Single Witch's Survival Guide (29 page)

That was her right. In fact, our ritual might be stronger for Raven’s nakedness—she would be true to herself, true to her powers. The Madison Academy was all about witches’ journeys of self-discovery, and I had to trust that energy, had to have faith in Raven’s determination. That knowledge was part of the gift that Gran had given me, by insisting I live with my witches. Raven and I might never be friends, but I understood her in a way I hadn’t when she appeared on this same porch, back in June.

Similarly, I had learned to trust my students’ entourages, their warders and familiars. I scarcely recognized Caleb and Tony. They’d set aside the robes of our abortive Lughnasadh working, choosing formal attire instead. Caleb had shaved, transforming himself from a shaggy bear back to the bluff, good-natured giant I had instinctively trusted upon his arrival to the farm.

Tony seemed to have taken a page out of Neko’s fashion guidebook—I could swear he had
product
in his hair. His fists clenched and unclenched in a steady rhythm next to the satin stripe on his tuxedo pants, and his eyes darted about the porch as if he suspected attackers behind every post. I appreciated the aura of constant watchfulness.

Hani stood beside Raven, his freckled face tilted toward her like a Gerbera daisy to the sun. Kopek held himself at a bit of a distance, closer to Emma than anyone else. His shoulders slumped, highlighting his eternal appearance of dejection, but his eyes were clear and focused.

Neko glided over to me. “Nice hair,” he whispered, cupping his hand against my elbow as if to steady me as I stepped from the inset marble to the wooden porch. I resisted the urge to raise my fingertips to my scarcely tamed curls. I’d twisted them off my neck, and pinned them into place with a single wand of ash. I waited for some sarcastic follow-up, but for once my familiar seemed truly to approve of my appearance. I allowed myself a fortifying breath, drawing from his store of reflexive power.

“All right,” I said to everyone. “David’s waiting for us at the beach.”

We walked together through the woods. I clutched at my full-length skirt, pulling it high enough above my sandals that I didn’t need to worry about tripping, about snagging the cloth on any of the desiccated vines that ran beside the forest path.

Our group flowed easily. Emma and Raven started out beside each other, but soon split up to walk with their familiars. Tony led the way, aggressively taking point, while Caleb watched from the rear. Neko ranged from the vanguard to my side. Although no one spoke a word, there was comfort in our community. We were bonded together, already working toward our common goal, even though we had yet to frame our first spell.

As we approached the lakeside edge of the woods, I paused and everyone gathered close around me. This was it. The moment I’d waited for, since Raven and Emma appeared on the farmhouse steps. Whatever we had created together, however I had taught my students, now was the moment we’d all be tested.

My fingertips automatically ran to the pendant I wore on a narrow gold chain—a perfect globe of polished amber. The fossilized resin added strength to other magic, enhancing all types of arcane workings. Taking a fortifying breath, I threw back my shoulders, lifted my chin, and led my magicarium onto the beach.

David waited by the dock, standing guard over the Allen Cask. His tux was impeccable, and his sword gleamed in the light of the setting sun. This was the warder I had trusted with my entire magical being. This was the man who had followed me through the storm of our failed Lughnasadh working. This was the lover who had tried to protect me from his past, who had terrified me with his uncompromising search for justice.

This was my partner in all matters magical and mundane.

Holding my gaze without saying a word, David sank to one knee. He never took his eyes from me as he offered up the hilt of his weapon. His hands were steady, and his face was utterly calm.

I crossed to the dock and settled my hands over his. The power of his warder’s magic jolted against mine, surging into my physical body, stiffening my spine. Without having planned to, I lifted the golden chain from around my neck, capturing my amber pendant against the palm of my hand. When I brought it to my lips, it was warm, buzzing with an arcane force like the soul of a thunderstorm trapped inside its myriad of tiny bubbles.

David bowed his head, and I set the chain around his neck. The amber stood out against the pleats of his white shirt, blazing like a miniature sun. He closed his fist over its brilliance, brought the stone to his own lips, and sealed the new contract I had written between us.

