The cross streets in this section of Seattle — including Pine Street, where the front entrance of the Inn at the Market was — all dropped off steeply to the market and the waterfront. Along with the fact that all the neighboring stores and restaurants were closed and therefore dark, this gave the impression that the brightly lit Bacco Cafe was perched on a precipice.
I could see Wisteria settling into a table at the farthest corner of the cafe and ordering something from the server. A tea, I guessed. Oddly, the chairs closest to her had been lifted and flipped onto their tables as if the floor was about to be scrubbed.
Wisteria’s dark blond hair was pulled back into the perfectly smooth French twist she had worn the last time I saw her. Her cornflower-blue, pristinely pressed cotton dress was belted in white to create an empire waist. She looked as if she were about to attend a wedding, but this was everyday attire for the witch. The blue of the dress was a couple of shades lighter than the magic I could see pooled in the palms of her folded hands.
Kett was somewhere in the shadows of one of the storefront stoops just ahead of me. I could taste his magic rather than see him. “Why are you hunting the reconstructionist?” I whispered into the dark night.
“Why do you assume I’m hunting anyone?” Kett murmured back without revealing himself.
“Well, you aren’t working together. Are you? Or dating? Do vampires even date?”
“Your words indicate jealousy, warrior’s daughter.”
“But my tone sounds concerned.”
“Indeed.” Kett laughed. “I would not be hunting a Fairchild witch without permission.”
“Whose permission? And do you have it?”
Kett didn’t answer.
“Have you even met her?” I asked.
“Not officially.”
“And this isn’t any of my business.”
“Not even remotely.”
I sighed. I had my own reasons for being in Seattle, for meeting with the reconstructionist. I wasn’t here to police Kett or Wisteria, if she’d done something to get on the Conclave’s radar.
“She saw you die in London,” I said.
“Yes,” Kett answered. “Perhaps it is best left at that.”
I nodded into the darkness and continued up the sidewalk toward the cafe. I could taste Kandy’s magic no more than a few blocks away, but I wasn’t familiar enough with Warner’s magic to pick up his whereabouts. Or perhaps he was just really good at concealing his magic.
Still tasting the vampire’s peppermint magic somewhere behind me, I stepped through the door. The cafe had a midcentury feel to it — black and white linoleum, Formica tabletops, wire condiment holders — but didn’t go overboard with the aesthetic.
Wisteria looked up as I entered, and I involuntarily flinched from the raging pool of witch magic that overlaid her eyes so densely I had no idea of their actual color. The reconstructionist frowned, but then immediately smoothed the expression from her face. I’d forgotten that the witch held her magic so intensely concentrated behind her eyes, and then in her hands. I imagined it had something to do with how she utilized that magic, but I had never seen witch magic held this way. By taste, Wisteria was nowhere near as powerful as Gran, or even my mom, Scarlett. But as I had the first time I met her, I understood that as tightly coiled as Wisteria Fairchild kept her magic, I didn’t want to be the one to see it all unravel.
“Jade Godfrey.” Wisteria’s American accent was subtle beneath the measured, polite tone that I imagined she had learned in some high-priced private school.
“Wisteria Fairchild. Thank you for meeting me.” I offered her a broad grin as I sauntered over to the table. The cafe was completely empty, and oddly tidy.
“As requested.”
Right. Boundaries erected and acknowledged.
I settled into the seat across from Wisteria, which placed my back to the entrance. No one with a drop of magic in them was going to sneak up on me even if they got past the vampire outside — which I wouldn’t hesitate to say was pretty impossible. Not that I had anything I knew of to worry about in Seattle. Like Vancouver, the Pacific Northwest in general wasn’t a hotbed for magic beyond the witches of the Godfrey coven. A coven that claimed me as one of their own, though I was only half-witch and effectively nonpracticing.
Wisteria changed the position of her folded hands. On first glance, her fingernails were tastefully French manicured. But with a closer look — beyond the magic that coated my human vision — I could see that her nails were painted a shimmery light blue beneath their white tips, rather than the traditional pink.
