by Paula Lester
She moaned and touched the base of her skull. That was a mistake. Another white-hot throb pulled a groan from her lips. Her fingers came away flecked with the warm, sticky residue of half-dried blood. For a second, she wished to pass out again but then it struck her.
Someone had hit her.
A cold chill traveled down her body from head to toes. This was bad. She needed to get up now. Cas glanced down. That was going to a problem. Whoever had knocked her out had also trussed her up like a pig. A strong, shiny material bound her wrists. A short length of it extended to her feet and snaked around them.
She was tied up on the floor of the council chamber. She should’ve noticed that already. Her thoughts felt sluggish, as if they had to travel through layers of cotton. Cas blinked hard, hoping that would clear her head, and then she groaned again. The small movement triggered another wave of agony. She took three longs breaths to center herself.
Who had hit her?
Denzel? She’d been worried about him walking in at the wrong time. Cas opened her eyes. She couldn’t see anyone. She held her breath and listened.
Far away, a dull roar went off. The parade had started. Cas strained to pick up any noise—the shuffling of feet or someone else breathing. Nothing.
But another sense whispered something different.
Her heart fluttered like a terrified bird’s. Whoever had tied her up had their reasons. They weren’t going to just let her go.
“Hello?” she called out to the dim room.
No, that was stupid, Cas chided herself. She tested her bonds. They held fast.
Dzovag Livings. Livings.
This was what she got for her temper tantrum at the spring. Livings or a hired thug had come for payback.
It made sense. He had every motive to kill Lavania. He, for sure, would not have appreciated Cas snooping around.
But she wasn’t going to wait to find out for sure. Cas struggled against her bindings, but every way she twisted only made the knots tighter. She needed something sharp to cut the material.
Right, like the attacker would’ve left a handy-dandy pair of scissors within reach. But maybe she could manifest a pair?
Cas attempted to pull an image into her mind. But the magical bindings didn’t like it. They didn’t pulse in response like before. This time, something invisible slapped her face. Hard. It sent her head throbbing.
This was the first time Cas had attempted magic on purpose since Tempeste had bound her. The binding spell resisted—big time. Wonderful.
She struggled to get into a sitting position. The wall that held the lineage book was close. She scooted toward it slowly. Once there, maybe she could use it as leverage to get on her feet.
Behind her, someone laughed. “Tempeste did a good job, huh?” The voice, low and deep, came from across the room. “Where are my manners? Here, let me help you.” Heavy foot-falls echoed against the chamber’s walls. As the person got closer, the pace slowed.
The footsteps stopped just behind Cas. Whoever it was towered over her, taking long, shuddering breaths. Cas refused to turn around, knowing that if she did, it would be the moment the first blow would fall.
Instead, she pushed ever so gently against the magical locks that cinched her powers down tight.
After a while, the person seemed to get bored waiting and, with an exasperated snort, took another step.
Cas couldn’t help it now. She looked up.
It was Dustin.
For the briefest of moments, Cas felt a wave a relief. But then Dustin grabbed her upper arms, digging his nails into her skin. He hauled Cas upright and slammed her against the wall in one smooth motion.
The impact was hard enough to send the huge lineage tome tumbling to their feet. Cas’ head knocked against the wall with a thud. Everything winked out for a second and then crashed back into focus.
Dustin, the nicest man she’d met in Crystal Springs, had transformed. He leered at her, his face distorting into a grotesque mask. His lips pulled back in a sneer. Before, Dustin had always been the picture of tailored readiness, but now his hair was disheveled and clothes wrinkled.
And was that a speck of red on his face? Cas recoiled. Was that her blood?
Dustin had knocked her out?
He noticed her studying his face and sneered. “What are you looking at?” He wiped at his face with the back of a hand. But the motion only served to turn the small crimson dot into a smear.
Dustin let go of her arms and stepped back. He dusted off his hands as if they’d been handling something vile. Cas was grateful for the space. The anger radiating off him was palpable. She could almost taste it. Dustin stumbled over the lineage book but managed to right himself. He glanced down, screamed a few obscenities, and kicked at the thing. “Curse all of them!”
