by Amelia Blake
My hand automatically reaches for the necklace. It’s tucked safely under my shirt this time and I have no intention of taking it out.
“Can I see it?” Ciara asks, real excitement in her voice.
I am tempted, for just a second, to flaunt it in front of her. This is the first time that Ciara, who has absolutely everything, seems to be excited about something I have. Only the impulse fades away as quickly as it came. After all, this isn’t even my necklace. Did Parker have any idea what it was when he gave it to me? He said it was supposed to help me sleep better and it did, but this—protecting from mind spells—he definitely didn’t mention that part.
“I’d rather—” I start saying, but Adelise interrupts me, “What’s there to see? I told you she has a dragon’s eye. Now, is it all true, everything they told me?”
Ciara stares at her feet, the handkerchief with Dorian’s sneeze byproducts still in her hands.
“I see,” Adelise quirks her lips into a smirk, but it’s hard to tell if the smirk signifies that she is satisfied with herself or that she is satisfied with the fact that her granddaughter screwed up big time. Probably both. After a long, uncomfortable pause, the witch looks at us and says, “I will give you the spell to create a witchlight.”
All four of us lift our heads and stare at her in astonishment. It seems way too easy.
“With one condition.” There it is. The catch. “Well, I suppose not quite a condition. I would like your necklace as payment for the spell.” Adelise stares at me with those dark green eyes like she is willing me to accept her terms. Only I can’t do it, because the necklace isn’t mine to give.
Azzie whispers so quietly in my ear that even I can barely hear him, “Don’t do it. She’s trying to rip you off.”
I shake my head slightly. I wasn’t going to agree to those terms anyway.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do it. The necklace is not mine to give. I’m sure there must be something else you want.”
“I’d rather you gave me the necklace. Whatever else I ask might be even harder to part with.”
“What could that possibly be? My firstborn?”
Adelise snorts. “I’ve had enough trouble with my own children, what do I need yours for?”
That’s a relief. Nothing else she asks for can be as bad as that.
“So what do you want for the spell?” I ask.
Adelise considers me for a long moment. Finally, she says, “You’re no use to me right now, so I’ll take a favor. I’ll give you a spell if you promise to do something for me when I ask you to.”
“And you’re not going to tell me right now what that something will be?”
“Well, I can’t tell you, because I don’t know yet.”
“How do I know you’re not going to trick me?”
“Well, you don’t. But how long do you think you can keep hiding that thing in your bedroom?” She smirks at Azzie.
And she’s right. It’s unfair, of course, as what happened to Azzie’s witchlight wasn’t entirely my fault, but somehow I ended up being responsible for fixing it. And since I’m going to do my best to fix it, I would much rather do something for Adelise now than have this promise of a favor hanging over my head for who knows how long. I have a strong suspicion that she isn’t the one to easily forget that someone owes her something.
“All right,” I say. “You can have a favor. Now can we have the spell?”
“Not so fast. I want a blood promise. I don’t want you going back on your word once you get what you want.”
“Oh, all right.” I groan inwardly. I don’t feel like bleeding myself, especially since I wasn’t planning to go back on my promise, but if that’s what it takes to get the spell, then that’s what it takes to get the spell. “What do I need to do?”
Ciara stands up, opens a drawer in the apothecary table in front of the couch, takes out a small pocket knife, and hands it to me. I take the knife from her.
“Just prick your finger,” Ciara says.
I do, grimacing slightly. A drop of blood oozes from the cut.
“Now repeat after me,” she says and starts saying something in that same weird language she used to cast the spell at Jessie’s house.
I repeat each line of the spell after her. When I finish saying the spell, the drop of blood on my finger erupts into a flame. I flinch and lick my finger. It doesn’t really hurt, but the skin feels hot. If this is a blood promise, what does it have to do with fire? “Okay, now can I have the spell?” I ask.
Adelise tells Ciara to bring the Grimoire and Ciara goes upstairs, leaving us alone with Adelise and Dorian who is snoozing at the foot of Ciara’s chair. The mucus isn’t producing as prodigiously now that he is sleeping, but there is still some goo under his snout. He must be uncomfortable, poor thing. Wait, since when do I care if a pet demon is comfortable or not?
Ciara returns in a couple of minutes, carrying a book the size of Dorian. Well, okay, it’s not exactly the size of Dorian, but it’s the size of half of Ciara. It’s about twelve inches thick and bound in silver. That thing must be so heavy, and judging by the way Ciara holds it, it probably is. She puts the Grimoire on the apothecary table in front of Adelise, who then opens it and flips through the pages, looking for the spell.
Jessie, Azzie, and I all lean in to get a better look. After all, it’s not every day that you get to see a real Grimoire with real spells that real witches perform.
Adelise gives us a nasty look, picks up the Grimoire, places it on her lap in such a way that we can’t see anything, and continues rifling through the pages. After a few minutes, she finds what she is looking for. She pokes at a page with her finger and another page appears right on top of it. She places it on the apothecary table in front of her. “To make a witchlight,” she murmurs. Then she pokes at another page and places one more spell on top of the first one. “To bind the witchlight,” she says and snaps the book shut. “There. You have two spells for the price of one.”
