The Shadows and Sorcery Collection

by Heather Marie Adkins

  “Oh.” Dom laughed. “Of course. We don’t have a lot of that here, either.”

  After she left, I stripped out of the scrub pants they’d put me in and tugged on the khaki cargos. Though they hugged my thighs and ass a little tighter than necessary, they fit my waist and didn’t rise above my ankles. The soft Henley shirt slid over me like butter, molding to my arms and chest. Not perfect, but not uncomfortable, either. Between being sick and being imprisoned and then being hospitalized, I’d shed a few pounds. A pair of black boots waited at the end of the bed—thankfully free of any chains. Of all the clothes, they fit the best, so I considered it a win.

  Dom leaned against the wall outside the room, chewing on her fingernail. She straightened as I appeared, her gaze taking in the new threads approvingly. “Not bad.”

  “I’m just glad it wasn’t leather.”

  “Not everyone can pull it off.” She winked and slapped one shapely, leather-clad thigh. “Come on. Let’s feed you. You’re positively skeletal.”

  In the small, serviceable kitchen, heat from the open stove warmed the room, scented by a pot of something divine simmering over the flames. I took a chair at the table at Dom’s urging, and watched as she spooned thick, heavy stew into a bowl.

  “My mother used to call this the kind of food that sticks to your bones.” Dom placed the bowl in front of me, adding a wooden spoon and a napkin. “Keeps a girl warm on cold winter nights.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. My first inclination was sarcasm by pointing out how I wasn’t a girl and it took more than stew to warm me up. But this woman had saved me from death—twice—and given me a concussion with her foot. Sarcasm probably wasn’t the way to go.

  Living alone for as long as I had meant I was woefully unprepared for small talk. The minute the scent of the stew hit me, my stomach launched into a song of excitement, and I lost any desire to play social. I picked up my spoon and dug in.

  I was four bites in before I realized my silence could’ve been mistaken for rudeness, which could also earn me a swift kick in the head. Damn, talking to this woman was like navigating a nest of vipers. “Um. Your mother? I thought you were an orphan.”

  Dom rolled her eyes. “Yul has spilled my life’s story, I see.”

  “No. Just to say you came to him, and he adopted you. End of story.”

  Dom blinked her long lashes. “You must be thirsty.”

  I might have been out of touch with social niceties, but even I knew a change of subject when I heard one. We lapsed into silence. Dom poured us both mugs of tea, and she drank hers lost in thought. I emptied my bowl, and then another, before I pushed the empty container away, five seconds shy of licking it clean. Exhaustion swept over me.

  “Is it night?” I asked, shocked by the sudden wave of sleepiness.

  “No. Mid-afternoon. Are you tired?”

  “Immensely.”

  “The painkillers. And healing, of course. It’s a natural magic that needs energy to work.” She twisted her ceramic mug between her fingers. “Yulian will be indisposed for a time. You should rest more. Nancy is ninety-five percent certain you won’t die.”

  I choked on my tea, warm liquid gushing down my chin and onto my new shirt.

  Dom smirked. “Got you.”

  Then she switched gears entirely, as if she’d been waiting for the right time to catch me off guard and ask, “Why is Yulian communing with the ancestors over you?”

  “He’s communing over me?”

  She nodded, her friendly eyes narrowing, turning shrewd and assessing. “When he returned from his visit with you, he had a piece of paper and a frown. A frown isn’t normal for my father.”

  The piece of paper could have been the cipher I’d recreated for him, and it didn’t bode well if the cipher had put a frown on his face. I wasn’t sure how much to tell Dom. Raphael hadn’t indicated any level of secrecy, and she was Yulian’s daughter and confidante, so chances were good she’d be party to whatever happened next. It couldn’t hurt to prepare her.

  “He might be communing with them over an ancient spell. A cipher, given to me by a Seraph. It’s the answer to defeating Belias.”

  “We’re already working on defeating the demon queen. Yulian has made incredible discoveries in recent years.” The pride in her husky voice was unmistakable.

  “This is a spell that will defeat her in an instant. Not over the course of years.”

