Chapter 23 #3
She stayed like that for nearly fifteen minutes. Her resolve came slowly before she shifted back in the seat, offering me a beleaguered smile. Amelia’s breathing was soft and steady, and the sharp edges of her frown had eased, although it concerned me that her face was devoid of any emotion.
“I’m okay,” she said when she started the car. She wasn’t, but I believed she eventually would be.
I’d expected the drive home to be somber, and for Amelia to cycle through her emotions of dread and depression. But there was a lightness to her as she explained it was Vina who had attempted to poison me earlier with the intention of abducting me. Her voice cracked several times.
“How does it feel?” I asked.
Her hands rubbed over her chest as if she were trying to conjure words from the space.
“Calm,” she whispered. “There was always something unsettled in me… Before you say it, I know her actions weren’t mine to take on.
But if given the opportunity to stop it, it was my responsibility to do so.
” She glanced over at me. “I made it better and stopped more attacks against you.”
Her confidence emboldened me. I took it as the small win I needed, chastising myself for not appreciating the biggest success of all: Amelia was alive.
“How did she learn about the draveths?” I asked.
Amelia shrugged. “She’s definitely allied with them. I suspect some agreement to share the magic if they were able to tear the veil and get to Umbryth.” The same fear and apprehension must have run through her as it did me because she shook her head.
“Power-hungry people don’t keep you around if you can’t be useful. She no longer has the huge well of magic, and I suspect Cirrian will make sure neither she nor the draveths get to you.”
I took the segue given to talk about how they’d managed to link up. No words were needed. I simply shifted in my seat and narrowed my eyes at her.
“He approached me,” she said.
My brow rose, urging her to continue because there was no way she believed that would suffice.
“Cirrian approached me and explained that Vina’s action had caused an imbalance and the only way to repair it would be her death. Girl, I thought he was asking me to kill my mom.”
“You think he wasn’t?” I wasn’t convinced he wasn’t. He’d saved Amelia’s life. A life for a life.
There was a long moment of consideration.
“He’s very creative with his words. It didn’t seem that way at first. It seemed like he was asking for my help to prevent the destruction of Umbryth.
It felt like a grand assignment. Like I was the only one who could save the world type of responsibility.
” She shrugged. “I wasn’t gullible enough to believe that.
But I did get the impression that what she’d done would have consequences.
And I would be used to find her. I got the impression that not only was I saving your life but hers as well. I don’t want her dead.”
Amelia wanted remorse, and for her mother to willingly relinquish the stolen magic, a grand redemption arc I was confident she’d never see.
“He gave me the thaumavore, allowing me to right so many of her wrongs. She’s magicless.”
“And so are you.”
“I have the protection of my coven. She has diminished value to anyone who wishes to use her to get to you or even replicate what she did. And she’s a cautionary tale. How likely is someone willing to risk doing what she did when the result could be the complete loss of their magic?”
I believed there were some witches who’d consider the risk worth the reward.
Rubbing my hand over my chest in the manner she’d done earlier, I smiled. “Gratitude and pride,” I offered. She beamed. “I wish you would have told me instead of being so sketchy about it.”
“No one knew the specifics, not even my coven. It would have complicated things. You all would have tried to talk me out of it or stop me. I needed to do it,” she admitted.
“I’ll have to tell my coven everything. Most of everything,” she revised, knowing that to adhere to the oath, her deal with the shadow god had to be omitted.
As she turned into my driveway, we both got a glimpse of the massive wolf.
Amelia quickly pushed the gear into park and hopped out of the car, following the huge animal trotting into my backyard.
“You’re beautiful,” she prattled, slowly approaching him.
The flattery removed the menace from his face.
Shallow, conceited beast, I thought uncharitably. “Wolfie? Obsidian? Coal?” Amelia mocked. “No wonder he didn’t like any of them.” She sat on the ground and so did he, nestling against her and seeming to enjoy her chastising me.
Sitting down next to them, I asked, “What should we call him?”
He looked at Amelia with a confidence he’d never shown me, giving me previously hidden insights into his personality.
