“It's tricky, but I got into such a rut that it was hard to get out. Then Seb came along and I reevaluated what I was doing.”
“That can certainly be a good thing sometimes.”
“Yeah. To be honest, I'm not sure that I like giving up my independence to the extent that I have. And I know that if I let it happen, soon enough, I'll lose all of my independence.”
“You shouldn't think about it like that. Perhaps if you tried thinking about it as gaining a new role for yourself with new abilities and responsibilities, you'd appreciate it more than if you think about how you're giving up the single life. I've been married to Leo for about a year now, and I love it. I wouldn't move back to being single even if I could. I'm not trying to tell you your business, but I do think you should give it a good shot with an open mind. Seb's a good man.”
“He is. I'm just so used to being the strong woman who supports myself.”
“That gets tiring, though. I remember. Sometimes it's nice to be able to accept help from someone who cares about you. It's definitely nice to know that even if I do something really wrong, I've got people who will back me up and fix the problem. And, whether or not you use it or even realize it, you've got a whole family of people who are there for you whenever you need us. The Wards extended their love to me and then to Melanie when we joined the family. Now it's our chance to extend our love to you. No matter what happens with you and Seb, you have all of us at your back.”
“Thanks Skylar.”
“No problem. Now let's get you back to the Coven House before I start to embarrass myself by getting too emotional.”
Seb wasn't back in the apartment when she brought her bags back, so she checked her website and used the supplies Seb had brought over to package orders to go out in the mail the next morning. While she did that, she thought about what Skylar had said. It was true that Seb was giving up a lot of his lifestyle to marry her as well. But then again, if she let Seb determine too much of her life for her, she'd never recover when he got sick of her or wanted to back off on their relationship. True, he couldn't divorce her, but it wasn't altogether unheard of for bonded couples to separate. Fiona felt she wasn't nearly interesting and dynamic enough to hold his attention for too long. She called Melanie to make sure she was doing alright, then turned on the television.
When Seb returned, he brought Chinese fast food with him. “Some of us decided to get something easy today. Just don't tell Skylar or she'll have my head.”
“You ordered for me?”
“It's only fair. I let you order for me twice.” He gave her an unrepentant grin.
“I know you're not keeping score,” she said with a laugh.
“Only when it helps me. How did your shopping trip go?”
“Really well. Do you want to see?”
“Definitely, but I'll wait until you wear them. By the way, I noticed you're wearing my shirt.”
Fiona colored. “I meant to change into some of my new clothes, but I got distracted.”
“No need to explain. I think it's sexy.”
“Really?”
“Yes. It's a little reminder of me that you wore all day. And later, after we've finished dinner, I look forward to peeling my shirt off of you. I've been thinking about that all day since you walked into my office wearing that this morning.”
“I'd better slow down before I inhale this food.”
“Indeed. So how did things go with Skylar?” He looked down at his food to let her say what she needed to say with no pressure. Fiona appreciated that.
“She's great. You're lucky to have her as a sister.”
“So are you. She's your sister now too, remember?”
“That's true. Luckily, she seemed to have as good of a time as I did.”
“That's good to hear. By making Skylar and Melanie happy, you've taken huge steps to ensuring that Leo and Justin will like you. And as far as Dymphna goes, don't worry about her. She took a long time to warm up to both Skylar and Melanie, and she can be grating on the best of us.”
“Alright.”
“Justin said that he'd like to talk to you tomorrow about the information you gave him.”
“I hope I can be of some use. I think Melanie's got my interview with her reporter friend scheduled tomorrow too.”
“From what he told me at the briefing today, he has a lot more leads to follow up on now than he did before. And apparently, it's rejuvenating his team to have a new batch of information to investigate. You've helped.”
“I keep thinking I should have done more, sooner.”
“Don't think like that. All we can do is correct what we can to move forward into the future. What matters is that you help now, and from what I've heard from Justin, that's precisely what you're doing.”
“You're right, of course. Do you think his questions can wait until I drop these packages at the post office?”
“What's in the packages?”
“I sold some potions and herbs on my online store. I've got to mail them.”
“Sure. I'll tell Justin to be patient. Maybe we can find one of the Coven staff to help you fill your orders too.”
“Thanks.”
“Now how about you stop clutching that empty container and let me see if I'm smooth enough to get my shirt off you.”
Fiona grinned, daring him to try. He didn't move straight for the hemline as she expected, but started to tickle her until she barely noticed when the shirt was removed. Then he was kissing her deeply, and she barely noticed anything but him until the morning.
55
CHAPTER FOUR
She woke up early the next morning to get her packages out before Justin could miss her presence too badly, and then she reported to the Coven Protection Office.
“Sorry I'm late.” Justin was already there, concentrating on the wall, which had diagrams and drawings all over it pertinent to the case. There were another five officers of Coven Protection, and Seb. He grinned and winked at her, as if to say that he was there for her. She wasn't so sure, but it didn't hurt to consider it.
