Stanley is great at alchemy, and you should ask him to change the colors,” Maddi said. “We’re taking the fun way, though.”
“Apparently the more expensive way,” Helaine said with a cackle.
“When you need the book on Feng Shui let me know, or if you want my help.”
“I’d love your help,” I said to Maddi. I looked at the decorations pushed to one side of the room and saw a compact fountain and a metal wall sculpture. According to a compass and her birth date, Helaine would have to put those elements in certain directions. The direction of her bed also made a difference.
“If you have nothing to do today, I’d never turn down your help,” Helaine said sweetly. “I figured you were busy with training.”
She knew I had my hands full, and Maddi did too. Maybe they’d take my first week into account before they dismissed my slow start. Maybe not.
“Thanks. I would help if I could, but I’m going out for a bit. I’ll be back soon. Have fun.”
I walked out of the room and Gregory’s attic door was shut, but I figured he was home. Stan, on the other hand, was out for sure, and I didn’t need him to know where I was headed.
Excitement had its claws in me, and every time I thought about Kenny, I realized how much I wanted to see him again. I wanted to tell him everything about myself I could. And him not kissing me goodbye? Kenny sticking to his promise of respecting me was way hotter than any other goodbye could have been.
I met Kenny at his house this time. He was a stranger to me, but at the same time, he was someone I didn’t have to hide from. I felt more like a human when I was around one, and even though I went out of my way to be different sometimes, it was still nice to feel normal once and awhile. My lesson this morning went horribly, and I needed the distraction.
We were going to watch a movie and eat Indian takeaway, allowing little time for talking, which I desperately wanted to do, though we had been carrying on through text. I walked into his ground floor garden and knocked. His plants had been frosted over from winter, and either he didn’t have patio furniture, or it was taken inside.
I greeted him with a hug when he opened the door, and he kept his distance while returning the gesture. I could work with a man who had manners and a steady job.
“Thanks for coming, Rose.”
Rose, it was so nice to hear my first name from someone who wasn’t Helaine.
He invited me into his home. The open living room gave way to the kitchen, and there were three doorways off the main hall, which I counted as a two bedroom flat. He didn’t have a roommate. It was completely beige inside, and the only decoration in his flat was a painting of the ocean that hovered on the wall over the couch. The frame was an outdated brass eyesore. The mismatched wood stains on the coffee table and end tables didn’t bother me. It’s exactly what my first apartment would have looked like.
Dinner was set up on the coffee table, and I knew in an instant that the night would be as laid back as Kenny was. I had gotten him all wrong in thinking that seeing him again would just be a haze of passion or embarrassment. This flat was exactly where I needed to be tonight.
“Beer?” he asked.
“No thanks,” I said. “I have elemental training in the morning.”
“Aye, how is that going?”
“Better than I expected,” I told him.
He went to the kitchen and I followed him, curious about his flat. He opened the virtually empty fridge to grab and beer and a bottle of water, and I noticed a draft coming from the kitchen window. There was an electrical cord leaving his window and jetting outside.
“My neighbors. They have three kids and their electric is off. I’m letting them use mine for another week or two.”
“That’s incredibly nice,” I said with approval.
“Sometimes people meet hard times,” Kenny said as we went back into the living room.
I sat on the edge of the couch, and he joined me in a moment, sitting close, but not touching me. “If you’ve been getting the paper all these years…” I stumbled. I had made him sound old, hadn’t I? “Then you know I’m the first to initiate under an element that isn’t my family’s.”
“Why did you do it?” He asked me, opening a takeaway box.
“The papers say it was for Helaine, and maybe it was at first, but more or less I like a challenge. Let’s be realistic, I am a challenge.”
Kenny grinned.
“If you are ever uncomfortable with anything I do, just let me know,” Kenny said.
I half expected him to try and stick his tongue down my throat again at my smiling response, but I was beginning to understand him more. He knew I was new at this.
“Thanks,” I said.
We didn’t talk a whole lot, but just being around him made me more comfortable. We ended up watching two movies and picking at the takeaway the whole night. It didn’t want to overstay my welcome, but I did want to see him again. Before I knew it midnight was approaching and he walked me to the door of his ground floor flat.
