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“Why don’t you make the list and send it to me,” Grant said. “If she wants it later, I’ll have it.”
Hayleen nodded, a spark of pity on her features, as if she realized it was a tricky situation. “Okay, so first things first. You’ve actually got two spells here. There’s a protection spell and a defensive spell.”
“The defensive is the whole blasting people across the room thing?”
“That’s it. The two are tangled together and weakened—the protection spell especially. It’s like they’ve been scrubbed raw recently.”
“She went to hell,” Grant explained. “She also sort of turned into a reaper.”
Hayleen didn’t seem shocked by either point, only nodding again as if that made perfect sense. “I’d guess it was the form change. Magic like this rests in the skin, so for beings who alter their very nature, it’s like loosening a tooth. The magic doesn’t hold so well.”
“Does that mean you can remove them?” Grant asked.
She tilted her head, leaning close enough that her warm breath moved over my skin. “Yeah. I can take both off, or I can just take the protection off. I could bolster the defensive so it wouldn’t fade so much from the whole changing-forms thing.”
Grant turned a look on me, a question there.
Did I want the spells gone? One or both? I’d lived so long being unseen that there was a part of me terrified of the idea of removing that. What if people still didn’t notice me, but I couldn’t blame it on magic anymore?
Except…the girl I’d been before, the one who hadn’t known how strong she was, she loved the shadows. She’d wanted to belong but had still found solace in being ignored. I’d grown so much since then, come into my own, recognized that I didn’t need to hide.
“Take the protection one off,” I said. “Leave the defensive. I sort of like being able to throw people when I need to.”
Hayleen grinned. “Let ’em see you coming, huh? That’s my policy, too. Yeah, let’s get this shit done.”
* * * *
Getting a tattoo probably sucked, and getting one removeddefinitelysucked. As it turned out, getting magical ones removed and bolstered was far worse.
By the time we were done—it had to be three hours later—my forearms felt like they’d been stung by a million pissed-off wasps that I had personally insulted, which was saying something, because it didn’t take much for a wasp to sting in the first place.
She’d rubbed some sort of ointment on me first, chanted, then held her hand above the scarring. It had felt like knives wiggling their way out, as if each speck of ink that had had been placed—along with the magic behind it—had pulled free, slicing through my flesh along the way.
Grant had stood beside me, his hand on my shoulder, telling me to breathe. It was sweet, even if entirely unhelpful.
Why was it that people thought breathing fixed everything? As though taking a breath would suddenly make the pain go away?
I had a feeling that if I ever tried to have a baby, I’d punch the first nurse who told me to breathe.
After removing that spell, however, she’d had to bolster the other. It turned out that that required tattooing in the lines again. She used white ink, so they wouldn’t stand out any more that they already did.
Her voice was strong and controlled as she chanted in a language I didn’t recognize. Even though I could read languages, it seemed I couldn’t understand them when they were spoken.
Hayleen wiped a wet cloth over my forearms, clearing off the blood from the tattoo. “There we go.”
“Please tell me that’s it.”
She closed her eyes and held her hand above, as if sensing the magic. Finally, she nodded and tossed the cloth onto the workbench. “Yep. That’s it. The protection spell is gone, so you won’t go unnoticed so easily. I increased the defensive spell, so it packsquitethe punch. I also connected it better to your will, meaning you shouldn’t accidently throw too many people.”
“Can you make it so she can’t use it against me?” Grant asked.
“I could, but I won’t. I happen to think you usually deserve whatever happens to you.”
Grant offered a glare that implied he wasn’t actually all that mad. “Well, short of that, I think we’re good.”
“Awesome. I’ll put it on the tab.”
I went to argue about that, to say I’d pay for it myself, but then I recalled how we’d paid for the Elder One’s help. The reality was that payment in the supernatural world could be anything, and I didn’t want to get stuck with a bill I didn’t understand.