“Nice manicure.”
“I like yours as well.” Wisteria actually smiled. Well, the edges of her lips quirked upward.
I grinned and tapped my jade-green nails on the table one at a time. “They match my knife.”
Wisteria lost the half-smile, and I instantly regretted my flippant words. I didn’t want the witch to be any more scared of me than she already was.
The server crossed out of the kitchen and quickly unloaded her tray onto our table. She had a ring of pink roses tattooed around her right wrist that matched the pink streaks in her hair. She was also about one-quarter witch, her magic so diluted — just a hint of the grassy tone that told me she was of witch descent — that I hadn’t noticed it until she’d entered the room.
I glanced at Wisteria, who was gazing steadily at my left shoulder. Treating me as if I were a shapeshifter or a vampire, taking direct eye contact as some sort of power play — or an invitation to a power play.
The waitress placed a hot chocolate in front of me, and some sort of floral mint tea by Wisteria. The hot chocolate smelled divine, though slightly sweeter than I usually made it. Then she placed a plate of what looked like mini cheesecakes in the middle of the table.
“Um, hello,” I said.
The server laughed. “Not ours. Fortunately for me, or I’d be three hundred pounds easily.”
“I brought them,” Wisteria said but then didn’t elaborate.
The server placed a fork in front of Wisteria, and another in front of me. “Anything else?”
“No, thank you,” Wisteria said.
The server retreated back behind the front counter and through the swinging door to the kitchen.
I gestured to the plate of sweets. “You’re not trying to woo me, are you? Because for these, I might consider it.”
Wisteria barked out an involuntary laugh, which seemed to surprise her as much as it did me. A slight smile remained on her face as she gracefully lifted a hand to point at individual treats. I imagined it would be terribly painful to be Wisteria Fairchild’s full-time friend. I could pretend that all her apparent perfection was a learned facade to try to make myself feel better. But I could tell as easily as I could see her coiled magic that Wisteria Fairchild was a well-educated, cultured, and thoughtful woman. Around her, all my imperfections would be glaringly and constantly obvious to me.
“The cafe closes every day at three,” Wisteria said.
“I could have chosen another place.”
“Everything in the immediate area closes at or before 10 p.m. But a quick phone call here and a quick trip to the Confectional was easy enough.”
“You obviously know me too well.”
“The Confectional is actually one of my favorite places in Seattle. Shall I enlighten you?” she asked, referencing the mini cheesecakes.
“Please do.”
Wisteria pointed to a cheesecake wrapped in crinkly brown paper with a hint of a green swirl in its topping. “Key lime white chocolate. Usually only available for the summer season, but I managed to grab one before they changed their menu for the fall.” She tugged at the paper edge of another treat to reveal three layers. “Peanut butter and chocolate.”
I let out an involuntary groan.
Wisteria laughed under her breath. “Wait for it,” she said as she pointed at the final cheesecake. “The quadruple chocolate. Dark chocolate blended into the batter with chunks of milk-, white-, and extra-dark chocolate in the center.”
“Chocolate in the batter and extra-dark chunks mixed in?” I moaned. “I love you.”
“They have cheesecake truffles —”
“Enough,” I cried as I lifted my fork eagerly to the dessert before me. “I already don’t know where to start.”
Wisteria laughed quietly again, unfolded her paper napkin, and spread it across her lap. Then she lifted her eyes to me. I didn’t flinch when I met her gaze this time. She chose to dig into the key lime treat first. I managed to get a quarter of the peanut butter and chocolate onto my fork and into my mouth without salivating too unbecomingly. I never was one for delayed gratification. The peanut butter was smooth and creamy.
“Lovely,” I said.
Wisteria nodded. She was still savoring her first bite. I ruthlessly attacked the quadruple chocolate and immediately decided to somehow steal the idea — in cupcake form — for the bakery. Though the creaminess of the cheesecake might not translate … maybe in a thick cream cheese frosting —
“You have something you would like me to look at?” Wisteria asked, reminding me — very politely — that this wasn’t a play date.