“Seb said you had important business. Besides, it gave us time to set up our office.”
“I know you well enough that it was set up last night.”
“Ah, Fiona! You wound me!”
“Save the theatrics for your wife,” she said without any of the vitriol implied by the words.
56
THE DUTIFUL WITCH
“What we've got set up is a time line of our investigation.” Indeed, along one electronic blackboard was a neat time line of what they presumed happened, and beneath it, another of when they had gathered the information. Images punctuated both time lines. “From Skylar, we learned that there was a concerted effort put into kidnapping witches, including by using outside contractors like Skylar's aunt and brother. We discovered that while we knew the Dark Order hadn't gone away, they were building a plan of considerable magnitude. They've put together time and resources. They're doing this stealthily to try to stay under the radar. And from all indications, they're working towards something big. They had a whole plan of how they were going to use Melanie and the other hostages as sacrifices. Which is why we need to take the offensive and make sure we compile the best intel. Because if we don't know what we're up against, they can start the kidnappings again at any time, and we'll be caught with our metaphorical pants down.
“In that effort,” he tapped a baton against the chalkboard for emphasis, “we learned from Melanie's abduction that they're smart. They covered the holes we found in Skylar's aunt's plan so that we couldn't use it against them. We discovered that they've got secret hideaways where they take witches to sacrifice them. It's clearly a ritual sacrifice for a purpose, as evinced by the meticulous drawings of pentacles and power symbols in different configurations. We didn't know what they were sacrificing for. Since we use our own natural magic, only the earth witches usually use drawings or symbols. But these are black magic and blood magic symbols, and even our most exp
erienced earth witches can't make heads or tails of them.”
“You've been holding back on me then.”
“What?”
“You know I'm an earth witch. I deal in symbols and incantations. But because of the circumstances of my birth, I've researched as much as possible in black and blood magic while staying clean myself. You showed me the pentagrams, but you didn't show me the discarded choices in the markings. Their thought processes could lend a lot of clarity towards what they're working on.”
“You're right; I didn't, and their failures could help understand what the end goal was. But, prior to getting that information from you, we do know that the sacrifices likely involve transfer of magic from a witch to someone else. You said that they had been experimenting in both witch-to-witch and witch-to-human transfers, and we have no reason to believe they'd stop that line of thought. We also know, from a deserter of our cause speaking to Melanie that they are possibly working an angle of mind control. But what we do have from this information is that we know that they need a variety of witches, and that they need candidates to receive the magic they steal from the witches. An operation to get both those groups together is a serious undertaking indeed, especially to keep under the radar.
“Now the question goes to continuing the time line of our investigation. What do we do from here?”
“First, you let me at those runes. You'd be amazed at what ideas, and even discarded ideas, show of their thought process.” While Justin was talking, someone had brought a stack of pictures of symbols. “See, this one here,” Fiona indicated the top picture after sorting through the whole pile. “This is a rune to draw out air magic from an air witch. But it's missing components. They've got ones to draw blood, and they'd mix these two runes for that,” she said, flipping through the other pictures to get the ones she wanted. “But they lack an anchor rune. Neither of these is properly made for accepting an anchor, and there's no anchor rune in this stack at all. They can take the magic, take the blood, take the life, but they can't do anything with what they drained.”
“Could it be that there's a rune missing? The anchor rune might have made the cut.”
“No.” she sorted the runes into two stacks. “These they used. You can tell by the notes to the sides of them.”
“That looks like more rune.”
“In a way. It's a kind of shorthand notation for how well the spell worked. The others were discarded or never used. But even the notes remark on how it didn't end properly. Plus, runes need to be connected. It's almost like your spell is a computer program. You have the overall program, that's the pentacle, that houses the smaller objects of the program, or the runes here. But the objects will call other objects, and they need code to tell them where to link to what and how. Runes are the same. There is no code to attach any of these runes to a transferal or an anchor rune. That's why the spells didn't work.”
“Do you think they'd have figured it out by now?”
“Hard to say. If I could see some of the runes they were working on now, I could tell. But if all they've got are refinements on this structure, then no, their spell wouldn't work. But that doesn't mean that the witches would be any less dead at the end.” With that sobering thought, she tidied up the two stacks of pictures.
“How do you know so much?” One of the CP agents asked. “Are you in league with them?”
“Don't say that,” another agent hissed. “She's Duchess, and as such is above reproach.”
“Not Duchess,” Fiona corrected, “But I am Seb's wife.” She saw Seb smile. “And both he and Justin have checked my credentials and declared me firmly on the right side. You trust them, don't you?”
The agents all nodded.
“So what are your plans going forward, Justin?”
“Where we go from here is that we plan an offensive. We are looking into the farms where we found Dark Order pentagrams. There are multiple owners over the last ten years. We're hoping that if we look into these other owners and other properties they've owned, that we can find other farms, or other types of buildings, where there are Dark Order activities. Of course, most of those owners will probably turn out to be human. But maybe they dealt with a Dark Order witch. We need names, and we need locations.”
