Chapter 9 #3
Then why did you promise to share? he thought irritably. “I won’t force you to tell me.”
“No, you asked.” She leaned her hip against the counter.
Maxim had the sudden impression that she was nervous about something. Her fingers drummed her upper arm in the same way he used to when he’d wanted to hide shaky hands, and her large inhalations were just like the ones he took when trying to slow a galloping heartbeat.
“I told you about the types of magic,” she said.
At Maxim’s nod, she went on. “Natural, which is channeling the magic in the world. Chemical, with mixing powders, herbs. The sort that needs cauldrons. There’s verbal, which uses spellbooks and words.
Music, too, sometimes. The last one is called Reaper magic.
Witches use it to control souls. Bodies. ”
“Sounds metal.” Maxim went over her list in his head. Verbal, somatic, necromantic.
“It’s not.”
He pulled himself out of a lofty fantasy of writing a tell-all book titled “What Gygax Knew” to see a look of distress on Pippa’s face. She seemed to be gathering her words, her courage, or both, so he let her move forward at her own pace.
“Reaper magic is . . .” She sighed and tugged on a lock of her hair. “It’s manipulation of something that already has a will. The local covens don’t look kindly on it. The one I’d like to be part of really doesn’t look kindly on it.”
“Is it dark magic?”
“What?”
“The evil stuff.”
Pippa didn’t comment on his brilliant word choice. She gave him a wry smile. “Any magic can be evil, depending on how it’s used.”
“You should put that on a mug.”
She snorted.
“What does any of this have to do with familiars?”
Pippa turned so her back was against the counter, her profile to Maxim.
At this angle, her overbite was more pronounced, the intense worrying of her lower lip more apparent.
“Everyone has a soul. When we die, they go into a . . . a void. We return to the playground of the universe, I guess, if the universe has a cosmically infinite ball pit. A familiar is made when someone with Reaper magic pulls a soul out of that void, that space, and forces it into an animal.”
Very metal. He didn’t say that out loud, of course, because the entire concept was settling on him in a way that made his skin crawl. He’d always thought of death as permanent. Was it better or worse to discover that it wasn’t quite so?
“I learned I had Reaper magic when I was eight. A bird had been hit by a car along the road outside our house. I ran out to it. In that moment, the magic in me understood what to do more than I did. I didn’t realize what had happened, only that before, the bird was dead, and after I touched on this power, it was hopping around again.
I’d only used Natural magic, and this was something wonderful and new.
I was excited. Happy. Until the bird opened its beak and screamed. ”
“Jesus.” Maxim tried to imagine how he would have responded to something like that as a child. Shit himself and cry, probably. “So this coven won’t let you in because of something you did when you were eight? That sounds overly harsh. Why do you need to be part of this group?”
“Because they’re influential,” Pippa said. There was an edge to her voice that prevented it from sounding fully disheartened. “They have connections and funding, and every coven member gets a salary more than what a college dropout can easily find.”
“Seems like they could overlook a childhood mistake.”
Pippa swallowed harshly and reached for the tea box. Even from as far away as he was, Maxim could see the unsteadiness of her fingers as she ripped open a packet.
“Reaper magic is passed down through bloodlines. My father’s was .
. . powerful. He did some very bad things.
To the city. To its people. It doesn’t matter if I haven’t used that magic since I was a child, the fact that I have it at all is enough reason for the Ash Coven to make my application process”—she sucked in a breath and sent him a pained smile—“difficult.”
She was speaking more steadily. Maxim could easily imagine that these words had been bottled up inside her for longer than they should have been, and once released, each one came more easily than the one before.
“Shit. I’m sorry.” Maxim took a breath. Then another. “When I was a child, I had terrible anxiety.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pippa pause her tea preparation and turn to listen to him.
“I had panic attacks almost every day. No one was sure why. My upbringing was entirely ordinary, loving, and happy. But still, I’d slip into states where my palms would sweat and my stomach would churn until I vomited.
I was bullied for it. Badly. Which then made the anxiety worse.
That’s how I got this.” He rubbed a finger along his crooked nose.
“The strongest kids in the grade cornered me on the playground. I hid the break well enough that when my parents noticed, it had already set.”
He risked a glance at Pippa. She was looking at him intently, and even a little guiltily. No pity, though. He didn’t think he’d be able to handle pity.
“That must have been terrible,” she said quietly.
He faced her. “I know how it feels to have a part of you that you don’t like. You feel that it could be better, should be better. But it’s still you. It’s who you are.”
“Sounds like a nice way to think.” There was a morsel of wistfulness in the way she said it. “Thank you, though. For telling me.”
Maxim tipped his head at her in a way that played at lightheartedness. “Always happy to trauma bond.”
She laughed. “Thank you for not fleeing, either.”
“From what, tales of necromancy? Please. I’ve faced worse. Imaginary, of course. But worse.”
Her smile didn’t fade. “Is that why you learned so many ways to punch?”
“Yeah. It felt good to have a hobby that could help me protect myself. There’s only so much damage you can do with a foam sword.”
Confusion flashed across Pippa’s face, but Maxim didn’t feel like stories of the time he’d dabbled in LARPing would fit the atmosphere of her apartment. It seemed almost callous to follow up tales of woe with his own attempts at adventure.
“What about you?” he said.
Pippa had filled her mug with water and was holding her hand over the rim. “What about me what?”
“There must be something frivolous you like to do when you’re not saving the city.”
“A hobby?” She chuckled. “I like to cook.”
“Because feeding yourself is truly the most frivolous hobby of them all.”
Pippa rolled her eyes, then gestured to her crooked bookshelf. “I’m starting a collection of cookbooks. There are a few old ones, some I’ve bought off demons.”
Maxim quickly reeled his thoughts back from wondering if Eaten Right By the Duke was in fact a cookbook. “From demons? Are you serious?”
“Some of them have really phenomenal ways to use butter. And their spice blends? Incredible.”
Maxim chuffed a laugh. “Any favorites so far?”
Pippa circled her hand over the mug and pursed her lips in concentration. Maxim watched, fascinated, as the water in her mug began to steam beneath her palm.
“You wouldn’t be able to pronounce it,” she said at last. “There’s a lot of gargling sounds in the language. I’m pretty sure it’s because their recipes are mostly cheese. The phlegm, you know.” She gestured to her throat. “But I could make it for you sometime. If you’d like.”
“I do have a hard time saying no to cheese.”
When Pippa smiled at him, he was startled by the lightness in it.
Her posture was more relaxed than it had been only a few minutes ago.
The change entranced him. He wasn’t sure if he’d seen this attitude on her before.
He definitely hadn’t ever seen the mischievous cast to her expression, the sort that put a dimple in her cheek and a glow to her skin.
Maxim stared. He had to. He stared at the steaming mug she took in both hands and lifted to her nose and at the gentle purse of her lips as she blew. The wanting within him filled his chest so swiftly and fiercely that he almost expected to explode.
Her eyes connected with his over the rim of her cup. Just for a moment, he wondered if she could sense the shape of his thoughts, and just for a moment, he wasn’t sure if that would be so bad.
Under the weight of his staring, Pippa glanced down at her cup.
“Sure you don’t want any tea?”