Descended from Shadows: Book of Sindal Book One

by D. G. Swank

He shot me a grimace, then motioned ahead. “There’s a McDonald’s ahead, if you can handle greasy fast food.”

  A greasy sausage biscuit meal was exactly what I needed.

  When he parked in the parking lot, I started to unbuckle, but my hands shook too badly to push the button.

  Brandon covered my hand with his own, giving me a worried look. “Why didn’t you tell me your blood sugar was so low?”

  “And give you a reason to leave me behind at the farm? No thanks.”

  His brow furrowed, and he reached for his car door. “Wait here and I’ll run in and get it. What do you want?”

  I gave him my order, adding a large coffee, then squinted at him. “Why don’t you just go through the drive-through?”

  He grimaced. “I have to pee.”

  I laughed despite myself, then leaned back in the passenger seat, closing my eyes. The next thing I knew, Brandon was shouting my name from the driver’s seat and shaking my arm.

  When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t prepared for the panic on his face.

  “Here,” he said, shoving a cup in my face. “Drink this orange juice.”

  “I didn’t ask for orange juice,” I mumbled.

  “Drink the damn orange juice, Phoebe,” he growled, shoving it up to my lips.

  I took several sips before he took the cup away.

  “Does the shifting make you weaker?” he asked, pulling a package of hash browns out of the bag.

  “What?”

  “I know you use your ancestor Margaret Abbott’s shifting magic,” he said as he held the crispy potatoes up to my mouth. “And I know you depend on her magic for your part of the fortification ritual. Did you eat before you passed out the night of the ritual?”

  “No.”

  He grimaced again and shook his head. “Why didn’t you say anything before now?” he groused.

  “Why would I?” I asked, sitting up as my strength came back. “You’re practically a stranger, Brandon, and you’re—” I stopped myself before I added that he was after my sister. I needed him to think we were on the same side.

  “I’m not your enemy, Phoebe,” he said softly, grabbing my sausage biscuit from the bag. “I know Celeste is your sister, but I’m after the book, and I know you are too. We want the same thing.”

  Except he wanted to take Celeste into custody. I just wanted her back.

  “I know,” I lied.

  “Look,” he said, sitting back a bit. “I need you at one hundred percent, so if you need something, tell me. Okay?”

  “Sure,” I lied again. Brandon undoubtedly saw my current condition as a weakness—one brought on by one shift, not three. I could use that to my advantage by letting him underestimate me—or I could prove I could hold my own so he wouldn’t see me as a liability. For now, I’d play it by ear.

  “I thought you’d passed out or something. I don’t know exactly how the magic works, what it takes from you. You worried me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said softly. For a few seconds, I let the feeling of being taken care of wash over me. Having someone to fret over me was a distant memory, and I realized I’d missed it. I might be the middle Whelan sister, but I was the one that kept everything running back at home.

  He studied me for a few seconds before he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. Then, realizing what he’d done, he pulled his hand back and started the engine.

  I ate my entire breakfast and drank the rest of the juice. Brandon suggested I take a nap, and I tried to, if for no other reason than that it would help me recover faster, but my mind was racing. I couldn’t do anything other than doze.

  When he saw I wasn’t going to sleep, he asked, “So what have you been up to other than getting your degrees?”

  “I spend most of my time in the stacks or in the shack, as Rowan likes to say.”

  “Your house is hardly a shack.”

  “True.”

  He was right. While our farmhouse had seen better days, and could use a fresh coat of paint—and probably a new roof—it was a grand old house with an abiding grace. Comfortable. Cozy. Sturdy. I loved our house—it felt like a sanctuary, full of sweet memories of growing up there with our parents. Up until now, it had always felt safe, and even though my sisters and I could get on each other’s nerves, it was full of love.

  “But none of us loves that we have to stay there. When you can’t leave home, it can start to feel like a prison,” I said, instantly regretting what I’d said. Maybe Rowan and I should have tried to find our sister on our own. I’d inadvertently given him a motive for Celeste to run.

