We were letting a lot of things go.
I understood my reasoning for doing so, but I wasn’t certain how I should feel about it.
It was almost time for tea when I crossed back through the house. Catching a murmur of conversation from the study, I glanced in through the half-open door.
Khalid was bent over the desk where Isa was seated, gesturing toward a series of open notebooks filled with symbols. Runes, by their look.
“… constantly shifting its hold,” Khalid was saying. “That’s why, even combined, we couldn’t break it.”
“And now that she’s here,” Isa said, frustrated, “even with Father fortified in the pentagram, I can’t cut off the connection.”
“Bone deep.” Khalid shook his head, spotting me. He nodded.
Isa looked back over his shoulder. “Emma? Everything okay?”
The question was so genuine, so open, that I just blinked at him for a moment.
“No one is dead,” Khalid muttered. “Yet. That’s got to be a win.” He rubbed his ear, then caught himself doing so.
“Did you make any headway on Opal’s spell?” I asked, pushing the door open a little more so I didn’t appear to be lurking behind it.
Isa nodded, reaching for a separate piece of paper. “It’s intriguing.”
“Witch and necromancer working together,” Khalid said. “Best guess. Some of the runes have been twisted —”
“Subverted,” Isa corrected, holding the paper toward me. The series of thirteen runes had been carefully printed into an oval shape. “Typical for a witch. To take what isn’t hers and use it to her own purposes.”
I didn’t take the paper from him. Not only could I not read it, but I wasn’t stupid enough to touch what could possibly be an active sorcerer spell. “And those purposes would be what?”
Khalid smirked at me, giving Isa a look. “Emma is not an idiot.”
“No,” Isa agreed reasonably, setting the piece of paper back on the desk. “As far as we’ve figured out without testing it —”
“It’s a soul trap,” Khalid said.
Isa grimaced ruefully. “Yes.”
“It’s an actual containment spell?” I said. “And what happens if Opal and her friends break it?”
“They aren’t going to be able to break it,” Isa said.
“But there is a necromancer in the group …” Khalid said, head tilted thoughtfully.
Isa glared at his brother. “They’re not going to be able to break it. Emma doesn’t play games well, Khalid. And we need her here right now, not running off to the Academy to rescue the little witch from nothing.”
I gave Khalid a look. He’d been deliberately trying to rile me up.
He grinned.
I turned my attention back to Isa. “And if they try to break it?”
Isa shook his head. “Nothing in the runes indicates that there are any repercussions to trying and failing.”
“But,” Khalid said, “Aiden hasn’t gotten more pictures from your little witch yet.” His grin sharpened. “So there could be something nasty on the vessel itself.”
I looked at him, hard. Then I said casually, “I could have killed you in the front sitting room. And no one, not your father or any of your brothers, would have stood against me.”
That wiped the grin from Khalid’s face. “Threatening me is —”
“I’m not threatening,” I said coolly. “You broke peace in my home.”
“I have a right to defend myself.”
“The spell I took from you wasn’t defensive. It would have torn through Sky. Shredded her.”
Isa swore in that arcane language of the Azars, slowly standing but keeping his hands on the desk. “Emma, we are all on edge.”
“Exactly. And while I’m on the edge with you, I suggest you refrain from any attempt to push me over.” Speaking in metaphor wasn’t my strong suit, but I figured the sorcerers would understand. “Ask your brother what it feels like to push me.”
“I felt it already,” Khalid snarled.
Isa laughed darkly. “You’re up and moving, Khalid. I imagine you got the barest hint of what Emma can do.”
Bored of trading empty threats, I sighed. “That’s all beside the point. Aiden will get a better look at the vessel during our chat with Opal this afternoon. And then he, in consultation with me, will decide what to do.”
“Confiscate the vessel,” Khalid muttered. “Then threaten those who actually deserve it.” He sneered, but didn’t make eye contact with me. “The necromancer’s family.”
“Indeed,” Isa said coolly.
“And the spell on Kader?”
They both grimaced, but it was Isa who answered. “We’re going to need Cerise to sign the contract.”
“We might have to force her,” Khalid muttered darkly. “I’m sure Emma could help with that.”
I snorted. “Force her to sign a magically binding contract? Oh, that will hold.”
I turned and walked away, heading down the hall into the kitchen. The info the sorcerers had provided was churning around in my head, but mixed in with an acute concern for Opal. I felt as though I was suspended in some sort of protective mode, unable to move decisively without hurting someone I loved.
“If you’re going to insist on being an idiot,” Isa said, still in the study, “at least try to not do it in front of the amplifier. You know that predators can sense blood.”
“I am not prey, brother,” Khalid snarled. “I’ve proven that time and time again.”
“Not against someone like Emma.”
Khalid snorted, but his answering retort was too quiet for even me to hear by the time I crossed through into the kitchen. The witches had cleared out. The cooktop and sink sparkled from the cleaning spells they’d used to tidy up their brewing.
I had come in intending to make tea, but I strode through the empty eating area instead, out the French-paned doors and onto the back patio — following the feel of Aiden’s magic.
