Thrix, inspired by Minerva, had absorbed her teaching and practiced her art till her skill reached a level few others could match. There were no werewolf sorcerers to equal her, and not many humans. At this moment, she was sitting alone in her flat in Knightsbridge, feeling depressed.
“I’ve wasted my skill,” she said out loud to no one. “I’ve spent the last twenty years developing fashion-related magic and now I can’t do anything else.”
She looked down at her ankles with an expression of distaste.
I must have spent weeks trying to perfect the extra-high-heels spell, she thought. Why didn’t I realize I should be concentrating on the Guild?
Thrix’s spacious living room was cluttered with sorcerous talismans she’d dragged out of cupboards and wardrobes. She’d assembled every magical item she’d ever used in an effort to concoct some sort of spell that might find the Guild’s headquarters. The living room table, previously home to stacks of fashion magazines, was now piled high with magical herbs she’d bought or collected in the past week. The room smelled strongly of them, though not as strongly as the kitchen, which had been the scene of several attempts to brew potions, none of them successful.
“I’ve used every locating spell ever written, including Minerva’s secret ones, and none of them has worked. Whatever sorcery the Avenaris Guild is using to hide itself, it’s stronger than I am.”
Thrix made an effort to force herself into a more positive frame of mind. It was difficult. She’d spent many years trying to boost her self-confidence after an uncomfortable childhood. At the castle, the daughters of the Thane had not been greatly encouraged to develop their talents.
Thrix clenched her firsts. “Don’t start thinking about your childhood,” she said out loud again. “That’s not going to help.”
She was about to snap her fingers to summon a bottle of wine but checked her actions. “No more summoning wine. That’s another way I’ve been wasting magic. Just pour it like everyone else.”
Thrix fetched a bottle of wine from the kitchen and applied a corkscrew. She twisted it in then tried to extract the cork. Nothing happened. She pulled harder. The cork sliced in two, leaving the bottle still sealed and virtually impossible to open by normal means.
“Oh damn it,” raged Thrix. “Stupid bottle.”
She growled the words of an opening spell and the remaining portion of the cork flew from the bottle, ricocheting off the wall.
Thrix filled her glass. She tasted the wine and made a face. “Why did I buy this?”
It struck her she’d hardly had a decent bottle of wine since Captain Easterly had been killed. Her ex-boyfriend had been something of a wine connoisseur.
“Something else to dislike Kalix for. No, don’t think about Kalix, that won’t help either.”
She looked around the room at all her magical artifacts. She was stuck for inspiration. The red light on her answering machine was blinking, as it had been for the past week. Messages from work, no doubt. Thrix ignored them. As she sipped her wine, she thought of the day she’d found Minerva dead. Thrix shuddered. It had been a terrible experience. She could still remember vividly the feel of her dead teacher in her arms as she struggled to take her back up the mountain, to lay her to rest.
“Trust Kalix to get Minerva killed!”
It was easy for Dominil to say that the Guild was responsible, not Kalix, but if Kalix hadn’t been so weak-minded and inconsiderate as to take all her laudanum that morning, Minerva wouldn’t have been left alone and defenseless on the mountain side, an easy target for the Guild’s sniper.
Thrix wasn’t feeling too kindly toward Dominil either. What was she doing getting addicted to laudanum anyway? And then bothering Minerva with her problems? Didn’t Minerva deserve a peaceful retirement without interference from drug-addled werewolves?
If Kalix and Dominil had just learned to control themselves properly instead of getting addicted to laudanum, none of this would have happened, thought Thrix, and she felt even angrier.
Dominil was meant to be looking for the Avenaris Guild via the internet, land registries, company records and so on, but Thrix didn’t believe that would get them anywhere. If the Guild possessed sorcery powerful enough to completely hide it from her spells, it had most probably taken care of everything else too.
She made a sound that was half sigh, half growl, and picked up a manuscript. It was one of Minerva’s late writings, details of a spell she’d made but never fully described. As far as Thrix could make out, it was a spell for finding a lover anywhere in the world. That wasn’t exactly what Thrix needed, but it contained some unusual and powerful features, and she wondered if she might somehow adapt it. She picked up a notebook from the floor and started to make some notes. A strand of hair fell over her face. She pushed it back impatiently. Thrix’s golden hair was tied back and had been unwashed for several days. She wore a very old pair of jeans and she couldn’t even have said what color the T-shirt she wore was without checking in a mirror. For the first time in her adult life, the Enchantress had abandoned all traces of vanity.
“I’m going to find them,” she muttered. “And then I’m going to kill them all.”
Another strand of hair fell over her face. Annoyed at her hair, and everything else, Thrix picked up a pair of dressmakers scissors from the floor and hacked off the loose strand.
I’ve got too much hair, she thought. It’s getting in the way.
She cut off another strand and felt some satisfaction as she watched it fall to the floor.