“Yes, a map.”
“You think I can reconstruct the magic of a map?”
“I hope so.”
I glanced around. The cafe was still empty.
“The server will not return until after we leave. I’ve already paid her for opening and for her time.”
I reached into my satchel, which I still wore slung across my chest. I hadn’t even thought to hang it over the back of the chair, not with the knife and the map in it.
I nudged the plate of desserts and my ignored hot chocolate to the right edge of the table, against the window. I rolled out the map on the left.
Wisteria gasped and dropped her fork. It clattered against the lip of her tea and then flipped off onto the floor. “The magic …” she moaned, then clamped her mouth shut.
“You can see magic without a circle?” I asked. Most witches could feel magic, but very few could see it — like I did — without casting a circle.
Wisteria nodded, then shook her head to deny her involuntary admission. Her lips were so tightly pursed that I could see the outline of her teeth beneath her skin. Most Adepts were cagey about their abilities. It was probably rude that I had asked in the first place.
I looked away, directing my attention to the map before me and giving the witch some time to control her reaction. The tattoo map thrummed with spicy dragon magic, but it didn’t look any different in the lighting of the cafe than it had in the golden wash of the dragon nexus or the track lighting of the bakery. It was still a jumbled mess of green, blue, and black lines, surrounded by striped circles, leaves, and industrial blocks.
“It’s skin?” Wisteria asked. Her voice was pitched a little higher than normal, but she was obviously attempting to get down to business.
“Yes.”
Wisteria stared at the map, not speaking. She was clutching her hands together against her chest, her knuckles white.
“Is it …” She cut off her own question, then started again with her voice more modulated and muted. “Is it dragonskin?”
Smart witch. As far as I knew, she’d only met one half-dragon — me — in person and only seen one fledgling guardian in action — Drake.
“Yes —”
Something hit the window beside me. Wisteria flinched. It sounded like a bird, but when I turned to look, I couldn’t see anything but the deep shadows of the buildings across the street.
Then the shadow shifted where no shadow could be. It pressed against the window, spreading like stumpy fingers along the edges of the glass.
“What … is … that?” Wisteria murmured.
“What color is it? To you?” I wanted a confirmation of the black seething mass I was seeing.
Wisteria shook her head, but I wasn’t sure if she couldn’t see its magic or was refusing to look.
The black mass, a deeper black than any of the other shadows on the street, suddenly peeled back off the window. Warner was standing on the other side of the glass and holding the seething mass aloft. It was writhing in his grasp, attempting to grab on to his arm, shoulder, and hip. Or more specifically, I could see it attempting to adhere itself to Warner’s magic.
The sentinel locked his gaze to mine. Then, with a grim sort of satisfaction, he grabbed another section of the black, roiling mass and ripped the shadow in half. The dark magic disintegrated into nothing. No ash or sand was left behind, as it was with the demons I’d seen vanquished. Vanquished, not killed, because my father had informed me that demons were from another dimension. Though that was only relevant if the shadows were some sort of demon. Warner and Pulou thought they were demon scouts, but now I wasn’t so sure.
Warner flicked his green gaze to Wisteria, who was staring at him with wide eyes. Then he turned on his heel into the shadows beyond the streetlights, disappearing as thoroughly as the vampire usually did.
“Well, that teaches me,” I muttered.
“What?” Wisteria asked breathlessly.
“Warner is pissed at me.”
Two bright pinpoints of red light across the street winked out. That was the only hint I had of Kett’s location. He was watching us from the stoop across the road, the red glow emanating from his eyes indicating that he had been powering up somehow.
“Warner?”
“The dragon, you know, hanging around outside the window, ripping shadow demons in half.”
“Dragon? Window? Shadow demons?”
The witch was shaken, still staring out the window and attempting to see the unseeable. But instead of feeling badly for her, all I could think about was her demanding triple pay, expenses, and a healer on call in order to meet with me. I imagined her inputting the receipt for the mini cheesecakes on an expense report, carefully broken out with the tax in a separate column.
