There wasn’t time to shout, or even think. I felt a rush—and the branch leaning against the fire pit rose to block the shovel, the two smacking against each other in the crisp night air.
“I don’t know if I can hold it,” I breathed.
“You don’t need to,” Evie said.
The shovel cracked the branch in two and hurtled end over end toward Evie’s head. She drew her hands over her face, touching the piercings at her eyebrows, nose, and ears. The shovel quivered and then began to melt, the metal dripping onto the dirt next to me. It pooled into a bubbling mix of steel and copper, and slowly sank into the earth. Evie shouted something to me, but I was sinking into the vision and could only hear the wind.
“Take a handful of it,” my mother said, passing me a bowl filled with sea salt. “Make a casting circle around your body. Try to spread the salt evenly.”
My body was small, so it didn’t take much salt to create my circle. Still, the grass made it hard to see how much I was spilling.
“Is it complete?” my mom asked.
“I don’t know.”
She smiled. “You will.”
I dropped a few more grains of salt. The circle rose, shimmering in the sunlight. I’d drawn hundreds of casting circles for simple spells, but those were simply chalk lines on the ground. This one was different.
“Nature is holding your magic for you, until it’s your time,” my mom explained. “But until your magic comes, I cast this circle to protect you.”
I watched it waver before it fell back onto the lawn. “What happens when the magic comes?”
She shrugged. “Then it’s up to you.”
Miro’s voice brought me back to the present.
“We’ll have to dig that spot up,” he shouted as he came around one side of the garage. He shot Evie a savage look. “I suppose this is the alchemist.”
“What are you doing?” I said, my voice grating like sandpaper in my throat. “You could have killed her!”
Evie moved around the fire pit, her eyes trained on Miro like a wildcat trying to decide exactly which way she wanted to torture her prey before moving in for the kill.
“I heard screaming,” Miro said, glancing warily at Evie. “What was I supposed to think? And do you know there’s a demon tied up in the alley?”
“Is this the incompetent teacher?” Evie snarled.
Miro’s eyes darted to meet mine.
I shrugged at him, unable to do much else. “He’s competent enough.”
Evie hopped over the pit and landed directly in front of Miro. He flinched as she approached. “She was out here without her talisman,” she admonished. “That should be lesson number one.”
“My mistake,” he said quietly.
She drew closer to him still. “I’d like to think it was an honest one, but something tells me that might not be the case.” Her voice, low and dangerous, cut into the night air. The moonlight bounced from the metal on her body, illuminating Miro’s strange eyes. He gazed into the distance, not looking at either of us, his mouth set.
“It won’t happen again,” he said.
“I have ways of ensuring it won’t.”
Evie toyed with the silver clasp of his talisman. Miro’s hands began to tremble ever so slightly, and I fought the urge to reach out and steady them.
“I don’t have a freaking talisman,” I interrupted. “Miro is protecting that knowledge because he has no reason to trust you. My mother didn’t have a chance to give it to me before she was taken. Now will you leave him alone?”
Evie turned, shock slackening her features. “You’ve been transitioning without a talisman?” Her mouth turned up at the corner, and she laughed. “For the love of Isis, niece, you really are related to me.”
I shoved my feet into my shoes, ignoring my shaky leg muscles. “It’s not like I could stop it from happening. We’re doing what we can without my talisman.”
She snorted. “Which is?”
“What you just saw. I stopped the shovel, even if I couldn’t maintain the hold. I feel like crap, but I don’t feel like death is imminent. That’s a step, right?”
Miro looked at me, and I caught a trace of a smile. “It is,” he said. “Most definitely.”
It wasn’t quite a compliment, but a tiny burst of confidence pulsed through me, nearly overriding the sickness from the magic. It was a little better. I was a little better.
“You’re still in trouble without a talisman,” Evie said bluntly. “But I’ll give credit where credit is due,” she said to Miro. “Okay, teacher, you’ve gone up a notch: from incompetent to mediocre.”
“Thanks a lot,” he grunted.
“Let’s see if you can completely redeem yourself,” she said, ignoring his attitude. “If I had a stone that was once Breeda’s mother’s, could you consecrate it?”
“Did she choose the stone for Breeda?”
“No,” Evie said, a little deflated, “but she chose it for ceremonial reasons for our coven. Is that close enough?”
“I don’t know. I can’t make any promises.”
My brain was muddled, so it took me a second to process what they were saying. “Can that be my temporary talisman?”
“It wouldn’t be temporary,” Miro said solemnly. “It would take the place of your original. The one your mother chose for you would mean nothing.”
“Oh. I . . . oh.” My true talisman, the one my mother probably had with her right now, would no longer work. A fear nudged at my thoughts—would consecrating this one disrupt my connection to her?
Miro turned to Evie. “You are definitely a blood relative?”
She nodded curtly. “The only one besides her parents. I can run back to my shop right now and pick it up.”
He glanced up at the sky. “It’s too far past midnight to do it tonight. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
Both relief and disappointment coursed through me. “But you can do it?”
Miro paused, obviously weighing his response. “I think so. I’ll need my father’s help. If we begin the preparations tonight, a ceremony tomorrow should be no problem.”
“Let’s wake Daddy then,” Evie said.