He rose then, gliding to his feet with the grace of a panther. I followed his motion and turned back to face my students, their own warders, and their familiars. And that was when I realized we were not alone. Our ritual was no longer a private gathering of the Madison Academy.

Hecate’s Court had arrived.

There were four men and four women. Each was clad in cloth of gold—complicated robes for the men, with ornate sashes woven into intricate knots. The women wore shimmering gowns, as if they had stepped out of the pages of some medieval manuscript.

By all rights, they should have been overwhelmed by the heavy autumn air. They should have been assaulted by the heat and humidity, beaten down by the weight of their finery.

But the court members vibrated with hidden power, with a collective energy. I could sense it without trying, an invisible charge like lightning about to strike. It was as if the Court spoke some unknown arcane language—the equivalent of high church Latin or ancient Greek—while I was mired in some common tongue.

I took a step closer, trying to read the face of the nearest woman, to gauge her disposition toward the Madison Academy and me. But that was another trick of the Watchers’ magic—their features were obscured. The woman closest to me, and all her sisters, all four of the men. No matter how hard I tried to focus, no matter how closely I peered, I could not make out their eyes, their lips. I could not reduce them to humanity.

I fought to quench a shiver of fear. If I could not see the people who judged me, how could be sure I met their demands? How could I offer up the Cask, with its indictment of Norville Pitt?

My incipient panic was shattered by the sound of a throat being cleared. As if summoned by my thoughts, the Head Clerk of Hecate’s Court now stood upon the beach.

Apparently, he had missed the memo that Mabon was a major sabbat. His mud-colored trousers looked like he had slept in them for a week. His short-sleeve dress shirt was wrinkled, and his pocket protector had gone awry. One of his pens had left a dark blue stain on the approximate location of his left nipple.

Nevertheless, Pitt flicked his wrist with all the aplomb of a royal herald. A scroll manifested from the heavy air, and its parchment curls cascaded to the sand at his feet. Another twist, and his pudgy fingers were filled with an enormous quill pen. The feather trembled distractingly as he proclaimed, “We are gathered here to—”

Really? I wanted to shout. Are you really going to use the form of a wedding service?

Before I could recover, David stepped forward and raised his right hand, exclaiming, “Hold!”

He couldn’t speak a Word of Power as I had on the farmhouse porch so many months before; he was not a witch. But his single syllable had nearly the same effect as my Word had done. Pitt stopped his proclamation in mid-syllable. The eight Watchers seemed to lean closer, although not one had shifted on the sand.

I recognized my cue. “Noble ladies,” I said, making obeisance to the Watchers. “Noble lords. I know it is not customary for a magistrix to interrupt a grand proceeding such as this. But I beg your humble indulgence.”

My magicarium was taken off guard. Emma’s face was pinched, and Raven clutched her robe closer about her. Their warders and familiars shifted uncertainly. Neko scrambled to my side, and I sensed his unspoken questions, the pressure of his thoughts, even as he brushed my arm with an offer of power. I regretted surprising all of them this way, but I had not wanted any chance for them to give Pitt an unintended warning.

The Watchers seemed as surprised as my magicarium; it was forever before a woman’s voice proclaimed, “Proceed.”

I could not see who had spoken; the obscuring magic held. I continued to address all eight Watchers, speaking loudly enough for each to hear. “The Jane Madison Academy is indebted to the Court. We are grateful you saw fit to charter our operation, and we are eager to prove ourselves with our Major Working.”

The first Major Working ever required of a magicarium
, I longed to add, but I dared not challenge the Court’s procedure. Instead, I raised one arm to indicate the Allen Cask, hoping my gesture conveyed sufficient grace and poise.

“Honored members, it is customary for a witch to offer up a gift to her Coven Mother upon first meeting. The Madison Academy stands before you today in something of the same position. We recognize your power over us, your authority to license us and bind us in Hecate’s name. And as a gesture of that respect, we offer to you the Allen Cask, and all the riches it contains.”

“What are you doing?” Pitt spluttered. His oily glance slipped from David to me and back again. “What do you think you can accomplish by delay—”

“Peace,” a Watcher interrupted. I could not be certain, but I thought this was a different woman than the one who had spoken before. Pitt choked off his words, but the fury in his bulging eyes was directed at David.