Right. Only both spells would be useless without each other, but who cares about such tiny details?
Jessie reaches to grab the spells, but Adelise snatches them first.
“Not so fast,” she says. “This spell is extremely valuable and you have to promise to destroy it after you complete the ritual. And you can’t show it to the demon or anyone else for that matter. Consider it a licensing deal rather than a purchase.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal,” I protest.
“Take it or leave it.” Adelise waves the pages in front of our noses. She has the upper hand and she knows it.
“Do you need another blood oath?” Jessie asks sarcastically.
“In this case your word will suffice. So what will it be?”
“Fine,” I say. The woman is insufferable. “We promise to destroy the spell after we complete the ritual and not to show it to anyone else.”
“Including this demon.” Adelise points at Azzie.
“Including this demon,” I say.
“Good.” Adelise gives the pages to Jessie and we get up to leave. “Oh, and one more thing. The binding spell requires the power of three witches. Good luck with that.” She smirks.
Chapter Twenty-One
“This is ridiculous!” I say, irritated by what I read, or rather by what I can’t read. “Complete and total gibberish.”
Jessie gives me a sideways glance from the driver’s seat. “Don’t fret. We’ll figure this out when we get to your place.”
“It’s not even English! It’s all written in those runes we saw in your grandmother’s notebook. The ones that Ciara promised to teach you how to read, but then forgot. The same way she forgot that her grandmother is a witch, or that she had access to a witchlight spell all along.”
“Let me see,” Azzie says from the back seat. I give him the pages.
“Oh, crap! Give them back!” I snatch the pages back while Jessie laughs so hard the car veers to the side.
“Why? What’s wrong?” Azzie asks.
“Oh, just give them to Azzie. She’ll never know,” Jessie says.
“I’ll know, and I’m a terrible liar,” I say. “And from what I’ve seen of her so far, I’m pretty sure even if I wasn’t, she’d just know somehow.”
“Well, she can’t read your mind while you’re wearing your dragon’s eye necklace,” Azzie counters, but that doesn’t ease my mind.
“Where did you get it, by the way?” Jessie asks. “Is it your mom’s?”
“No. Parker gave it to me. It belonged to his mother. He gave it to me after that incident in Mr. Mason’s class. He said it would help me sleep better and it did.”
“Really?” Jessie asks and wiggles her eyebrows.
“Stop that!”
“Stop what?”
“Acting like there’s anything to it.”
“Were you not in the same room with me? Did you not see how Adelise wanted that necklace? It must be very valuable.”
“It sure is,” Azzie says. “Can I see it?” He leans over to the front seat and stares at my chest as if he can see the necklace through my shirt.
“Stop staring at me like that,” I say and cross my hands over the necklace.
“Like what?” Azzie asks innocently.
“I’m not showing you the necklace. And you were a lot of help today,” I say sarcastically. “I don’t know why you even bothered coming with us. I barely heard you say a word to Adelise. You didn’t even try to help us, even though we got into this situation because we were trying to help you.”
Azzie returns to his seat and shrugs sheepishly. “I kind of took something and didn’t want to attract unnecessary attention to myself.”
“You took something from Adelise?” Jessie asks.
“Are you insane?” I say and want to chastise him, but then curiosity gets the better of me. “What did you take?”
Azzie reaches into the back of his pajama pants and pulls out a book.
“Is that Isabelle Grenaux’s diary?” I ask, appalled.
“Oh, Azzie,” Jessie sounds more amused than anything.
“Do you seriously think she won’t know who took it?” I ask.
“She probably will,” he says, but before I can say something, he continues, “but only if she notices it’s gone.”
“And you think she won’t?” I ask.
“She doesn’t strike me like a reading type of person.”
“Oh, really?” Jessie laughs.
“Yes, she’s more of an, um, action kind of woman. But if she ever does decide to use that big library of hers, once I get my witchlight back, I’ll make sure there’s Isabelle’s diary there. Or something that looks exactly like it.” He winks at me. He actually winks at me.
“Wait a second,” I say, the realization finally dawning on me. “You didn’t volunteer to come with us because you thought we could use your help. You came with us because you wanted to steal the diary, didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t going to steal exactly that diary. I didn’t know it existed. But, yeah, that was the plan, in a nutshell.” He shrugs his left shoulder and grins at me.
I stare at him in disbelief. I grab Isabelle’s diary from him and try to figure out how to sneak it back without Adelise noticing when Ciara appears in the seat next to Azzie. I scream. Jessie screams and drives the car off the road and almost into a tree. She somehow manages to stop it before it smashes into a pancake. We all sigh in relief when it’s clear that none of us are dead or injured.
Jessie turns to face those sitting in the back seat and yells, “What the hell are you doing here and how the hell did you get in my car?”
Ciara rubs her forehead. She wasn’t wearing a seat belt, so when the car stopped, she was thrown right into my seat and hit her head pretty hard. I don’t feel sorry for her at all. Well, maybe just a little bit. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” she says.