  “If something like that existed, my father would have figured it out already,” Dom snapped.

  “I’m not insulting your father,” I said, taken aback. “I respect your father.”

  “Of course you do. That’s why you cut him out of your life. That’s what respectful nephews do.”

  Most people don’t find it easy to admit they’re wrong. But when I had already admitted my fault to Yulian, having my actions thrown back in my face by a woman who didn’t even know me was unacceptable.

  Fury bubbled beneath my skin. “I don’t understand why you’re getting pissed. I’m here with a plan, and it’s going to help you as much as it will help everyone in the Circle.”

  “We don’t need your help,” Dom said. “We’re doing fine on our own.”

  “You’re so deep in hiding, the entire Circle thinks your race is dead,” I pointed out. “How is that ‘doing fine’?”

  “Yulian has a plan. His magic will save us.”

  “You realize magic is the reason we’re here to begin with, right?” I shot back. “Magic cursed Belias. Cursed the Circle. And then the witches still tried to fight with magic, and it sent the entire race into hiding.”

  Dom stood up suddenly, her chair loud as it scraped across the wooden floor. “No. Your race is the reason we’re here. The demons and angels couldn’t play nice, and you brought about the end of the world. Don’t ever blame my people for your transgressions again.”

  “You’re not even a witch.”

  “And you’re not even an angel!”

  Her words hit hard. I stood and swept an arm across the table, smashing my empty bowl and mug on the floor. With the sound of the shattering ceramic echoing in my ears, I left the room, found the front door, and escaped to the outside world.

  11

  Outside was certainly up for interpretation.

  When the nurse told me we were in the Underground, it never occurred to me she’d meant it literally. I thought it was code for the witches’ hidden collective, the way old slang used “underground” to indicate an illegal operation.

  But no. We were literally underground.

  The cracked cobblestone street stretched to my left and right beneath a high, compact dirt ceiling. I had noticed the lack of a sky when Dom and I arrived, but didn’t exactly get a good look before she booted me—the memory of which pissed me off more now that she’d been an ass.

  I descended the front steps to the sidewalk, my gaze roaming the street. The place was a time capsule of old-timey storefronts and modest row houses. I could have believed I’d gone back in time, but I hadn’t. This was something altogether brilliant.

  The witches hadn’t disappeared from Kremlin Circle—they’d been living beneath our feet all these years.

  And who would blame them? Down here, they were safe from the cold and ice. They were safe from Belias.

  I had two options. I could go back inside and hope to steer clear of Dom, or I could explore and give us both a chance to cool off. So I chose a direction and walked.

  Row houses like Yulian’s lined the street, set between nineteenth century storefronts with frosted glass windows painted black—presumably for privacy, as the witches repurposed long-closed businesses into residences. The place wasn’t a ghost town either: toys lay strewn about the small front yards, while bicycles sat propped against walls. I hadn’t seen a bike in years. The snow above stayed too thick.

  Though I passed side streets illuminated by the muted glow of street lamps, I stayed on the main road. It wouldn’t do to get lost and be unable to find my way back t
o Yulian. His cabin was my home for now, even with his furious, but proudly loyal, daughter around.

  Even if I’d known where the hell to go to get out of the underground, I couldn’t go back to my cabin. The nymphs tracked Liliya to my house, and then found us together at her family’s warehouse. They’d spared me, only for me to end up on their radar again, running from the slavers. If the rumors surrounding the nymfa were true, then the entire lot of them carried a single collective consciousness. That meant however they “saw” me was connected to harboring the thief child and causing a scene in the Square.

  If Dom hadn’t shown up in her ass-kicking boots and whisked me out of there, I would have walked away dead. I wasn’t optimistic that there would be room for a fallen angel in heaven, either.

  I was officially a wanted man. Again.

  I paused beneath one of the many antique street lamps that cast an orange glow on the road. The light inside didn’t burn steady like an electric bulb, nor did it flicker lazily like a flame. Inside the frosted glass, an orange orb ebbed and pulsed like an ocean tide.

