“Thanks for that mental image,” Evelyn said, making sick noises. Knock that off, I silently told her.
“Hey… old council documents,” said Ivy, digging through another box and pulling out a stack of yellowing papers, which promptly disintegrated. “Oops.”
“Can you be more careful?” said Evelyn, through my mouth.
She’d taken control without me even noticing. Hey! What the hell, Evelyn?
Ivy raised an eyebrow at me. “Sorry. Didn’t know that would happen. Why, are you looking for anything in particular?”
I shoved Evelyn aside and said, “I wouldn’t mind knowing how she got to know the Hemlock Coven and became their ambassador. She wouldn’t tell me a thing while she was alive.”
Ivy shifted the remaining papers onto her lap. “Well, she started working for them when she was a lot younger. Like, fifty years ago. This stuff isn’t that old. Even the journal isn’t, but you might find something in there.”
Thirty-one years seemed long enough ago… hang on a moment. Wasn’t that the same year the Hemlocks had been confined to their forest?
A shiver ran up my spine and I turned back to the page, wishing I had a magnifying glass. And a translator. Admittedly, Lady Harper might not have actually witnessed whatever had led to the Hemlocks’ permanent imprisonment. Maybe if she had, she’d have been caught in the spell, too.
I leaned over the page, then pulled out my phone to shine its light onto the fading lines. Then I looked closer at the scrawling handwriting. It wasn’t English. Nor any other language I recognised.
I dropped the book. “The bloody thing is written in code. No wonder I can’t read it.”
“Lady Harper the Paranoid strikes again,” said Ivy.
I swore, resisting the impulse to hurl the journal out the window. “Great.”
“Sorry, Jas,” Ivy said. “Where’s Isabel, anyway?”
“At the market,” I said. “Asking if anyone recognises the signature on a spell we found near the scene where the shifter attacked.”
“Oh, that’s what her message was about,” Ivy said. “No signal in the Highlands. It wasn’t the same spell I gave you?”
“Nah, we haven’t identified that one yet,” I said. “The mages really let you take it?”
“The shifter had two of them,” she explained. “One on each wrist. Lord Sutherland didn’t seem all that fussed, to tell you the truth.”
“He should be.” I glanced at Lloyd, who sat on the desk chair, texting someone. “Lloyd, you can head back to the guild if you like. I don’t think we’re gonna have much luck deciphering this journal unless she hid the code-breaker document in the same box.”
It was about as likely as the woman herself walking back in here from beyond the grave to give us answers.
My phone buzzed with a message from Isabel.
Found an informant who might know who the signature belongs to. Meet me at the market?
Ten minutes later, I hurried to the market to meet Isabel. Lloyd had gone back to the guild while Ivy had departed in search of Vance. Icy rain drenched me as I walked, despite my liberal use of rain-proofing spells.
Isabel met me at the market, standing underneath an umbrella.
“Which coven?” I asked her in a low voice.
“Not sure yet, but I got the details of a local witch who’s an expert on signatures,” she said. “I didn’t want to go and see him alone. Did the mages have anything to say about the you-know-what?”
“It didn’t sound familiar to them,” I said. “Vance and Ivy found more of Lady Harper’s junk, including a journal from the year the Hemlock witches were imprisoned, but she wrote the damn thing in code.”
“Seriously?” Her eyes widened. “Trust her to pull a stunt like that.”
“Tell me about it. Where’s this informant?”
“Asher? He lives just down there.” She pointed at a narrow alley between two shops. It ran downhill, rain sliding off the cobblestones. “I wanted to check you were okay with him seeing your face first. He can see through any disguise spells, apparently.”
“Really?” Damn. I hoped he was trustworthy, then.
“He has no link to anyone untrustworthy,” she added. “Half the market can vouch for him. What d’you reckon?”
“All right,” I said.
We trod the short distance down the alley, moving carefully to avoid slipping, until we reached a rusty wooden door with a crooked sign saying ‘Asher’s Witch Charms’.
