She cursed as she dodged the flying piece of plastic yet again. If shecouldn’t even manage to fix this tiny, unimportant ward, she had no hopes of fixing the myriad of wards that she’d let go around Sunspot. The ones that she needed to fix if she wanted to have any chance of keeping her job—and her dignity.
She sighed, standing and grabbing the lid again, turning it over in her hands. Her skin felt like it was sitting so strangely over her bones.
Five years, since she’d last felt magic roiling under her skin.
No, that wasn’t fair. There had been magic, in that time in between, but it had been magic stolen in fits and bursts. Bits ripped from ordinaries who thought they were selling her a few days of life in exchange for easy fixes.
She took more than a few days. Far more.
It was a trivial spell she was trying to do, the first time her power failed her—a Class 2 to dry-clean one of her cardigans, of all things. She had reached for her magic, but she couldn’t make the green rune glow on her palm. There was just… nothing.
She’d tried the spell again, and then again, desperate to avoid thinking about what this final degradation would mean, until she’d gotten so dizzy that she couldn’t keep herself upright. She still had a scar on her hip from where it slammed into the sharp corner of her bed frame as she went down.
The next day, she’d ripped away a year of an ordinary’s life in exchange for a spell to help them pass a mandatory drug test. Afterward, she’d been so ashamed that she disappeared for a week. Drove to Vegas and tried to drown herself in the relentless sameness of casino after casino after casino. Promised herself that she’d never do it again, because that’s what she felt she should say, and because at that point she had decided lying was the least of her sins.
And then she’d gone back to LA, and as soon as her hands started to shake and her head began to ache, she’d done it again. And again. And again. Weeks, months,yearsof ordinaries’ lives in her hands, filling that hole she was determined never to let empty again. Over time, she’d grown more reckless, selling spells outside of Aestas so she could take more power without having to go through the extra steps of cooking the books to make sure Henry couldn’t tell what was goingon. She’d even considered stealing magic from coven members who were sentenced to power dampeners, but she’d managed to convince the part of her that boiled with endless need that the risk was simply too great.
All of that was over now. There was no more trembling. No migraine. Just the fire burning outward from her core, promising to solve all of her problems if she could just figure out how to use it.
There was a reason for Lily’s death. It had been a tragic accident, but not one without purpose.
A mistake, she told herself.You thought you could take her magic without—
She took a deep breath, cutting off that train of thought. Guilt was a waste of time. All that mattered was that it was done now, and there was no undoing it.
She had seemingly endless reserves of magic, enough to make every one of Aestas’ wards into a shining example of runic perfection and send Silas Khatri running back to his parents with his tail between his legs.
If she could get her fucking power to work.
She focused on her breathing, summoning the voice of her insufferable yoga teacher in an attempt to calm herself down.“Big breath in, big breath out, have you tried the $18 Krazy for Kale drink from the smoothie bar? It’s life-changing. And in, and out…”
Yeah, that wasn’t going to do it.
She gave up, opening her eyes and staring daggers at the glowing ward again. In another doomed-from-the-start mission, she tried pulling up her magic and sending a wave of power at it, staring at the visible holes in the spellwork and picturing her power filling them in, knitting up that blank space.
Instead of coming out of her in that steady stream, the magic blasted forward, shattering the Tupperware into a confetti of plastic.
Fuck.
When she’d first had unsettled magic, it was like an attack dog—violence primed to do her bidding. Sure, there was the risk that it would turn around and bite her in the ass, but it listened to her enough that she was willing to take that chance. This magic was a wild animal.Unleashed, uncontrollable, unheeding of her commands as it destroyed everything in its path. All she could do was run after it and scream into the void.
It hurt too, the pleasant itch that she remembered now a steady burn. The fire under her skin scratched at her every moment, preventing her from doing reasonable things like eating or sleeping or even sitting in a fucking chair, because if she didn’t get up right now, she was going to burn through the seat.
She stood, pacing as she tried to rub a crick out of her neck. Last night had been brutal. She’d tried to tire herself out, staying in her office until her eyes got itchy and her joints ached. But even though her body protested, the magic was still there, bubbling away, the well not even slightly depleted by all that she’d done. The drive home had been worse—some asshole had cut her off on La Cienega and the surge of anger had been so strong that she’d had to pull over and throw a burst of power at a stray shopping cart, crumpling it into a heap of metal. She’d been so antsy by the time she got to her Mid-City bungalow that she had to run inside, unable to risk any interactions with her neighbors. She’d tried to sleep, but after a burst of power destroyed her favorite throw, she’d given up, dragging one of her patio chairs inside to sit on so she wouldn’t damage her couch. She’d spent years combing thrift stores and consignment shops, gathering the perfect collection of items to turn that hovel into the home she’d always dreamed of having. She wouldn’t let herself destroy it.
After all she’d done to get this power, it was absolute hell.
After all she’d—
No. She wasn’t going to think about that. Wasn’t going to think about blood on the tile. Wasn’t going to think about what she’d lose if anyone got a whiff of what actually happened. Wasn’t going to think about anything except forcing this power to work for her.
There was no changing the past. She just had to make sure it was worth it.
She’d helped train enough unsettled witches to have the laundry list of recommendations memorized—positive mantras, centering thoughts, blah and blah and who the fuck cared. That nonsense wasfor weak teenagers, kids who couldn’t control their emotions to begin with. Sylvia was an adult, and more importantly, she’d done this before. She’d fuckingdonethis before.
So why couldn’t she do it again?
1991
