by Jasmine Walt
Five women stood outside the entrance to the farmhouse. My chest tightened at the sight of Thelia, the witch who’d approached me at the vampire gala I’d attended and had tried to woo me into joining the Daire Coven. She smiled pleasantly as I approached, and I offered her a stone-faced glare in response. I’d been a fool to trust her.
I half expected Thelia to be the one to greet me, but instead, a gorgeous woman with long, fine black hair and a voluptuous figure stepped forward.
“Welcome, Brooke Chandler,” she said in a voice like smoke and honey, extending a slim, elegant hand to me. “This is my home, and the headquarters of the Daire Coven. We have been expecting you.”
I almost shook her hand out of reflex—her presence was that commanding. This woman was the epitome of grace and power, standing before me with the wind in her hair and the moon’s light glowing in her skin, as if she wasn’t merely reflecting it, but taking it into herself. But the weight of the cuffs on my wrists reminded me I was a prisoner, so I dropped my hand and simply glared at her.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, kidnapping me and then greeting me as if I were a guest instead of a prisoner.” I lifted my bound wrists. “So long as these are on, I refuse to listen to anything you have to say.”
“Oh, those old things?” Darcia asked, sounding almost bored. “They were just for your escort’s protection. I’ve nothing to fear from you.” She snapped her fingers, and the cuffs dropped into the grass at my feet.
The power I’d summoned earlier rushed into my hands immediately, making them crackle with dark energy. The witches behind Darcia murmured uneasily, and I forced myself to calm down. If Darcia was willing to release me from the cuffs, maybe she didn’t intend to keep me here under lock and key. It was worth finding out what she wanted before summoning Darun and annihilating the lot of them.
“You’re awfully cocky,” I told her, rubbing the soreness out of my wrists. “What makes you think you’re safe from me?”
Darcia laughed. “You may be a shadow, but I am far more experienced with you in the art of magic, and besides, it’s five against one. Now do you want to stand here and posture, or shall we get down to business?” She gestured to the house. “It’s warmer inside.”
“I’m listening,” I said, keeping my voice even. “But out here.”
Darcia chuckled. “Suit yourself.”
“Why don’t you start by telling me what the hell that roadblock was all about?”
The other witches tittered, and Darcia laughed again. “One of our members spotted you shopping at the Prudential Center, so we set up a troupe of actors at the checkpoint to intercept you. You didn’t think you were really fooling anyone with that wig, did you?” Her eyes sparkled wickedly as she turned toward Thelia. “That was quite fun, wasn’t it? We should do it more often.”
“You think it’s a fucking joke to masquerade as police officers and mess with people’s heads?” I snarled. God, I just wanted to punch that smug look off her face! “What the fuck is wrong with you? You can’t just screw with people’s lives like that.”
Vibrating with anger, I grabbed Darcia’s wrist. “I could take your power right now, if I wanted to. Then where would you be?”
Darcia met my angry gaze with a cool stare. “I would be dead. But if you did that, then Thelia will never retract her testimony about seeing Randall near your apartment the night he was killed. And then where would you be?”
She smirked, and I dropped her wrist as if I’d been scalded. Shit. “Are you saying that you’ll have Thelia retract her testimony if I agree to work with you?” My eyes snapped to the blonde witch, whose face was a mask now. Apparently, the other witches hadn’t taken kindly to me grabbing their mistress, judging by their stone-faced stares.
“I will,” Darcia purred, “but you won’t simply be working with me. I want you to become a full member of the coven.”
“There’s no way I’m becoming a member of your coven after you backstabbed me like that. You can’t blackmail me into joining your team.” Was this woman out of her mind? How could she possibly think I’d trust them enough?
“Joining the coven isn’t without its benefits, Brooke,” Darcia said lightly, as if I hadn’t just accused her of being a treacherous bitch. “Yes, you will be lending us your valuable powers as a shadow, but we’ll hide you from the police until you’ve proven your worth, and we will also teach you how to use your witch powers.”