I spotted the dark-haired sorcerer instantly. He was out of his suit, wearing jeans and a dirty T-shirt, leaning on a shovel just beyond the garden fence, chatting. His sisters were placing a series of Christopher’s canning jars on the fence posts and rails. As if they were making sun tea, but with the tonics or tinctures or whatever they’d been mixing and measuring in the kitchen all afternoon.
Ocean placed her hands on her hips indignantly, saying something I didn’t quite catch. It sounded sharp, though. Aiden and Sky threw their heads back and laughed.
The light sound made my heart expand so much that I had to struggle to breathe for a moment, leaning against the post at the top of the stairs. Aiden’s family dynamic was exceedingly complex — even before I factored in that there might be some sort of magical coercion going on. One minute, they were at each other’s throats. The next, they were laughing like nothing was wrong.
Were Kader and Cerise, and how each had raised their children, responsible for that?
The Five hadn’t been raised with any laughter or love in our lives. But in getting even a brief sense of what Aiden, his brothers, and his sisters had gone through, I was beginning to understand that except for the circumstances of our birth, the abuse and control we’d experienced wasn’t necessarily unique among Adepts.
A whisper of power drew my attention toward the barn. Kader was standing in the shade of the open doorway of the loft, watching Aiden and his sisters. I couldn’t quite discern the elder sorcerer’s expression, but he seemed contemplative.
Isa moved through the kitchen behind me. Among all three of the brothers, the tenor of his power was the closest to his father. Khalid had left the house through the front door and was crossing toward the barn, where I could feel Grosvenor as well.
Isa passed through the open French-paned doors, stepping just within my line of sight. “It’s almost time for tea,” he murmured.
“Yes.”
“Hot or cold?”
“Hot. With caffeine.”
; He nodded, watching his brother and the witches, then glancing up at Kader. Just as I was. “I brought you a first flush.”
“That was … thoughtful.”
He laughed quietly. “Contriving, you mean.”
I glanced at him. “I mean what I say, Isa Azar.”
He nodded stiffly, shifting his attention back to his father. In the loft doorway, Kader stuffed his hands in his pockets, then retreated into the suite, leaving the door open.
Sky and Ocean had joined Aiden in the garden, moving about as they chatted. Aiden was double-turning compost into the new beds that Christopher had added that spring. I realized they were speaking French. The language was lyrical, pleasant sounding.
“Aiden …” Isa cleared his throat. “I’ve lost three brothers. One older, and two younger. Has Aiden mentioned it?”
“Did you kill them yourself?”
He grimaced. “No. But I wasn’t able to prevent their deaths either. I lost my mother in the same … incursion.” He paused as if I was supposed to chime in with some nicety. Condolences, perhaps.
I didn’t.
“Three months later,” Isa continued. “Cerise Myers showed up at the compound. Sleeping in my mother’s bed, running her house, picking herbs from her garden …” He took a slow, quiet breath, shoulders relaxing. “You could end all of this, Emma. Either way.”
“I know.”
“But you won’t.”
I didn’t answer, mostly because I was still undecided. But it was certainly possible that I could drain Cerise Myers, then take the death spell she’d bound to Kader through Aiden.
It was also possible that doing so would trigger a series of events that I would then be helpless to stop.
If the rest of the Five were in residence? Maybe.
On my own? I wouldn’t risk it until I had no other choice.
Isa followed my gaze toward Aiden, who had set the shovel aside and picked up a harvest bin, moving toward the early lettuce. Ocean was combing through the immature pea vines while Sky wandered farther into the empty sections of the garden, seed packets in hand.
“You won’t because it would hurt Aiden,” Isa murmured, picking up the thread of the conversation. “My father literally bred you in a tube and raised you to be a weapon of mass destruction. I’ve spent our time apart going through what little I can access of his records, and piecing that together.” He paused, giving me space to comment or confirm.
I did neither.
He huffed out a quiet laugh, continuing. “Cerise Myers is Aiden’s mother by blood and little else. She left him with Kader at the tender age of seven. Every word out of her mouth since she got here has been a half-truth, and she has us all lined up now like puppets in some play that only she knows the plot of. If there is any plot at all. On top of that, we’re all invading your home, your sanctuary from all of … this …”
Isa watched me for a moment longer, his power a whisper deep within his core. He was almost as skilled as his father at hiding it.
It was likely that he had me to thank for that. I’d almost drained him dry, and magic had a way of refilling the spaces within, coming back stronger than before. Similar to how tissue scarred over to protect a vulnerable spot.
“But you …” Isa whispered. “You stay your hand. For Aiden.”
I didn’t answer the sorcerer. He already had that part of me figured out, so he didn’t need it confirmed. But since he also knew what I was capable of, I didn’t feel exposed or weak. My attachments made me stronger because they gave me focus. They gave me something to live for, other than just treading the path the Collective had laid out for me. For all the Five.
Or, conversely, those attachments let me hide from what I’d been bred to be.
That was why we’d opened the letter. That was why Kader Azar was napping in the loft of my barn. I wasn’t running from my past anymore. And if that past invited itself to stay anyway?
Well then, I’d have my way with it. On my own terms.
The sorcerer bowed his head. “I’ve never loved someone like that before. It must be … terrifying.”