  He remained quiet.

  I had to save this, and fast. “It’s not that bad. I love my house. I love my sisters, and I love my job.” It was all true. I’d always taken our responsibility to protect the Book of Sin with a grain of salt. For me, it was easy. Good practice for my talent. Plus, there was comfort, being near the bones of my ancestors, drawing power from the skills they’d worked a lifetime to perfect. “I was never much of a partier, and you know…witches keep to ourselves. There’s nothing better than curling up on the couch with a blanket and a book, or a TV show.”

  “You don’t go out much?” Brandon asked, his lips twitching into a smile.

  “Like to bars? No, none of us drink. Once Mom and Dad died, the pressure to protect the book was too ever-present. The Council trusted us. We wanted to be alert in case something happened. Fat lot of good it did us in the end—we never stopped to consider there was someone out there who knew enough about our defenses to circumvent them.”

  It begged the question, who could have known about our particular brand of protection? The Council didn’t know exactly how we protected the book—keeping that under wraps from even the highest magical governing body on the continent was part of the purpose of letting us guard it. The exact rituals were known only to my sisters and me; I still couldn’t fathom how this had happened.

  I ran a hand up my neck and buried my fingertips in the hair at the nape, lightly massaging there. Mom had told me once that I’d done it since I was a baby—it was a soothing behavior, my alternative to thumb-sucking. She always said it was why my hair had grown so long and thick, and I’d rolled my eyes every time she said it, knowing it was ridiculous.

  Just one more regret.

  It was normal for a teenage girl to blow her mother off, sure, but most girls had the chance to apologize once they grew up.

  “You’ve devoted your entire lives to protecting the Book of Sindal, but you’re all still so young,” he said. “Isn’t it hard knowing your life is all planned out for you?”

  Time to change the subject.

  “What happened to you after high school?” I asked. “What made you leave?”

  A lot of kids stayed in Mount Vernon after graduation. Brandon left without a word or a trace. Despite the fact that he’d been a member of more than one varsity team, and popular as all get out, nobody in town had so much as mentioned his name within earshot after we tossed our caps in the air.

  “What, did you miss me?” he asked with a tented brow and sly grin. If he hadn’t been so damn cocky about asking, I’d have told him my real answer—that it had been lonely as hell in Mount Vernon. That, because of the Council’s restrictions on letting any nonmagical people know that we were witches, my sisters and I scarcely let ourselves have casual friendships, let alone real relationships, with the handful of people we encountered day to day. That we tended not to socialize with other witches either, in large part because our farm was an hour from Columbus and with Celeste’s fragile state…and of course, as the guardians of the book, we’ve always been wary of other witches, who might try to gain access to the book through us if they found out what we guarded. That it would have been nice to have someone besides Celeste and Rowan to talk to about the really important issues in my life for the last six years. That, frankly, he was very easy on the eyes, and under different circumstances, I wouldn’t have minded spending more time with his sparkling gaze, full lips,
and broad shoulders. Wouldn’t have minded at all.

  Instead, I just rolled my eyes at him and shook my head as though I found him incorrigible.

  “I had to get out of there,” he breathed into the space between us. “It was too small. Things with my family were… complicated, and I felt like Mount Vernon was slowly crushing me. I don’t know. I wanted to go somewhere I could really be of use, you know? When the Small Council contacted me about a job with the Protective Force, I jumped at the chance to move to the city.”

  I dipped my head. “I understand that. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t jealous. I never could leave, for obvious reasons. Now all of our friends are getting married and settling down, and I wonder if I’ll ever have a family of my own.” I paused. “I never thought it was fair that we couldn’t know who was magical or not until we turned eighteen.”

  I didn’t add that maybe I could have met someone. Someone of my own.

  “I…” He hesitated. “I knew, Phoebe.” His hand gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white, a detail I barely noticed because it suddenly felt as if all the blood had rushed to my head, sloshing in my ears and causing a din.

  “Knew what?” I asked, my voice coming out in a near whisper.

