AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I drained half the bottle in one go and then flopped onto my back again. And stared at the ceiling some more, which looked slightly more friendly now that I had beer. But no more helpful.
“Is Jules all right?” I asked, after a minute.
“He’s human,” Fred said, with an odd lilt in his tone. Like he still couldn’t quite believe it. “He’s a little hysterical, sure, but otherwise, he’s fine. I mean, maybe not if he stays like this, you know, but for now . . . So there’s no need to go tearing yourself up over it, all right?”
Yeah. Unless I couldn’t figure out how to reverse this.
“Did everybody go home?” I asked hopefully.
“Oh, hell no.”
Of course not.
“Jonas and the witches are having it out. You know, I used to think it was just an old fairy tale, but witches really don’t like missing a party, do they?”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “I guess not.”
“I tried to eavesdrop for you, but they’re in the kitchen under a silence spell. And they closed the blinds.” He looked aggrieved. “All I got was that they think he’s monopolizing you, and a bunch of arm waving.”
I hoped that arm waving wasn’t of the spell variety. “Is Marco with them?”
“No, he’s trying to get some sense out of that girl.”
“What girl?”
“Rhea something; I didn’t get a last name. You know, the witches brought her.”
“She’s not another witch?”
“Yeah, but not a coven leader. Best I could gather, she’s one of your court.”
“My—” It took me a second. “You mean the Pythian Court?”
“You got two?”
“I wasn’t sure I had one. It’s not like they’ve bothered to come by and say hi.”
“Well, now they have.”
Yeah, and I guess the outfit should have clued me in. “What does she want?”
Fred sighed. “I don’t know. But she keeps babbling something about this being all her fault—”
“What is?”
“Jules. Oh, not the getting-cursed thing; that’s all on him. But the other. It seems like having one of your coven around increases your power or something—”
“Wait.” This was going way too fast. “What coven?”
“Your coven.”
“Fred,” I said impatiently. “We’ve been through this. I’m not a witch. I don’t have—”
“Well, according to her, you do. That’s what the Pythian Court is—the Pythia’s coven. And coven members give their leader a power boost. It’s sort of the reason they exist,” he added when I just looked at him. “For a bunch of magic workers to pool their power. You know?”
Yeah, I just hadn’t known it applied to me. But that’s the sort of information that might have been useful, oh, a few hundred times. I frowned.
“I don’t feel like I’ve had a boost.”