The Watchers seemed to conduct some silent conversation among themselves. I began to think I would have to continue. I would have to make some additional invitation. But the second Watcher said, “We will accept.”

Pitt fussed and muttered as the Court members crossed the beach to the dock. Their golden robes left no impression on the sand; there was no physical evidence of their presence at all. They arrayed themselves around the Cask, standing shoulder to shoulder, alternating men and women. The alabaster glinted, reflecting the brilliant cloth of their gowns.

I could not see the Watchers’ motions. Their hands remained obscured; their eyes stayed cloaked. But I felt their presence as they measured out the magical cloth I had used to wrap the Cask. They tested the knot I had tied. They picked out the eight strands I had woven, the double bonds of earth and air, fire and water. Together, they tugged on the arcane wrapping. As one, they twisted it. And in a flash of gold, they cut it free.

I blinked, and the Cask was open. David’s missive lay on top of the evidence, the parchment explaining all the contents of the box. I could sense the energy of those documents, the charged grommets and ribbons, the magically bonded ink.

And Norville Pitt felt it, too. “What are you doing?” he thundered. As he slipped across the sand, tumbling toward the Cask, he dropped the ornate scroll and his fancy quill pen. “Those are lies! Whatever they say, it’s a lie!”

David took a single step forward, leveling his sword across the edge of the dock. In a heartbeat, Caleb and Tony were there as well, weapons drawn, feet planted in the aggressive stance of warriors.

Pitt scrambled for some sort of magic, some warder’s power, but a golden flare froze him into place.

Unseen, the Watchers had moved again. Now, they were arrayed with their backs to the lake, standing in a semi-circle on the far side of the Cask. David’s parchment glowed, as if it had been invested with some arcane force. I felt the power of eight pairs of eyes bearing down upon me.

“Speak, magistrix.” I thought that was the first woman. “Explain.”

I bowed my head. “These documents will speak for themselves, honored members. They’ll show a record of evil done by one sworn to serve you in all things. They’ll show greed, and lust for power, and disdain for fairness. They’ll show that the Head Clerk of Hecate’s court has been forsworn, and he has served himself first and foremost.”

“Slander!” Pitt shrieked. “Lies!”

But the documents that David and I had compiled had already grown stronger from their time in the Allen Cask. Their bonds were clearer, more obvious, even at a cursory glance. Although I stood at a distance, I could feel the connections between Charters and bank records, between binding contracts and petty receipts.

The Watchers’ silence grew heavier, thicker in a way that I now understood meant they were conferring among themselves. Like falling barometric pressure, their will pressed down upon us, and after I blinked, they were arrayed in a circle around the snarling Head Clerk.

“Norville Pitt.” This time it was a man who spoke, baritone and severe. “You will be bound over to the Court for the hearing of these charges at a date and place to be determined. You—

“You can’t believe them!” Pitt’s face had turned a burgundy that matched Emma’s gown.

The Watcher continued. “You will be be relieved—

“That warder has betrayed Hecate before!” Spittle flew from Pitt’s lips as he pointed at David. “He was stripped of his rank for six years!”

“You will be relieved of your duties immediately—

“He tried to frame me years ago! He forged documents! He’s the liar! Not me! Montrose is the man you want!”

“— and you will be confined to—

“It’s
her
fault!” His finger pointed at me like a broken rowan wand. “She’s only trying to delay her Working! That
bitch
is trying to distract you all!”

The flash of David’s sword was blinding. Caleb and Tony were only a heartbeat behind. All three weapons were leveled at Pitt’s throat, a handbreadth from severing his jugular.

“Stand down!” The shout came from another Watcher, a man with a bass rumble that shook the very beach.

David’s arm trembled. Pitt’s eyes grew large behind his glasses, and he caught his breath, half-snort, half-sob.

I started to reach for the link that bound me to David. I started to gather my will as his witch. I’d promised myself I would never wield that power again, but I needed to save him, needed to keep him from the Court’s boundless wrath. The bond was there—gleaming and bright.