“Then don’t go—whatever it is you did—into other people’s cars!” Jessie snaps at her, just a smidgen less angrily than before.
“Hey, is that—” Ciara stares at Isabelle’s diary, which I’m currently clutching to my chest.
“It’s nothing.” I quickly stuff the diary between myself and the back of my seat.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Adelise you took it.”
“First of all, I didn’t take it,” I say.
“I did,” Azzie chimes in. He’s staring at Ciara like Dorian stared at me—with saliva dripping out of his mouth. I should have smacked him with that diary when I had the chance.
“And second of all, why should we believe you?” I say. “Apparently, you had access to a witchlight spell all along and chose not to share it with us. And not only that, you actually tried to use mind control on me?”
“I’m so sorry about that, Emmy. I was desperate. I couldn’t let my grandmother find out about what we did. And she’d definitely know if I tried to read the Grimoire and copy the spell.”
“So what did you think? I would forget about what happened and then come to my bedroom and find Azzie there? And then spend the rest of my life in the Mystic Hollow Mental Asylum?”
“Actually, if the spell worked, you wouldn’t even see him,” Ciara says, then turning to Azzie, “and once Emmy could no longer see you, I thought you’d just go back to your dimension. You don’t need a witchlight to do that.”
All my anger evaporates, leaving me feeling like a deflated balloon. If that spell worked, things might have turned out exactly as I wanted them to. But why isn’t this thought making me feel any better? It’s not as if I like knowing that I’m a witch, is it? And it’s not as if I like knowing Azzie. He’s an obnoxious smart-ass who doesn’t have any sense of personal space. Okay, fine, he kind of started to grow on me, but even if Ciara’s intentions weren’t as terrible as I originally thought they were, they were still pretty bad. Changing someone’s memories without their permission is wrong no matter how you look at it.
While I’m debating whether I should forgive Ciara or give her a hard time, Jessie says, “This still doesn’t explain why we should trust you now or even listen to you.”
“Because,” Ciara says and reaches for something tucked under her shirt, “I brought you something.”
The something she brought us is a witchlight. I’ve been thinking about that thing so much lately that there is no way I would mistake it for anything else.
“And also because without me you have no chance of making the binding spell work. You need the power of three witches, remember?”
“Why do you suddenly want to help us?” I ask suspiciously. It’s hard to believe she changed her mind so quickly and went from trying to erase my memories to helping us.
“My grandmother has always accused me of not paying enough attention to my magic and paying too much attention to things that are not as important. At least not in her eyes,” Ciara says. “So I’m just doing what she wants me to do anyway.”
“Nice try, but that’s not why you’re doing it,” Jessie says. “If Adelise is actually the reason why you’re helping us, it’s because you want to get back at her or make her mad. Not that I’m against that,” Jessie adds. “But at least have the guts to tell us the truth.”
Ciara stares at us for a long moment. It looks like Jessie hit just the right spot with her guess. “Fine, I do want to get back at her. I’m tired of her constant insults directed at me and my magic. I’m really sorry I didn’t help you get the spell, but if I tried, I’d be in so much more trouble than I am right now. And I’m sorry I got you into this mess. It just felt so good to be able to talk to someone about magic, other than my grandmother or Aunt Krista, that is. It’s all I wanted in the first place, you know. Just to have someone to talk to about this stuff.”
“But how did you know that we were witches?” Jessie asks.
“What about the big game? Won’t they miss you?” Jessie asks as she starts the engine.
“They’ll be fine.” Ciara sighs.
“So what’s up with your grandmother and Supernatural?” Jessie asks.
“Supernatural?” Ciara asks, bewildered. “Oh, you mean the TV show? She loves it. She has a thing for Dean Winchester. Even has his poster in her bedroom. Actually, it’s inside her closet. I saw it a couple of times when she opened it.”
I start coughing to hide my laughter.
Jessie doesn’t even try to hide hers. “What did I tell you?” she says to me.
“So Adelise likes Dean, huh?” I say. “Who knew. I figured she was more of a Lucifer kind of girl.”
Now Ciara starts coughing. “Please, don’t tell her I told you,” she begs. “But there’s more.”
“Oh, please tell me there’s more.” Jessie giggles.
“She loves this series of books about a forbidden love between a witch and a demon hunter and how they overcome all these obstacles to be together.”
“No,” Jessie and I say together.
“Yes,” Ciara wiggles her eyebrows. “But you obviously can’t tell anyone, because if you do, she’ll kill you. You, too,” she turns to Azzie.
“Oh, I’m not telling anyone.” He shakes his head vigorously.
“Don’t worry your, grandmother’s secret is safe with us,” I assure her. It’s not like anyone would believe me even if I did tell.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“How did you get ahold of a witchlight?” I ask Ciara. We are in my room, setting things up for the spell. A blanket on the floor, candles to form a circle. We’re lucky candles aren’t edible, or we’d be out of those too.
“In my family, every time a witch is born, her mother creates a witchlight for her. My mother created this one for me.”
“Oh,” I say. Ciara seemed so upset the last time she mentioned her mother. “It must be really hard to part with it.”