Miro caught my eye. “I’m not sure—”
“This is too important,” she insisted. “He can take a nap tomorrow. We’re waking him up right now.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Dobra said. He stood in the entrance to the basement, a security light outlining his thin body in an unearthly glow. “Your voices rang clear as alarm bells. Unless you want the neighbors to know every bit of our sordid lives, I suggest we continue this discussion in my study.”
We silently filed into Dobra’s office. He’d switched on a lamp, bathing the space in a soft, golden light. The effect was soothing, and I sank into the same leather chair I’d chosen hours before. I’d never felt so tired. My bones threatened to melt into the leather just as the shovel seeped into the earth. Evie, a steadying hand on my shoulder, stood next to me. Miro leaned against his father’s desk and drummed his fingers on the shiny mahogany. Behind him, his mother’s desk stood in the corner, a symbol of Dobra’s regret. We find ways to punish ourselves, I thought.
Dobra reached into his pocket and drew out an envelope. He tossed it at me, spilling cloves into the air. “Care to explain what this is about?”
Stunned and embarrassed, I just looked at him, my mouth gaping open.
“Dad—” Miro interrupted.
“I want to know what’s going on,” he demanded. “What were you doing in my garden tonight?”
“Easy,” Evie hissed. “She was with me. I’m her aunt.”
“Do you take guardianship for her? And for that . . . beast?”
Evie brought the demon into the garden before we came inside. I’d never seen someone as visibly furious as Dobra when he saw a demon lassoed to his fence.
I didn’t know what Evie was going to say to him, but I expected her to say something. When she didn’t, I looked up to meet her eyes and saw they were brimming with tears.
“I could take responsibility for her, but my sister wouldn’t be happy with that,” she said. “So until we know definitely whether Breeda’s parents are alive or dead, we should operate under the assumption that they will be found. Breeda can sleep in my spare apartment, though I don’t think that’s the best place for her, given that a known practitioner of Black Magic recently broke in and ripped her parents from their beds. I prefer she sleeps in my shop tonight.”
“An alchemist’s shop is not exactly ideal, either,” Miro grumbled.
Fire sparked in Evie’s eyes, burning away the tears. “And this house is better? I know who you people are, and I know what you do.” She looked at Dobra’s lined talisman with disgust. “I see Black Magic is here as well, and will always be under this roof, no matter what you do to make up for your wrongdoings. If you think I’m letting my niece sleep unprotected in one of your beds, you’re crazy.”
Miro’s lip curled into a sneer. “So you don’t want us to consecrate your stone? Maybe one of your many friends can help?”
I sensed Evie had contacts and clients, not friends. Her fingers twitched, curling toward the heavy, silver cuffs around her wrists. But I knew she wouldn’t attack. We needed them.
Dobra raised an eyebrow. “Consecrate?”
“This alchemist has a stone that belongs to Breeda’s maternal line,” Miro said. “We might be able to use it to make a talisman.”
“And she brought it tonight?” Dobra asked. “Is that why she came here?”
Miro didn’t say anything, probably because he had no idea why Evie came. The silence stretched awkwardly; then Evie spoke up. “The demon is still bewitched, but when that wears off, it’ll want to tear apart the witch who did it. Since the demon was sent to capture Breeda, I want to know who that witch is.”
“It does sound like a sensible plan,” Dobra said, looking at Evie with a small amount of respect. “You should continue to test his loyalties.”
“I will,” Evie promised. “Now, will you consecrate my family’s stone? Breeda is at a definite disadvantage without a talisman.”
“Breeda’s been at a disadvantage from birth,” Dobra said.
Miro winced. “Dad, it isn’t right for us to allow her to practice without a talisman if we can help it. You know we can’t turn our backs on this.”
I saw the pain of the past in both their postures. Miro hunched toward his father and Dobra leaned away from him, unable to offer comfort. He ignored his son and addressed me instead.
“You will stand on your own two feet with a true talisman around your neck. Do you understand what I’m saying?” he said.
“I do.”
“Then I will begin preparations. Tomorrow night, at midnight, we will consecrate the stone. Now I’m going to do something I rarely do—especially with an alchemist—which is to be a gentleman.”
Evie barked a laugh. “What did you have in mind?”
“Tonight you will share the guest room with Breeda,” he said. “After the ceremony you will lay your head wherever it falls.”
“She doesn’t have to,” I said. I wasn’t averse to the thought of Evie staying, but if she didn’t stick around the next morning, I’d have a hard time getting away to see Seralina. I didn’t know what was going to happen with Brandon, but if I could find her, I could at least try to connect some dots regarding Sandy.
Evie’s stare was so hard, I wondered if she could drill a hole into Dobra’s forehead through sheer force of will. “If you want me to babysit my niece, you might as well come right out and say it.”
“I’m certain you can handle anything that comes her way,” Dobra said evenly.
“What about the demon?” Evie smiled, but there was more than a hint of steel in it. “Do you want to keep it hitched to your fence?”
For a second, Dobra’s composure fell, and uncertainty clouded his eyes. Then he said, “We have a root cellar underneath the basement. You can tie him up there.”
Evie opened her mouth to protest, but when she saw my half-closed eyes, she nodded. “Fine, I’ll be Breeda’s bodyguard tonight. But if any of you try something funny I’ll melt the gold from all your teeth.”