Isabel pushed the door open. Within was a typical witch shop—walls decorated with ingredients hung in haphazard rows, shelves stacked with battered books, and a slight man sitting behind a desk, presumably Asher. His harsh breathing was the only sound in the otherwise quiet little shop. The smell of herbs filled the air.
Asher looked up at us through watery eyes. His light brown skin tone suggested mixed race or maybe Middle Eastern heritage, but a greenish tint overlaid his cheeks and a sheen of sweat stood out on his forehead.
“Are you… okay?” asked Isabel uncertainly.
“I ran into an accident a few years ago,” he said. “Backfiring spell. I’m fine.”
He didn’t look fine. He looked like he was about to drop dead on the spot.
“Can I help you two with something?” he asked.
“I need your help identifying a coven symbol,” Isabel said, lifting a piece of paper from her pocket and handing it to him across the desk. “I’m told you’re the best person to ask.”
He leaned over the page. His hands clenched on the desk, trembling a little.
“That symbol?” he said. “Where did you find that?”
“When I ran a test to find the signature of a hostile spell,” Isabel said. “You know whose it is, don’t you?”
“That symbol is out of use,” he said hoarsely. “The coven it belonged to was destroyed by fanatics. Nobody uses it actively anymore.”
“Fanatics?” I echoed. “Like who?” The Hemlocks?
“Humans,” he said. “In the world before, there were a number of… I suppose you could call them cults. Anti-supernatural ones. They’d capture any of us off the streets, given the chance. They wiped the entire Bloodroot Coven out.” He tapped the symbol with a finger. “They’re gone. Whoever is using this symbol is covering their trace.”
“How?” I asked. “How do you know the person who did this isn’t from that coven?”
“Because that coven died,” he said harshly. “They were forced to turn their own spells against one another and participate in dark magic rituals until there was nothing left of them.”
My heart lurched. Dark magic… like blood magic?
“Humans forced them to do that?” said Isabel, looking as sickened as I felt.
“I’d hardly call them human,” he said. “But yes, they did, until the coven died out. The Bloodroot Coven is no more.”
“Then why would their symbol show up when I tried to track down the signature on a spell?” asked Isabel.
“Because, clearly, the caster wanted to mask their trace,” he said. “Or perhaps they wanted to taunt us… to remind us of what we lost, of what they took from us.”
He couldn’t have been more than a child at the time of the invasion, since he didn’t look much older than me. Maybe Isabel’s age. But his tone suggested the matter was personal to him.
“You… knew them?” I asked.
“Not well enough to remember,” he said, coughing. “No, but my own coven sheltered the last of them. They died cursing the Orion League’s names.”
I blinked at the unfamiliar name, but Isabel’s hands clenched at her sides. “The… Orion League?”
“They’re long dead,” he croaked. “But this—” He slapped the desk, and the scrap of paper where Isabel had drawn the symbol—“is a reminder of what they did. What spell bore this mark?” Asher coughed into a handkerchief, which came away red.
“I have a healing spell,” Isabel said quickly.
“There’s no point,” h
e rasped. “Healing spells are temporary. I hoped—I’d have more time—”
Without warning, a rush of magic came to my fingertips. Evelyn, what are you doing?
Asher continued to cough, his body heaving. My spirit sight flashed on, showing me his spirit fading. My hands moved of their own accord, the light brightening.
“I can help,” Evelyn said through my mouth.
Magic surged from my hands, bathing the room in a bright glow. Isabel exclaimed in alarm as Asher fell back in his seat, his eyes sliding closed. I stepped back, abruptly in control of my own body again. My hands fell to my sides, trembling.
What did she do to him?
Isabel reached his side first, lifting his hand to take his pulse. “He’s alive.”
“Oh, thank god for that.” I checked the spirit realm and confirmed he was still in the land of the living. “What the hell, Evelyn? Warn me next time.”
She might at least have given me two seconds to use a smokescreen spell so he wouldn’t see my hands heal him without even touching him. His head had been bowed, but if he’d seen her—what was she thinking?
