I looked away, back at Cerise. She blinked. And then, as if the situation was just dawning on her, her eyes widened, hands coming up to cover her mouth. “Oh,” she cried. “I’m … I was never …”
Isa snorted. “Tell that to Emma’s dress.”
Still blinking — to an extent that made me wonder whether the action was feigned — Cerise looked at me. Her big blue eyes slowly filled with tears. “That was unforgivable of me, Emma. I’m just so … I’m just so …”
She didn’t finish the thought. Her words just hung there, as if she expected someone to step in and soothe her.
And Sky did just that, touching her mother’s shoulder. Cerise sighed, hunching down. But none of the tears she’d called forth fell down her creamy cheeks.
“Ocean,” I said.
The young witch flinched, her gaze snapping to me from her mother.
“Put the stopper back in that.”
Her lip curled as if she was going to refuse. The cork stopper was still clenched in her teeth, and an identical bottle of what I knew to be a deadly poison — the scent was unmistakable — was still clenched in her other hand.
I stared her down. “You will stopper that. And then you will dispose of it. All of it. And not anywhere on my property.”
Ocean raised her chin. “You haven’t made the sorcerers dump their —”
I moved. Standing and lunging in the same motion, passing through the shield that Aiden still held over me, I wrapped my hand over the open bottle in Ocean’s hand. Then I wrenched the stopper from her teeth. She shrieked in pain. I had definitely hurt her jaw. I jammed the stopper back in the bottle, twisting her wrist until she let go.
She stumbled back, belatedly bringing the second bottle into play. I plucked that out of her grasp as well. None too gently. Then I forced myself to step back before I decided to punish her for not following my orders.
“Aiden!” Ocean howled, holding her jaw.
Sky and Cerise were looking at me, wide eyed and slack jawed. The faces of the sorcerers were inscrutable, excepting Grosvenor.
The curse breaker, grinning like an idiot, whistled. “Holy shit. Nice moves, amplifier.”
I passed the bottles to Aiden. He took them, holding both up to the light. On the other side of the table, Isa leaned forward, eyeing the poison.
“Aiden!” Ocean howled again.
“Belladonna,” Kader said coolly. “Mixed with witch hazel, which helps it break through the cell structure. And a touch of something else nasty.”
“Death cap,” I said, keeping an eye on the witches. “One drop in any of the food, and Ocean kills us all. Friend and foe.”
“Well,” Kader said blandly, “any of us who couldn’t smell it, identify it before consuming it. So not you or me, amplifier.”
“It would still hurt like hell, sorcerer,” I snapped back, baring my teeth. “Ask me how I know.”
He shut up.
“What the fuck?” Aiden roared.
Ocean’s bottom lip and chin trembled as she made an effort not to crumple under her brother’s rage. “Aiden … you know what he did to Mom —”
“And you thought killing all of us over dinner was equal revenge?”
“No, I … I … I thought …”
“That’s enough, Aiden,” Cerise snapped. “You and Emma are blowing this out of proportion.”
Aiden went still. A terrible, blank stillness even while his magic snapped and roiled around him. “I’m blowing this out of proportion,” he repeated quietly, locked into a staring contest with his mother. “In my own home. When you have now not only attacked and wounded Emma, but allowed your daughter, a witch still under your tutelage, to threaten all of our lives with a highly illegal poison.”
All the hair stood up on the back of my neck.
Khalid and Isa took a step back from the table. Then another. Grosvenor, his gaze locked to Aiden, slowly reached for Sky’s arm and tried to yank her behind him. She shrieked in protest, holding her ground.
Ocean glanced back and forth between her mother and her brother, tears slipping down her face. “I … I’m …”
Cerise stood. For a moment, it appeared as if she was going to press forward. Then her face crumpled. “You always take his side,” she said to Aiden. “I keep hoping and hoping that if I just love you enough, that some goodness will …” Her voice broke. She covered her face with her hands, then turned and ran from the room.
