Destiny of the Witch (The Other Witch #4)

54. Chapter 54

Chapter 54

My mum was talking to David at the door to the Coven Council, with Oscar hovering protectively around her. She smiled when she saw me. ‘Amber!’ As was my habit now, I searched her eyes. They were clear and fixed on me ; since the destruction of the harkan, she hadn’t once slipped back to her dementia-ridden days.

Lucille chittered a greeting at me as she gambolled around Mum’s feet. I knelt down and stroked her, happy to see her energy was back after she had been so close to death’s door. She really had given virtually everything to keep Mum present, and it had nearly cost her life.

‘How are you?’ I asked anxiously. Mum had been checked over by a number of healers, me included, but no one had found any lingering ill-effects from the blast of red magic the harkan had shot at her .

‘I’m okay,’ she said easily. ‘Charlize has been teaching me about partial shifting today.’

‘Any signs of any … urges?’

Mum shook her head. ‘None.’

She had quickly acclimatised to the idea of being a griffin, especially when it transpired that she still had all of her witch magic. She could still rune with the best of them. So far, the griffins’ urge to kill didn’t seem to have been passed on to her. Glimmer’s gifts are always a little odd. When Jinx’s friend Hester was turned into a vampyr using Glimmer, she didn’t have any urge to drink blood; similarly, Mum seemed to have no griffinish urge to kill.

‘That’s good.’ I waited a beat before asking, ‘And what exactly are you doing here?’

‘Trying to eavesdrop,’ she replied guilelessly. ‘But David here wouldn’t let me get close enough to paint any runes.’

‘I should hope not,’ I said, amused. ‘Why are you trying to eavesdrop?’

‘I’m bored,’ she admitted. ‘It was actually easier when I only had half my faculties and I was happy painting all day. Now I’m all me, I don’t have the attention span for oil paintings. I have no coven to run, and nothing to do.’

I grinned. ‘I have it on good authority that some positions on the Council are coming up. ’

Mum brightened. ‘Now there’s an idea!’ She turned to Oscar. ‘What do you think Oz?’

Oscar smiled. ‘You can do anything you put your mind to.’

She grinned. ‘Damn right I can.’ She linked her arm through his. ‘I want to put my mind to…’ She lowered her head to whisper to Oscar.

Next to me, Bastion reddened. I raised an eyebrow questioningly. ‘No,’ he murmured. ‘Trust me, you don’t want to know. I’ll try and expunge the images she just conjured into my mind. I did not need to know that about my future in-laws.’

I felt my own face redden as my seventy-year-old mum giggled coquettishly. ‘Maybe we could get our minds cleared,’ I suggested.

‘You always have the best ideas.’ Bastion grinned. ‘Now come on, we only have an hour before the meet with Voltaire.’