Chapter 17
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
EMBER
To ward against dark magic, I advise a glass cloche covering, which — upon detection of a Dark Witch — rapidly descends to trap the Dark Witch within. But Shadowforms are a slippery sort, and even this method is not always effective.
— Charley Starvos, Echelon to the
School of Creation Magic
On the plus side, I hadn’t woken up with the phantom flu.
On the down side, neither had I slept. It was still dark when I changed into a pair of leggings and a sports bra, covering up with a light-yellow sweatshirt because Hartik’s Hollow was cold in the morning.
I crept around on tiptoes, quietly locating my running shoes and gently picking them up.
At the sight of a pair of green eyes glowing in the dark living room, I drew in a sharp breath. It was only Nova, but before I rationalized this, a shoe slipped from my grasp, and I quietly swore as it tumbled to the floor. Right outside Ash’s room, where Skye was asleep.
Except she wasn’t.
She emerged, fully awake and dressed in gray sweatpants and another one of her muscle shirts. “You look like death,” she said pleasantly.
“Thanks.” I pretended not to notice her running shoes were on. “I’m going running.”
“With me?” She handed me the shoe I’d dropped, fast-blinking her lashes, waiting for me to say yes.
I sat on the floor to put my shoes on, crossing my leg over my lap and sighing. I didn’t know the best way to tell her she was better off not coming.
“I usually run alone,” I said.
“And that’s been going well for you?” she asked.
“No,” I admitted, and stretched my neck, remembering my encounter with Farrah and the story that came out afterward: “Half Witch Openly Worships at Allwitch Temple.”
Skye stretched her triceps, warming up. “Then I will be coming.”
“Fine,” I said. “Do you want to get a jacket first?” I could bolt for the door while she did. She hated porting. If I ported to Conventicles Crossing, she’d never catch up. “It’s cold.”
“It’s boiling.”
“It’s forty degrees.”
“Boiling.”
All right, maybe she was an Aspirant. She didn’t appear in pain, and I never saw her drinking moonale, but maybe she experienced withdrawals differently. Maybe, for her, it was only a short temper, or that her internal temperature was elevated. Maybe.
We left, Nova staying behind.
It came as no surprise when I pointed my transmitter up at the dark sky, flashlight on, and lit up the scrying orb. I sprinted away, knowing it would follow. This time, I hoped it was a Mentalist and not Leland. And I hoped that Mentalist woke up Farrah Prolix when they realized where I was going.
Town was dead asleep, and the streetlamps burned too low for me to make out anything farther than a few feet ahead, which was good. Posters from Helen’s Anti-Human Initiative were everywhere, and I preferred not to look at them.
At Varanus Street, Skye said, “Time to cross.”
I kept running toward the Allwitch temple, slowing only to sit in front of the fence, as close as I could get without entering the forbidden area.
Skye paced up and down on the other side of the street as I took my time stretching a leg.
I focused on the fog my breath made, lifting the next leg to the spiked iron fence, reaching past my heel.
“Wow.” Skye was less than impressed. “So flexible. The most limber. Can we do this literally anywhere else?”
I did the other leg again. “Go ahead,” I said, and bent my knee back, grabbing my ankle to stretch my quad.
And bingo. High-heeled shoes clipped down the cobblestone.
I sped off, jogging across the street as Farrah followed for what I was sure she thought was going to be the day’s cover story. But I made a right turn, running up the steps of the right temple, the Echelons’ temple, where Aunt Sinora said my sister had prayed.
There, I knelt before a marble statue of the Goddess.
I stayed until sunrise, well after the bright flash of photography, and after Farrah Prolix left in a huff.
Skye waited quietly on the steps as I asked the Goddess to protect my sister and help Leland with his Dark Deal.
I even asked Her to tell me why Helen left and if I’d ever make it home.
She didn’t answer, but I left a little lighter, knowing Farrah — at least today — couldn’t run a story about me hating it here, and I’d done something to protect myself.
* * *
In the afternoon, Leland arrived to take me to a club to meet a witch named Aila Foxcross. She worked at Foxcross’s Aspiring Artifacts and sold the magic-suppressing wrist cuffs I needed to manage my withdrawals.
