“You don’t say no to me,” Shailaja said. “You don’t stand against a true dragon. You don’t —”
“Yeah, yeah,” I interrupted. “Wrong era, baby koala. We do what we want around here.”
The teen lunged for me.
Gran’s spell — some wicked blue lightning that imprinted itself on my eyeballs — met Shailaja halfway, hitting her neck-to-torso. She flew off her feet, ending up pinned to the far wall. She hung there, suspended, shrieking and writhing underneath Gran’s lightning spell. The shadow leeches swarmed around her as I stalked forward.
I felt Gran stumble behind me, Scarlett’s magic rising up to anchor her. The power dancing and streaking around me was exhilarating — all the hair on my body was electrified with it — and I wanted to laugh and twirl around in the intoxicating energy.
Instead, I reached into the seething mass of shadow leeches obscuring my sight of Shailaja and came up empty-handed.
Then the shadow leeches also disappeared.
Gran released the spell. The charged air still danced against my skin as I spun around to scan the bakery.
Shailaja was gone.
Stepping through the ruin of my front door, tables, and chairs, I retrieved the depleted necklace. I looped it around my neck three times and instantly felt more grounded.
Scarlett righted a stool, then helped Gran over to it. Still dowsing for the teen’s magic, I jogged into the kitchen, then out into the back alley.
The cool of the evening hit my overly warm face, but I didn’t stop to enjoy it or calm down. I needed all the adrenaline I could hold right now.
I ran back through the kitchen and into the storefront. Scarlett was pressing a glass of water into Gran’s hands.
I crossed to the front door, ignoring the broken glass and wood as it crunched underneath my feet. I could taste Scarlett’s perimeter cloaking spell, so it was still in place around the bakery. But the kid — Shailaja — had stripped the wards.
She’d stripped the bakery wards and attacked my family. She’d attacked and damaged my home and family.
I began to shake — not as the adrenaline drained from my system but as more pumped in. I rode the anger that had been burning in my belly and now flooded my chest, flushing through my neck and face.
She knew the bakery was vulnerable without wards. I had absolutely no doubt that the freaking brat would come back. She wanted something, so she took it.
Not again. Not here. Not with my family.
I laid my jade knife across my left hand, then deliberately and deeply sliced across my palm. I squeezed this hand, heedless of the pain, and allowed drops of my blood to fall at the base of the doorway. Then I pressed the bleeding cut to the sides and top of the doorframe.
“Jade!” Scarlett gasped behind me, completely aghast.
Ignoring my mother’s dismay, I stepped from the bakery onto the sidewalk of West Fourth Avenue. As I passed through Scarlett’s spell, the evening was suddenly filled with car engines, tires turning on pavement, and people dashing through the light rain to and from the various restaurants and coffee shops across from and around the bakery. I slowly stepped along the outside windows — my shoulder brushing the glass as I passed — and allowed drops of blood to fall from my cut hand all along the footing of the exterior concrete wall.
Then I stepped back inside, sliced my hand a second time to reopen the wound, and traced the entire footprint of the bakery in my blood, including the exterior alley wall.
Scarlett and Gran watched me, utter disbelief etched on their faces.
I didn’t stop.
I performed blood magic without giving it more than a second thought. And in front of two members of the Convocation. I was seriously surprised they didn’t slap me in chains and press black magic charges against me on the spot.
They were obviously in shock at my audacity, at my seething anger. That was fine by me, because it was better for everyone if they didn’t try to stop me until I had the new ward in place.
Or maybe they just weren’t sure how to stand against me. Maybe they weren’t sure they could stop me if they tried.
I went upstairs and placed drops of my blood all around the edges of my apartment as well. The wards on the second level were undamaged, but if I was going dark, I might as well go all the way, all at once.
I had to slice my palm seven times to finish the job.
I didn’t even feel lightheaded. I didn’t feel anything at all. Perhaps I was in the thrall of the blood magic I was about to perform. Or maybe I was the one in shock, though my actions felt just and my choices crystal clear.