“You still have that healer on call, don’t you?” I’d meant to be sarcastic but the question came out angry instead.
Wisteria cranked her head back to look at me, some retort — or maybe an apology — on her lips. But then she swallowed whatever she was going to say and stiffly nodded.
“Can you cast in a hotel room?” I had no idea how Wisteria practiced magic. Except she had to be able to do so on call, and on location, in order to execute the duties of her job.
The witch nodded, rose gracefully to her feet, and pulled her too-large designer bag off the back of her chair. With the bag hung over her shoulder, she stood waiting for her orders like a good little soldier.
I grabbed what was left of the desserts and walked out of the cafe, expecting the witch to follow.
She did.
Yeah, we weren’t going to be friends anytime soon.
I could feel shadows shifting around us as we hustled along the sidewalk back to the hotel, but I couldn’t taste any new or different magic in the darkness. Wisteria clutched her huge purse to her chest, kept her eyes straight ahead, and her pretty pumps firmly planted in the pools of light emanating from the street lamps. Pretending that dangerous magic didn’t exist wasn’t the best MO. But it seemed to work for the reconstructionist, because we made it to the hotel without incident.
If the shadows were seeking the map like Warner thought they were, I wasn’t sure why they’d pressed against the window in the diner but didn’t try to grab me on the street.
I couldn’t tell if Kett and Warner followed Wisteria and me around the block and back into the hotel, but Kandy joined us in the lobby. She quickly relieved me of the half-eaten mini cheesecakes.
“Witch,” the green-haired werewolf said to Wisteria.
“Kandy,” the reconstructionist replied coolly.
We paused before the elevators. Kandy was grinning at Wisteria in a way that was sure to end in someone getting hurt. Probably me.
“Cool in here, hey?” Kandy asked me.
“Warner and the shadow thing freaked the reconstructionist out,” I replied.
“Shadow thing?”
“Demon or whatever. Warner tore it up.”
“Really? I just saw him twisting his hands in the air. I figured it was some sort of weird dragon sign language.”
I laughed, then focused on the pertinent part of Kandy’s statement. “You couldn’t see the shadow move across the window?”
Kandy shook her head. “The air was a bit musty, but I couldn’t see anything.”
Interesting. A shifter should be able to see demons. Even partly manifested ones. But typically they couldn’t see magic, only scent it. So did that mean the shadows were some sort of magic? And not demon scouts?
The werewolf then eyed Wisteria, who stoically didn’t meet her gaze. “She doesn’t look freaked.”
“Yeah. She and Kett should play poker.”
“That would be insanely boring.”
“Agreed.”
The elevator announced its arrival with a cheerful ping as its doors slid open. We stepped inside in two strides, Wisteria between Kandy and me. The werewolf hit the button for the fourth floor and popped the last half of cheesecake into her mouth — the quadruple chocolate. I was momentarily sorrowful to see the end of its creamy goodness.
As the doors of the elevator slid closed, Warner stepped inside at the last possible second, angling sideways. He brushed between Wisteria and me to fill the spot behind us. He’d clearly gotten over his trouble with confined spaces. That was quick.
“Chameleon,” I muttered to myself, repeating Kett’s word.
Warner didn’t speak. I could see his reflection in the polished steel, or chrome, or whatever of the elevator door. Standing sternly behind us — and despite the sexy leather jacket, tight T-shirt, and low-slung jeans — he looked exactly as advertised. A sentinel. A soldier whose job it was to stand watch over something precious, or sacred, or vulnerable.
Wisteria took a step away from Warner and me, closer to Kandy. She was almost the same height as the werewolf, and easily two inches shorter than my five feet nine inches.
And now I was suddenly feeling like the heel I was.
I sighed.
“And what is up with you, alchemist?” Kandy asked.
“Wisteria thinks I’m going to get her killed, and Warner thinks I’m completely incapable … of anything.”
“Killed is a strong … word,” Wisteria said.
“But probably pretty close to the truth,” Kandy said — again, far too gleefully. “But think of how much fun we’ll have first.”
