“No,” he admitted with a frown. “She was not a nice witch.” His honesty took me by surprise. Alaric rarely faced the worldwithout a mask in place. We all fell silent as his words soaked in. Even Zane refrained from making an obnoxious comment, which surprised me.
Empathy wasnothis strong suit.
Did he even know what empathy was?
I chewed my lip for a moment before speaking.
“It doesn’t matter whether you loved her or hated her; she’s gone. And that means those whodidcare for her are hurting. So it’s okay to hurtforthem even if you felt ambivalent about her.”
Glynda nodded sagely. “Raven’s right. I might not have lost someone special yesterday, but several other families did, including a family my parents are friendly with. So we’ll all be thinking of them over the next few days and weeks.” I wondered who else had died, but I didn’t ask. Now wasn’t the time.
“If we’re done sharing secrets, can we get on with the spell? I have shit to do as well.” I dug my nails into Zane’s wrist as punishment for his inability to read a room, and he shivered like he enjoyed the pain.
“Hey, I don’t even want to be here, so blame your witch,” Alaric muttered, apparently over his brief attempt at acting like a half-decent person. “I’d quite like to get this done too.”
Zane picked up the bag I’d packed and threw it at Alaric, who caught it with one hand and used the other to pull everything out. He looked up and frowned in consternation once he’d neatly laid everything out on the stone slab.
“If this is a spell to locate something or someone, we need a map.”
9
Alaric
Location spells needed maps to pinpoint the item’s location. Not exactly rocket science. How had the witch not known this?
I watched her face fall as the realization that we wouldn’t be able to do the spell today sank in. Since I was going home the minute I left this crypt, she’d have to find some other mug to help her.
Part of me didn’t much like that, but I squashed it like a bug.
“Stars, I didn’t think.” Her cheeks flushed pink. The other witch’s shoulders slumped in despair while the incubus frowned.
“I’d offer to fetch a map, but I have no idea where there are any,” he told the witch in a surprisingly gentle voice. I still didn’t understand his role in this mess. While he’d strongly implied he was the witch’s mate, I remained unconvinced. The goddess wouldn’t match that sex-obsessed lunatic with a sweet, naive little witch. It made no sense.
“Yeah,” the other witch agreed. “Everyone uses navigation apps these days. I don’t suppose the spell will work with the BroomNav app.” She pulled her phone from her jeans pocket and frowned. “Guess we could try it?”
“There aren’t enough of the ingredients to try it. If it doesn’t work, you’re back at square one,” I pointed out. I didn’t fancy my chances of retrieving another pegasus feather. Brianna had nearly caught me last time, and she was still suspicious as hell about my bullshit explanation for poking around in Dad’s study.
“I’ve messed up.” Raven’s eyes welled up, and she wiped a tear away with her sleeve. “I don’t have time to mess up!” The incubus made a show of rubbing her back and whispering sweet nothings in her ear as she snuggled into his chest.
The tether in my chest throbbed. It demanded that I go to her.Comfort her.Naturally, I ignored it.
“Okay, well I’m out of here,” I announced. “Can one of you drop me back at campus?” The other witch looked between me and the incubus but didn’t offer her teleportation services. Maybe we were too far away?Fuck. If the incubus had dropped us hundreds of miles away, I was fucked.
I glared at him, but he was too busy mooning over Raven, so I took a step forward to yank him away from her. Only a small furry kitsune pinged into view with a stack of paper between its teeth.
Was this the witch’s familiar? I could have sworn it had white fur the last time I’d seen it. This kitsune had gray fur.
“Oh my goddess, Kenji!” So it was the witch’s familiar. Bit odd that its fur had changed color. Not that I knew much about kitsunes, as they were on the endangered list.
The kitsune dropped the paper at my feet. I picked it up and grimaced at the tooth marks and spit all over the creased edges, but when I unfolded the document, I realized the creature hadfound a map. An old one, judging from the faded lines and yellow stains.
No one made maps like this anymore. Montgomery’s office held the only ones I knew of.
“Is this from the headmaster’s office?” I stared at the kitsune and he stared right back, his beady black eyes gleaming with intelligence. “You know that’s technically theft, right?” The kitsune bared its teeth and hissed.
“Kenji doesn’t steal,” Raven assured me. “He borrows things and puts them back.”
The incubus snorted.