“Thank you for a great night,” I told him.
“Can I kiss yo
u? Are you okay with that?”
“I am.”
Our lips touched and while it wasn’t like before, I loved it. I saw a little bit of pink surrounding him, but I realized that it might have been from me too. Pink was a great way to end the night. I kissed him a second time before I pulled away.
“Goodnight,” I said.
Walking home, I felt like everything was falling into place. Dates out and nights in were all I needed right now. I was finally cultivating a friendship in adulthood, and I committed our kiss to memory. I hadn’t come out tonight to get a lead on my powers, but I knew it would help my training. I would tame the passionate fire element while being assured that Kenny wasn’t an instrument. I truly liked him and would gladly let him see under all of my masks.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
National Treasure
Helaine
I was hanging out with Gregory in the living room, going over his favourite earth spells and indulging in his favorite earth hobby. He only kept the legal number of plants in the conservatory, but could grow new ones using a bit of elemental magic. No one else was home anyway, and technically, I was studying, so everything was fine. We had an earth spell book open and were looking through Gregory’s favourites. “With all of these different realms and planes, and things, every planet can’t be called ‘Earth,’ can it?”
I handed his vaporizer back to him.
“I suppose not.”’
“So what do witches do when they call the elements in alternate solar systems? Do they call Nevron, Air, Fire, and Water to the corners?
“Nevron?” Gregory burst out laughing, setting the glass piece down next to the book. I giggled along with him. Nothing mattered to me right now besides philosophical questions.
“Seriously. Think about it.”
There was a booming knock on the door. I threw my throw pillow aside (realizing why they were called that) and took a few short steps to the entrance of our witchy threshold. Looking through the peep hole I saw a middle-aged man, and looking behind me, I saw Gregory swatting at the air. I knew the person on the other side of the door wouldn’t care what we had been doing here, so I threw the door open at once.
“Travis,” I said, “what brings you here?” I got excited thinking it was about Sophie. Hopefully he wasn’t paying too much attention to my eyes, but Travis’s attention was surely always on himself.
“I’m petitioning the Coven to become a national treasure,” he said.
“Is this a joke?”
“Not it’s not,” said Gregory from the couch, walking over to join me. “We have to hear him out, and every year he neglects to schedule with Maddi and just shows up. It’s you and I rejecting him this year.”
“Where’s the faith, Gregory?” Travis asked, and then turned to a sycophantic tone. “Did your hair get longer?”
“Let’s see what you have.”
I smiled sideways at Gregory. Had Travis been here a few days ago, he would have met his child.
“You’re a few days later than usual,” Gregory commented, not bothering to let Travis in. He had already made up his mind; Travis as a national treasure was simply not going to happen. Like the Travis I had known my whole life, he refused to back down when presented with an impossible outcome.
“Bad luck. For the new year, the twins got plastered and were vomiting all over my new penthouse. They took on this bloody strange personality from some black market blood moonshine. I had to cover for them instead of sending them home to their mum. And who was happy when he had the set of twins who both had Bathory powers? Me. I even got married for those little fuckers. But am I happy now? No so much.”
“So is there anything besides being an over-indulgent parent that makes you national treasure?” I asked.
“I’m an award-winning author.”
“Your career alone does not count. It’s what you contribute.”
“Knowledge,” he said.
“I can’t,” Gregory said simply. “Happy New Year.” He slammed the door.
“Wow,” I said. “I didn’t think I’d see you act that way to a fellow Lusion.”
“Same powers or not, he’s bloody annoying.”
“You know it,” I said. “There is just something invigorating about being able to tell people what to do.”
“And that’s why we screen initiates carefully,” Gregory added.
Stan walked in the house just then, without a hello as usual.
“Travis is cursing in the alley again,” Stan told us, shutting the door and hanging up his coat.
“I sent him away for my third year in a row,” Gregory clarified.
“What’s going on with Avereis lately?” Stan asked me, as if he had just ignored Gregory.
“What do you mean?”
“She’s different.”
“Is her fire better?”
“Yes, actually,” Stan admitted. “What’s going on?”
“Why don’t you ask her?” I asked back. I sounded completely innocent with the practice I had been doing. Sophie’s secret. Rose’s secret. And here I was without juicy, gossipy bits of my own.