“I doubt that’ll help, Kandy,” I said. “Note how the sentinel here remains silent.”
“I do as tasked, warrior’s daughter. No more, no less.” Warner’s tone was deliberate and flat as he threw my own words back in my face … well, at the back of my head.
The elevator bumped to a stop. I noted Warner gripping the handrail that ran around the interior, and hoped he didn’t dent it. We were already going to have to confess to the broken cabinet door and elevator button.
Kandy stepped out into the hall. Wisteria followed her. I looked back at Warner and whispered, “I know you were just trying to take the piss out of me, but you probably didn’t need to mention the warrior’s daughter part in front of the reconstructionist.”
Warner had the decency to look chagrined. Dragons were all about containing deep, dark secrets, but not fantastic about keeping their mouths shut. I didn’t know Wisteria very well — as in, not at all — but she wasn’t a witch in my coven. And my parentage drew too much attention already.
The doors started to close and I stopped them with a thrust of my arm.
Warner stepped out of the elevator and nodded to me formally. “My apologies, alchemist.”
“And mine,” I said. “Why don’t we reboot?” Off Warner’s frown, I added, “You know, like you waking up from the deep sleep.”
“Ah, yes. I understand … reboot. Start again.”
“Yep.”
“I’m … taking longer to adapt than usual,” he said, casting his gaze around the short hall that branched off for the elevator and stairs.
“I imagine the world is a very different place.”
He locked his gaze to mine, his eyes more blue than green in this light. “I will persevere.”
“Yeah, I’m guessing that’s your middle name, sixteenth century.” I turned to follow Kandy and Wisteria back to the suite. “Warner Perseverance Jiaotuson.”
“It doesn’t help that your idiom is all at once playful, esoteric, and, at times, bemusing.”
I’d have to look up two of those words in a dictionary later — just for clarification — but I got the gist. “Yeah, I get that. Like, a lot.”
Back in the suite, Wisteria gestured toward the glass coffee table that sat directly in front of the dark-beige couch. I thought the couch folded out into a bed, but was fairly certain we weren’t going to be testing that assumption during this trip.
I gathered that the witch wanted me to place the map on the table, so I did. Kandy retreated to the far side of the room and found the minibar in a niche I hadn’t noticed tucked underneath the stairs.
Warner paced the windows, closing all the curtains but leaving himself a couple of inches to peer out. The air was a bit stale in the room, but I didn’t mention it. I figured Warner would have a heart attack if I tried to open a window, and I really wasn’t a fan of air conditioning.
Wisteria pulled four pillar candles out of her huge bag — white, green, blue, and red — which she placed at north, south, west, and east points around the map.
“I’m still not exactly clear what you want me to do here.” The reconstructionist spoke to me, though she was watching Warner as he paced the edges of the room.
“We think the magic is layered,” I said. “Maybe with a different map on each layer.” Then, exploring the idea out loud, I continued. “Or maybe it’s like a puzzle and the layers just need to be shifted.”
“You can see that?”
“No. It just looks jumbled to me.”
Wisteria peered down at the map and then nodded. “You think I can pull a picture from the residual magic.”
“That’s what you do.”
Wisteria looked doubtful. “I reconstruct magical events.”
“And this is full of magic.”
Wisteria’s gaze flicked to Warner and then to me. “So is the room.”
I nodded toward the coffee table and the witches’ circle she’d started to construct with the candles. “You have your boundary. We won’t cross it.”
“I’m guessing you want to see what I see.”
“Is that possible? Without you storing it in one of your cube things? It shouldn’t be stored anywhere.”
Wisteria nodded, but she didn’t look happy about it.
Something buffeted the windows to the east. I took a couple of steps back from the coffee table to look out. Warner crossed to stand beside me. I could still see the block letters spelling ‘chocolate’ in the sign for the Chocolate Box up the street.
“The wind?” I murmured.
“No,” Warner replied. Then he spoke over his shoulder to Wisteria. “Close your circle, witch.” He lifted the curtain just enough to look south up First Avenue.
