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I tapped the photo on the front of the brochure. It showed the storefront, sleek dresses and a trim suit visible through the glass. “I’ve been there a few times. I have a good sense of the place. Between that and the picture… I think I can work a magicking from here to there.”
“It’s the middle of the day,” Gabriel said. “Those ‘unsparked’ people are probably shopping there right now.”
And I didn’t have any plans to hurt them. My hands clenched and opened. A smile crossed my face. “That’s fine. I have the perfect approach. I’ll just put out the fire they started. There’s a sprinkler system. I can flood the place.” Freak out all those posh clients. Destroy all that sensitive fabric. Yes. It didn’t come close to paying them back for what they’d done to Jin, but it was the best I could do from here, right now.
IfI could do it.
“I’ll need space,” I said, spreading out my arms. “This is going to take a lot of work.” I’d never done a magicking like this, transmitting the energy of the spell through a token like the picture. But it should theoretically work, the same way you could use a voodoo doll to harm a person if you connected it to them properly.
The guys stepped back to the edges of the room. I picked up the brochure, staring hard at the picture, and then clasped it to my chest. Closing my eyes, I summoned the memories from my visits to that place. The faint jasmine scent always drifting through the cool air. The rustling of the dresses as other patrons shuffled through them. The lilting classical music Helen liked to play.
“From me to there,” I murmured, my fingers tensing around the brochure. “From me to there.”
I swept into the form, picking each move just a step beforehand, finding my flow as I focused on my purpose. All those pipes running through the ceiling. The pressure of all that water. As my spark flared inside me, I imagined it rushing from me into the sprinkler system’s trigger point. Wrap around it. Hold it tight. More and more. I wanted to send enough that it would keep that water gushing until the entire space was drenched through.
My feet spun me on the hardwood floor. The power sang through every inch of my body. My lungs seared, my breath stuttered.
Then I jerked to a halt and smacked my hands together with the brochure in between them.
Magic crackled through my veins with a faint popping sensation in my ears. All the energy in my body seemed to wrench away from me. My legs wobbled as a wave of exhaustion surged over me in its wake. But then, just for an instant, I could hear the distant shrieks as the spray poured down on customers and clothes alike.
I sagged, catching myself against the desk. A laugh burst from my mouth. We’d gotten one small sliver of victory.
And this would be only the beginning.
Chapter Eleven
Rose
Ispun around Gabriel, sending out a lick of magic to pull him with me, and came to a stop on the magicking room’s polished floor at the end of the form. My chest was heaving from the physical exertion, but my spark blazed joyfully in my chest. The strength of our bond, the one between me and my most recent consort, hummed in the air around us.
Gabriel set his hand on my waist and tugged me closer so he could bow his head over mine. His dark red hair was damp along his forehead. The smell of him, darkly mossy with a hint of sweetness, filled my nose. “Are you sure you should be pushing yourself this hard?” he said.
“It’s good,” I said. “You can feel it, can’t you? The way the magic wells up even faster between us?”
“Oh, I can feel it.” He dipped his head a little lower, his lips brushing the sensitive skin between my eyebrows. “I just mean after you extended yourself so much the other day…”
Two days ago, when I’d called down a torrent of rage on Helen Frankford’s prized business. It’d taken so much energy casting that spell that I’d been wobbly the whole rest of the day. But I’d felt pretty much normal by the next morning. Better than usual, really, when Kyler had brought me the news reports mentioning the apparently spontaneous flooding at the shop.
All the merchandise ruined. Store closed until further notice. It wasn’t half the damage she and her husband had done to Jin, but it should remind them that I knew how to hit back—and I wasn’t bound by any promise to protect anything except that one secret of theirs. Maybe while they were scrambling to deal with that loss, they’d have less time for conspiring against other fledgling witches.
“This kind of practice will just help me bounce back faster if I need to cast another spell like that,” I said. “Come on. You want to try another one?”
He chuckled. “All right, but I think one more is about all I have in me for today. Are you working all of us this hard?”
“It wouldn’t be fair if I gave you special treatment, now would it?” I said, gazing at him through my eyelashes.
Heat lit in his bright blue eyes and where his hand rested against my side. But there was something hesitant under the teasing note in his voice. “Trying to beat us into shape like a little army, are you?”
The words mademehesitate for a second, but they weren’t exactly wrong. “Anything that makes my magic and our bond stronger… I need to be able to call on as much power as possible, maybe without much warning, if we’re going to tackle the Frankfords.”
“You’re talking like we’re going to battle with them instead of trying to expose them. Wasn’t destroying her store enough?”
“If it makes them back down. We don’t know that yet.” I leaned into him, wishing I could completely lose myself in his warmth, that the worries wouldn’t follow me there. “And… maybe I’ve been going about this wrong from the beginning. Always trying to do things as much by the rules as possible. Trying to rely on justice and fair play. It’s never worked. I gain a little ground and then they hit back even harder.”
“But we’ve won,” Gabriel said. “You’vewon. Eventually we’ll win the whole war, without it becoming an actual war.”
“How long is that going to take, though? It’s not just me. All the other witches they’re hurting or might be, while we’re poking around at files, doing our best to scrounge up even a little evidence we can use… I’m not saying I think we should do anythingcruel.”
