Page 8 of The Duke’s Bloody Bargain

Alex showed his love for me in many ways, but I had to admit the new lavatory was extraordinary.

“What troubles you?” I studied her aura where a steel-grey light dominated. “You seem worried.”

She faced the window overlooking the gardens. “What does it feel like to be a wili?”

The question caught me off guard. She was a powerful witch who had once belonged to the Wraith Court before it’d been dismantled after the Civil War.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything you can tell me.” She turned around in a flutter of black crepe fabric.

“Why do you wear only widow’s weeds?” I asked out of sheer curiosity.

Surprise flashed orange in her halo. “Black contains magic and avoids dispersion. It makes it easier to channel magic in the right direction.”

“Darius doesn’t wear black.”

She shot her gaze towards the ceiling. “He is a different type of wizard. He doesn’t need to channel his energy. Now, I’m trying to understand how a wili’s power works.”

“Shouldn’t you already know that?”

Light crimson spread across her aura—embarrassment. “I know many things about a wili’s power, but I want to learn something more, something more personal, something I can’t find in books.”

“You should ask Myrtha.”

She tilted her head. “Myrtha and I aren’t really friends.”

Well, Cara and I weren’t really friends either.

“It’s difficult to answer.” I sat on a stuffed chair and offered her another one. “When Myrtha found me, I was dying after Rothbart had attacked me.” A quick vision of the sorcerer flashed across my mind, sending a chill down my bones. “I had no strength and was in pain. But when I woke up here, I felt reborn although I didn’t guess I had supernatural powers until they developed.”

She didn’t sit. “What can you do exactly?”

“I can move things with my mind. Look.” I focused on the vase of flowers on the windowsill, thinking about lifting it.

Energy flowed out of me and…the vase cracked, spilling water everywhere.

I winced. “I need practise.”

A mauve flame—admiration—coursed through her aura, which confused me. Admiration for what? I’d just destroyed a vase.

“But you need to die to become a wili, don’t you?” she asked.

I picked up the pieces of the vase. “No, the transformation is not like that of vampires. I was almost dead. Myrtha must transform a woman into a wili before she dies. But to maintain my powers and not to fade, I must kill at least one evil man each year.”

I didn’t look forward to killing someone, but wilis were vengeful spirits; they avenged women who had been betrayed and attacked by a man they’d trusted.

She shrugged. “It should be easy enough.”

I twirled a finger over the sad porcelain shards. “Do you mind recomposing the vase? I like it.”

“Well, it’s not my sort of magic.” She shifted her weight. “As I said, I’m not like Darius. My magic is different.”

“Do you mean you can’t rebuild the vase?”

“I have a more careful approach to magic and use it only for…” She waved her arms, gesturing at something big. “Big projects.”

Her aura was pulsating with crimson.