I could leave my family vulnerable, or I could protect them.
Two options.
Either. Or.
Blood trumped rock, paper, and scissors.
Okay, maybe I was a bit lightheaded.
CHAPTER THREE
Gran and Scarlett were waiting for me in the basement of the bakery.
A witches’ circle was inscribed in the dirt. Gran stood at the north edge with the broom she’d used to draw the circle, watching as Scarlett lit the last few candles.
They were going to help me erect the protection spell. A ward based on blood magic. A vein of magic that Gran, at least, had spent decades denouncing and policing via the Convocation.
Emotion tightened my chest and neck, threatening to choke me. I stumbled on the rickety wooden steps that led from the pantry to the basement.
I’d expected condemnation. I’d expected to be disowned. Any respectable witch who performed blood magic or black magic would likely end up excommunicated for the practice.
Of course, this wasn’t my first time.
And I really wasn’t a witch.
Gran looked up at my stumble, set the broom against the boxes and wooden storage pallets behind her, and reached her hand out to me. “Come,” she said. “If it’s to be done, it should be done quickly.”
Scarlett set a fourth candle at the eastern edge of the circle, then straightened to take Gran’s other hand.
I closed the space between us, quickly shucking my boots and tights so I stood barefoot in the packed dirt at the west edge of the circle. I linked hands with my mother and Gran. They’d also removed their shoes. The portal, so well hidden that even Warner hadn’t known it was there, thrummed contentedly away on the patched concrete and brick of the east wall.
“Your magic is depleted,” I murmured. The taste of strawberry and lilac lingered on the back of my tongue, but not as strongly as usual.
“The weight of the spell won’t fall to us,” Gran said. “We’re here to anchor you.”
“So I don’t get lost in the blood magic.”
“Don’t make light of it, Jade,” Scarlett said, as chastising as I’d ever heard her.
“It’s the only way I know how to secure you quickly,” I said. “I’ll have to go after her. She has the map.”
“We know,” Scarlett whispered, sad but supportive at the same time.
“We’re here,” Gran said. “Now gather the magic before it degrades further. Gather the magic in your blood. Allow it to remain anchored where the drops have fallen. But weave it together, then command it to do your bidding. Scarlett and I will hold the circle.”
I closed my eyes and reached out with my dowser senses to find every drop of blood I’d left all around the edges of the bakery and the apartment, inside and out.
Normally I couldn’t taste or see my own magic. Wisteria, the reconstructionist, had once told me it was blue-gold in color. But now that it was parted from me, I could feel it. I could feel it waiting for me. Blood heeded blood.
I’d created two other magical objects with blood magic before. One was the sacrificial knife I’d originally created in London one terrible night to free a young necromancer, Mory, from my sister’s evil machinations, and which I’d painstakingly reshaped into a more traditional dagger and given to Warner for Christmas. I’d also drained and sealed Sienna’s magic — both stolen and natural magic —
into the katana my father had given me. I hadn’t deliberately used blood magic that night in Tofino. But blood — mine and Sienna’s — had coated the sword, and I was fairly certain that was what made that particular act of alchemy possible. Thankfully, that terrible creation was in Pulou’s possession now.
I’d also sealed the spells on my jade knife with my own blood, but only after I’d been stabbed with it twice by Sienna. So I didn’t consider that a deliberate practice of black magic, though perhaps I was being willfully blind.
I might not be well versed in blood magic, but I did know that every object I created with alchemy — blood based or just energy driven — wanted to return to me. Magic heeded magic.
So even though finding the drops of blood was as easy as closing my eyes, calling the magic in each drop to the forefront, smoothing and connecting it to the drops on either side, then reaching out to stretch those points of magic up and out until they enveloped the entire building was much, much more difficult.