  A thrill slithered through me.

  Magic. The lamps were run on magic.

  How? Part of the reason the witches began to falter in the first place was due to the way the rift curse dampened their powers. They had been damn-near neutered of any means to protect themselves.

  I recalled the benign powder Dominika had sprinkled over us at the Square. I touched my bandages, and remembered my nurse telling me it was almost healed. And just above my head, in a city beneath Kremlin Circle, magic functioned as electricity in a street lamp.

  Magic was still alive.

  In fifty years, I’d watched the world crumble. Kremlin Circle no longer resembled the place it had been before the rift, and her people were just as broken as her buildings. But down below, the witches were thriving. Sure, their accommodations were humble, and they were deprived of sunlight, such as it was in a Circle made of ice and snow. But they were progressing. This changed everything I knew.

  “You lost, asshole?”

  I startled at the sudden intrusion to my thoughts, but covered it smoothly. I glanced over my shoulder to see Aldric walking toward me, flanked on either side by two shady wingmen with matching scar-like sneers.

  You have got to be kidding me.

  “Pretty focused on the ceiling, birdman. Trying to fly to heaven? I can help you.” Aldric bared his teeth in a mockery of a grin. He patted the jeweled sheath at his side, where my blood likely still stained his dagger.

  I couldn’t even be nervous. In the figurative “light of day,” the dude had all the intimidation of a puppy. His asymmetrical face was framed by golden curls too coiffed to be natural, and what I’d mistaken for strength in my hospital room was just a few extra pounds of fat. The scariest thing about him was his gruff voice.

  Mine was deeper.

  I smiled. “Funny, I didn’t realize men could carry their dicks on their belt.”

  Aldric’s predatory grin faded, and he drew his dagger. “What did you say, you fucking emu?”

  “Ah. Clever. Because emus can’t fly, right?” I rubbed my chin, feigning amusement. “But where I should have wings, I have scar tissue thicker than your balls.”

  Aldric snarled and lifted his knife.

  Before he could take a single step in my direction, the door to the townhome beside me flew open. A tiny woman with boy-short brunette hair balanced a smiling toddler on her hip as she glared past me at the gang of misfits.

  “Is there a problem?” she asked in a tone colder than ice.

  Aldric drew himself up and puffed out like a rooster. “Yeah. Birdman here don’t belong. I was about to send the asshole to hell where he belongs.”

  “The only asshole I see here is you, Aldric Petrov.” She jiggled the baby and turned a bright smile on me. “Come inside, Gadreel. I just made tea.”

  I winked at Aldric and his little friends, then took the porch stairs two at a time and slipped into the woman’s home.

  “You know my name?” I asked as she shut and locked the door.

  “Of course. You’re the biggest news we’ve had here in ages.” She led me down a cramped hall, the baby smiling at me over her shoulder. “I’m Zia, and my daughter is Svetlana. You are welcome in our home. Those hooligans are not. Talentless, spoiled children with useless parents.”

  The last she said in a grumble, more to herself than to me, but I chuckled all the same.

  The hallway spilled into a small but warm kitchen. Above, buried in piles of supernatural snow and ice, homes struggled to stay warm, even with working fireplaces. Down here, the warmth was natural, restful. In the comfort of this unfamiliar kitchen, my exhaustion returned full force.

  Zia motioned to the table. “Please. Sit. Do you take sweetener in your tea?”

  “No. Thank you.” I couldn’t imagine sugar was any easier to come by below ground than it was above. As she settled her baby in the high chair, I sat across from them at the table. “That was kind of you to step in on my behalf.”

  “You’ll have to ignore that idiot.” Zia crossed to the fire, where a kettle hung among the flames. “He isn’t indicative of all witches. Bad breeding, that one. His mother blew herself up with magic a few years back. The Petrovs aren’t known for their talent. Or intelligence, really.”

  I watched with unabashed fascination as she waved a hand over the kettle. The steaming pot floated behind her as if guided by unseen hands, while she extracted a mug from the cabinet. She placed the mug on the table in front of me and twirled a finger. The kettle smoothly upended and filled the mug.

