by Wendy Knight
“Kind of fascinating to watch her when she’s like this, huh?” she heard Fate whisper, and finally opened her eyes to see her sister, Damien and her mom all staring at her.
Damien smiled and nodded his greeting. “Hey Destiny.”
To say Damien was attractive would be a serious understatement. His blended heritage gave him soft brown skin, but light, light blue eyes. His black hair was cut short and he towered over Fate by at least six inches. He’d just been a normal human boy who happened to stumble across Fate’s path when she was ten, and they’d been best friends ever since. He’d figured out she was a witch about four years ago, and although it was supposed to be a big deal, it never had been. The fact that his girlfriend could make powerful love potions that would render him helplessly devoted to her seemed not to bother him at all.
Crazy boy.
Sighing, she reached for a ladle and dipped it in the cauldron. The thing was ancient, and they had three of them. The older a cauldron was, the more powerful its potions because it kept some of the power of every single potion made within it. She was counting on that when she blew on the liquid, watching the heat waft away from her, and then sipped carefully.
She could feel it running all the way through her, healing the aches, soothing the pain, mending the tears and strains and bruises — she could feel it work its way through her body, starting at her mouth, moving up to the top of her head and down her chest to the rest of her. “Mmmmmm,” she sighed happily.
“That’s what you should sell in your Etsy shop,” Alina said. Destiny opened her eyes and glanced sideways at her mother.
Alina winked.
“All better?” Fate asked, tipping her head to watch Destiny, long white hair falling across her shoulders.
Destiny nodded.
“Great. Let’s do this.” Fate clapped her hands and bounced behind the counter. “Damien, you’re in charge of gathering. Think you can handle that?”
Damien grinned. “I believe so.”
While Alina started naming off ingredients, Destiny pulled her hair up into a bun on top of her head and helped Fate tie her apron on. There was a buzz through the room, more powerful than an energy drink. New potions weren’t invented very often. Witches were, as a group, more of the tried and true, use what works type people.
But Fate and Destiny took after their mother, who had never been a regular witch.
They poured over their spell books, finding ingredients from different offensive spells and combining them, hoping to find something more deadly, to create something that would save more lives on the battle field. Bonus points if it made the warlocks suffer a little bit.
Destiny added in that last bit herself.
It took all weekend. They worked around the clock, stirring, mixing, chopping, chanting. And singing. Singing didn’t help the potion making at all, but it was fun.
“We should make a CD and sell that in our Etsy shop, too,” Alina said, laughing after they slaughtered a classic love song that really shouldn’t be slaughtered.
Fate looked up at Destiny, wide-eyed. “Our?” she mouthed.
Destiny smiled.
Sunday night at midnight, they were no closer to a new, battle-altering potion than they had been Saturday morning.
That’s just the way it goes, sometimes.
****
DESTINY SLID INTO THE seat in front of Quin, only pausing for a second to hit him with her coldest glare.
“Hey,” Quin said, smirking. “Did you survive Friday?”
She turned, brow raised. “Since I’m here sitting in front of you, I’d have to say that’s a yes.”
Quin shrugged. “You kind of got your butt kicked. No offense.”
A slow smile spread her lips, devastatingly beautiful. “Just wait until I go up against you, and we’ll see who survives.”
Quin just laughed. “I’m four classes above you. It will take years for you to catch up to me, and by then I’ll be long gone.”
She didn’t blink. “We’ll see.”
For some inexplicable reason, cold chills slid down Quin’s spine.
She turned around, dismissing him.
“I saw your mom at the store yesterday. I guess she got home okay?” Aaron asked, dropping his bag next to his chair.
“Yeah. Yeah, she’s good. Only a few scrapes and burns. She’ll be sore for a few days, but she’ll be okay.”
“I have a po— I have a homemade remedy for that,” Destiny spoke up without turning. “I could bring it to class tomorrow.”
Quin blinked at her. Was she being nice to him? “Why?”
Long suffering sigh. “Because it will help, and if she has to put up with you, she’s probably in enough pain already.”
Nope. Not being nice.
He thought about the ten thousand potions they had at home that his mother had already tried from some of the coven’s top spell books. Cass wasn’t a potions witch, so her potions weren’t particularly powerful, but they soothed the pain like common over the counter pain reliever would — which wasn’t saying a lot.
He wished someone would have put as much effort into healing potions as they had battle potions. Wouldn’t it make sense to keep the warriors in top form so when they did have to fight, they weren’t already half-beaten?
In any case, if long-dead witches couldn’t invent something that would help, he doubted very much that a regular chemistry genius like Destiny could. “Thanks. We’re good though.”
She shrugged as Mr. Zornes started the class.
They were learning about the chemical reaction that caused fireworks, which included watching a video that should not have been as boring as it was, and then writing up formulas that were explained in the video and stating why they caused the reaction they did.
Destiny, of course, was flying through her paper, her pencil rarely lifting as she scribbled away, flipping through the textbook with her free hand and barely looking at the pages. Quin narrowed his eyes, wondering how on earth she could know the textbook so well when she’d started a month later than he had.
“Hey,” Aaron leaned over. “What combustible did you use in number four? I can’t get that one.”