“This will go better if you pretend you don’t like me,” Leland said once we left the house. “Aila and I have a complicated relationship, but she’s been in withdrawal before, so she’ll sympathize with you.”
I had no idea if it would be the truth or a lie if I told him I didn’t have to pretend, so I kept the thought to myself, understanding that, when we were in public, he wasn’t the Leland who checked the letterbox and made me calming tea. He was the witch who handled me.
He set a strict pace — easy and casual for him — that I hustled to keep up with as my exhaustion from not sleeping started to sink in.
I would’ve asked him to slow down, but he looked like he needed this, like the cool air slapping him in the face was an outlet for him.
He got in moods about his job the way Skye thought I got in moods about Helen; he might not have been stomping and slamming doors, but .
. . he was silent, with a closed-off expression.
At the Blacklight club, our transmitters were taken and locked up at the reception desk before we were officially admitted. I shot Leland a look, hoping he’d explain why that precaution was necessary, but he didn’t.
Inside was a sophisticated, wood-paneled space, the kind of place that serves alcohol from crystal decanters, and all the customers I noticed had a dreamy glow about them.
For the most part, everyone minded their own business. Customers kept their eyes on their tables. It was one of the rules we’d been informed of at the door. All communications outside of your immediate party must be initiated through a staff member.
The staff, however, acknowledged Leland like their jobs depended on it.
Tight nods of respect, endless offers to get him coffee, alcohol, and water.
No one said anything about the half witch.
I wondered if he’d paid them off or if they were afraid of him.
Or if this was the kind of place where you simply didn’t ask questions.
“Um, Leland?” I asked as we passed a black marble fireplace and wove around a corner to a back, hidden stairwell.
His gaze slid to me. “Is this . . . ?” It was so snug in here, the very atmosphere relaxing me into a feeling of unfolding.
It felt like a hug, the walls thickly padded with soundproofing, and something in the air was making my shoulders lighter and my fingers uncurl. “Is this a sex club?”
“You think I’d take you to a sex club?” he asked, leading us down to the cellar.
“I . . .” I glanced around the private cellar.
Another luxurious space but with more of a nightclub feel.
The walls were ebony wood, and every place to sit was velvet and private.
“I don’t know? This place . . .” is doing something to me.
I cleared my throat. “It has a vibe? Everyone upstairs was sitting very close, very romantically. Are you sure this isn’t a sex club? ”
“All the furniture here is velvet,” he said, as if that explained things.
“And?” I asked as we sat at a booth in the corner. Leland took the seat facing the stairs while I slid onto the comfortable bench seat perpendicular to him. A tall taper candle melted slowly on the table between us.
“It’s not a sex club,” he said plainly. “It’s a club where light witches go to play magic games. We’re here because, at the end of the day, they wipe the memory of everyone who works here, and Dark Witches, like Jaxan, can’t get in.”
He flagged a server to take our order.
We ate in silence, and after they cleared our plates, Leland cracked open a text.
He was completely absorbed, one arm draped over the back of the bench, his long fingers coming dangerously close to stroking my shoulder again.
For a full minute, I stared at him. But he just looked at his text, keeping it on the table with his other arm curled around it so I couldn’t even tell what he was reading.
“Why do they need to wipe their memories?” I asked over a yawn.
His eyes lifted to look at me at the same time as the hand over the back of the bench flexed to grasp a thin, fleece blanket he’d just Summoned.
“Your eyes are black,” he said. “You need to sleep.”
“I don’t sleep.”
“You do here.”
“It’s not location specific.”
“This time, it is.” He shoved the blanket in my lap and Summoned a pillow. “Aila already doesn’t want to be doing this, and you looking like I waterboard you in my spare time isn’t going to help.”
“Fine,” I said, taking the pillow and curling up facing the ebony paneling. “I’ll stare at the wall.”
I meant that, but almost immediately, warmth lapped against my skin. I would’ve questioned it, but after the night I’d had, I wanted to give in. I let my eyes flutter closed for a second. Two. Three. By the fourth second, they were too heavy. I knew I wouldn’t be able to reopen them.
“I’m going to need a bucket to throw up in,” I mumbled, no longer able to fight my sleepiness.
“I’ll make you two of them.”
Eyes sealed, I imagined bartenders dusting wineglasses and servers sinking into empty stools and was lulled to sleep within minutes.