“My last-known list of Dark Order members might help. For the past few days, I've been carrying note paper to catch any memories of names.”
“You have names?” Justin asked.
“Yes. I didn't want to mention it until I had more than two or three. But I've got twenty strong names. I imagine that you can draw connections to the names and find others that I might remember as well.” She pulled out a spiral from her purse. “Each page has a name and everything I remember about the person from physical description to magic type to station within the Order.”
“You've helped us more than you realize,” Justin said, kissing her cheek then jauntily winking at a growling Seb. “But to ask more, do you remember Redman?”
'Yes, I do. He put a lot of personal investment into finding and killing my aunt, uncle, and me. He probably still has a scar on his thigh from where I got him with a poisoned blade. They saved him, and he never personally came to get us again. If you'll remember, what happened to me after the rite is of crucial importance to their mission and the future of the program.”
“Are they still after you?” Justin asked, concerned.
“Of course they are. But once they succeeded in killing my aunt and uncle, I learned a lesson and found ways to hide harder, staying constantly on the move.”
“But won't they find you here?” One of the agents asked. “You've married the Duke, and you're helping the organization of a movement against them.”
“You're like the golden egg,” another observed.
“I'd like them to try,” Seb growled.
Justin put a restraining arm on his twin's. “They won't be getting her, though, because of our Coven Protection. We all have to keep in mind that Fiona's putting herself in danger to help us. We have to be active in protecting her just as she is active in giving us information. And we are going to do our damnedest to get every drop of leads out of this information.”
“Yes sir!” They answered in unison.
“Fiona, we're going to divide up the workload and start to make tracks. You can stay if you'd like, but we can contact you if we have any questions or anything for you to see.”
“I don't want to interfere. I'll let you do what you all do best. I've got an interview with Melanie's friend here in about an hour.”
“I'm headed out too. I've got something to show Fiona in the next bit of time I've got with her,” Seb said.
She tucked her arm in his elbow as they left and walked next door to Seb's office.
“What did you have to show me? Surely not more gifts?”
“No.” He kissed her as the door swung closed. “I want to show you the ballroom, the public kitchens, and the dining room.”
'Why? And why are we in here?”
“First of all, we're in here because I needed a few smooches to get me through the rest of the day.”
“I'm not going to object to that,” she said, providing those kisses all over his face and ears. “But why the rest of it?”
“I'm hoping to convince you to do a job for the Coven as my wife.”
“Oh?”
“I know neither of us are ready for you as Duchess, but Skylar and Melanie have been splitting duties as Hostess. Then Melanie became less able to be a part of it, and Skylar's been doing a lot. I was hoping you'd be my Hostess as my wife.”
“I will.”
“You haven't even seen the depth of the responsibilities. You don't really know what I'm asking.”
“If you trust me enough that you think I can do it, I can do it. Point me in the right direction, and I'll get advice from Skylar as well.”
“To make it simple,” he started, “you'll be party planner for any Coven events. We're going to try to instate an optional weekly Coven me
eting in addition to the mandatory monthly meeting. We need to make the Coven a stronger unit. You would work with me on planning the logistics of it. I would plan most of the events and speakers and such unless you're Duchess, but there's always seats to be found, refreshments to be served, and more. Melanie insists that we do PR events, which would include balls, dinner parties, and more for both all-witch parties and witch-and-human mixed parties. Not to mention that on the day-to-day, we have twenty witches in residence. One of them serves to cook and clean the house. But she needs assistance with menus and she doesn't like to leave the house, so she needs someone to shop for her.”
“You're right, that is a lot of duties.”
“Skylar's been keeping up, but her real passion is that book she's writing. And she lives at Ward Manor, not here. Melanie would, I'm sure, help with the PR events in particular, but she'll have the babies to consider.”
“I'd like to do it. I'm sure it'll take a while to get used to. I've never spent more than eighteen months anywhere, and to take on running a household is a lot of responsibility. But I'm willing to try.”
“I'm glad. Let's meet Mona and get her to come with us on our tour.”
They found Mona in the kitchen, scrubbing pots.
“You know I'll hire someone else to help you.”
“I told you there's no need. I've got magic to help me, and I like the work.” Mona was a woman in her fifties with slightly gray hair and a pudgy figure. But she had a warm smile for Seb. “Aren't you going to introduce me?” Fiona was so busy looking around the largest kitchen she'd ever seen that she almost missed the introduction.
“Of course. Mona, this is Fiona, my wife. Fiona, this is Mona. She runs the house all by herself somehow and does it so well.”
“Thank you, sir. But is she not the Duchess?”
“No, she is not. She is my wife. And I'm putting the job of Hostess on her back as well.”
“Ah, excellent. Skylar doesn't much like the work, and she gets distracted by talk of cooking and magic. This one looks more steadfast.”
“Thank you.”
The Dutiful Witch (The Ward Witches) Page 5