I bit my tongue while I mulled it over my head. Really, was there any harm in pretending to go along with them? Maddock was gone, so it wasn’t as if I could do anything until he came back. This was actually the perfect opportunity—I could infiltrate the coven and get access to the channel without having to maim or kill the guards. Chances were, they probably wanted my help with it anyway. I was surprised Maddock hadn’t suggested this idea earlier.
Pretty sure that putting you in the clutches of the Daire Coven would go against his oath to protect you, a voice in my head said.
Right. Good point. I wondered if that oath tied Maddock’s hands unnecessarily. Maybe I’d talk to him about it at some point.
“All right. I agree to your terms.” For now, I added silently. We’d see what happened during this trial period.
“Excellent.” Darcia beamed, then turned toward the other witches. “Thelia, darling, why don’t you show Brooke to her room?”
My room actually turned out to be quite nice. It wasn’t the super-fancy suite back at the Winter King’s palace, but it was pleasant and well-furnished, with a comfy queen-sized bed and a window that looked out onto the ocean from the second floor. It was kind of annoying that all the new clothes I’d bought were at ENVY, but there were some dresses, jeans, and tops in the closet that looked to be about my size, so I’d make do for now.
Almost as soon as I laid down on the bed, Darun materialized into the room. He whipped his head around, his glowing yellow eyes wild, and snapped his teeth at me when he saw me reclining on the pillows.
“What the hell is this?” he snarled in my head. “I expected to find you at the police station, not…” He glanced around again, more slowly, his nose twitching as he sniffed. “Are we in a witch’s house?”
“Calm down,” I said, rolling off the bed so I could crouch by Darun’s side. I buried my hands in his thick fur, trying to calm him, but he only glared at me. “I didn’t mean to make you worry. I just didn’t think it was safe to summon you yet.”
“It’s my job to worry about your safety, not the other way around,” he snapped. “You should have come back to ENVY once you’d finished up with the police.”
I bit back a sigh. “I never went to the police. I’m guessing the bodyguard told you that’s where I went?”
“Yes. Some bodyguard he was,” Darun scoffed, clearly unimpressed. “He said that you drove off in the back of a police vehicle. Are you saying they didn’t take you to the station?”
I shook my head, then told him the whole story. I figured it was best to communicate telepathically instead of talking aloud, in case the witches had my room bugged or something. Even so, I wasn’t accustomed to having an entire conversation in my head, and it took an effort to adjust. I also had to explain quite a few terms—it turned out that Darun hadn’t been in the human world for several hundred years and had a very loose grasp of our law enforcement system. Thankfully, the covens didn’t seem to have changed much since he was last around—in fact, he seemed to know more about the witches than I did.
“It’s a good idea,” Darun begrudgingly admitted when I was finished. “With Lord Tremaine gone, we’d be sitting on our hands anyway. I just don’t like the idea of you being around these witches without my protection.”
“You’re only a wolf whistle away,” I assured him with a wink, ruffling the fur atop his head. He huffed a little, but the anger had left his eyes. “I know it sucks that you can’t hang around with me, but your presence will raise way too many questions. It’s better that you wait back at the club for Ma
ddock to return so you can tell him where I’ve gone. If there’s a sign that things are going south, I’ll summon you. Trust me.”
“Fine.” He butted his head beneath my chin. “I’ll be standing by.”
He disappeared, taking his furry warmth with him. Pouting a little, I flopped back onto the bed. It would have been nice to have Darun around—Darcia might have taken the cuffs off, but it was clear I wasn’t exactly free to come and go as I pleased. Having a friend around would go a long way toward soothing my nerves.
Pulling out my phone, I debated whether I should text Maddock. But once again, I didn’t know if the witches could use magic to track my communications. Could magic be used to such a sophisticated degree? It was frustrating not knowing, and I had to admit that Darcia’s offer to teach me how to use my witch gifts was tempting for that reason. It was nice that some spells seemed to pop into my head when I had great need of them, but I had no understanding of magical theory and didn’t want to find myself in a place where I was stuck in the future.