Destiny’s hand stilled and she raised her head, just a little. Quin knew because her hair spilled across his desk. He shoved it out of the way with the end of his pencil. “Titanium dust,” Quin said after scanning his notes.
“Titanium dust…” Destiny murmured.
He and Aaron both looked up at her, but she was ripping a clean page from her notebook and scribbling furiously, chemistry assignment forgotten.
Then, just as Quin and Aaron went back to their own work, she sprang from her seat, knocking her chair over in the process. It clattered on the laminate floor, but she was oblivious. “Mr. Zornes, I’ve gotta call my mom. It’s an emergency.”
Mr. Zornes stared at her in shock, looking from the fallen chair to Destiny and back again. She hardly ever made any noise at all, and the whole class was now watching her, like a train wreck.
But nothing exciting happened. Mr. Zornes nodded and Destiny dug her phone from her bag and speed-walked out of the class, breaking into a run the second she hit the door.
“That girl is weird,” Aaron said.
Quin nodded.
Right before the bell rang, she came back. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes danced and sparkled, bluer than normal. “Everything okay?” Mr. Zornes asked when she slipped through the door.
She nodded, smiling. “Everything is wonderful.”
****
DESTINY WAS THERE WHEN Quin got to class the next day. He had two classes with her on A days, history and math. She was quieter in both classes than she was in chemistry, and she wasn’t particularly outspoken in that one. For as hot as she was, she seemed totally oblivious. Guys hit on her all the time. Quin watched and wondered how stupid they could be.
She was always polite, but she never said yes. She was an anomaly they talked about in football often because she�
�d turned most of them down, and they wanted to hate her but she was too dang sweet.
Quin wouldn’t know. She wasn’t ever sweet toward him.
In history, he sat clear across the room from her. He felt her gaze on him as he passed her desk and sat down near the window, where he could study her reflection, the blue eyes glowing faintly.
She turned her head and watched him the entire time. Then she fidgeted for a few minutes before she finally pushed to her feet and stalked across the room to sit in the empty seat next to him, balancing on the edge of the chair, declaring that this move was only temporary. Quin turned, raising an eyebrow. “What?”
She dropped a small bottle, baby-food sized, on his desk. “It’s for your mom.”
“What?” he asked again.
“It will help her feel better. Just a sip is all it takes. It’s perfectly safe.” She nodded and stood, hurrying back across the room to her stuff.
Just a sip is all it takes.
Why did that sound familiar?
It didn’t matter. He tucked the bottle in his pocket where it was least likely to get broken, still trying to figure out why she was being nice to him.
It didn’t last. In his next class with her, she didn’t even look at him.
Strange girl.
He caught a glimpse of her during cross country with the rest of the team, but that was it. She glanced over at him as they ran by but didn’t smile. In fact, she barely acknowledged him at all.
Zeke leaned over. “Did you hear why they showed up at our school? I heard her sister talking about it today.”
Quin dragged his eyes from Destiny as she disappeared over the ridge. “Oh yeah?”
“They were expelled from their last school.”
This caught his attention fully. “What for?”
Zeke held up a finger, effectively putting the conversation on hold, and ran through his drill, dodging defensive players as he raced for the ball. He came back, but by then Quin was leaving for his turn, so it wasn’t until several minutes later that they actually got to continue the conversation. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You couldn’t have told me that ten minutes ago?” Quin asked, incredulous. “Seriously?”
Zeke raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry,” Quin muttered. “I was hoping you had dirt on her.”
“Why? So you can blackmail her into not glaring your way every time she runs by? You could probably do that by apologizing for attacking her in the hall.”
“I didn’t attack her. She ran into me. And no, I’m not going to blackmail anyone. What am I, a mob boss?” Quin rolled his eyes as he dove for a football. He caught it, tumbled across the ground several times, and rose stiffly, only to be tackled hard.
This is why he shouldn’t have conversations during practice.
As Zeke pulled him to his feet, he rubbed his shoulder, groaning, but his head was still in the conversation, not on practice. “It would just be nice to know she’s not little Miss Perfect all the time.”
“I noticed something.” Aaron fell into step beside them. “You know a lot of girls at this school. You’ve dated a lot of girls at this school. I can’t recall one time you have ever talked about any of these girls in between getting tackled and beaten into the ground.”
Quin opened his mouth to respond, but he had nothing. In defeat, he mumbled, “Stupid girl won’t get out of my head.”
CHAPTER FOUR
DESTINY SLID FROM HER TRUCK, SORE and happy. She’d beaten her previous time on her three mile run, which was good since they had their first meet in a week. Still, her legs felt like uncooperative stilts as she walked, stork-like, into the house.
Fate waited for her in the kitchen. “Well, the Titanium dust came and we mixed it just like we talked about, but it was nothing spectacular.” She plopped her chin in her hand and pouted.
Destiny dropped her bag on the hook and dug through it, looking for the notes she’d written in chemistry. “Where did you find Titanium dust so quickly? Rare antiquities dealer? Jewel trainer?”
“Amazon.”
Ah.
Frustrated, she started pulling everything out, muttering under her breath. “Where are you?”