“I vote we leave before he wakes up.” I didn’t know how long he’d be unconscious for, and I dearly wanted to have words with Evelyn.
“Agreed,” Isabel said, opening the shop door. Her hands were shaking so much, it took two attempts to get it open. “The Orion League… I have to tell the Mage Lords about what he said.”
“What is the Orion League?” I asked.
“A group of fanatics,” Isabel answered. “They wanted to wipe out all supernaturals. They mostly died out in the early days of the invasion, but a couple of years ago, it was some of their surviving members, working with witches, who stole the details of the fury-summoning ritual from somewhere.”
“What?” I said, my heart sinking. “They… are they the people who passed on that information to Leila Hemlock?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Isabel said. “Good job he didn’t recognise your magic.”
“He wouldn’t. He doesn’t know us.” But he did know the coven whose magic had been used in dark rituals against their will. “So it was this Orion League who tortured that coven he mentioned into helping them? Only a supernatural can even use a witch spell.”
“Precisely,” she said, grimly. “Forcing shifters to attack the mages and destabilise the council sounds like a League thing, but someone imitating them is bad enough on its own. Either way, we’re up against something seriously nasty.”
I walked out into the alley behind her, my hands still tingling with residual magic. “So’s whatever spell was trying to kill him. I hope he’ll be okay.”
“So do I.” Isabel turned up the cobbled alley. “The enemy covered their tracks, all right. Sneaky bastards.”
And they’d used the symbol of a dead coven to do it.
9
I walked into the council meeting the following day with the resolve to tell the mages exactly what they might be up against—even if it meant revealing more than I’d have liked. Isabel and I had parted ways yesterday after agreeing that we’d share what we’d learned without mentioning my Hemlock magic. As for Evelyn, she’d remained stubbornly quiet. I bloody hoped she’d keep her mouth shut today. Isabel had brought the drawing of the symbol and the list of ingredients she’d extracted from the enemy’s spell with her to the meeting, with proof that the signature on the second spell also matched the first one. Like we’d suspected.
The same person had created both—but was it a coven, or a lone witch?
I stifled a yawn as we took our seats at the table. Lloyd hadn’t even been awake when I’d left for the meeting. Some people got to sleep in… and some of us got to help prevent the supernatural council from imploding. No pressure.
The first thing to implode would probably be Lord Sutherland’s beautifying spells, from the way he kept twisting them. A muscle ticked in his jaw, and his sharp eyes followed each person who entered the room and sat down. The table trembled whenever he touched it, his mage power hovering at the surface. As an earth mage, he could cause an earthquake when he was pissed off, and I sincerely hoped he wouldn’t take out his rage at the shifter on the rest of us.
The instant the last of the mages took their seats, Lord Sutherland immediately began to speak. “As you’re aware, there was an attack on one of our own from a council ambassador yesterday. Our task today is to decide on our future steps.”
He cast his gaze around the room, lingering on the handful of shifters who were members of the Council of Twelve. The mages more than outnumbered the other supernaturals, because Lord Sutherland invited Edinburgh’s entire council to attend every meeting, even those who weren’t actually members of the Council of Twelve. Probably to remind us who was really running the show.
Isabel cleared her throat. “Yesterday, Jas and I used a tracking spell at the scene of the attack. Based on what we saw, it’s clear that the shifter who attacked the mages was not in his right mind. Someone used a hostile spell to control his actions.”
“The attacker already confessed to his crime,” the Mage Lord said. “As for the attacker not being in his right mind—how exactly do you prove that, with shifters? They’re often unable to control their animal urges.”
A rumble of anger went through the small group of shifters on our side of the table.
“I would think more carefully before you speak,” said Vance, his voice so icy that the temperature in the room seemed to drop. “Do not forget that you’re in the company of the Council of Twelve.”
“Two people are dead,” said Lord Sutherland.
