Aiden rubbed his jaw, digging his fingers into the thickening stubble on his face. “As I understand it, no one should be able to walk onto the grounds of the Academy cloaked in magic. I’ve never been there myself. But if that is the case, then we’re entertaining the possibility that we’re dealing with a shapeshifter capable of taking different human forms.” He glanced at me and Christopher.
“And perfectly mimicking a magical signature?” I asked doubtfully. Suggesting that such a thing was impossible seemed likely to get me laughed out of the kitchen for hypocrisy. But the idea of an unknown Adept being capable of actually shifting into different human forms was preposterous.
Aiden shook his head. “For a short period of time, maybe. With fresh or perfectly preserved DNA … maybe.”
“Opal’s mother is dead.”
The young witch flinched.
I felt instantly awful. I didn’t like the idea of curbing my reactions, but I also didn’t want to hurt Opal more than I had already. I met Christopher’s gaze. He twisted his lips ruefully, then shook his head slightly as if indicating that we were all in the dark and trying our best. It didn’t make me feel any better.
Aiden continued as if I hadn’t almost derailed the conversation. “And even if all of that is possible, I have no idea what kind of magic we might be dealing with.” He sighed heavily. “Isa might know.”
“Your father might know,” I whispered.
He nodded. “Same difference.”
“So …” Opal said, glancing between us, then looking at Christopher. “Do you know for certain it was your friend Jenni you had sex with?”
Christopher blinked at her, obviously thrown by being interrogated about his sex life by a thirteen-year-old. “Fairly certain I’d know who I was touching. I am a clairvoyant.” He glanced at me, then Aiden. But his expression shifted when we didn’t back him up. “You can’t be serious. I feel magic. I know Jenni.”
“But … you just said you don’t talk,” I said, thinking through the possibilities. “Did you talk about anything last night?”
Christopher flushed, not answering me.
“How long have you been sleeping together?” Aiden asked. “Long enough to have established a routine? Things you …” He glanced at Opal.
She grinned at him.
The sorcerer grimaced but continued anyway. “Things you know about each other … pacing, where to touch, how long to …” He cleared his throat, keeping his gaze off the teenager grinning at him. “How long to linger.”
Christopher started pacing, his magic sparking off him in anger. “Of course we don’t know each other like that. I only know one person on that level, and I doubt he’s the same now.” He glanced at me. “With the same … desires or proclivities.”
I nodded. He meant Fish.
“We don’t maintain relationships like that,” Christopher spat, rounding on the sorcerer. “We haven’t had the chance.”
Aiden leaned back against the kitchen island, not defending himself.
“So yeah …” the clairvoyant said angrily, then he paused to check himself. “Jenni was different last night. Intense, nonverbal …” He glanced at Opal, then away.
“I know what sex is,” she said matter-of-factly.
Christopher sighed, shaking his head. “It was quick. Rough. Quicker and rougher than usual. She left. I was tired. I washed up and came to bed.”
“You washed up. In the barn bathroom?” I asked. “And were you more tired than is usual for you after sex?”
“Yes.” He bit out the word. “To both questions.”
“Did you flush the condom?” Aiden asked.
“No,” the clairvoyant snarled. “We’re on a septic field. I put it in …” He inhaled, then exhaled heavily. “It’s insane. A waste of time to even be entertaining this idea. A human shapeshifter taking on Jenni Raymond’s form to steal my DNA? Able to get past the ward line without triggering it? With you and Aiden only steps away? It’s a huge risk, just to block my sight. Why?”
“There’s an easy way to figure it out,” I said calmly.
“I’m not digging through the garbage for a …” He checked himself again after glancing at Opal. “For a used condom.”
“Well, I’d prefer not to do it.” I looked at Aiden. “Your ward line. Either Jenni or this face stealer just crossed through it without you knowing last night?”
He nodded, looking grim.
“Could Jenni do that?”
“I very much doubt it. And I felt it when she showed up the next morning to tell you about Peter Grant and the restraining order.”
“What?” Christopher cried.
I waved him off. “It’s not a thing. Don’t try to change the subject.”
He frowned.
Aiden and I waited. I wasn’t as patient as the sorcerer appeared to be.
“Damn it.” Christopher stomped away, exiting into the laundry room to grab his boots and jacket.
“Text her, please,” I called after him. “Text Jenni?”
“Fine!” he snarled back. Then he slammed the outside door behind him as he went out.
The three of us watched him pass by the French-paned doors as he stomped across the patio, down the steps, and through the snow toward the barn.
I glanced over at Aiden, speaking quietly. “What are the chances Isa and Ruwa aren’t involved?”
“Zero,” he said darkly. “But what the plan is and who they’re working with, I have no idea. Why target you?” He nodded toward Opal.
The young witch was still watching us, resting her head in her arms on the counter again.
“I don’t know. Yet.” I turned to Opal. “Shower? Or nap?”
“Will you stay with me?”
“I’ll stay in the house, yes.”
“Both, then.”
“Can you walk?”
She nodded, pushing herself onto her feet. I gestured toward the hall and she slowly wandered out of the kitchen. Paisley watched the young witch leave, then crossed to the French-paned doors, presumably to await Christopher’s return.
