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"Everything go all right?" Ajax asked as I walked into the No Spell. He was running a dust cloth over the long, check-in counter, getting in all the nooks and carved crannies.
I wish I could remember more of what had happened at the coven.
I was feeling a little dizzy. Perhaps I had forgotten to eat again, although as I ran my hands over my hips, their expanding size would suggest a lack of food wasn't a problem. I didn't want to trouble Ajax, however. He would likely go bake me one of his ash cookies with coal chips. In fact, the whole afternoon seemed like something I shouldn't mention to him. No need to cause worry. "About as good as can be expected."
"About what I thought," Ajax grumped.
I leaned against the counter and traced one of the black veins running through the marble top. "Ajax, has anyone ever figured out why the dwarves are so inured to magic?"
"Comes from living under the ground," he said, pounding his chest mightily. "The iron and silver and salt gets into our skin, soaks into our pores. It's like armor."
It made sense. I regarded my dainty hands, hands that had not held an iron cauldron in ages. Any natural protections I had absorbed were gone. Perhaps that's what I needed in order to protect Ajax and myself from whatever was attacking us. I would have to rebuild my magical immunity from scratch, but if I started now, perhaps eventually I would get it back.
"I'm going to be busy this afternoon," I stated.
"Well, since we canceled all of our guests," said Ajax, waving his dust cloth at our empty hall. "I think I can manage."
"Let me know if that changes."
"Where are you going?"
"Upstairs. I need to do some research."
"On what?"
I teetered as I strode over to the sweeping staircase, but played it off by grabbing onto the Newel post and pronouncing, "How to kill this person who has been putting the whammy on us."
Ajax tapped the bell on the counter. "Now you're talking my language."
I went up the winding four-flights of stairs to my bedroom in the tower. I started feeling better, even my ankle. Perhaps there was a swamp gas leak or something causing the air to be funny on the ground level.
I opened the door to my room. The burgundy damask duvet was exactly as I left it with the few trick folds I had incorporated still intact, so at least I knew John Doe hadn't snuck in while I forgot. The lead-paned window was still locked and closed. That was another plus. The coal in my small fireplace was still banked for later use. My rocking chair still sat in the indentations of my high-pile, floral rug. I walked over to my walnut wardrobe and threw open the doors. Nothing there but my rows of red dresses, all hanging in the order of what time best to change into them – from morning duties to midnight balls. And one black robe that I stopped wearing the day I was censured by my sisterhood.
I turned to consider a door at the far end of my room, another thing I had been barred from. It was thick and wooden and bound by iron. It had been bolted when my magic had been taken away from me, a reminder every time I woke up that I was not allowed that part of me.
"But what if someone has broken into you, my dear ritual room, and is using my own tools against me?" I asked. "I should make sure that is not the case."
I sauntered over, as if fearful Miss Trudy would come barging through the door. I lowered myself and squinted at the lock. I reached out to touch it and received a shock so bad it knocked me off my feet.
It was meant to deter witches like me. Unfortunately for the lock, it just made me mad.
"Now, how does one get around you when you're so hell-bent on no one getting around you?"
Magic is not immutable. The rules were not the same for everyone. Shoot, Ajax could have magic fired at him nonstop and brush it off like mosquitoes – annoying, but not destroying.
I was who I was. I was a witch.
But could I be something else?
Could I commit some sort of alchemy to my soul so I could work magic like a dwarf or an elf or a World Walker or something else that was not bothered by spells put on locks in one's own bedroom?
I walked over to my window, opened it, and peered out. I knew there was a window to my ritual room just around the curve of the wall, but I couldn't see it. The drop from my tower was fifty feet to the ground with no ledge for me to get a toehold. Darn the original builder for good defense from invasion.
What I needed was to be able to fly.
And there was only one thing that could help a witch with that.
I knew it was going to cost me, and because of my desperation, cost me dearly.
But this was a case of survival.
I walked over to my jewelry chest and opened the lid. Lying inside was a dark ruby. I hated the thought of pawning it. It had been a touchstone for so many of my spells, a way to focus the energy, a gift from my first lover.
But the past was in the past.
And I needed to leave it behind and take some serious steps if I hoped to see the future.