The gesture struck Cas. Puzzle pieces in her mind starting to turn and shift into place.
It was hard to stand upright with her hands and legs still bound together. She was stuck in a partial hunched-over stance. Cas leaned against the wall and did her best to straighten. “I found out about my mother, Dustin. Did you hear? She hexed me at birth. My own mother. So I understand what it’s like to have a parent who doesn’t do right by their kid.”
Cas waited for the words to land. Dustin stared back, open-mouthed. Then he burst into a guffaw of deep-throated laughter.
“Wait, are you saying you’re anything like me?” Red blotches crawled up Dustin’s neck until they stained his cheeks. “Are you?” Dustin bellowed. But he didn’t give her time to answer. He grabbed her face in one hand. “If I was born with your magic, your power, I would be more than a lackey for a group of self-serving prigs. We are nothing alike.” Dustin snatched his hand away. “Nothing.”
“OK, we’re nothing alike. What’s going on?” In part, Cas was stalling—for what she didn’t know. But on the other hand, he’d been kind to her, and she had liked him. Maybe that part of him could be reasoned with.
“What’s going on, dear lady, is that I’m finally going to be Archsiren, as is my birthright.”
“Because you’re Archsiren Ranger’s son, right?” Cas said in the most calming, soothing voice she could muster.
Dustin’s eyebrows knit together before he straightened. He kicked at the lineage book again with a yell. “How did you figure it out? I’m only listed under my mother.”
Cas spoke as if trying to soothe a fussy child. “I had only a chance to glance at Archsiren Ranger’s lineage before, uh, you know...” Dustin stiffened, and Cas changed tack. “I only had a minute to look at his family line. Ranger had a wife, but no children listed.”
Dustin turned away. “I was his only son, though not from his marriage. My mother kept the rumors at bay by saying her child’s father was a shifter. Witches, snobs that they are, don’t bother with listing non-witch parents in their book!” He kicked at the tome again, sending it halfway across the room.
Cas wanted to keep him talking. “So your father didn’t claim you. What my mother did was worse.”
“My father wanted to claim me. He did. When it became clear his marriage wouldn’t bear him an heir, he came back to us. But by then, it was obvious...” Dustin voice trailed off, and he stared into space.
Cas used the moment to test both sets of her bindings. The magical ones throbbed in warning. The physical ones tightened.
“Oh, don’t bother trying to undo those. The knots are bespelled. You won’t be able to slip out short of cutting off a limb.”
Cas grimaced. “Could you at least cut the line between my hands and feet so I can stand up straight? This is killing my back.”
“Then you should sit,” Dustin snapped. He walked over and swept Cas’ feet out from underneath her. She fell to the floor with a whoomph.
“That better, dearie?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Her backside smarted now. Dustin kept looking at his watch. She wasn’t sure what that meant other than time was running out. “So why did your dad get a perpetuity stone?”
“Oh, you figured out that much, huh?”
Cas said nothing but met his stare.
Dustin rolled his eyes. “You are a nosy wench. I knew that woe-is-me act you did in front of the council was a con job. I should’ve let Lavania kill you, but it’s lucky I didn’t. You’re of so much more use now.”
He laid a glare down on Cas that launched a shiver down her neck.
“Dustin,” she started, “if you want to do whatever your father was planning, maybe there’s another way. People keep telling me how powerful I am. Maybe I can help with whatever you want to do.”
He scoffed and squatted in front of Cas. They were eye to eye. “Can you give me magic?”
She cringed, not only from the oddness of the question, but also from his closeness. “What?”
“Magic, Cascade. I was born without magic. Can you grant me that? Can you grant me peace from a lifetime of feeling inadequate in a society of people with wondrous abilities? Can you spare me a life of hiding in plain sight and praying not to be found out?”
“Dustin, I. . .” Cas started, but Dustin waved a dismissive hand and stood.