I contemplated going after her. I thought about draining her dry even as I forced her back into the dining room, back into her seat, and made her apologize to Aiden.
“I’m … so sorry,” Ocean mumbled, wiping the tears from her face. “Aiden?”
He nodded once, stiffly.
Looking utterly dejected, Ocean turned from the room and followed her mother. Their magic trailed behind them, all the way upstairs.
“Well,” Grosvenor said, righting his and Sky’s chairs, “that was exciting.” He sat, pulling the platter of chicken toward him.
Sky looked torn between leaving and staying. Then leaving won out, and she wandered slowly after her sister.
“There is belladonna and death cap on the damn table,” Isa said to Grosvenor. “And you’re eating?”
“What?” The curse breaker shrugged, grabbing a piece of bread. “The vials are capped. Why should the food go to waste?”
“Food the damn witches prepared.” Isa pushed his chair back to the table.
“I already checked it for poison,” Khalid said quietly. “Though it’s become rather obvious that Emma would have known if we were about to be murdered.”
The sorcerers were all staring at me. I was staring out of the open doorway, still contemplating going after Cerise. But to do what? Say what?
Aiden settled his hand on the back of my neck, then stepped closer to kiss my temple. “She’s said worse about me,” he murmured. “And she’s not wrong.”
“She is,” I growled.
“Now,” he said, his tone meant to be soothing though his own magic still raged around us unchecked. “You’re right. She’s wrong now.”
I nodded, just once. Then I crossed into the kitchen, grabbing the cheese and fruit platters from the island and carrying both back into the dining room.
Aiden and Isa were staring down at the two bottles of poison. Khalid helpfully cleared a spot in the center of the table, pushing the food but not the bread in front of Grosvenor. Then he took the platter of fruit from me, setting it down.
I set the cheese board next to the sourdough, then started cutting thinner slices of bread. Sandwich thickness.
“I can’t figure out how she got it through the wards,” Aiden muttered, still staring at the bottles of poison.
“Maybe she mixed it here?” Isa rubbed his temples. “Though the death cap …”
“Exactly,” Aiden muttered.
“Some of us need to be filled in,” Grosvenor said around another mouthful of mashed potatoes. “We aren’t all old.”
“ ‘Wise’ is the word you were looking for.” Isa smirked.
The curse breaker laughed. “Nope.”
Aiden’s magic slowly settled as he explained. “Even after I opened the property boundary and let Ocean in, the death cap should have created a … ripple effect when the wards sealed behind her.”
Khalid started slicing a block of the white cheddar cheese with the knife that had been set on the cutting board. For just that purpose, I presumed. “So she got the ingredients here?”
Aiden shook his head.
I stepped back into the kitchen, retrieving mayo and Dijon mustard from the fridge.
“Emma?” Aiden asked as I returned to the dining room. “Christopher wouldn’t use belladonna or death cap in the garden, would he?”
Kader straightened slightly, his attention shifting from the stoppered poison to me — clearly interested in who ‘Christopher’ was. Based on the size of the house and the amount of work the extensive garden required, it was clearly obvious to the elder sorcerer t
hat multiple people lived here. Had he already guessed that another member of the Five was among them?
“How many of the others are you in contact with?” he asked. “How many usually live here?”
So that was a yes.
Aiden grimaced, turning to his father. “Can you just stop? Stop with your obsession with Emma and the others? They’re out of your reach. They’re not players in this little drama of yours.”
Kader’s expression became hooded.
“I don’t think he would,” I said calmly, answering Aiden’s question. I spread some mayo on two pieces of sourdough. “But you could text him. I have no use for either.”
Aiden nodded. “Neither do I.”
“Paisley,” Grosvenor said, watching me closely as I added a touch of Dijon mustard on top of the mayo, then started layering the cheese that Khalid had thinly sliced.
“No,” Aiden snapped. But then, apparently thinking about it, he looked at me. “No?”
I snorted a laugh, cutting the sandwich I’d made and placing it on the edge of the platter of fruit. I started making a second one. “Anything is possible with Paisley. But I don’t see why she would have stored it any place that Ocean could find.”
