Chapter 16
The following night, I packed everything I needed for the seeing potion and started off to the wishing well. The big stone structure was tucked away in a quiet clearing, deep in the heart of the forest. It was one of the places where I felt most connected to my energy.
The sun had set an hour or so before, and I stood with a small breeze to my face, taking in the cool evening air.
The brightness of the full moon lit the forest in a mist of silver.
I felt the life of all the living things around me, the force permeating my skin like a sweetly perfumed lotion.
I loved this feeling. It called to me softly when I was indoors, and I dreamt of it when I slept.
I started to ready all the tools for the sacred circle.
I had done this plenty of times before but always with someone there to guide me.
Tonight, for the first time, I was on my own.
Candles flickered in the light breeze. Howard circled above and would warn me of any danger.
The moonlight was so bright that he cast a shadow as, every so often, his silhouette crossed directly in front of the moon.
I had about an hour until the moon was high enough to become the last part of the power I needed to cast the spell and create the potion.
I needed Abbey. She should have been here to help with this one.
It was complicated, and potions were the weakest of my skills.
Given that I didn’t need potions for fighting, Bevin had promised to work on them after the final battle.
I would have to do the best I could and hope I didn’t screw it up.
Abbey had jotted everything down so she wouldn’t forget anything. At least I had her notes.
The search for those notes in her room, however, had been agonizing.
The place smelled of her. All her Abbey-sized things had reminded me of her funny nature, how she brimmed with life.
I hadn’t cried while I was in her personal space.
I missed her more than I could have dreamed and I was drowning in guilt, but it was time to harden myself to my new life.
I prayed she could stay alive long enough for me to get to her.
Hold on.
I was just about to close the circle—keeping the power and positive energy in and the negativity out—when I heard footfalls heading toward me and pulled out my blade. I was still jumpy after yesterday and was taking no more chances.
Manus emerged from the woods, his face smug and strong as usual.
“I thought I’d find you here,” he said, showing little concern for the collection of herbs and candles he would certainly recognize and from which surmise my plan.
“Manus, I have to do this tonight. I know your feelings on the matter. Please leave me to do what I have to,” I said, turning back to the circle.
He stepped into it. “You can’t do this alone.”
I shot up straight. “You have so little faith in me that you don’t think I can hold a circle?”
He cringed and I saw the pain that drained his color. Guilt over his outburst yesterday was etched in the lines of his face. I shouldn’t have been so blunt, but I needed him to be the strong one, the one who would punch me square in the gut without holding back.
He went to his knee, his head bowed low. “I have come to give what assistance I can.”
I had figured that Doran would order him to keep me calm and as low key as possible. If he came to help me now, it was certainly against her orders. Against everything he believed. “You can’t, Manus. You have Doran to follow.”
He looked up at me. “I swore my oath to you, not Doran. I will follow you to the end of your life or mine. I feared for you last night. I never lost faith in you. I’m sorry I expressed my fear so badly. I haven’t felt that particular emotion before.”
“Ever?” I sat cross-legged in front of him. Now that he’d mentioned it, I had seen worry from him, anger—but never true, deep-down, overtaking fear.
“Not real fear, the kind that turns your gut to snakes and your heart to pudding. I didn’t handle it well.
” He let himself fall to the ground, sitting with one knee bent up and his arm resting on it, the color still gone from his face.
“I couldn’t think the unimaginable. The thought that Feldema might somehow trick you to your death…
She knows as well as Tynan and I that you will go to that island to save your friend and your father.
I fear it’s a trap. And I fear if we’re lucky enough to make it off that island, she will trick you again in the battle. ”
“You can’t go with me, Manus. I can’t ask you to disobey Doran’s orders.”
“She never ordered me not to go, Keena. She ordered you not to go.”
He had a point. I didn’t know what she’d do once she found out, but I had no choice. I had to follow my heart. “If I don’t save them, what hope do I have for the rest of my duties? I’ll lead the Kith with my heart, Manus. The heart that is Demon, Witch, and human.”
He smiled at me, reaching out to gently touch my face.
His green eyes twinkled in the moonlight.
“That is why I have to help you. I spent the night thinking about your life and your strength. You’ve faced all this with such fire.
I realized that what is in your heart is precisely what will make you a great leader.
I will follow you, Keena, and I will fight your battles with pride.
” He looked at the cauldron. “And I will help you set your circle so you don’t turn that poor bird into a toad. ”
“What?”
“Your cauldron must be in the west side of the circle to invoke the spirit of knowing.” Shaking his head, he moved the small copper bowl that served as my cauldron before setting it on a stand that would allow a candle to be lit beneath.
He then rearranged some of the other tools.
He stepped outside the circle and made himself comfortable sitting up against the well.
I stood in the center and swept the circle with a bundle of lavender, then closed my eyes.
“Let this space be clear for my energies. Hold it secure from evil and discord.” A golden bubble floated up around me and the candle flames burned straight, untouched by the breeze outside the circle.
The light reflected off the bubble surrounding me.
I could see Manus through it, the bubble making him look golden like the colors of the setting sun.
I took a burning candle and used it to light the purple candles at the points, invoking their powers.
“I call to the Earth and to the North to strengthen my circle and the power within,” I said, lighting the first one.
