Joy of Witchcraft (24 page)

No. I was mistaken. Skyler did not come to the door at all.

Her warder, Jeffrey, took point as Siga stepped to the side. His ice eyes narrowed as his gaze met mine. I’d always thought of Jeffrey as a benevolent older man, sort of like an uncle who gave US bonds as birthday presents and delivered lectures on the value of compound interest.

There was nothing avuncular about Jeffrey now. He wasn’t carrying any visible weapon, no sword, no edged blade stashed in a sheath. But like all warders, Jeffrey was trained in more martial arts than I could name. The mere fact that his fingers were flexing set off warning bells deep in my mind.

Those same bells obviously echoed down the hall. David closed the distance between us, shouldering Neko aside. He
did
wear his sword, and he didn’t hesitate to let his hand fall meaningfully on the grip. Once he’d made his presence known, he eased back two paces—the better to clear his scabbard, if necessary.

I resisted the urge to wipe my palms against my thighs.

“Magistrix,” Jeffrey said, as if no one had moved in the hallway. He inclined his head deeply, a semblance of perfect respect. He used the motion, though, turning his head to the side just enough to take stock of Caleb and Tony in the shadows. A blue vein in his temple began to pulse.

“Warder,” I answered, lapsing into formality to match his age and tone. “We seek colloquy with the witch who calls herself Skyler Winthrop.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. My stilted phrasing automatically sounded like an accusation. If I was challenging Skyler’s very name, questioning whether she worked under an alias, I immediately sounded critical and cynical and suspicious.

Well, too late now. I’d just have to see if I could get this dance back on the right footing. And if I was right to sound mistrustful? If Skyler was my true enemy? Then tone and phrasing would be the least of my concern.

Jeffrey’s tone was grave. “My witch is indisposed now, Magistrix. Perhaps if you were to return tomorrow?”

“Your witch is under my care, Warder. If she is ill, I am obligated to assist her.”

I kept my words a simple declaration, avoiding too much syrup, too much innuendo. I could see the counters ticking over in Jeffrey’s mind, the re-evaluation of David’s distance, a repeated tally of the known and suspected weapons ranged against him. I could not hear any movement behind the door, nothing that told me where Siga was standing, whether Skyler was even
in
the room.

“
Warder
,” I said, giving full emphasis to his title. “You are in my house. Your witch is a student in my magicarium. Step aside.”

Without a civil option, Jeffrey retreated from the doorway, but only enough to take up a vigilant stance beside Skyler. She stood in the center of the room, giving every impression of being a bored student interrupted in the middle of coursework. She was dressed in an ice-blue kimono, with the sash pulled viciously tight around her hips. Her long dirty-blond hair was piled on top of her head, secured by a single lacquered chopstick. Her feet were bare, and her toenails were coated with a glimmering shade that shifted between beige and crystalline blue. Everything about her looked painted, poised, as if she’d spent days planning for my arrival.

Siga shifted closer as Skyler stepped up, planting her feet and making it clear she was offering her powers to her mistress. I, of course, had no intention of giving that mistress the opportunity to work a dram of magic of her own. Instead, I began my inquisition, relying on the same formula I’d used with Alex.

“We seek a traitor among us,” I said.

Skyler didn’t waste time with denials or entreaties. Instead, she pulled herself up to her full height. Next to her, I felt lumpy and misshapen, a poor model that the gods might have used while they were designing the perfection that became Skyler. “You’ll have better luck elsewhere,” she said, with all the cool confidence of an old-time movie actress. I half expected her to whip out a cigarette holder from somewhere, to strike a pose with her chin up and her palm resting on one hip.

“We’re searching here,” I said. I gestured behind me, signaling Neko to approach. His steps were silent as he glided to my side. His eyes were wide, and I could see he was more than a little captivated by the ice princess in front of us. Nevertheless, he presented the oaken cask I had ordered him to take from the vault.

Jeffrey shouldered in front of Skyler as Neko presented the container. The warder raised his hands, curling his fingers into a defensive position. He looked equally ready to lunge at whatever we produced or to throw it back at us.