“The witch would be attuned to it,” Khalid said quietly. “Her magic.”
Right.
Silence fell for a moment as the sorcerers all watched me make a second and third cheese sandwich, placing them on the edge of the fruit platter. Then all those eyes turned to Kader. The elder sorcerer pushed his still-full plate out of the way, reached across, and took one of the halves. The camembert, I thought. Though once it was sliced, I couldn’t distinguish it from the brie.
The elder sorcerer leaned back in his seat and ate the sandwich, not bothering with a plate or napkin.
Aiden, Isa, and Khalid settled back into their seats, not as spread out along the length of the table as before. Aiden placed one half of a sandwich with white cheddar on my plate, along with a branch of red grapes, then served himself.
I made more sandwiches, eating my own, until I ran out of bread. Then I settled down.
“I don’t know how to dispose of it safely,” Aiden muttered.
“You don’t,” Isa said. “I’m surprised the fumes didn’t knock out those closest to it.”
“Ocean’s likely immune,” Grosvenor said, dipping the scraps of the sourdough loaf into the last of the whipped butter.
I remembered Fish and Knox eating like that in their late teens and early twenties, consuming everything and anything. For energy, though, not enjoyment.
“I don’t see her much,” he continued. “At school. But I’ve shared a couple of classes with Sky.”
“Your aunt has you spying on the Myers witches?” Kader asked coolly.
The curse breaker shrugged. “It’s their territory, so yeah. If there was anything to report, I assumed it would make its way back to you.”
Kader just hummed thoughtfully.
“You know it goes both ways,” Isa said. “Right? Sky is reporting on you as well.”
“Sure.” Grosvenor cut a huge hunk of cheddar from the remaining block and took a big bite out of it.
Unable to contain myself, I said, “There’s more bread. And crackers.”
“Cool, cool,” he said, getting up and heading into the kitchen.
“I can’t have it here,” Aiden said, getting back to the subject at hand.
“Why?” Kader asked, nibbling on a piece of apple that Khalid had sliced.
Aiden just shot his father a look.
Kader smiled, amused. “You can’t possibly think I don’t know about the child. Her imprint is all over the loft in the barn.”
Around the pentagram, he meant. Aiden often had Opal practice her spells within its boundary, where he could see what she was casting more clearly.
“Lock it up,” the elder sorcerer said matter-of-factly when Aiden didn’t reply. “It’s a difficult brew. In fact, I doubt Ocean has refined her poison making to that level yet.”
Grosvenor wandered back in from the kitchen with his hand buried deep in a box of crackers. “She likely bartered for it. Her cosmetics and creams are the best. They last the longest, keep their color, that sort of thing.” He looked a little chagrined. “Not that I know from experience.”
Khalid laughed. “Right.”
Aiden glanced at me. “It’s not Opal I’m concerned about. She knows not to touch the items in the study safe, if she could even get through the wards and the lock.” He meant Paisley. The demon dog was big on eating magic. “Do you know if she’s been exposed to belladonna or death cap?”
Isa leaned forward, intrigued. “The dog? Paisley?”
I ignored him, answering Aiden. “Not that I know of.”
“Could Daniel neutralize it?” he asked quietly.
“No,” Kader said before I could speak, his gaze on me. “The magical elements, yes. But the nullifier wields no power over the organic elements.”
I bared my teeth in a sharp smile. “Not that you know, sorcerer.”
Kader grinned at me widely. “True. It was always a thrill when one of the Five developed a new ability.”
I just stared at him, not rising to the bait. Or not any farther than I already had, at least. Aiden settled his hand on my knee. Anchoring himself, I thought, not to hold me in place.
“And on that delightful note,” Kader said as he slid his chair back, “I believe I shall retire for the evening. You will all be present for negotiations tomorrow? Isa has outlined an agenda.”
Isa nodded, not looking at his father. He was holding a half-eaten sandwich, seemingly forgotten.
