Tempt the Stars

Page 49

The Valkyrie sighed. “Yes, tell us again how much superior your magic is. But I don’t see you solving the problem.”
“I don’t see you doing it, either.”
“At least we could identify it.”
“Identifying isn’t reversing.”
“We aren’t finished yet.”
“The covens have been finished for years,” he snapped.
And got whacked on the shin for his trouble.
“Slipped,” the tiny witch said, unrepentant.
Caleb cursed. “If you want to keep him alive—or as much as these things ever are—keep him away from them!” he told me.
Yeah. Only she was right; they’d known almost at once what they were dealing with. He hadn’t.
“Can you remove it?” I asked the witches again.
Which led to another round of eye contact, but no one said anything. Until the small one piped up again. “I’m willing to have a go,” she said cheerfully.
The other two looked less enthused. But finally, they nodded. “It would be in a city,” Jasmine sighed.
“Why does that matter?” I asked—stupidly. Because it wasn’t like I was going to understand the answer.
“It doesn’t,” Caleb said, sounding disgusted. “Magic is magic.”
“We use a reserve of power to augment our own,” Jasmine said, ignoring him. “As you do with the Pythian power. But ours is generated by the earth itself, the song of the sky, the land, the seas—”
“Bullshit!” Caleb said. “You’re messing about with wild magic, and it’s going to get you killed!”
Jasmine rolled her eyes. “You use talismans, do you not? They also gather the magic the earth gives off.”
“Slowly, carefully, safely. What we do is like using electricity. You play around with lightning!”
“That’s an exaggeration, as you well—”
“How many of your people have been fried, trying to channel wild magic?” Caleb demanded.
“And how many of yours have poisoned themselves playing about with alchemy?” the Valkyrie interjected. “Magic is inherently dangerous—”
“Not if you know what you’re doing!”
“Ah, and there’s the rub, isn’t it?” she said, sneering. “Just because you can’t do it—”
“Can’t—” Caleb flushed. “We choose not to use something dangerously unstable and innately unreliable—”
“So unreliable we fought you to a standstill—”
“So unreliable you were all but destroyed!”
“After you betrayed us! Broke your promises and turned your back on honor—”
“As if a coven witch would know anything of honor!” Caleb spat.
And won himself another whack from the little witch’s stick.
For a moment, everyone just glared at one another.
“I’m not sure I understand what you plan to do,” I told Jasmine, who seemed to be keeping her cool better than the others.
“Druid is a combination of human magic—pre-Circle— and fey,” she explained. “The combination allows us to borrow directly from the earth’s natural well of power to augment our own, instead of using talismans to slowly gather it up. Being on earth requires altering the spells somewhat, which is why it is considered a distinct system from that of the fey. But it works quite well, I assure you.”
“And that’s different from what the Circle does?”
The three witches exchanged glances again.
“Theirs is based on ancient alchemy,” Jasmine said slowly. “What we call hard magic, something that can be put into a test tube and experimented on. The Circle always wants something they can see and taste and touch, something they can control. The wilder, more flexible, more intuitive magic of nature eludes and confuses them. They cannot master it because they do not feel it.”
“You see?” Caleb asked me. “This is exactly the sort of mumbo-jumbo you can expect from the covens. I can give you formulas, show you precisely how a potion or ward or spell works—and how to reverse it. And if Augustine was using the Arcane, he could, too—and we wouldn’t be in this mess!”
“The Arcane is Circle magic?” I asked, for clarification. I’d heard the term before, but I wanted to be sure I understood what they meant. It was my responsibility to Jules to be sure.
The witches exchanged another look. Even Caleb appeared a little taken aback. And then he got whacked again.
“Witch!” he snarled. “If you hit me with that thing one more time—”
“Don’t you take that tone with me,” she told him. “And you deserve a good whipping. Why is the Pythia asking a question like that?”
“Like what?” I asked.
“You see? She doesn’t even—” The little witch made another jab, but Caleb danced back out of the way.
To my surprise, though, he wasn’t glaring at her. If anything, he looked a little shamefaced. “That wasn’t my call.”
“Then whose call was it?”