Ah ha. There they were. In her chemistry folder.
Imagine that.
She pulled the notes out and joined Fate at the table. “I didn’t know we could buy ingredients from Amazon.”
Fate grinned.
“How was cross country?” Alina breezed by, dropping a kiss on the back of her head.
“Good. I really like this team.” Destiny twisted to smile up at her.
“Making any friends?”
Destiny thought it over and nodded. “Yeah. Sienna, Emmry, Farrah, Brookell. There are lots.” Destiny smiled. At their last school, no one had even realized they were there. “I’ll introduce you at our meet next week. You’re coming, right?”
Alina paused in front of the cauldron, taking a tentative sniff. Frowning, she turned back to Destiny. “Of course I’m coming. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Fate looked up from Destiny’s notes. “As far as I can tell, we followed this to the letter. Maybe we should mix up a new batch with all three of us helping?”
Destiny’s stomach growled and she got up to dig through the cupboards. Alina smacked at her hands, pushing her away. “Dinner’s cooking, oh starving one. Fifteen more minutes.”
“Great. That gives us fifteen minutes to start this next batch.” Fate bounced up from the table and joined Destiny behind the counter. “You stink.”
Destiny scowled. “I did just run three miles in this heat, thank you.”
Fate nodded. “Okay. Fifteen minutes for you to shower. Then we’ll make potions.”
Fifteen minutes later, Destiny came back down, clean and sweat-free. Fate and her mother were both outside, probably feeding her mom’s menagerie. Dinner was in the crock pot, bubbling happily, so Destiny went to the cauldron, gathering supplies along the way. The Titanium dust sat next to the stove, and she tipped a little into her hand, watching it suspiciously. The video said once airborne, it was highly explosive, but so far, it just sat there.
She sprinkled it across the cauldron and reached for the other ingredients, spices, herbs, metals. While she mixed, she chanted quietly, mostly under her breath. “Protect those who fight with thee from those who seek to kill them. Stop the wicked in their steps, quiet from their mayhem.” She let her eyes fall closed, mixing and humming, while the metallic tang warred with the floral and sweet for a spot in her senses.
Until it started sizzling and hissing.
Her eyes flew open as Fate and her mother came running in through the glass doors behind her. “What’s going on?” Alina squealed.
Destiny grabbed the cauldron and raced past them, through the doors they just came in through. “I think it thinks it’s a firework!” she yelled as she sprinted into the yard.
She dropped the cauldron on the ground in the middle of the driveway. Sparks shot from its open mouth, spiraled through the air, and then shot to the ground.
And exploded.
“Whoa,” Fate whispered, clinging to Destiny’s arm. “So that’s how it’s supposed to work.”
“If—if there was anyone trying to hurt us, I think, I think, it would have attacked them. That’s what I told it to do.”
Alina nodded, glancing at Fate. “We didn’t give it a spell.”
“Rookie mistake,” Fate snorted, shaking her head.
Alina clapped her hands. “I’ll call Winnie. Destiny, you are so my little genius witch.” She kissed Destiny on the cheek and disappeared into the house.
Fate smiled and squeezed Destiny’s shoulders. “Now we can go invent a potion to get the divot holes out of the driveway from your little experiment.”
Destiny winced. She hadn’t noticed the basketball sized holes until now because she’d been so excited about the explosions. “I think they have a potion for that already. It’s called ce
ment mix.”
****
QUIN DROPPED HIS BAG by the back door and hung his keys on the little hook. “Mom? I’m home.”
His dad poked his head through the back door, where he was outside grilling. “She’s upstairs trying that cream you gave her. It was nice of you to run it home during eighth period. I’m sure your teacher thought so, too.” When Quin couldn’t think how to respond, his dad continued. “How was practice?”
Grateful for the change of subject, Quin answered quickly, lest his dad go back to Quin skipping class. “I made stupid mistakes and nearly got plowed into the grass.” He trudged through the living room and out the double doors to the deck, collapsing onto one of the bar stools.
“You shouldn’t do that. I hear that’s bad.” His dad had been a superstar in high school and college. That was when he’d met Quin’s mother. And being a professional football player didn’t work with a warrior witch’s schedule.
So he’d quit.
Now, he was an electrician. He played indoor football for the city team every February to June, and he said he wouldn’t want it any other way.
Every time Quin’s mother left for battle, though, Quin could see in his eyes that life wasn’t exactly as he wanted it. Because no one in their right mind would want to watch their wife fly off to a war she might not come back from.
One that, should she die, she wouldn’t rest in peace. The warlock would steal her essence, her powers, her strength. She would be a trapped soul until someone killed the warlock.
It gave Quin nightmares, at least once a month.
“Honey,” his mom came around the corner, interrupting Quin’s pained reverie, and kissed him on the cheek. “That stuff you gave me was amazing. Like, unbelievably amazing. Where’d you get it?”
Quin slid off his stool so she could sit down. “Really? It worked?”
She raised her hands above her head without even wincing. “No pain.” She smiled and rolled up her sleeves. “No burns. Where did you get it, Quin?”
“A girl at school gave it to me. She said it was a home remedy.”