Oh, shit. One of the victims of yesterday’s attack must have passed away overnight. Which meant the shifter ambassador was dead, or would be before the day finished.
“All the evidence shows that the shifter meant to harm as many mages as possible,” Lord Sutherland continued, breathing fast. “The first attacker behaved in a similarly destructive and unrestrained fashion. Even our own shifter members transformed here in this very room, to the extent that we were unable to distinguish them from the enemy.”
“You don’t think the enemy was counting on that?” I said, my voice rising. “The shifter wore a witch spell—more than one—which influenced his behaviour. Even the wards were broken using a spell.”
“They’re using the signature of an extinct coven to hide their traces,” Isabel said, her voice barely wavering when Lord Sutherland narrowed his eyes at her. “I checked the signature. Any other witch can back me up.”
“She’s right,” Ivy said loudly. “Isabel’s tracking skills are second to none.”
Isabel dropped her gaze, fidgeting with embarrassment. The other witches were more likely to believe her than me, but the symbol alone wasn’t enough proof.
“Exactly,” I said. “It sounds like the perpetrator is using the signature of an extinct coven to hide their traces.”
“And which coven is this?” queried the blond female mage on Lord Sutherland’s right.
“The same coven that was captured and forced to help the Orion League,” said Isabel.
Mutters broke out among the council. Lord Sutherland leaned back to speak to his neighbour. Vance looked like he wanted to hit someone, and even Drake looked unusually serious.
“That is a serious accusation,” said Lord Sutherland. “Are you implying the League still exists in some form?”
“Lord Sutherland,” Vance said. “You’re aware of the report that my fellow mages and I encountered several witches imitating the League’s methods only last year, are you not? They were targeting supernatural leaders, and they still had their old weapons. It’s not unreasonable to assume other artefacts of theirs have survived. Those spells the shifters used—”
“Nothing of the sort has been found,” snapped Lord Sutherland. “The League’s members were humans. The conspirators in this case are clearly shifters, aided by witches, and they will not go unpunished. We will question the leader of each coven until we f
ind who has committed this heinous crime.”
“But it might not be a coven—” Isabel started.
“In the meantime,” he said, drowning out her words, “in the event that the witch turns out to be acting alone, I propose we resurrect the idea of a register. It would certainly prevent situations like this from occurring.”
“Putting everyone’s name on a list wouldn’t stop them being mind-controlled by a spell,” I said heatedly. “Also, do you know how hard it is to imitate another witch’s signature? Most witches couldn’t do it. Let alone create a spell that can control a supernatural’s mind and affect their decisions.”
“Are you sure it was a spell responsible?” asked the blond mage on Lord Sutherland’s right. “I hear the necromancer guild has recently acquired some psychics.”
All eyes turned to Lady Montgomery.
“If you’re suggesting my people are involved in this, then I’d advise you to learn a few basic facts about psychics first.” Her tone was acid. “The psychics in question would never use their abilities against others, but it’s not possible for a psychic to influence anyone except for another psychic.”
“One of them was involved with this Soul Collector,” Lord Sutherland said. “Correct? I seem to recall she brought him to the city herself.”
Mackie. “He was already here,” I interjected. “As I told you in my report, he was in hiding in plain sight. Maybe it’s his people involved in this, but it’s not the psychics. They can’t mind-control non-necromancers.”
“What about those vampires?” the blond mage put in. “They’re not registered. Not even to the guild.”
Oh, for god’s sake, not again. Apparently, the mages had come here to accuse everyone except for the actual perpetrators.
“No vampires were involved in this,” Lady Montgomery said. “They can possess dead people, not mind-control the living. I would have expected you of all people to do basic research before making accusations, Lady Anders.”
Ha.
Lord Sutherland’s fists clenched, and the beautifying spells threatened to snap off his wrists altogether. “The fact remains that we cannot trust anyone outside of this building. The witch markets have allowed far too many unstable elements to run around unchecked.”
Witch's Spirit (The Hemlock Chronicles Book 3) Page 10