Page 23

I frowned at her. “Magic. I don’t like that. Like flipping a switch to turn on the light is magic. There’s a reason for everything.”

“Maybe, but we can’t explain everything, even when we do accept it. There are all kinds of unexplained natural phenomena. And you say that you took Donny’s injury out of him and gave it to your daughter? How did you do that?” She shook her head. “You said instinctively, so you don’t know. You just wanted her to have empathy, and then she had his wound? But that’s very dark magic, taking wounds from one person and sending them into someone else. But it’s also not the same amount of hurt. It grows in the exchange. At least I think it does. I’m not that fluent in the dark arts. I’m more neutral. I like to make potions, things that don’t harm, like pretty powders. Not that there’s anything wrong with dark magic,” she said hastily.

“Because your brother has a lot of dark magic. Ray of Sunshine, not Donny.”

She stared for a second then smirked. “Ray of Sunshine? That’s funny! Yeah, he’s been a serious practitioner of the dark arts since our parents were killed by the council.”

“Council? That sounds very classic bad guy. And they killed your parents? That’s… I’m so sorry.”

She stared at me, tears burning in her eyes. She sniffed and looked away. “It’s fine. I mean, they were trying to overthrow the council, and they did some really awful things on their path to power. That probably justifies what happened.” Her eyes got big, and she covered my hand with hers. “Don’t tell Ray I said that. He’s so angry about what they did, and he doesn’t tolerate anyone else not being angry too. Which is understandable, because Donny was there, and he saw the whole thing. He was paralyzed, unable to do anything while our parents were questioned and then…” She shivered.

I squeezed her hand, and her sorrow rushed over me like a wave. Her grief became mine, and I was soon blinking back my own tears. “I’m so sorry. I don’t understand this world at all. A week ago, I was living my normal suburban housewife life, and now I’m…”

She looked at me for a long time. “Magical. Dark magic, by what you did instinctively. And that grimoire is the darkest magic,” she said, nodding at the book. “Lady Hoar’s grimoire. She was one of the most powerful witches known, and her family descendants were the only ones who could withstand the council. Thirty years ago, the Frosts finally fell.”

I pulled away from her. It was all just so dramatic. “That’s a good story, but it’s hard to believe. I mean, that’s just her reputation. You’ve never met this Lady Hoar, and you haven’t read this book, right? You don’t speak Latin, do you?”

She nodded. “Of course I do, but just enough to get by. I wasn’t ever really interested in our family’s legacy, but our parents wouldn’t let us grow up without at least a working knowledge.”

“You’re not interested in dark magic, but your brother is? Are you a descendant of the Frosts?”

She flashed her teeth and shook her head. “Oh, no. I’m not anything close to that. They were the big magic users with talents in all the big arts. Aeoromancy, philomancy, and⁠—”

“Necromancy. I saw a book in the library.”

She blinked at me. “You saw a book on necromancy in the library?”

“And those other things. And geomancy? Anyway, I’m not interested in any of that. Even a working knowledge is more than I need. What I really want is a way to help Sage control her anger, channel it into useful paths that don’t end up hurting herself and others.”

She stared at me. “What about you?” she finally said.

My kettle started screaming, making her jump, so I got up to pour it into cups with tea bags. “What about me?” I asked, putting a tea plate over the cup with daisies painted on it and handing it to her. I put another mug with dandelions painted on it in front of my seat and put the small plate over that one as well before I returned to my seat.

“Well, you instinctively did dark magic on Donny and Sage. If your magic is just waking up… They say the later it manifests, the stronger it is, and you are very old.”

I gave her a flat look. “Thank you. I’m feeling older every day.”

She flapped her hands around, panicked. “No, I don’t mean that! I mean, you could live until you’re four hundred years old with that much magic.”

I shuddered. “I’m not interested in living that long. A regular span is difficult enough to endure. I’m certainly not living past my children.”

“Oh. You have an affinity with death?” She wrapped her hands around the mug like she was cold and stared at me with those big eyes that should’ve gone with pale hair. She was a daisy, not a dark rose in a night garden. She tried to blend in with her brother so he didn’t feel angrier. But he needed to deal with it, not take it out on her just because she didn’t have the same impulses. She’d been able to forgive the people who killed her parents, but he never would, not even if they were monsters. He’d just become a matching monster.

Oh well. Not my problem. “I always liked dead things when I was young. I might still like dead things if it was socially acceptable, but it’s not, and I have no interest in becoming some kind of weirdo in a haunted house. This is rough transition for me because of the divorce, and the move, and the betrayal, but eventually I’m going to be pulled together, finish school, and start a law practice.”

“Law practice,” she said slowly. “You mean for regular people?”

“And for those who have no recourse, who need help finding justice.”

She brightened considerably. “That sounds wonderful! So, you probably won’t end up doing something that gets the council’s attention and cause them to take my brother out for being a danger to society while they’re in the neighborhood.”

I just stared at the nervous woman for a long time. “That’s the kind of thing you worry about?”

She nodded slowly, looking glum. “The council’s enforcer is one of the most terrifying sorcerers the world has ever known. They call him the Council’s Teeth.”

The silence in the kitchen grew heavier and heavier because I didn’t know whether to be sympathetic and horrified or burst out laughing. I mean, Council’s Teeth? I was expecting something more terrifying. Like Darth Vadar. Now that was a name that screamed supervillain. The Council’s Teeth? Lame. Fangs would be better. And drop council. The Fang. Ooh, so ominous. I shook off my pointless musing. “And the last person who owned the house, what were they like?”

She looked at me, confused by the change of subject. “I don’t know. My dad worked for her, not us. And that was thirty years ago. I was worried that the house wouldn’t ever let anyone in, that it would just crumble away in anger and resentment, but now it seems so happy.”