I turned back toward the kitchen. “You had a specific tea you wanted to brew?”
Isa Azar huffed out a laugh, then followed me into the house.
Chapter 6
I was fairly certain that the witches must have replicated my stoneware set, because as the sorcerers filtered into the kitchen, more and more mugs kept getting pulled out of the cupboard. Plus the dishwasher was still full with the clean lunch dishes.
Isa started brewing a second pot of the organic Doke Black Fusion first flush when he, Khalid, Grosvenor, and I had been served. After liberally dosing their steaming mugs with milk and sugar, Khalid and the curse breaker wandered off into the front sitting room, each with a couple of ginger snaps in hand. Chatting about the spell work the curse breaker was in the middle of.
Aiden wandered in through the French-paned doors with his sisters, smiling and smelling of earth and sunshine. He set the harvest bin in the sink, then pulled out mugs for himself, Sky, and Ocean.
“Five more minutes,” Isa said as his brother reached for the teapot.
Aiden grunted amicably, snatched a ginger snap from the plate next to my elbow, and kissed me soundly before he leaned back against the counter next to the sink. His gaze rested on me warmly.
The time in the garden and with his sisters had clearly eased some of the tension the dark-haired sorcerer had been carrying. Perhaps being out of the suit made him feel more at home as well.
Sky sighed. “I guess I should take a tray up to Mom. She won’t come down.”
No one answered her as she pulled out the tea tray from the kitchen island cupboard, adding a mug, a plate with two cookies, and one of my blue-lace-trimmed napkins to it.
“Why not?” Aiden finally asked.
Sky shook her head, glancing at Isa.
The sorcerer regarded her calmly, taking a sip of his tea. He’d added only a splash of milk.
Sky grimaced. “She feels outnumbered,” she said to Aiden. “Even though I told her that you and Emma were on our side, and Grover is neutral.”
“Grover is not neutral,” Isa said calmly.
Sky frowned, then took one of the cookies she’d plated for her mother, nibbling on it.
“If anyone is neutral, it’s Emma,” Isa continued.
Ocean looked at me. “Really?”
Before I could answer, a quiet chiming sound filtered down the hall. I set my mug of tea down, listening. “What is that?”
Grosvenor shouted from the front sitting room. “Aiden, someone is calling on your iPad.”
Frowning, Aiden glanced at the clock on the hood fan above the stove. It was too early to be Opal. He pushed away from the counter, crossing swiftly into the study. I followed. A strange sense of doom compressed my chest, and I had to stop myself from shoving past Aiden. It was his iPad. Anyone could have been calling.
Ocean and Sky tucked up behind us.
By the time Aiden stepped into the study and reached for the iPad, which was still trilling away, sorcerers and witches filled the hall.
“It’s Opal,” Aiden said, settling into the desk chair and pressing the answer icon on the screen of the tablet.
Opal’s face filled the screen in profile.
“Opal?” I asked, leaning over Aiden’s shoulder.
She turned, looking at me with wide, terrified eyes. Light-blue magic simmered around her irises. “Emma,” she gasped.
“Show me, Opal,” Aiden demanded, obviously putting together something I hadn’t yet.
“Don’t be mad,” Opal said, panting. Pained. “Don’t be mad.”
“You know I won’t,” Aiden said soothingly.
“I mean Emma!” Opal cried.
The witches and the sorcerers clustered together in the doorway and the hall started murmuring. I tuned them out. “I’ll be mad when I need to be mad,” I said. “Listen to Aiden, please.”
Opal nodded, chin qu
ivering. She fumbled with her phone, switching the camera view.
The seam of her blue jeans filled the screen. Then her sneakered feet. And then … and then I wasn’t certain what I was seeing.
Opal was situated in what appeared to be the corner of an empty room. The light was low, filtering through filthy windows. Four candles were arrayed around a thickly chalked circle, which I could see only because it was glowing light blue. Witch magic.
Jack Fairchild was down, sprawled across a grimy floor. His arms were spread in a way that suggested he’d been dragged away from the edge of the circle.
Kneeling in the center of that chalked circle, Emily’s face and blond curls were streaked with some sort of dark muck —
No.
That wasn’t dirt or mud.
“Aiden …” I said.
“I see it, Emma.” He grabbed his notebook, paging through to the runes he’d copied from Opal’s email.
Because Emily wasn’t alone in the glowing witch circle. She was staring toward Opal, panting in pain and terror. She held the oval vessel before her in shaking hands. The vessel — the soul trap, the sorcerers had called it — wasn’t open. But some sort of darkly tinted power was seeping from it, flowing over Emily’s shoulders and neck, creeping over her hair and face.
Isa pushed through the crowd at the door, shouldering past me to dig through the papers strewn across the desk.
“Opal.” Aiden calmly peered at the iPad screen. “Did you try to open it?”
“No!” Opal cried from off-screen. “Okay … yes. But not me. Jack knows a break spell.”
Isa found the paper he was looking for, shoving it at Aiden. Aiden pushed it away. “That isn’t going to help,” he hissed.
“What?!” Opal cried on the other end of the video connection.
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