I whispered to Aiden, “I’ll need to contact Ember Pine about Opal. She’s already looking for her. But …”
He nodded, picking up my concern immediately. “This isn’t coming at you from your lawyer. Her oath would be impossible to break. But … yeah …”
“Wait a day? Before calling the witches Convocation down on our heads?”
“Another day, yeah. To verify that Isa is involved. Even if we don’t figure out who he’s working with.”
“If. If. If.”
“Yeah.”
“Emma?” Opal called down the hall. “Upstairs?”
“Yes,” I called back, taking a step away from Aiden.
He quickly leaned forward, brushing a kiss across my cheek. I turned to him, wrapping my hand around the back of his neck and kissing him properly.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured against my lips.
“For what?”
He shook his head. “Go to Opal. We’ll figure it all out after you get her settled.”
Taking him at his word, I crossed out of the kitchen.
Chapter 7
Slightly concerned that Opal was going to fall asleep in the shower and crack her head open, I forced her into a hot bath, promising we’d fix her hair properly after she napped. Then I waited, crouched down against the wall just outside the door to the bathroom until the witch appeared. Her tiny frame was once again swamped by my puffy ski jacket, this time over one of Christopher’s T-shirts and a pair of small cotton boxer shorts that I hadn’t gotten around to returning. The store had shipped the wrong size.
She touched my shoulder, and I allowed myself a moment to rest my hand over hers as I stood, feeling the faint hum of her magic. Opal was the first to pull away as I directed her toward my room, where she burrowed into my bed, puffy jacket and all. Tucked under the quilt Christopher had seen in the glimpse he’d gotten of our immediate future.
I flicked off the
lights, prowling over to shut the blinds, then stepping back to check on the witch.
“Found you, Emma,” she murmured, eyes closed.
“I’m so sorry you had to look, Opal.”
Her eyes fluttered open, bright blue against her darker skin, even in the dim light. “I’m not.”
“Can you tell me where you came from before we found you in the yard? A house? A hotel?”
She hummed sleepily. “Not sure … I think I woke up on a bench? Like in a tiny park. There was a lot of snow, and an icy river.” Her tone became stressed. “I didn’t feel good, but I could feel you … your magic. I followed, but … I … I didn’t want to get caught again, so I … I used a cloaking spell I learned in school. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about. You just need to sleep now. No dream walking. You need to let your magic regenerate.”
“That’s okay. I don’t really like doing it. I’m always worried I’ll get stuck there, in someone’s dream. It feels like that sometimes.”
“I don’t know how that magic works, but I’ll do my best to get you where you need to be.”
“Already there,” she whispered. “Aren’t I?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. “Sleep, witch.”
She rolled onto her side. “If I ask nicely, will Paisley join me?”
“She’s not allowed on the bed.”
Opal grinned at me.
I laughed quietly. “Fine. Paisley makes her own decisions. When I see her, I’ll mention it.”
She nodded, her eyes fluttering closed.
I had felt the clairvoyant’s magic move back into the house when Christopher joined Aiden in the kitchen about ten minutes earlier. But even with the unanswered questions piling up, I had to force myself to step into the hall and partially close the bedroom door behind me. I could keep track of the witch just as easily while formulating a plan from the kitchen as I could by hovering over her.
I just couldn’t shake the feeling that the last time I’d looked away from Opal, handing her over to Ember’s extraction team, she hadn’t actually been kept safe at all.
And ultimately, that was my fault.
Christopher looked up from the counter where he was chopping garlic as I strode into the kitchen. “Aiden and I are going to go check on the sorcerers.” He glanced at Aiden, who was gazing through the French-paned patio doors. The salt from Opal’s pentagram had been swept up and dumped back into the bag, which was sitting by the laundry room door. Large flakes of snow had begun falling while I was upstairs. Again.
“Yes,” Aiden said agreeably.
“Since when was that the plan?” I asked edgily.
“Since just now, Socks.” Christopher’s magic felt tightly, tensely coiled, but he was obviously trying to be playful. “You watched the decision in real time.”
I sighed. “The condom wasn’t there?”
He grimaced, grabbing an onion, then slicing the root and stem ends and peeling it.
“Did you text Jenni?”
He nodded. “But she’s at work. Said to give her ten minutes to go on break.” He glanced back at the digital clock on the stainless steel hood fan over the stove. “She’ll text back.”
“I’ll go to speak to Isa and Ruwa,” I said.
“No.” The clairvoyant’s voice hardened. “Aiden is going because Isa is his brother.”
“My responsibility,” Aiden added helpfully, though he avoided my gaze.
“And you?” I said to Christopher, biting out the words. “Even if your sight has cleared, you couldn’t possibly have seen yourself in the mix.”
“I’d know if I was being blocked,” he said stubbornly.
“Explain the murky sight, then.”
He pinned me with a hard gaze. “It isn’t murky. I see you clearly enough. Maybe you just overwhelm everything else.”
I lifted my chin, refusing to acknowledge that his words stung. “Oh, yes,” I said mockingly. “With my propensity to destroy everything.”