I understood instinctively that if I hadn’t held Scarlett’s and Gran’s hands and breathed in their magic while I channeled the power of my blood, I might have been pulled away myself. I understood how I could have opened my eyes but never really come back to myself. Maybe leaving too much behind in the magic of the blood wards … maybe creating a thirst I could never quench.
I was shaking as I visualized all the woven magic coating the interior and exterior of the bakery and the apartment, coaxing and pulling it to gather at the center of the roof directly above us. I fell to my knees as I drew that gathered magic around and down to the base of the building to meet me in the witches’ circle.
Scarlett gasped as the magic filled the circle and danced between our clasped hands and outstretched arms. She and Gran remained standing as I anchored this called magic into the ground beneath us. This would now be the heart center of the wards. The next Adept who wanted to destroy the protection surrounding the bakery and the apartment would have to be here, standing before the portal, to access the core of the magic. And if they’d already gotten this far inside, I imagined we’d already be lying dead or dying at their feet.
“Nothing of magic enters without my permission,” I informed the core of the spell dancing in the circle before me. “No thing, spell, or weapon. No Adept. Except we three, and Kandy, Kett, and Warner.”
“So much magic,” Scarlett murmured.
“And the portal?” Gran asked.
“I don’t think I can ward against the portal. I don’t think anyone can ward a portal of the treasure keeper’s construction, except maybe another guardian. It’s a secret, though.”
Gran looked pointedly at Scarlett. “Is it a secret?”
Scarlett nodded stiffly. “It is.”
“You haven’t mentioned it to Yazi?”
“I just said I hadn’t.”
“I could try …” Utilizing the magic in the circle another time was a tantalizing idea. I’d be happy to do it again. And again.
Gran squeezed my hand. “It’s done, Jade. Let it go.”
For a moment, I didn’t want to. I wanted to watch the magic dance all twinkly blue in the circle before me. I felt powerful and whole here. In control, in command.
“It’s done as you asked, Jade,” Gran said. “Let it go.”
I nodded. But before I fully released it, I channeled some of the protection I’d created into my depleted necklace. Then the magic settled into the ground until only a soft, circular glow remained, hovering a few inches above the dirt. As I watched, that glow slowly faded. And it was done.
I waited for the blood magic to cause an urge toward murder and mayhem to arise in me, but I just felt weary. And more mentally than bodily.
Gran harrumphed, but she seemed pleased enough as she disengaged her hand from mine to begin snuffing out candles.
Scarlett turned my hand over in hers to look at the half-healed cut marring my palm. It appeared that even half-dragons took extra time to heal from multiple cuts in the same spot. Though the severity of the cut might also have something to do with the magic of my jade blade, which was wickedly sharp.
I was seriously glad Shailaja hadn’t gotten her hands on my knife. My necklace had been bad enough. Though the crazy dragon seemed slightly more stable in her more mature form than she had as an unhinged preschooler, I still didn’t want to be the one who’d handed her a deadly weapon.
Scarlett lifted my hand to her mouth and placed a soft kiss on my palm. Her magic brushed against my skin and a healing spell tingled along the edges of my wound.
“Gran needs to sleep,” I said. Scarlett’s magic — from holding the protection circle against a dragon and shadow leeches — was also depleted.
Scarlett nodded. “I’ll take her upstairs. Then I’ll come help you clean.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, not a hundred percent sure I wasn’t still in shock. Yeah, I was way too calm for my own good. “Like you said, Warner’s on his way.”
Scarlett pressed her hand to my cheek and turned toward Gran, who also stepped up to touch me lightly on the shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I said. Tears were suddenly threatening where there hadn’t even been a hint of them before. “I couldn’t figure out how to contain her without really hurting her.”
“She’ll be back,” Gran said. “And you’ll be ready.”
“No,” Scarlett countered sharply. “You’ll call your father. She’s a dragon. She’s his responsibility.”
“Yeah, but the map’s mine. She’s already gone after an instrument of assassination and gotten a nasty lesson in why dragons can’t wield them, so why take the map?”