I nodded once, and Neko—ever the showman—flipped back the lid on the miniature trunk. I knew exactly what was inside; I could anticipate the reactions from Skyler, from Jeffrey, from Siga, if her flat face registered any emotion at all.

The cask was lined with black velvet, fitted to nestle a bottle. That receptacle was made out of cobalt blue glass, the color so deep it almost seemed black. The vial was about six inches high, rectangular in form, with the corners barely rubbed smooth. It was stoppered with a silver-topped cork.

As I lifted the bottle out of its velvet nest, I could feel the vibration of its contents. I’d made the elixir the week before, as soon as I’d decided to go forward with testing my students. It would have been stronger if I’d brewed it on the night of a full moon, but I hadn’t been able to wait. Instead, I’d selected my clearest emerald, setting the stone in the bottom of a silver bowl. I’d poured water collected at a running stream over the crystal and left it to soak up what moonlight there was for seven long hours. I’d decanted the charged water into my glass bottle, topping off the magical infusion with a few stiff belts of Ketel One.

While a look of curiosity crossed Skyler’s haughty face, Jeffrey seemed far more suspicious. “What is it?” he asked.

“A simple emerald elixir,” I said evenly.

“For honesty?” Skyler choked out a scornful laugh.

“For honesty,” I agreed. “For protection against lies.” Emerald was a stone of great vision, of intuition.

Now, I plucked the vial from its velvet bed, and Neko hastened to stow away the oaken box. In its place, he produced a silver tasting cup, a simple bowl of hammered metal that shone from a recent polishing. When I nodded, he secured a matching flask from his pocket. He poured a decent measure into the cup.

“Pure rainwater,” I said, and then I raised the cobalt glass bottle. “With three drops of the elixir.”

“I won’t drink,” Skyler said.

“Then you’ll leave the magicarium,” I countered. Even though I kept my words even, my pulse quickened. What secret was Skyler hiding?

“Siga,” Skyler ordered, not bothering to glance at her familiar. “Start packing my things.”

“Siga,” I interrupted. “Take one step away from your witch, and I’ll turn you back into a statue.”

I wasn’t certain I could do that. I knew the technicalities, of course. I’d read them years ago in
On Awakyning and Bynding a Familiarus
. I understood the process of chanting the awakening spell backwards, of gathering a familiar’s psychic energy and enclosing it in a confined space.

But I also knew that physical contact was necessary, direct touch for every word of the spell. And I was virtually certain Jeffrey would intervene before I could set a fingertip on Skyler’s familiar. Jeffrey would intervene, and David would step up. Caleb and Tony would pour into the room, and I’d be a lot worse off than I was now, merely facing down a rebellious student.

I directed my next words to Skyler. “Go, if you must. But if you walk out of this house, know that my first call will be to the Boston Coven Mother. I’ll tell her everything that’s happened here, every spell this magicarium has worked. I’ll let her know precisely what that satyr did, and the orthros, and the harpy. I’ll tell her you refused to be questioned, and I’ll let her draw her own conclusions.”

I wasn’t bluffing, not precisely. I
could
call the Boston Coven Mother, once I completed a bit of preliminary research and found out who she was. And she might even take my call. She might be scandalized by the behavior of one of her witches, of a scion in a family as old as the United States of America.

There was always the chance, though, that the Boston Coven Mother would laugh in my face. She might choose her Back Bay connections over any tales I brought to her doorstep. She might side with Skyler.

From the look on Skyler’s face, though, I’d selected the right goad. Caught between the emerald elixir and being shamed in front of her Coven Mother, Skyler chose the magical drink.

She thrust her hand toward Neko, a rude command that he pass her the silver cup. He raised his eyebrows, clearly contemplating a sarcastic retort, but he was better trained than that. Instead, he kept his silence, watching intently as I added three drops from the dark glass bottle.

To the mundane eye, there was nothing special about those drops. They were as clear as the rainwater in the cup Skyler now held. The vodka couldn’t be smelled.

But any witch with a modicum of training could sense the energy dripped into that vessel. The emerald set up a strong vibration; I could feel it in my breastbone, in my heart. There was a purity there, a oneness, as if all the green of the natural world had been brought together and condensed into a single stone.