Wisteria, who’d been circling the table, didn’t respond. But she did begin lighting the candles as she passed them a second time. Her shoes and lightly tinted stockings were tucked off to one side, next to her massive purse. I hadn’t seen her remove them to walk barefoot on the carpet. Most witches preferred to cast outdoors, closer to the earth magic they summoned and controlled. I liked the dirt floor of my bakery basement.
Something crept across the glass of the window next to me, but when I looked out, I couldn’t see anything moving in the dark. The exterior lights of the hotel only illuminated the first storey, and there weren’t any balconies on this side of the building. So the night could be filled with shadow demons and I wouldn’t know it. It was odd to be possibly surrounded by nasty magic and not taste it.
I willed my jade knife into my hand from the invisible sheath at my hip. “Why didn’t they attack on the street? When we were out in the open?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Warner muttered. He sounded epically frustrated.
Wisteria’s sweet nutmeg magic swirled around the candles, and I wondered if the reconstructionist fed the spell with her own power. That seemed like a risky thing to do, and even more draining than a regular casting. But then, Wisteria Fairchild had a lot of magic held in reserve.
Kandy wandered back into the living room, a cola in one hand and a half-eaten milk-chocolate-and-nougat Toblerone bar in the other. She lifted her chin and scented the air. The green of her shapeshifter magic rolled across her eyes.
The windows started rattling … one at a time, then all three at once. Wisteria let out a quickly suppressed hiss of fear, but kept her attention on her candles and the magic she was wielding.
“Close the circle, witch,” Warner repeated. He stepped back from the window as if expecting something to come through it at any minute.
The reconstructionist sank down with her back to Warner and me, sitting on the floor at the edge of the coffee table. As she settled, her magic gathered through her and into the circle as if called back to task. The circle snapped closed abruptly, taking most of the sweet nutmeg taste with it. Wisteria had sealed her magic in with the residual magic that constantly thrummed from the map. At least I thought it was residual. It was kind of like snapping a lid closed on a snug Tupperware container.
The rattling of the windows ceased.
Warner was staring at my chest, and I could feel a blush rise to my cheeks before I realized he was looking at my necklace.
Right.
Silly me.
“How long were you outside the wards of the bakery that night in the alley?” he asked. It was obvious he was piecing something together.
“Hours.”
Wisteria held her hands palm forward toward the map and the circle of magic that now surrounded it. If anything shifted in the circle at this gesture, I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t see or taste any magic beyond the circle at all.
“The necklace you wear is a shielding artifact? A personal ward?”
“Sure.”
“It must be helping to keep the shadow scouts at bay.”
“One showed up in the alley, right before you did.”
“Perhaps after hours of trying to pinpoint you, and perhaps traveling from a great distance.”
“Pulou carried the map for centuries, without a necklace.”
Warner laughed. “The treasure keeper is as his title implies. He has no need for such devices.”
“When I took it out in the cafe, the shadow appeared.”
“Or simply gained strength. Here as well.” He gestured to the windows.
I lifted my fingers to thread them through the wedding rings of my necklace. Warner started pacing the windows again, systematically checking them.
Kandy climbed up on the back of the couch and perched there, peering down at the map and the witches’ circle. Her eyes still blazed green, but by her expression, she couldn’t see any more than I could within the closed circle.
Wisteria held up her hand, as if expecting it to be taken.
I hesitated. I wasn’t big on touching other Adepts. I tasted their magic much more intensely when I was physically connected.
Wisteria half turned her head to me and widened her fingers impatiently.
I stepped forward and took the witch’s hand as I sank cross-legged beside her at the coffee table. Her magic instantly tingled through my fingers and up my arm, but it wasn’t overly intense. I assumed she had her magic concentrated on the witches’ circle before her.
Now that I was touching the reconstructionist, I could see what she saw within the circle.
I leaned forward. She had managed to pull a sort of 3D rendering off the map, but the image was still all jumbled.
Warner stopped pacing and stepped up behind me. Wisteria squeezed my hand, involuntarily I thought, at his closeness. She made no comment, though, nor did the magic in the circle waver.