“The map is a piece of power,” Gran said. “She was seeking objects of power.”
“But then why come specifically to Jade, Pearl?” Scarlett asked. “I think you’re wrong. She needed Jade’s alchemist powers. Taking the map was merely leverage.”
“Thank you, Scarlett,” Gran said frostily. “I was attempting to soothe your distraught daughter.”
“Jade is far more resilient than that, mother,” Scarlett said.
“Yes, daughter. But it is nice to be babied once in a while.”
Scarlett snapped her mouth shut on her mounting indignation. Yeah, Gran did that to us all.
“I have a containment spell for your satchel,” Gran said as she hustled ahead of us up the stairs to the pantry. “So nothing accidentally falls out. It was going to be a birthday gift, but I see you need it now. Give me an hour or so.”
She disappeared into the pantry. I looked at Scarlett, but she shook her head.
“A little spell isn’t going to kill me,” Gran snapped from above us. She’d poked her head back through the doorway.
“Bottomless would be nice too,” I mused, thinking of all the things I had to cram into my bag these days. Chocolate bars, maps, cellphones, knives, artifacts —
“Not in an hour!” Gran snapped. Then she disappeared into the bakery kitchen.
Scarlett laughed under her breath as she climbed the stairs after her mother.
Geez, I hadn’t been asking for a bottomless bag … just saying it would be nice.
∞
The damage to the bakery storefront was worse than I’d allowed myself to acknowledge. I’d have to close for a few days, maybe even a week, and order a new door … and new tables … and new chairs.
Anger washed through me. Fierce, burning anger seared through the steady resolve that had gotten me through the altercation and the building of the blood ward. I was probably looking at thousands of dollars’ worth of damage. My heart and soul was in this bakery.
I was shaking again. I needed to stop shaking before I did something extra stupid, so I found a broom, grabbed a garbage can, and started cleaning.
I had to remember to remind Scarlett to remove the cloaking spell from the bakery tonight. And put up a closed sign. Otherwise, I wasn’t sure what people would think if they came for cupcakes, then couldn’t find the store. I wasn’t sure what
sort of spell Scarlett had used. I wasn’t sure if I should call the police. Should I file a report? Could you even file a vandalism report without any witnesses? But if I didn’t file a report, wouldn’t that call extra attention to the damage? Customers were going to ask questions.
Oh, God. I was melting down over mundane things so I didn’t have to think about a crazy dragon running around with my map.
The second I’d secured the blood ward, I should have walked right through the portal and sought out Pulou.
But I didn’t. Even knowing that I should didn’t make me move in that direction.
I was just so, so angry.
A dragon had done this. A dragon had been allowed to do this. Pulou knew about the kid who’d been in the fortress. Pulou knew about the shadow leeches. Pulou had spent hours and hours with Warner, dissecting every last thing the sentinel knew about his era and the instruments of assassination.
Pulou hadn’t even given a second thought to the kid. He’d answered my questions about the creation of the shadow leeches with urgings to unlock the map and secure the next two instruments. He’d admonished me to focus on the important task at hand and let the guardians handle everything else.
Do your duty, alchemist. Let the smarter, stronger dragons worry about everything else.
The broom handle snapped in my hands. Frustrated, I flicked the broken top piece into the wood-slat floor, where it embedded itself about three inches deep.
A cold wash of adrenaline ran down my spine.
That was stupid. So, so stupid to damage the bakery floor even further, and in a childish rage. Plus, a broken broom wasn’t exactly useful.
I took a deep breath and looked out the bakery window. Oddly, the trinkets there were still hanging exactly where I’d strung them, completely undamaged.
A pale, white-blond man was standing on the sidewalk, watching me through the broken door. He could see me despite the cloaking spell.
The anger boiling in my stomach eased, and I almost started crying again with the relief of seeing him. But that wouldn’t be the proper way to greet an old friend — a mentor — who I hadn’t seen in months.
Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser Series Book 5) Page 5