He clenched his jaw, then shook his head. “Fine. Point taken. But who else would you have backing Aiden up?”
“Me.”
“You’re watching over Opal.”
I opened my mouth to protest.
Christopher interrupted. “I’ve seen that much, Fox in Socks.”
I bared my teeth at him. “Have you seen the full outcome?”
“No.”
“Well, that doesn’t make it the right decision. Or set it in stone.”
“Nothing with you is ever set in stone.”
That hurt — again. The inference that I was a source of chaos, of destruction. The witch napping upstairs was proof enough. I didn’t need it shoved in my face by Christopher over and over again.
“That’s not wholly true,” I whispered, fighting the feeling of being oddly vulnerable, oddly exposed. Feeling raw, as I’d felt since Opal’s appearance, and since I’d amplified Aiden without permission.
Christopher set down his knife. His expression softened as he stepped toward me.
I held out my hand, warding him away.
He stopped. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant …”
“I know.”
“You don’t, though, Emma,” Aiden said quietly.
I stiffened my spine but refused to turn my attention to the sorcerer. He was muddying everything in my mind, in my heart, enough already. “Tell me it’s not a game, Christopher.”
“Would I play with the child’s safety, Emma?”
I actually wasn’t certain. “You … let your magic move you where you want to go.”
He laughed harshly. “It’s better than fighting fate every step of the way.”
I pinned him with a look. “Fighting is the only reason we’ve survived this long.”
Christopher huffed out a breath, rubbing his face with the back of his hand. “Nothing is going to happen between Aiden and Isa. If I’m there.”
“Again, I’ll ask how you’re inferring your own participation?”
“Because you aren’t in the parking lot that I see.”
“I could be nearby.”
“Under what circumstances would you decide that hanging back was a good use of your talents?”
He had me there. I would never allow Aiden to confront Isa and Ruwa alone.
Christopher’s magic shifted. He tilted his head slightly to the side as if listening. But then the power faded, and he didn’t offer any further argument.
“What are the chances it’s the Collective?” I asked. “Who else would be capable of blocking you? Of even knowing that you needed to be blocked?”
“Isa knew I was a clairvoyant the moment he stepped on the property.” Christopher glanced at Aiden for confirmation.
“Probably only after he was in the house with you,” the sorcerer said. “But yes, he’s sensitive enough. And he would have met other clairvoyants. But he is definitely not capable of changing forms.”
“Well, that’s good,” Christopher drawled playfully. “Because if I were going to have sex with your brother, I’d prefer to see him in his actual form.”
Aiden snorted.
“The common denominator is still the Collective,” I said.
Christopher shook his head. “We destroyed everything they had. All the genetic material.”
Aiden stilled, his expression blank. I tried to ignore his presence and the list of questions he must have been accumulating.
No. I tried to accept his presence.
“Have you confirmed that?” I asked. “With Fish? Zans?” Christopher didn’t answer. “That’s their thing, isn’t it?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“I don’t want to be involved. I also don’t want whatever they’re doing to backlash against us.”
Christopher shook his head. “If it’s the Collective, I don’t see it. Logically or magically.”
“Then the only other common denominator is San Francisco.”
“And me,” Aid
en said.
I nodded. “So we need to try to figure out if anyone walked away from San Francisco alive. Other than Opal. And …” I glanced at Aiden.
“I need to have another chat with my brother.”
Christopher’s phone pinged with a text message. He wiped his hands on a tea towel and pulled the cellphone out of his pocket. Reading the screen, he grimaced. “That’s a no.”
“A no?”
“Jenni didn’t come over last night.” He looked at me. His expression was a mixture of emotions I couldn’t read — all punctuated with an unsettled surge of his magic. “And she isn’t particularly happy that someone else did. Or, more specifically, that I mistook someone else for her.”
I held Christopher’s gaze steadily, having no idea what I was supposed to say.
“You’re thinking you’d never sleep with the wrong person,” Christopher said. “That I’m an idiot for sleeping with Jenni in the first place, opening up a vulnerable point, making me easy to exploit. We can’t all be as fucking perfect as you, Emma.”
“Hey!” Aiden interjected, stepping up beside the kitchen island.
I shook my head at the sorcerer, just once. He closed his mouth, frowning.
Christopher laughed darkly. “Emma just lets me get it out of my system, sorcerer. She pins me with that look … and then lets me flounder and rage until I settle and apologize.” The clairvoyant took a step toward me, presumably so he could look down on me. The white of his magic had constricted tightly around his irises. “Some of us need human contact. Some of us need an outlet.”
“Some of us don’t have much of a choice,” I said calmly. “Some of us care about who we hurt, intentionally or not.”
Christopher reeled back, opening his mouth to protest.
I cut him off, leaning in. “Some of us have their entire lives designed as one big outlet. The property, the garden, the chickens —”
“And some of us sacrifice everything to protect the weak, eh, Emma?” Christopher asked darkly. “It’s always amazing what you can justify doing to cover up how scared you are. Scared of actually living.”
I raised my hand.
Christopher flinched.
“So you don’t want me to touch you?” I asked mockingly.
Bonds and Broken Dreams (Amplifier 2) Page 19