  “I knew you were a witch. I figured it out that day at our lockers. With your hair.”

  “My hair?” I repeated.

  Literally every direct interaction we’d had in high school centered around my hair. All of a sudden, it made sense.

  “Why didn’t you ever say anything?” I breathed, already knowing the answer.

  “That first time I touched it,” he said. “Your sister had done something to it? Anyway, she’d gone way overboard with the glamouring. There were still traces of it—a shimmer to the strands or something, I don’t know. But I looked at your hair, and I looked at you, and I just knew. That’s how I realized my special talents lay in spell tracking, actually.” He shot me a nervous, lopsided smile, like he’d said too much and wasn’t sure how to cover it up. “I’d never quite figured it out until then.”

  “Why didn’t you ever say anything?” I breathed, already knowing the answer.

  “Because of the rule. And then, once I’d seen enough to feel almost certain you and your sisters were witches, I didn’t bring it up because… I don’t know. I didn’t want to out myself, obviously, but I also didn’t want to find out it wasn’t true after all. In my head, there was always this possibility…You were what I saw in my future back then, when I let myself think that far ahead.”

  My heart stuttered before dropping to my stomach. He’d thought about us being together all those years? Wanted it, even?

  Brandon Cassidy had fantasized about me. Holy hells.

  I opened my mouth to say something—anything—but at that moment, his phone rang. He sat up straighter and answered in his captain voice. “You got an address for me?” After a few seconds, he grunted his thanks and hung up.

  He was quiet after that, staring straight ahead with a dark look in his eyes. Whatever bonding moment we’d shared before was gone. He checked his screen, then pulled up his map app telling us we’d be there in fifteen minutes.

  When he pulled up in front of Black Magic Coffee, he said. “I need to talk to the owner, a witness to a previous incident.”

  My mouth dropped open in shock. “A witch seriously owns this place?”

  Magical children were taught to obscure our backgrounds and their abilities. A witch who owned a coffee shop whose name referred to anything outside the mundane was flirting with suspicion. Suspicion, too often, led to trouble.

  “They say she likes to shock people,” Brandon said with a shrug.

  “Welcome.” A lanky woman with a dramatic cascade of tight curls that reached to her shoulders as she approached on the sidewalk, the door to the café swinging behind her. Her curls bounced with every step she took toward us, and between that hair and her blinding smile, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d added a little glamour work in with her hair and makeup routine. She was stunning.

  “I saw you two coming in about ten minutes ago,” she said, extending her hand. “Caroline Fontenot,” she said smoothly, the French accent on her last name showing off her plump lips. Damn. Was Brandon as affected by this witch’s looks as I was? One glimpse of him darting his tongue out to quickly lick his lips confirmed that my suspicion was correct. “I own this place,” she continued. “Been here a long time. I’ll help you out however I can.”

  Apparently Caroline was an aura reader, like Lucia, though not as powerful. I’d heard of witches that could tell when another witch or mage was approaching, which made it impossible to sneak up on them. I wondered how far her aura-reading talents extended. It couldn’t hurt to do my best to obscure my thoughts and temper my emotions while I was with her.

  “I’ve had an inkling, for a few days now, the Protective Force was about to send someone to talk with me,” she said. “Expected a witch. Not a mage.” Her voice went low and smooth, practically purring out that last syllable. The shoulder closest to Brandon rolled down an inch or two, and her hip popped out, accentuating her curves. With my slender figure, braided hair, and minimal makeup, I felt like that morning’s stale coffee compared to her rich, hot latte.

  “Brandon,” he said, extending a hand. His eyes might as well have been hearts. Taking a step forward, I shouldered him out of the way.

  “I’m Phoebe. This is Captain Brandon Cassidy,” I finished with a pointed look back at him, which made him blink hard and clear his throat a little. Thank the gods. Whatever Caroline Fontenot was doing to Brandon, it should be illegal. Hells, maybe it was illegal. But how would he even remember, with how she was scrambling his brain with whatever pheromone charm she was slinging his way?