A knock at the door interrupted my musings, and I sat up. “Who is it?”
“Thelia.” The door opened, and Thelia popped her blonde head inside. “Dinner is ready, if you’d like to come down and join us.”
She said it so nonchalantly, as if this was a hostel and I was simply a guest. But there was no point in being angry about it—right now, I needed to convince the witches I was interested in what they had to offer. And snubbing Thelia wouldn’t help with that.
“Sure,” I said, standing. “What’s for dinner?”
She smiled. “Why don’t you come down and see for yourself?”
Thelia led me to a spacious dining room with a long, farmhouse-style dining table decorated with a table clothing and fragrant candles that sent a sweet herbal scent wafting through the room. A huge landscape painting hung from the cream-colored wall across the room, and mounted cedar shelves bearing small, colorful potted plants hung from the other walls. A pair of white doors to my left led out to a small garden, visible through the windows set into the doors. Sitting at the head of the table was Darcia, and the other witches who’d been part of my welcoming party were present as well.
“Please, come sit by me,” Darcia said, patting the chair to her left as she gave me a welcoming smile. “You are the guest of honor tonight.”
“Thanks.” I smiled back, burying my emotions, and seated myself. Thelia sat in the empty chair to Darcia’s right, and a woman in a grey dress and white apron came in and served us piping hot chicken soup with thick slices of fresh bread. My mouth watered, and I dug in along with the rest of the witches, not caring that I was eating with the enemy. The soup was delicious, and as much as I hated to admit it, the space and the company were all welcoming.
I was being thrown off guard, I admitted to myself silently as the second course—pot roast, mashed potatoes, and green beans—came around. When I’d realized where I was being taken, I’d expected a dark, forbidding mansion like the one Father James and his coven had been using in the middle of the woods. Instead, I’d gotten a cozy farmhouse and a hot meal.
As we ate, Darcia introduced me to the other coven members at the table—Carina, Laura, and Marion. They, along with Thelia, were part of Darcia’s inner circle, and they shared the same ageless beauty Darcia enjoyed. It was impossible to pinpoint exactly how old each of them were, and I figured the wizened eyes coupled with their unlined faces meant they were quite old and using fae power to enhance their lifespans.
The thought of a fae being chained in the farmhouse basement, or in a shed somewhere on the property, sent a chill shooting through me, and I fisted my hands under the table. I hadn’t picked up on anything like that when I’d done a quick sweep with my senses, but there was a lot of magic here, so I couldn’t be sure.
“There are twenty-four of us in total,” Darcia was saying, “and you’ll meet them all tomorrow evening at our official coven meeting. Our coven members have a range of talents and abilities. You will learn a lot from us.”
“I hope so,” I said. “And I’d love to hear more about what exactly it is you’ll be teaching me.”
“You’ll need to master the spell we use that allows us to see magic,” she told me. “It is an important skill for witches to have. It helps us seek out new sources of magic to harvest.”
“Really?” I asked, pretending to sound fascinated. “What does magic look like?”
“Once one has mastered the ability, a faint aura-like glow will appear around sources of magic,” Thelia told me. “But it takes many years of practice—not just getting the words of the spell right, but properly focusing your mind as well.”
“It is very important that you learn this skill right away,” Darcia stressed.
“Of course,” I said, injecting just the right amount of excitement in my voice. I didn’t want to sound overly eager—Darcia would be suspicious if I showed such a dramatic change of heart about the situation. And I also didn’t want to let her know that I already knew how to see magic.
But the fact that she was so interested in cultivating my ability to see magic made me almost certain she wanted to use me in order to find the magic channel. Maybe she thought my shadow powers in combination with the magic-sight would be enough to hunt it down when the rest of them couldn’t find it? I wasn’t sure about the logic of that, but it didn’t matter. I knew exactly where it was. All I had to do was let them escort me across the barrier, and then the ball would be in my court.