“Magnus?” she asked the mercurial wolf, who nodded his approval before dropping his head into her lap.
“Magnus it is. Latin for great,” she explained to him. I suspected he already knew.
Magnus’s arrival and Amelia’s fascination with him made it difficult to disclose to her everything that had happened over the past few days.
I cryptically explained the measures I’d taken to release my magic.
Magnus’s keen expression and eyes reminded me there was a human locked in there. I was careful with my words.
“I have a very unique acquisition,” I said.
“Two acquisitions.” The grimoire was still in my possession, and it was doubtful Corrine knew of Diehle’s death.
I speculated whether the grimoire could help me with my spellbook.
Amelia was so distracted by Magnus she didn’t care that I left and came back with the grimoire and my spellbook.
The grimoire snagged her attention with more interest than when I’d showed it to her the first time.
Ever aware of the wolf, who despite extensively enjoying Amelia’s attention as she stroked his fur, kept his ear perked, listening to every word, our conversation was reduced to coded language and exchanges of looks that I knew she got.
I was silent when I placed my spellbook on her lap and she flipped through the blank pages.
Her confusion heightened when I placed my hand on it, and the unique words and symbols appeared.
Her eyes widened as she looked at me. The energy shift was missing the warmth of our decades of friendship and the sisterhood we’d developed.
It was riddled with concern and fear. Blinking several times, she smiled, but it lacked any of her usual affection.
“Okay,” she managed through a tight, forced smile, “what do we do with this?” She held up the grimoire that I’d placed in front of me.
“It should be returned to Corrine.”
“Not before we see if it can be translated,” she asserted. I nodded, making it a priority to ask Cirrian when I saw him again. Once everyone learned about the new demon in the territory, speculation about Deihle’s absence would be on everyone’s mind. Corrine knew that I’d interacted with him.
“It would improve your standing with her.” Amelia responded to my unspoken thought. “You killed a demon? She’d probably ask you to dispose of the new one and keep doing it until they no longer wanted any part of this territory.”
She wasn’t wrong. Taking my hand, she placed it on the book again, watching the reappearance of text. Magnus’s head shot up. He turned to look at the gate and was on his feet. Then he hopped over the gate with the ease of a gazelle and was gone.
“Cirrian’s here,” I said, answering her confused look. “He responds like that every time.” Which prompted me to tell her my concerns about the lycanthropes.
“Ask him? Has he lied to you before?”
“No but he’s very good at circumvention and lies of omission.”
“You’re good at that, too, which gives you the advantage of asking questions in a way that he has to give you the truth.”
I glared at her.
“It’s a compliment. I know it doesn’t seem like one, but you’ve had to develop that skill to work with the non-breathers.
” She had a plethora of unflattering names for vampires.
“So ask him”—she tapped the grimoire—“and to translate this, too. It would be a good offering to my coven after telling them I no longer have magic.”
Cirrian made his appearance as we were standing up. “I’ll be in your house,” he said, disappearing before either one of us could greet him.
“Malicious compliance,” I explained. “I requested that he inform me before just popping up in my house.”
“This counts?”
“To insolent shadow gods it does. He probably believes he deserves accolades for his bare minimum compliance.”
“No accolades or appreciation needed,” he teased from the backdoor landing. He glanced at my newly acquired spellbook and the grimoire.
Amelia’s smile widened, and she marched over to him and handed him the grimoire. “We need you to translate this,” she said. His brows inched up, but he didn’t take hold of it. She pushed it into his chest, assuming he’d grab it, and let out a disgusted sigh when it fell to the ground.
He’d never win in an engagement of will against Amelia.
The grimoire remained on the ground; she turned, came to me, and gave me a tight hug.
“He’ll do it,” she asserted with more confidence that I could even begin to fake.
It dimmed slightly when she turned to leave and found Cirrian gone and the grimoire where it had fallen.
“He is an asshole,” she grumbled before giving me a small wave and leaving.
Well, she left it on the ground, too. So was he the only one?