“I wouldn’t, mate,” Gregory said. “Do you really want to tread a sexual harassment issue with the details of how she’s tapping into her passionate energy?”
“We’re past that.”
“You’ll never be. It’s difficult for men to teach women or vice versa, and the Druids avoided teaching and learning with mixed sexes. I like to think we’re equal, but it doesn’t mean that denying differences will help anyone.”
“I’m doing fine and my mentor is a man,” I vouched.
“But you’re… Laurence,” he said.
I laughed, and I was pleased that Gregory saw me as one of the team, the same way he saw Maddi. London might have hated me, but I still had friends. Gregory pursed his mouth shut a moment before speaking again.
“Avereis isn’t progressing like you…”
“And you think there is something wrong with my teaching methods?” Stan asked him.
I couldn’t help smiling out of mischief.
“Are you two having a row just now?”
“No,” they both spoke up.
“Friends can disagree,” Stan reminded me with a hint of a sneer on his lips. “Like any relationship, friendship takes work. Gregory and I are communicating.”
“It isn’t my place to tell you what to do, so I guess you can do what you want, but please, heed my opinion.”
“I’m with Gregory,” I told Stan. “Just let this go and be happy her power is progressing. Try and keep that life separate.”
“No one realizes that it’s not separate, not really. The further divided we are on this, the worse her learning will be. Being in the Coven isn’t just a job. It’s life. Our lives will overlap with it.”
I didn’t say anything because Stan was absolutely right. The reason I was so good at water was because of my martial arts background.
“Gregory, I will ask if I need your help, and in the meantime, you need to remember Onyx and I are mentors, not you.”
Stan sulked up to his room, and I knew I had an ugly, shocked look plastered across my face as I turned back to Gregory. No one could ruin a high quite like Stan could.
“Bloody hell.”
“Maddi would say that Stan just wants to succeed and not to take it to heart,” Gregory told me.
“Why does it sound like Maddi is your conscience?”
“She is sometimes, but remember that she can be both shoulders. Witches aren’t all pure light and sunshine, though that’s where we prefer to live most of the time. The darkness needs to come out. That’s why justice and karma are important. We are justice, but karma is on a different level, it’s what keeps us in check.”
“If you were on the run, you’d use any kind of magic you had to, right?”
Gregory paused before speaking and gave a small nod. The look in his eyes wasn’t pity (I didn’t know if earth witches had that in them) but he knew how gu
ilty I felt about Moon, and how desperately I needed her to be alive.
“Laurence, the report O’Callaghan gave us was probably a falsified witness. But if I were Moon, I would.”
“And electricity as a power? Why haven’t I seen anything about it in my texts?”
“Why do you ask?”
“No reason…”
“It’s not an element witches use, and it’s been revered as evil and a sign of misfortune through superstition. Perhaps thunder comes before it, but you can’t very well know exactly where lightning will appear.”
“Well, Stan’s mum had it and everybody loved her,” I protested.
“What no one told you was that witches were afraid of her. They cowered in fear when she took the throne of England. They were afraid of someone like Stan.”
“And now he’s in the Coven. What’s his family element?”
“Air,” Gregory said. “But you won’t find that recorded anywhere.” Gregory paused a moment and gave me a small smile. “If you’re worried about Moon, tell Onyx. He can help. Especially if in your opinion she’s still alive.”
Just as there were many opinions, there were just as many reasons and justifications people had for their actions. Nothing was black and white for witches. I understood better than ever why we kept black magic books around, and the first chance I had, I was going to study their ins and outs in depth. I wanted to understand it, yes, but I also knew that someday, I might have to use it.
CHAPTER FORTY
Kenny
Rose
Maybe it was just Helaine being an iota dramatic when she warned me that Stan thought I had a secret, but he didn’t ask me a thing about it yet, despite my improved control over fire. Helaine’s approval rating had plummeted into the teens after what I affectionately called her “bar fight,” so the least I could do was let her live vicariously through me. Kenny and I weren’t serious, and as far as I knew, we weren’t even exclusive yet, but his emotions gave me a much-needed boost at controlling my fire.
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