“She was brought up by the vampires. And the one she lived with didn’t want her trained.”
“At all?” the Valkyrie demanded, looking incredulous.
Caleb didn’t say anything. But the truth was kind of obvious.
Jasmine just sat there, looking appalled. But the Valkyrie couldn’t seem to quite grasp the concept. “You’ve received nothing?” she demanded.
“He’s exaggerating,” the little witch told her. “He has to be.”
And then someone pinched the hell out of me.
I jumped and twisted around, but no one was close enough. Not that that meant anything with vampires, who could move like the wind. But I didn’t think the ones by the door were too interested in pranking me. They hadn’t taken their horrified eyes off Jules.
And then somebody did it again, and I damned well knew they hadn’t moved that time. And anyway, it had been from behind me. And then from the left and the right and—
“Ow!” I said, whipping my head back and forth. “What the—”
“Cut it out,” Caleb growled, but not at me. He was looking at the tiny witch, and unlike his previous threat, his voice had gone flat, and his eyes were cold and blank. I’d seen that look on Pritkin’s face a time or two, and it scared me a lot more than a few pinches.
“Caleb—” I said, reaching out.
“She doesn’t have shields!” The tiny witch was beside herself.
“You don’t, do you?” Jasmine asked, wonderingly. “You battled a Spartoi . . . unprotected?”
I didn’t respond, because Caleb was starting to worry me. “Just relax,” I told him as the pinching stopped.
“A war mage’s first duty is to protect the Pythia,” he said softly, his hand on the potion belt at his waist. A lot of the younger mages didn’t use one, preferring spelled bullets that could go farther and hit more accurately. But like Pritkin, Caleb preferred to double up on his weaponry, and he used both.
And I did not want to find out what the vial he was currently fingering did.
“It’s okay. It didn’t hurt,” I lied. Because I was going to be polka-dotted tomorrow.
“Assault is assault—”
“Oh, please!” the Valkyrie said. She looked at me. “Our apologies. But you can hardly blame us. The fact that the Pythia—the person on whom all our lives may depend—cannot even do a simple protection spell—” She threw up her hands. “It’s enough to shock anyone!”
“Shock isn’t the word I’d use,” the tiny witch muttered, bending to look at my arm. And then waving a hand and muttering something—
Which she didn’t get a chance to finish, because she was suddenly across the room, pinned to the wall. Jasmine was likewise out of commission, on the floor and trapped by the massive boot on her chest. And the Valkyrie and Caleb were facing off, he with the vial in the hand that wasn’t outstretched, restraining her companion, and she with what looked alarmingly like a wand denting the skin of his throat.
“She’s not the only one needs to work on her protection spells,” she hissed.
“Go for it,” he told her tightly. “And we’ll see who needs protection.”
“Don’t tempt me, mage! After the hash the Circle has made of this, I might be doing us all a favor!”
“By restarting a civil war?” someone asked, from over by the door.
I looked up to find Jonas standing there, his magnificent mane an electrified halo about his head, crackling like a storm was blowing in. But his voice had been mild, and his touch was gentle as he helped the little witch off the wall. Or tried to.
“I can manage,” she grumbled, hopping down as spry as someone my age. Although I didn’t think I’d be as calm as she was under the circumstances. Hell, I hadn’t moved, and I still wasn’t calm.
“Did you call him?” I demanded, looking at Caleb. Who was starting to sweat. But he didn’t drop the pose, even when his boss came up along one side. And gently pushed his subordinate’s boot off Jasmine.
She was up in a liquid move worthy of a vamp, her beautiful face distorted. But she didn’t do anything. She backed off, looking at the Valkyrie, who was still threatening Caleb.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Jonas cleared his throat. “No,” he told me. “He did not.”
It was mild, but Caleb swallowed.
“I came to see you. I had planned to in any case, but then that hotel manager called Central, demanding that someone come out to, er, de-chicken his security force?”
The Valkyrie’s lips twitched.
I blinked, because I’d expected to hear a sermon about the battle on the drag. Had been expecting it since I got up, actually, only nobody had mentioned it. Which was a little weird, come to think of it.