Kader touched Aiden on the shoulder as he crossed around the table, going the long way, then into the kitchen and out through the laundry room door.
“Am I the only one, like, completely in the dark around here?” Grosvenor asked.
“No,” Khalid said.
“Well, that’s good.” The curse breaker smiled at me. “You got any more of those ginger snaps, Emma?”
I smiled back at him involuntarily. “In the freezer.”
“Woot!” He jumped up from the table and took off for the kitchen.
Isa slumped back in his chair, eating the last bites of his sandwich. “Tomorrow is going to go really well.”
“Completely smoothly,” Aiden said agreeably.
Then the brothers all started laughing. The sound was full, warm, robust. But edged with tension. As if the three had spent many years navigating family dinners that inevitably imploded.
I hadn’t come out of my childhood laughing. But we all bore our scars differently. And I felt quite certain that all of those scars would be reopened — emotionally speaking — during this parley.
Leaving the sorcerers deep in discussion in the front living room — and surrounded by what appeared to be at least half of Aiden’s collection of magical texts — I headed to bed. Grosvenor had wandered off about an hour before, and I was too tired to bother tracking him. The simmering witch magic on the top floor was annoying — a product of the wards they’d placed on the other bedrooms — and I wasn’t interested in playing babysitter to anyone who wanted to wander about the property.
The door to my upstairs sitting room was slightly open. A blue light that had nothing to do with magic emanated from within. I touched my fingertips to the door, pressing it open.
Ocean was seated, legs crossed, in the middle of the couch. Her face was puffy, eyes red. She appeared to be watching the TV on mute. But then, spotting me, she blinked, pulling a small earbud out of her left ear.
“Emma,” she whispered, touching the remote control to pause whatever she was watching. “Is it okay that I’m in here?”
I nodded, starting to withdraw.
“Um, Emma? I am sorry.”
I thought about what to say to that. My time with Opal — and with Aiden, for that matter — had informed me that taking a moment to be compassionate was often the best course. Rather than simply expect
ing those around me to understand what they’d done wrong and correct their behavior without a drawn-out discussion.
But the fact that Ocean had, at a minimum, threatened to murder the bulk of Aiden’s family — whether or not she’d deemed them deserving — didn’t make me inclined to be compassionate. Even if she’d been fighting for her life, that poison was overkill. She could have quashed an assault without resorting to belladonna and death cap.
“I’m sorry …” Ocean said again, whispering into the dark silence between us.
“You said. But you could have killed Aiden tonight, when there was no immediate threat —”
She opened her mouth to interrupt me.
I gave her a look.
She snapped her mouth closed. Then, eyes downcast, she nodded as if actually listening.
“You know that poison is illegal,” I said, not quite ready to let it go, despite being weary. “By the rules of any of the governing bodies.”
“I don’t know why I even bought it,” Ocean murmured. “Mom pulled us out of school in the middle of the night, getting Sky to answer Aiden’s letter. And she was … off …” She shook her head, as if editing herself. “We only had a couple of hours to pack, and I … I … just felt like I needed something … I needed … something … to protect her.”
Something in her words, in her delivery, caught me. That sounded a lot like magical coercion or mind control. Except I hadn’t picked up anything like that from Cerise. Or from anyone else, for that matter. “To … protect your mother?”
“Yes. I …” Ocean’s words, or whatever she was trying to express, got caught in her throat. “It was the same tonight. The same reaction. But a thousand times worse. I’d never felt anything like that before.”
“Adrenaline.”
“Yeah, I know. Just …” She shrugged. “I hadn’t felt it that way before.”
“You saw that spell your mom hit me with in the kitchen, right?”
Ocean grimaced. “I really don’t think she meant to —”
I waved my hand, cutting her off. “My point is, Cerise Myers can take care of herself.”
“Yeah.” But Ocean didn’t sound at all certain, even as she agreed. “I guess so.”
“Enjoy your movie,” I said, stepping back into the hall.
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