  “We’re here on Valerian Council business,” Brandon said in a no-nonsense tone.

  Caroline stiffened, suddenly on alert. I didn’t blame her. The Council only intervened in the affairs of witches when there were major issues afoot. She had known we were coming, though. She must have been alarmed by how quickly Brandon managed to snap out of the haze she’d cast his way.

  “Nothing concerning you,” Brandon said, completely missing what was disturbing her. If Caroline had done something wrong, she probably wouldn’t have greeted us so warmly. “I need to ask you a few questions related to an investigation, and Phoebe’s offered to help me out. Phoebe’s a librarian and her record-keeping skills are legendary, so…”

  “Huh,” Caroline said, relaxing a little. “Super witchy librarian?”

  Brandon’s smile in response was stiff, forced. Did he think Caroline had something to do with stealing the book?

  She studied him in her peripheral vision as she led us into the shop and guided us toward a little table in the back corner.

  “This is my coziest spot,” Caroline whispered to me as she leaned my way to pull out a chair.

  “Oh, you’ve got it wrong,” I answered in a knee-jerk response. “We’re not a thing.”

  She looked at me, obviously peering into my aura to see whether I was telling the truth, and whispered, “Maybe not, chérie. Seems to me you’re not too convinced about that, though. Seems to me you wouldn’t have tried so hard to stop me flirting with him if this was purely a professional relationship.”

  I stiffened, my polite smile slipping. Maybe she was picking up on my confusion about wishing I’d known that Brandon was a mage back in high school, because there was nothing besides a begrudging attraction there now. But what may or may not be going on between Brandon and me was the least of my concerns at this moment.

  Caroline’s brow furrowed as she read my body language. “Everything okay?”

  “We could use something hot and caffeinated to drink,” Brandon interrupted good-naturedly, then had the audacity to wink when he asked, “Got anything like that here?”

  Caroline grinned, turning her sparkling olive eyes on Brandon. “Full-fat, triple-shot latte? Something sweet? What’ll it
be? Mocha? Butterscotch?”

  “Wow, that’s impressive,” Brandon said, dipping his head in appreciation of her aura-reading skills. “Surprise me. And something to eat for Phoebe?”

  “A small dark roast drip for you and a blueberry muffin, yes?” Caroline confirmed as she squeezed my shoulder. “Simple order for an uncomplicated witch.”

  I didn’t know why that statement bothered me so much, but I tried to hide it as I plunked down in my chair.

  Brandon eased into his seat, all grace. He leaned forward as he shrugged out of his coat.

  Underneath, he wore a cream-colored Henley shirt, fitted perfectly to him, like it had been tailor-made. Not only that, but the top two buttons were undone, giving me a brief view of the top curve of his pecs when he shifted.

  His eyes held mine, calm and steady, for a second longer than absolutely necessary, and my heart tripped around in my chest like a drunk chipmunk. Oh, no. Absolutely not. I was not interested in Brandon Cassidy. Sure, I could appreciate the view, but that had to be it.

  “Listen,” he said, finally glancing away, his gaze falling on her as she headed our direction. “I want to keep this questioning vague… for a few reasons. First, I don’t know how much of our thoughts she can read. The more we say, the more specific information it’ll bring to mind. If whoever’s taken the Book of Sindal and your sister comes here after we leave, I don’t want her to have any information they may want.”

  Did he really believe Celeste had been kidnapped, or was he only saying that for my benefit? But I pushed that thought aside. “Yes. Of course.”

  “And if she’s with the bad guys, we don’t want to give away what we know.”

  “That’s a pretty serious thing to suspect a witch of,” I ventured. “Any reason to suspect her? She seems like she’s just going about her business. Just like my sisters and I were.”

  The gaze he leveled at me led me to believe he didn’t think I knew my sisters well at all. So much for him believing that Celeste was a victim in all of this.

  “Back with your coffee,” Caroline sang as she slid a tray with our coffees and my muffin onto the table and then divvied up our order between us. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.”