For all the calm dispassion on Skyler’s face, she might have been holding a glass of mediocre Chardonnay. Jeffrey was more transparent. I saw the influence of the stone on his face, the softening, just a little, of the rugged line of his jaw. I watched the mere presence of the elixir relax his shoulders. What did he know that I didn’t know?

Skyler’s eyes were glaciers as she raised the cup to her lips. She paused a full minute, eyeing me over the rim. I felt Neko tighten in apprehension; I sensed David’s growing alarm as she posed in the center of the room. Caleb and Tony had to be wondering out in the hall; they had to be concerned at the long silence, the perfect stillness.

And then she drank.

Three bobs of her throat, so smooth they seemed like satin flowing over her neck. Skyler drained the cup easily, flicking the tip of her tongue against her lips when she was through.

I waited for the intense harmony of the emerald’s vibration to shift. I’d feel it as a tug on my heart if the stone was forced to battle Skyler’s innate self. The elixir would burn like fire if it were consumed by a liar.

But nothing happened. Nothing at all. I took a deep breath, and the resonance of the elixir began to fade from my chest, exactly the way it would if the drink had been consumed in an ordinary magical working by ordinary honest witches.

“Magistrix.” Skyler set my title between us, both an acknowledgment of the power I’d wielded over her and a challenge for me to take the next step.

“Thank you,” I said, holding out my hand for her to return the tasting cup. “I’m sorry we had to do that, but you know the threat this magicarium faces.”

She gave back the cup, but her gaze remained opaque. I saw no concession that my test had been necessary, no agreement that we faced a common enemy.

Suddenly, I was exhausted. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into the great king-size bed in the bedroom I shared with David. He could take care of me the way he had when I was first finding my way through my powers. He could slip off my shoes, ease a blanket over my shoulders, lie next to me until I drifted off into a healing, dreamless sleep.

But I didn’t have that luxury. I was still the magistrix.

“Very well,” I said, as if Skyler had agreed that the test was necessary. “There’s one last matter—a vow from all three of you. Swear you will not speak of this meeting to any other students.”

“I will not swear.” Skyler’s words were stones.

“It’s necessary,” I said. “I still have two students left to test, and they must not be alerted to what I’m doing.”

“No.”

“I’m not saying you’d betray us intentionally. All it would take is a glance, a wayward thought from Siga to one of the other familiars. Swear and bind her. Bind yourself.”

Skyler’s voice collected all the shards of ice at the North Pole. “I will never act at your command again, Magistrix. And that is the last time I call you by that title, because I’m leaving.”

You can’t leave!

I almost shouted the words aloud. She was my student. I’d
chosen
her. I’d felt her mental powers, the freezing touch of her workings, a perfect match to the cobalt energy of her magical abilities. She’d been tested. She was safe, an ally. She couldn’t walk away now.

But she could. Every student was always free to leave a magicarium. Just as any witch could walk away from a coven. I’d done as much, and I couldn’t require more from my student.

David found words before I could. “We’ll watch you then. Until you step past the wards of this house.”

Jeffrey nodded. I could not read his expression, whether he was pleased to leave Blanton House, or if he’d rather stay. Perhaps he though his mistress was being willful. Or maybe he believed she was well within her rights for leaving. In the end, it didn’t matter. He was sworn to her, and he would do whatever she required.

Skyler barely glanced at her familiar. “You heard me,” she said. “Start packing, Siga.” The command was all the more dismissive because it was sheathed in ice. “I want to be out of here by midnight.”

With that command, there was nothing left to say. David hastily cast wards about the room, cutting off the possibility of Skyler working magic to reach my remaining students. Tony was summarily delegated to keep watch while Siga packed. He took up a post just inside the door, his hand on the grip of his sword. His task was to make sure Skyler did not resort to more mundane methods of communication—phoning my other students, texting them, sending an email.

I headed out of the room, trying not to flinch before Jeffrey’s glare. My search for the traitor had just cost the magicarium a skilled, if prickly, student. I’d destroyed any hope I had of building bridges with the Boston Coven, the oldest and most respected group of witches in the country. I’d uprooted whatever balance my students might have been learning, whatever comfort they’d taken in the communal work we’d begun to perform.