Whatever Silas was doing here, it wasn’t good. Katherine’s leg started to twitch.
She knew that the change in position—and the fact that they had no warning about it—wasn’t lost on Sylvia either, but her mentor didn’t let a flash of alarm cross her face. “Well, we’re very happy to answer any questions you have,” Sylvia said. “We want to make your visit as smooth and easy as possible.”
This was usually the point where Divakar would mumble a few things about how the wards that protected Sunspot from curious ordinaries seemed fine, and how it seemed like the coven was fine, and how he’d write back in his report that it was all, you guessed it, fine. Silas, though, reached into his pocket and pulled out his caster.
God, his caster. It was made out of thick mahogany, with gold inlaid in an ornate design across the handle. Katherine would bet her apartment that it was upwards of two hundred years old. It was probably worth a few thousand dollars too, based on its historical value alone. She and Sylvia had picked out her caster at a pawn shop in Santa Monica for a whopping twelve bucks.
“I appreciate that,” Silas said. “I’ll just check the wards and make sure everything is up to snuff, and then we can see where we go from there.”
“Of course.” Sylvia’s voice was measured, but Katherine knew her well enough to pick up on the kernel of anxiety. She fiddled with the hem of her shirt. If the wards weren’t as strong as they should be, Silas would have grounds to censure Sylvia. If they were bad enough, he could even use it as reason to kick Sylvia out of her spot as the head of Aestas. Katherine shuddered to think of what would happen if he puthimself in charge. Oak Grove would shut down and Lily would be back out on the street, just like the Noctis handbook demanded.
She shouldn’t have to worry about that. The magic Sylvia had gathered from the ordinary yesterday, plus her own reserves, should have been enough to fix everything. Unless Sylvia’s magic was waning more than Katherine thought.
Silas cut into his palm, then reached for Sylvia’s hand, the gesture proprietary. Silas Khatri, Katherine imagined, did not have to ask for much. His life had been easy. Born into privilege, educated at New York City’s best private schools, sailing through a BA at Princeton and an MBA at Columbia to an instant hire as a vice president at Khatri International. This was a man who was used to things being given to him, and Sylvia’s palm—her blood, her pain—was no different.
Sylvia didn’t make him wait, pulling out her caster and cutting into her skin before unfurling her hand on top of his, the movement graceful. Their palms met and Silas and Sylvia’s combined magic swirled through the air, forming into a miniature figure of Sunspot, floating in the air above Sylvia’s desk. The existing wards glittered in a faint gold, extending from the edge of the parking lot into and throughout the building. Silas pinched his fingers on different areas, zooming in before moving on. The only indication he gave of his thoughts on the matter were quietmms. It was like he was trying to ratchet up their anxiety.
After a few minutes, Katherine couldn’t stay quiet anymore. “How does it look?” she blurted.
Silas whirled toward her, and Katherine realized that those were the first words she’d said since he’d shown up at the coven. His eyes met hers for a moment, long enough for her to notice the flecks of copper in the dark brown of his irises, then he stopped, blinked, and looked back at the model. If she didn’t know any better, she might have thought Silas Khatri was considering flirting with her.
She’d like that. It’d be quite satisfying to reject him.
“Well,” he said. “The wards are fraying from lack of upkeep. There are a number of holes, which could allow an ordinary to sense something off about Sunspot. And there are even more spots that are weak enough that they could become holes to an ordinary with a strongdesire to figure out what’s going on here, or a witch with the wrong intentions.”
Katherine’s stomach dropped. She knew things were bad—all witches were born with a finite amount of power, and even exceptionally strong witches like Sylvia started to run out as they got older. There was very limited information available on the subject, but some also thought that witches who were born unsettled ran out of power earlier in life than witches who were born settled, due to the amount of power they burned through in their youth. Sylvia was extremely tight-lipped on the subject, but she’d never indicated that her powers were so far gone that there could be that many holes. There were so many risks—an ordinary finding out about magic; a witch breaking into the spell library and taking something they weren’t supposed to take; hell, even an asshole like Joe breaking out of the holding cell and wreaking havoc.
She could have asked me for help, Katherine thought bitterly, but she immediately internally kicked herself. She knew why Sylvia couldn’t take her help. It was her lack of focus, her distracting anxieties, that made it so she lacked the precision for ward work. Even when she tried to funnel magic into Sylvia for the spells, she did it wrong—too much or too little, too strong or too weak. She was the only person Sylvia trusted, and her inability to get it together meant Sylvia had to do everything on her own. It was her own fault that things had fallen through the cracks, and now they were facing the consequences.
Sylvia didn’t let it rattle her. She didn’t give Silas time to elaborate on the consequences, instead saying smoothly, “I’m sorry to hear that. I can strengthen those right away. We had a busy few days and maintenance got away from me. We had to rescue an unsettled witch in our city, you see.”
It was a smart deflection, Katherine thought—especially as Silas leaned forward, his face lighting up with curiosity. “An unsettled witch? Right here in LA?”
Katherine held back a scoff. Right here in LA? As opposed to where, the North Pole?
Sylvia nodded. “Yes. A young girl who snapped and hurt her brother. Katherine found her yesterday and brought her in. Once we’redone here, I’m going to drive her to our retreat in Oak Grove where she can learn how to control her power.”
Silas turned to Katherine, his eyes wide. “You found her? She didn’t hurt you?”
Okay, what the hell was wrong with this guy? You would almost think… “You’ve never met an unsettled witch before, have you?”
“Well, no, of course not. That’d be dangerous.”
“Right. Like they’re wild animals.”
She always forgot how ignorant witches from other covens were about unsettled witches. They were rare enough that it was easy to ignore the problem, so long as you were all right with a freak accident every few years. Noctis led by example, which meant that they followed the rule of avoiding unsettled witches entirely, deeming their volatility too dangerous to be worth the risk. Of course, they ignored the fact that those witches were still out there, and without help, they were likely to get themselves killed. And it might not just be them dying.
“That’s not what I meant,” Silas said. “But unsettled witches’ difficulty controlling their magic results in extreme risks for people who—”
“For people who have empathy?” Katherine interrupted. “Who see someone in trouble and offer to help, instead of just burying the issue?”
“We advise that unsettled witches leave populated areas and isolate,” Silas said, although his voice wasn’t as sure as it had been in his earlier statements. “Once their magic has settled, they’re welcome to join one of our covens.”
“You know that these are kids, right? Fourteen, fifteen-year-olds. They’re supposed to live completely alone, no help, nothing?”
“I’m not—”
“Well, as I’m sure you know, I was born unsettled, and I am perfectly fine,” Sylvia interjected. “And so is the young witch I mentioned. She was in attendance at tonight’s meeting.”