“I call to the Air and the East to enliven the circle and the power within. I call to the South and the Fire to warm the circle.” I lit the last with a bit of hesitation.
“To the West and Water, I ask for the cleansing that will hold the circle pure.”
A ripple ran over the bubble, leaving a charge of energy within.
I dabbed my fingers in a bowl of oil and made the sign of the cross on my head to anoint my powers to each of the directions.
The ripple coursed through the circle again.
It was closed, and it would be a place for me to come and meditate and practice my skills from then on.
The ground was singed along the bottom where I had drawn the circle.
I had one just like it in the cellar at the manor.
This one felt stronger. The wild was working with me, through me.
I gathered the ingredients on the ground as I sat in front of the cauldron.
The hair on my arms and the back of my neck danced with the energy of the circle.
I felt alive. I poured the rest of the anointing oil into the copper cauldron and lit a candle under it.
I waited for it to heat to the warmth of a lover’s touch.
In the case of my recent love life, that was pretty warm.
I thought of Tynan, who would be wondering where I was when he woke.
I couldn’t rush through this, though. He would wait.
I faced the western horizon and prayed to the invisible sun.
“I ask of the Sun to invoke the power of light magic into my circle.” I added the first of the ingredients to the cauldron.
“Allspice from the Orient for positive energy.” I crumbled the spice into the oil.
“Comfrey, from the island of WildLand, please grant me safe travel.” I tore off a piece of it and dropped it in, the smells already starting to mingle.
“Cinnamon, grant Howard the psychic energy to communicate with my eyes.” It sizzled as it hit the oil.
I turned to the east and looked to the shadows of the night. “I ask of the Shadows to invoke the power of wild magic in my circle.” I continued with more ingredients. “Juniper berries, to extend Howard’s vision. Balsam tree, for spirit communication, to spread wide with the wings of the hawk.”
I opened a vial that Abbey had gotten me.
I have no idea where she got it, but she was nothing if not resourceful.
I hoped silently that resourcefulness was helping her now.
“Dragon’s blood, for the binding of me to the wings of the hawk.
” Then I dropped in a feather from Howard’s head, plucked from my mark, brown and white at the base with an orange tip.
I took up a mortar and pestle and ground the blood-of-the-dead coral—the ingredient that caused me to lose my friend. I tilted it to Manus. “More,” he said. I continued grinding until it was dust and tilted the pestle to him again. He strained to see through the circle and then nodded his head.
Kneeling over the cauldron and facing north, I chanted, “Coral, from the dead of the sea, block unwanted thoughts and project the hawk’s vision solely to me.”
Manus coughed to get my attention before I poured the dust into the potion. “Tears,” he said. I didn’t understand. “You need to add part of your vision. It needs your tears so you can see.”
“Oh.” Tears would be easy, I just thought of Abbey and my father and they came easily.
“Just a couple,” he said. I leaned over the cauldron and let two tears fall into the mixture. They sizzled as they splashed into the heated oil.
I stood and invoked the Goddess to bring her powers to me and infuse them in my potion. Finally, I dumped in the blood-of-the-dead coral to prevent unwanted thoughts. That would protect Howard from others using his powers and spying on me through him.
The potion flared at the addition of the coral.
It gurgled and boiled for a few seconds then glowed a vibrant green.
I took out a small amulet and dipped it into the shimmering green liquid.
It flared suddenly with an orange flame and hissed as it enveloped the amulet.
The power of the potion in the cauldron fizzled and died when the amulet was sealed.
Now it just looked like oil and herbs. The magic was cast.
I had hung the amulet from a small strap of leather, which I dipped into the oil to seal the flexible material.
I doused each candle with the proper thanks to the directions and spirits then stepped through the circle to break it. “Thanks,” I said to Manus. “I almost forgot the tears.”
“No problem, that’s why I’m here. Want to try it out?”
I called to Howard. He immediately swooped down, barely missing Manus’s head as he landed on my arm.
He was huge for a hawk—and heavy. Manus took the amulet and tied it to the hawk’s right leg.
Howard raised his wings and made a sharp call of protest to the attachment, but settled down once Manus quit fiddling with the ties.
I bounced him on my arm to get him moving again, and he obliged, sailing out of the clearing.
I didn’t see anything.
“You have to invoke, Keena, otherwise the spell is incomplete.”
Duh, I thought and closed my eyes and called to him in my mind.
It was blurry at first, but soon the moon’s brightness and the beauty of his sight came into the sharpest vision I had ever experienced.
He could see far better than I could and even in the dark, everything was crystal clear.
Howard shook his head a couple times. “Is it hurting him?”
“Nah, it’s just that he can feel you there with him, like you can when you communicate with Tynan.”
Howard took a deep dive toward the ocean and plunged in his talons in an attempt to snag a fish near the surface.
I gave a gasp at the quickness of it, the speed of his movements.
I felt a rush from the sensation of traveling with him, the feeling of freedom as he circled the prey he had missed on the first try.
I could see half of WildLand from this height.
It was a breathtaking, moonlight-silver landscape from his point of view.
I opened my eyes to see Manus looking at me. “That was incredible.”
“I’ll bet. We’ll have to try it for me someday.”
“We need to get back, I told the others we would be training. But I think Tynan knows better. No need to make him worry yet.”
Of course, Tynan knew exactly what I intended to do—he just didn’t know when.