  Zia must have noticed my face, because she chuckled. “Haven’t spent much time around witches, have you?”

  I shook my head and struggled to find my voice. “No. The only one I’ve ever known is Yulian.”

  “Then you know the most powerful of us all.” She waved another hand at the cabinets, and a plate of cookies danced to the table. She chose one and broke it in half, giving the larger portion to Svetlana. “Yulian is a good man. He is the reason we’ve been able to make a life here in the underground.”

  “The magic?” I gestured to encompass the free-pouring kettle and flying cookies.

  Zia tinkled with laughter. “That? Nothing more than parlor tricks. Witches are more attuned to their belongings and environment. I wouldn’t be able to walk into someone’s home and do the same thing.”

  “You shouldn’t be able to do it regardless. Because of the rift curse.” I helped myself to a cookie, not out of any desire to eat one, but to be a hospitable guest. I had been alone so long that I often forgot how to behave like a normal human.

  “Part of that is being underground.” Zia’s long fingers tore the baby’s cookie into smaller, more manageable pieces. The act seemed completely unconscious, as if every part of her remained perfectly aligned with her daughter, even as she spoke to me.

  I had seen the same behavior between my wife and child. That bond used to drive me jealous beyond reason. But I would have given anything to have that again, to watch Catie cut Gretchen’s spaghetti as she talked and laughed as easy as breathing.

  Zia continued. “Something about the earth gives us some sort of natural barrier to Belias and her curse. Some places down here are thinner than others, so we tend to stick to the areas we know are sheltered best.”

  “What’s the other part?”

  She stared at me blankly for a moment before it clicked. Catie used to do the same thing—half-distracted conversation that ran parallel to mothering. “Oh! The other part of what keeps our magic going. Yulian, actually. Would you like a refill?”

  I glanced at my mug and realized I hadn’t taken the first drink. Zia obviously hadn’t noticed. “Thank you. No.” I sipped the fragrant, steamy liquid. It seeped into me, resting gently among the cracks and loose bits that formed my body. I closed my eyes and took such a blessedly easy comfort from the feeling.

  Zia seemed to understand I needed a moment. She cooe
d at Svetlana, wiping cookie from the girl’s cherubic face with a damp rag.

  “What has Yulian done to help you?” I asked when I pulled myself together.

  “The amulets.” Zia reached into her T-shirt and extracted a glass vial, dangling on a leather cord. “We all wear them.”

  “And what do they do?”

  “They contain an amalgamation of our own unique magic, and Yulian’s spells. They are tuned to keep our powers strong and functioning, while keeping the envy curse at bay.”

  The envy curse. A phrase I was sadly familiar with. Belias’s special brand of curse that touched everyone in the Circle.

  Envy had had its claws in me for years. Watching Zia and Svetlana smile at each other, I could feel the burn in my chest. No depth or earth could protect me from the rot of the curse.

  “As long as we have the amulets, Belias can’t sense us or find us,” Zia went on. “The curse can’t destroy us. It can’t even touch us.”

  “That’s handy.”

  “It’s magic.” Zia shrugged. “Before Belias forced our hand, we didn’t know the extent of magic in this world. Yulian has moved from witch amulets to human amulets. He has hope he can craft amulets for the humans that will keep them safe, too.”

  I sat back in my chair, stunned. “He really has been working to save the Circle.”

  Zia lifted an eyebrow. “How could you expect anything otherwise? You’re his nephew. You know his heart.”

  I nodded. “I did once.”

  “Zebras cannot change their stripes, Gadreel. We are who we are inherently. A good man will always be a good man. Any deviation is a reaction to circumstance, not a flaw in his character.”

  I let the weight of her soft words settle over me. There was magic in her voice, in the wisdom of her statement. Maybe more magic even than existed in her fingers as they guided the kettle to her mug.

  Magic could be powerful, but words could be so much more.

  Zia offered another piece of cookie to her daughter. “Yulian has carried us into a future where Belias might one day be a dark page in our history. We owe him everything.”