“I cannot banish a letter somewhere I have never been. I have never been to the coven you attacked, assuming you attacked my mother’s coven.”
“What about the tethers that magus have?” asked Tsee.
I answered, “I lost all my tethers when the mating was triggered with Carmine. From this realm, I cannot scry—and scrying would not allow me to speak with anyone on the other side anyway. I couldn’t send a message through my ancestors or other dead, because it takes power to move between this realm and the next that they do not have. I would need to move through a demon gate to do that. But then there is the same problem of sending them somewhere I have never seen.”
“Dreams?” Carmine asked. He cast me a furtive look.
A furtive look from the demon king was weird enough, but coupled with that specific word… was he beginning to suspect our dreams were real?
I said, “The dreams of past, present, and future are not in a magus’s control. If they are given, then those visions are controlled by the mother. I could not drive her gifted dreams.”
The youngest councillor, Gnuz, who was two hundred years old, asked, “Is there any other way of contacting magus from here? Or any other supernatural?”
“From here, no. I don’t believe so. I have never tested it, however, as I had no one to contact. Would you like me to investigate the matter?”
I smirked inwardly. I’m sure they’dlovethat idea.
“Unnecessary,” Carmine said smoothly. “The matter remains that our intel suggested that the force we sent would be ample to subdue the magus, but she was able to fight us back nearly single-handedly.”
I lifted my head. “She?”
A silence gripped the others. I narrowed my gaze. “Who is ‘she’?”
“The coven’s new leader,” Carmine said, a beat too late.
Mother be, Tempest was the coven’s leader? But whoa, I’d just sent her demon in the mail.Shit,no wonder her demon had wanted to conceal me and Adeuto for now. How would that reunion go down? How would the coven react when they found out?
“The new leader was able to fight the demons off by herself?” I whistled. “That is serious power.”
I couldn’t have done that. But then I’d never doubted that my twin wasa born leader and queen.
The last of the councillors, Dris, said, “They arranged themselves into small groups, and their barriers wereimpassable for all but our strongest. We had been able to break through all their previous barriers. What do you know of that?”
I leaned back. “How many in the groups?”
“Four or five. Four worked together at a time.”
“The number four is significant,” I thought aloud. “Magus often place gems to the north, south, east, and west. It’s the number of levels within the coven: novice, proven, esteemed, and council. It’s also the number of affinities.”
My brow cleared. “Ah, that’s it. Shit, that’s brilliant. I wonder who thought of that.”
Tempest.
“What?” Carmine asked, and hehatedasking.
I answered, “A barrier woven by a magus with multiple affinities will always be stronger. A three-affinity barrier would be impossible for me to get through, for instance, in that I only possess one affinity. I think that they’re combining the magic of four magus across the four different affinities to create a barrier of battle, divination, apothecary, and grimoire. Of course it would work in a similar fashion, but coming up with that defense was fucking brilliant. So simple. I bet it’s never been done.”
The councillors exchanged long looks.
Dris shook her head. “How would we get past that barrier?”
I hummed. “Iwouldn’t. Only a very powerful maguscould get beyond that, or four magus holding all four affinities whose power exceeds the power of those who created the barrier in the first place. But how could a demon get past?” I pursed my lips. “Use their feelings against them. Magus will drop any defense to protect their own. You won’t outpower a four-affinity barrier.”
The councillors looked to Carmine.
He sat in his throne at last. “That is what happened. Sota threatened the life of a magus she found spying on them at the gates. The coven leader then challenged Sota and won the challenge. The coven leader appeared to come into more power.Lightning struck her, and four objects appeared to clad her after. Once that happened, she was able to force back the remainder of our forces.”
“Lightning,” I murmured, frowning.
