Chapter 16 #2
I nodded.
“Rachel is a powerful witch and a member of Amelia’s coven, why not have her do it?”
“She is gifted but it’s your talents that are needed?”
A blue swirl charged with energy appeared and zapped me.
“That was a lie,” Jonah asserted.
This fucker had made some type of magical lie detector without me having noticed he was invoking a spell. No wonder Corrine was so interested in him. Invoking a truth spell with no ingredients or an invocation was impressive.
“Remove the spell,” I demanded.
“No. You’re requesting a favor from me, so it’s only fair I know your exact intentions. Why me?”
“Amelia’s coven attempted to perform a locating spell. The spellcaster’s magic was cloaked, and it was rigged with a failsafe.”
Jonah’s snide smile and the dark satisfaction that flitted across his face kept me from elaborating.
“They were injured?”
I allowed my silence to answer the question.
His head slowly nodded in response. “Did anyone die?”
“No.”
“You don’t want to put them in that predicament again.”
My response was silence again.
Making a sound that was a cross between a grunt and a scoff, he sneered. “But you’re willing to chance my safety? The nerve.”
“I don’t know you. And what information I’ve learned about you hasn’t ingratiated you to me. And I believe you have the magical abilities to do this without injury.”
His face brightened at the implied compliment that he was a better spellcaster than any witch in the Lunar Veil coven.
“I won’t put my safety on the line for your friend”—he lifted a finger before I could offer a rebuttal—“but I’ll give you the means to use my magic.”
Waving for me to follow, he led me to the kitchen. It wasn’t unusual for witches to have a dedicated space for magic ingredients. Excessive use of chalk on the worn hardwood floor had left it ashen. Parts of the floor had rusty discoloration in the grain, which I suspected was from spilled blood.
“Dark magic requires the sacrifice of something living,” I pointed out, staring at the stained area. “Jonah, are you practicing dark magic or apotropaism?”
His blank face provided no tells. I didn’t know him well enough to read his body language. He could lie to my face, and I doubt I would know. I suspected he’d be good at it.
He laughed. “It’s not dark magic. We’re using our own blood. I don’t mind spilling it to discover the extent of my magic. Most witches are squeamish about that and believe that such curiosity is a slippery slope.”
I wanted him in a coven to be monitored and to have some boundaries imposed. There was something nefarious about his magic, and he reeked of power lust. A terrible combination.
Jonah rummaged through a drawer and removed an item from it.
My heart slammed into my chest when he revealed the bone-colored torus.
The same object used during the attack. He placed it on the counter along with an athame he retrieved from another drawer.
I hadn’t seen a blade like it before. I wondered if this was the Merac blade Vina said was the only thing that could kill draveths.
Suspecting that Jonah was the one involved in the attack on me, I kept a steady eye on him while taking several cautious steps back.
Touching the iridium ring, I wasn’t reassured it would be any use against an exiled sorcerer from Laytherium.
“You’re afraid of me.”
The satisfaction in his tone rooted me in place. Standing taller, my eyes held his.
“Not at all.” My voice managed to conceal my apprehension. “Interesting blade.” I nudged my chin in its direction. “I’m curious about it and how you acquired such a unique object.”
“This?” He picked it up, inspecting it as if it was the first time he’d seen it.
“Does it have an official name?”
He frowned and shook his head, making no effort to make it look believable.
My gut was telling me my suspicions were correct.
It took a great deal of restraint not to grab the blade and haul ass out of there, although having the blade wouldn’t help me, and I wasn’t positive I could escape without him gleefully retaliating.
He replaced it next to the torus. “It’s just a blade— Well, not just a blade.
It’s bespelled to draw out my magic and place it in the Syphr”—he nudged his head at the torus—“for you to use. Once you’ve completed the spell, the Syphr will be returned to me.
I hope you won’t keep me waiting, I like having it in my possession. ”
With swift fluidity, he sliced the knife across his finger.
Blood welled and spilled onto the Syphr.
The droplet became sentient, spreading over the torus, enmeshing it like a netting and seeping into it, changing the Syphr’s bone color to gray.
Jonah’s chin lifted toward me, seemingly in expectation of a compliment or show of awe. All I had for him was horror.
“Draveth.” The name slipped out like a curse and a reminder of the embarrassment from the many times I’d brought them up and people responded as if I were insane. Jonah was no ordinary witch.
He shook his head, and I wished his truth spell worked on him, zapping the hell out of him for that lie.
“No. But I have been mentored by them.” Pride shone on his face as he extended the Syphr to me.
I eyed it like it was a venomous snake.
“Take it,” he urged. “It’s enough magic to perform the spell.”
Did I trust him? After this display, I needed to be cautious.
“I have no desire to have any more dealings with you after this. This fulfills my debt to you, so I hope this is the last time we see each other.”
“You don’t want this returned?” I hesitated again before taking the Syphr and examining it. There wasn’t any evidence that it had ever touched blood, but the strong magical energy pulsing from it was undeniable.
“Once the spell is complete, the Syphr will return to me.” He gave the reminder as if he’d suspected I’d try to keep the peculiar object.
“How do I use it?”
“Don’t allow anyone else to touch it. I could have tuned it to only respond to you, but I didn’t think you trusted me enough to do that.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“You must be holding it when you invoke the spell. It will do the rest. It will return to me, don’t try to stop it.” It was an ominous warning, not purely an instruction.
I didn’t return his smile. From the darkness that flooded his eyes, I had no intention of holding on to the Syphr once it had executed the spell.
This little display didn’t explain the stains on the floor. I was sure there was more to his magical abilities. Much more.
“I’d like to meet these witches who have taught you so well.”
“I’m sure you would,” he said, turning his back to me and closing the drawer where the Syphr was kept. I remained there for a moment before I realized he had no intention of elaborating or continuing any conversation.
As I headed for the door, he said, “Goodbye. I mean it. Let this be the last time we have dealings with one another.”
It took a great deal of restraint not to point out that our interaction with each other was his doing, not mine. He could have declined working with Corrine. Her attempt to evade the oath worked in my favor: Amelia would live.