“You have magic. I’ve seen you do it,” Cas argued.
“Think about it. Have you? When people just assume, it’s easy to fool them.” His jaw clenched hard, and his eyes narrowed to slits. “I was born without magic—the ultimate insult to a man like my father.”
Forget the plan to keep him talking, a part of Cas begged. Right now, she wanted him to shut his trap. Dustin was admitting to things he would never allow to leave this room. He didn’t intend to let her out of here alive.
Dustin chuckled, and his facial features evened out. For the moment, he looked more like the man who’d seemed to help her over the past few days. “I’ll answer for you. No. It’s all Illusions, tricks, and pixie-charms crafted over decades living with the magic-born. When Mother figured out I would never blossom, she helped me hide my disability. We were so good at it, even Father was fooled for a short time.”
Dustin knelt down again so his face was on the same level as Cas’. “Father figured it out, though, when I was about fifteen. He was one of the most powerful witches in Crystal Springs, after all.” Dustin paused, and a faraway look came over his face. “I’ll never forget how he looked when he realized the truth. He was disappointed.” He said the last part so softly Cas almost didn’t catch it.
If she hadn’t been tied up, with a growing knot on the back of her head the size of Wisconsin, Cas might’ve felt sorry for the man. To be a disappointment to one’s parents had to be a horrible burden. The feeling was short-lived, though, as the satiny material cut into her wrists. Everyone has their lot in life. Dustin and his father had no right to hurt others to change theirs.
“Father wasn’t the type to be deterred. He was going to have an heir—and a magical one—come dragon’s fire or high water.”
Cas nodded, which caused searing pain to shoot through her head. She pressed her eyes shut and fought it back down to a burning pain. She said, “Somehow he got his hands on the stone and wanted to use it to cast a web to give you magic.”
Dustin chuckled and stood back up. “Not just magic but extraordinary power. He wanted to make up for the mess that fate decreed by neglecting my magical inheritance. He had plans that stretched far beyond Crystal Springs.” Dustin paused, and darkness seemed to cover his features again. “But someone meddled and stole the stone from Father before he could use it. And, soon after, he died under strange circumstances. I never knew who had taken the stone. Until this week.”
“Lavania,” Cas breathed.
The corner of Dustin’s mouth rose in a smirk and he spat out, “Lavania. When you came to Court and told the sirens about getting a stone in the mail before your powers blossomed, I knew it had to be a perpetuity stone. I still had no idea how I could get it, but then the Archsiren solved my problem for me. She asked me to help her find your lost stone before the peacekeeper squad could. I asked her why, and she let it slip that she’d used one before and would like to again.” Dustin looked down at his hands.
“She used it the year I was born,” Cas confirmed.
Dustin’s head snapped up. “I didn’t intend to kill her, truly.” His tone seemed to plead with Cas to believe him, and she nodded and tried to look sympathetic. “I felt such rage when I realized she stole the stone from Father and ruined his plans. Probably even killed him. I murdered her, but I didn’t mean to. Once she was dead, I had to think fast. And who else to blame besides a new witch who can’t control her powers and whom Lavania had threatened to kill?”
Something white hot and burning burst behind Cas’ eyes. It wasn’t pain. For the moment, that was gone. This was rage, pure and seething. How dare he frame her for murder? She bit her lip and tempered the rage until it wasn’t a wild thing threatening to burst to life. No time for that right now. She had to keep her thoughts as clear as possible and figure out how to stay alive.
“Of course, I kept my ties to the more nefarious aspects of this community throughout the years, always hoping for another perpetuity stone to show up. So when I heard talk of one being around here, I wasted no time finding it. Procuring it from the incubus was nothing.”
Cas nodded a little, but her mind had finally cleared. Whenever Dustin took his eyes off her, she scanned the chamber. There had to be something here that could be of help. She said, “You’re the one who stole the stone from Mr. Percy.”