Kandy came off the couch to crouch down on the other side of the coffee table. Looking across the circle at her, with the 3D map hovering between us, it appeared as if the map was projected onto her face, and that a ghostly version of the tattoo had been transferred to her skin.
“Can you see anything?” the green-haired werewolf asked.
I shook my head, then clarified. “Same map. Just 3D and hovering about a foot above the actual map.” Then I spoke to Wisteria. “You can’t, like, shift it? Or section off magic?”
“This is what the residual wants to be. There is nothing else here,” Wisteria answered. “I thought I might be able to pick up an image of the tattoo artist, assuming he or she contributed their own magic to the well of magic that exists in the tattoo. But no. Just this.”
“Can you rotate it?”
“Sure, but I did do so before I joined you to the circle.” Wisteria gestured toward the circle with a flick of her fingers, and the image slowly spun as if a camera was circling it. The reconstructionist was careful to not let her fingers touch the edges of the witches’ circle.
I watched the ghostly image as it slowly rotated before me. I was hoping that if I looked closely enough, I might see something from another angle that looked like an actual map.
“Wait,” I murmured. “Go back a couple of inches.”
Wisteria gestured again. The hovering projection paused and then rotated back a couple of inches. I leaned forward, practically pressing my nose to the outer edge of the magic of Wisteria’s circle.
“What’s that?” I asked. I was looking at the side of one of the two circles that were intersected by the five-colored lines. The would-be rainbows, as Kandy had called them. From this angle, the now three-dimensional circle looked thicker — almost as deep as the cuffs that Pulou had given to Kandy.
“Where?” Wisteria asked.
“There.” I pointed. “Can you rotate forward to the other intersected circle?”
Wisteria beckoned the map to turn a hundred and eighty degrees until I was staring at the second circle. This one had no thickness other than the tattooed line.
“Go back?” I asked. Wisteria obliged. I was once again looking at the first circle — the one that would have looked like a cuff or bracelet, except for the five-colored lines crossing and blocking the opening on one side. “Does that look thicker to you?”
Wisteria nodded.
“And more substantial, yes? Not as ghostly as the rest of the image.”
I didn’t wait for Wisteria to confirm my observation. I lifted my hand and reached for the image hovering before me.
“No —!” the reconstructionist cried, but I was already crossing through the barrier of the witches’ circle, coaxing the magic to allow me passage and to seal over my hand as it passed.
I reached for the intersected circle. My fingertips almost brushed its edge.
I wasn’t in the hotel room anymore.
I was crouched in what appeared to be a treasure trove of some sort, peering at the jeweled hilt of a sword that was leaning against a three-foot-tall Buddha carved out of some sort of tusk. Some sort of massive tusk, stolen from a massive tusked animal. PETA would freak out if they ever laid eyes on it, though the Buddha was cheerfully smiling and holding his ample belly.
My hand was still moving — as if in slow motion — toward the five-colored intersected circle, which now appeared to be a rune-etched banded artifact made out of gold. Thin strips of gold inlaid with gems stretched across its open interior to form the colored lines. The artifact was hanging haphazardly off the cross guard of the sword, like a coat about to slide off a coat rack.
My fingers closed over the edges of the gold and gem band. Earthy sorcerer magic flooded my mouth.
Still caught in this same breath — this same endless motion I’d begun in the hotel and was continuing in the treasure trove — I lifted the circle off the cross guard of the sword. Holding it aloft before me, I started to straighten and look around. I could feel the press of magic from all directions, tasting the fact that I was surrounded by thousands upon thousands of magical objects.
The Buddha was wearing my mangled katana like a crown. The sword — which I’d twisted around my sister’s neck ten months ago and used to drain every last drop of her magic, stolen and natural — sat lopsided on the statue’s head. Swirls of magic — blue, green, and black — rolled through the folded blade. Dried blood had flaked from its edges to rest on the Buddha’s shoulders like horrific dandruff.
“What?” I cried.
I was back in the hotel room.