It was the perfect plan…as long as I could figure out how to destroy the damn thing. Hopefully the right spell would come to me once I was in front of it. Because if it didn’t, I’d end up leading the witches right to the very thing Maddock was trying to keep them from. And that would land us all into a world of trouble.
Chapter 20
The next morning, I met with Darcia in the living room after breakfast so we could start on our first magic lesson. She taught me the words to the magic-sight spell, and I was surprised to realize that the language she used was a bastardized version of the fae language I’d re-learned from the Morrigan’s surly housekeeper. It took me a few tries to get it right because I instinctively knew the words were wrong—the original fae language was more powerful than this strange half-version the witches were using.
“All right,” Darcia said once I’d finally gotten the spell right. “Close your eyes, then follow this breathing exercise with me so we can clear your mind. It’s important to have laser focus when searching for hidden magic.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes—I didn’t need breathing exercises or meditation. But I played along and breathed to the rhythm that Darcia gently coached me on. One, two, three, exhale. One, two, three, exhale, One, two, three, exhale… I lost myself in the exercise, and to my surprise, I found myself incredibly relaxed. Huh. Maybe this meditation thing really worked.
“All right,” Darcia said. “Open your eyes.”
I did, and I blinked—the china doll on her mantel was glowing brightly. “There,” I said, pointing to it before I could think better. “That doll.”
Darcia’s eyes flew wide. “You can see it already?” she asked. “I’ve never heard of anyone doing it on their first try. And I’ve trained my fair share of witches.”
“Yeah, but you haven’t trained a shadow before, have you?” I asked, trying to cover up my embarrassment—I hadn’t meant to do it on the first try. But the meditation session had relaxed me so much, I’d forgotten to act like a novice.
“True,” Darcia said with a shrug. She gave me a crafty smile. “I suppose this makes you even more valuable. We will be able to accomplish great things together, you and I.”
We continued the lesson, which ended up being similar to the scavenger hunt Oscar and my father had sent me on. But instead of being forced to find specific objects, Darcia simply had me wander about the house and point out the objects I found. I deliberately missed the weaker objects, and did not tell her I could distinguish the
stronger from the weaker—I doubted she would appreciate me having that knowledge. Afterward, we adjourned to the little breakfast nook in her kitchen, where the cook served us lunch.
“It is a good thing that you seem to be catching on so quickly,” Darcia said as we munched on tea and sandwiches. “In the past few weeks, our fae power sources have dried up, and we are going to need to find a new source very soon.”
“Is that so?” I asked, feigning surprise. “Any idea why?”
“Not a clue,” Darcia said, her beautiful face darkening as she frowned. “We had a very nice power source close to that fae club, ENVY, and a few other places, but those are completely gone. I strongly suspect your friend, Maddock Tremaine, has done something to block us from accessing the sources. Do you know anything about that?”
“Can’t say I do,” I said blithely, biting into another sandwich. I wasn’t about to tell her that the artifacts I’d helped Maddock collect were likely responsible for that. The last thing I needed was Darcia trying to coerce me into getting the artifacts back. “Do you all lose your magic if you can’t find another power source?”
“Yes,” Darcia said, her lips thinning. “You are very lucky to be half-fae—you don’t need to draw off another power source to fuel your magic. Sometimes we seek other fae out so that we can draw off the magical residue they leave in their surroundings, but the few powerful ones who lived here have retreated completely. They have been scared off by the Onyx Order’s antics.”
A shiver crawled down my spine as I recalled the phoukas who’d been chained up in the mansion. “Have you ever done that?” I demanded. “Captured a fae and held it against its will to siphon its powers?”
“Oh, no,” Darcia said, her eyes widening. “We would never do that. The Onyx Order’s actions were reprehensible—they were operating outside our laws.”