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“Cassie likes it here,” Saffy said staunchly.
“It gets irritating after a while,” Zara told me, taking out a small cigarette case. “That’s why I live in town.”
“Then why have it like this?”
She shrugged. “Makes the fey feel more at home, so they come more readily. And we have to get potion supplies from somewhere.”
“You can’t just get them at the usual places?” I asked, because there were potion shops all over Vegas. Just on the street with the used furniture shop, I’d seen no less than three—four, if you counted a charm store that also stocked a few ingredients behind the counter.
To human eyes, they’d appeared to be closed and boarded-up storefronts, their interiors full of nothing but dust. But to anyone with magic in their veins, they looked like what they were: stores humming with shoppers and stuffed full of potion supplies, everything from the mundane stuff needed for cleaning and warding your house to stronger things used in medicine or pest control. Or the little beauty tricks that didn’t count as glamouries but still took ten years off your face.
There was even a Rothgay’s, the Circle-owned potion shop that had its towering main store in London. I’d never been there, but everyone had heard stories of its pristine interior, gleaming old-world fixtures, and knowledgeable staff, any of whom could have headed up a store of his or her own, but who preferred to stay and learn from the truly brilliant alchemists in back. They experimented on new potions and elixirs all the time, the best of which quickly made their way to Rothgay’s many branches worldwide.
Of course, there’d been a couple of derelict types lounging around outside the famous store, looking like panhandlers but in reality serving as guards, because Rothgay’s carried the kind of stuff you needed a license for. I wasn’t sure a coven witch would get a license, considering it was the Circle that issued them. But even if not, there were plenty of alternatives. The presence of a large supernatural community and a sizable contingent of the War Mage Corps ensured that you couldn’t swing a dead cat in Vegas without it coming back smelling like wormwood.
Yet the covens needed more?
“We don’t like the Circle to know what we’re buying,” Zara said, lighting a small herbal cigarette. She smiled.
I smiled back—before I realized the implication.
“Jas—uh, Zara,” I said, trying not to look as freaked-out as I was. “It would be a really bad idea to attack the Circle when they’re in the middle of a war.”
“Is that what you meant?” Saffy asked, sitting forward.
Zara blew some fragrant smoke at her. “It’s been mentioned.”
“Really, really bad,” I added.
“Why would anybody even think of such a thing?” Saffy demanded. “What good would it do to beat the Circle only to have the gods come back and destroy us all? Besides, you know why we can’t attack them, even in peacetime—”
“I know,” Zara agreed lightly. “I’m not the one suggesting it.”
And before I could ask what Saffy meant, she was telling me. “The Circle’s power supports a spell, one laid thousands of years ago, to keep out the gods. Without them, it would fall, and those bastards would be back and we’d all be screwed! Like we are if anyone actually goes through with this!”
I nodded, because for once, I probably knew more than she did. She was talking about the ouroboros spell, one cast by the goddess Artemis to protect the world after she kicked all the other godly butts to the curb, with “the curb” being their own dimension. There was some debate as to why she’d done this, but none whatsoever about its usefulness.
Of course, I could be wrong about that, I thought, seeing Zara’s expression.
“The spell does exist,” I told her.
“Perhaps—”
“No perhaps. It does.”
“Perhaps,” she repeated, showing teeth this time. “But it was very . . . convenient . . . that we only learned of this during our war with the Circle. We had a truce once, to fight a more pressing enemy. They broke it, attacked us when we were at our most vulnerable, and then, when our leaders vowed to fight on nonetheless, told us this story. And, somehow, persuaded the Mothers to believe it! As a result, while we never accepted the yoke they call their rule, we also did not continue to fight back.”
She looked at me soberly. “And now, there is another war.”
“Yes, one we have to win.”
“Perhaps.” It seemed to be her favorite word. “Or perhaps the Circle want an excuse to finish us off.”
“You don’t believe that!” Saffy said, looking shocked.
“I’m merely telling you what’s been said,” Zara replied innocently. “The Circle has viewed the covens as a thorn in its side for centuries. What if they see this war—whether needed or not—as a way to persuade us to ally with them as they did once before? And to complete the betrayal they started then?”
I was the one sitting forward this time. “You know who I am; who my mother was.”