I was sitting cross-legged by the coffee table as before. My arm was extended into the witches’ circle, hovering in the 3D image of the tattoo. I was holding the banded artifact.
“— don’t!” Wisteria cried.
Not even a second had passed.
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
“What’s that?” Kandy asked cheerfully.
“Was I here? Am I here?” I asked. “Did I go?”
“You have your arm jammed into my circle,” Wisteria snapped. So she could be bitchy when pressed. Good to know. “And you just plucked something out of the residual magic.”
“But I didn’t disappear?”
“Nope,” Kandy said.
“Where did you find yourself, alchemist?” Warner asked. His voice was soft, so as not to startle me.
I pulled my hand out of the witches’ circle. A little abruptly, perhaps, because the magic collapsed with a pop of blue and gold.
Warner hunched down beside me, his gaze on the artifact in my hand. “You reached into the witches’ circle,” he prompted.
“Yes. Then into the residual magic.”
“And saw … this?” He gestured toward the artifact I still held aloft on the fingertips of my right hand.
“Yes, and … other treasure.” I corrected myself before mentioning my katana. The sword, what it contained, and what I had the ability to do — drain all the magic from an Adept — was a secret between Pulou and me. Pulou was of the opinion that I would be feared — maybe even hunted — if that little trick of mine became general knowledge.
“You reached into the residual magic of the former treasure keeper and pulled out treasure,” Warner said. He wasn’t speaking to me, but that was a fairly succinct way of putting it. Except …
“I pulled out this treasure,” I said. “I’m not sure I could have grabbed anything else. The former treasure keeper obviously left this, somehow, in the magic of his tattoo.”
“He left that thing in his skin?” Kandy asked. “Seriously disgusting.”
“That’s pretty judgy coming from a werewolf,” I said.
“Hey, I don’t go around embedding metal objects into people … not unless they really deserve it. I have these.”
She flashed her claws. The rest of her hand remained human.
Wisteria flinched. She’d been so still and quiet I’d all but forgotten she was here.
The windows began to rattle. Now that the witches’ circle wasn’t cloaking the magic of the tattoo anymore, I gathered the shadow demons were looking for entry again.
I passed the artifact to Warner, who took it from me, but only after he’d deliberately placed his fingers exactly where I’d held mine.
Then I pulled off my necklace and untwisted it to its full length. I laid the thick gold chain with its wedding ring charms on the coffee table so it encircled the tattoo.
The windows stopped rattling.
“Now that’s interesting,” Warner murmured, far more intrigued by my necklace than he had been by the ancient artifact he held.
Wisteria stared at me. Her wide eyes and carefully measured breathing betrayed her usual poise. I imagined that Kandy could probably smell her fear.
“Thank you, reconstructionist.”
Wisteria nodded stiffly and started shoving her candles back into her purse. She obviously wasn’t going to be sticking around for a chat. I assumed that seeing someone pull a physical object out of residual magic had freaked her out. It certainly freaked me out, but I had a better understanding — in my limited capacity — of how the treasure keeper’s magic worked.
In Tofino, I’d seen Pulou somehow shrink down my sword and tuck it into an inner pocket of his fur coat. By the haphazard look of the treasure trove I’d just seen, a lot of objects were likewise tucked away there. The banded artifact had obviously been specifically tied to the tattooed map.
Wisteria skipped the stockings and slipped on her shoes. “I have an apartment in town,” she said. “But I fly out in the morning.”
“Thank you for casting for me, reconstructionist,” I said.
“It’s my job,” Wisteria said. “And your grandmother has been supportive of my career for a long time.”
Kandy padded over to the door and Wisteria followed. Witch magic boiled out of her eyes and hands, telling me that despite her outwardly calm demeanor, she was absolutely desperate to get out of the room — but far too professional to flee.
I realized I was the big bad in the room now. That was odd, and disconcerting. I didn’t feel dangerous or especially powerful. Not compared to everyone else … Kett, Warner, all of the guardians … even Drake. They were way scarier than me. Weren’t they?