Dustin inclined his head. He looked proud of himself. “Yes. And I put two and two together. Percy is your neighbor, and he ended up with a perpetuity stone soon after you reported receiving one in the mail. I knew it must be the same stone my father had years ago. What I didn’t understand was who sent it to you. I knew it couldn’t be Lavania—she’d been desperate to get the stone back.”
“Yeah, I don’t think Lavania would have let the stone out of her hands on purpose,” Cas agreed. She tried to infuse her voice with a mutual distaste for the former Archsiren.
“You probably didn’t know that I used to work for SunSprite Deliveries,” Dustin volunteered.
Cas shook her head because Dustin seemed to expect an answer.
“It was a part-time job when I was a teenager. I was there for about a year. Long enough to learn my way around the place and discover that curdled milk makes sprites less likely to notice when someone’s breaking into their computer system.” Dustin sneered again.
Cas remembered how the sprites were drunk on milk when she’d gone to SunSprite to find out who’d sent her the stone. She must have only been a few hours behind Dustin, at the most.
“It was easy for me to find out who sent that package to you,” Dustin boasted.
“Violette Mizzle,” Cas confirmed.
“Violette,” Dustin echoed. “I wagered either she’d stolen the stone from Lavania or had been in on the old crone’s plan from the start. I saw her quite often when I went to the cemetery to visit Father.” Dustin paused and tilted his head. “I knew she visited Violaine’s gravesite often and decided it was time for her to join her sister. I arranged for the cemetery gates to close early and for the ghouls to attack. You being there was just a twist of bad luck.”
Dustin reached into his jacket’s inside pocket and pulled out the perpetuity stone. It looked the same as when Cas had first seen it.
“Your power is a curse to you,” Dustin reasoned. “You’re fifty, which is way too old to learn new tricks. Literally. You know nothing of magic. I’ve been around it my entire life. I’ll relieve you of the burden, and you can go back to your normal life. We’re just waiting for my companions to join us. Your snooping forced us to act early, but they’ll be here soon. I guess I should prepare. Sit tight.” He chuckled and walked past her.
Cas understood Dustin wouldn’t allow her to leave this room, knowing what she now knew about his crimes. She nodded agreement to encourage him, but he only stoked her rage.
She needed time. If she had any hope of getting
out of this room alive, she would need to use her magic. Up until this very second, magic had been a nuisance.
Magic had upheaved her life.
Magic had triggered rejection after rejection.
Magic had put her life in jeopardy more than once. Nothing would ever be the same because of it.
But, right now, magic meant life.
She thought hard as Dustin’s footsteps faded. He wasn’t going to be gone for long. She tried to remember what she’d done to break the bindings when the ghouls attacked her.
The straitjacket! Cas concentrated hard on an image of a straitjacket surrounding her, cinched down with three buckles. The vision sprang to mind easily because she’d done it before.
She mentally leaned into the first buckle with all her might. Cas gave a mental burst and—whap! A backlash made her teeth quiver. It was like a punch to the jaw. No warning pulse this time. The spell that contained her power had retaliated harsh and fast.
She moaned out loud. The sound brought Dustin back into the room. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. My head just really hurts from where you hit me.”
Dustin rounded on her and narrowed his eyes. “No, you’re trying to break the bindings Tempeste put on you. It won’t work. But just to make my point—”
Cas saw the motion but didn’t anticipate it in time to react. Dustin’s backhand connected with her temple. The pain was splintering, almost shattering. But something within her flared. It was searing and quick, and the magical constraints billowed the slightest bit. It was just enough to allow her to do one thing.
Hiccup.
A torrent of black confetti burst into the air. It poured into Dustin’s mouth and clogged his ears like a swarm of locusts. He screeched and batted at the air while choking and spewing out bits of paper.
The small flair of magic renewed the pain in Cas’ head, and she gasped. She worked through the pain. Cas focused on an image in her mind and threw it toward Dustin. Four explosions popped like gunfire—pow, pow, pow, pow—past Dustin’s ear, and he scrambled backward fast.
The magical bindings had billowed the slightest bit. But now she could feel the gap she’d forced open closing.