That meant…
Ena’s head spun with the implications of this discovery.
Had witches learned this symbol from daemons? Or was this something that they’d developed together prior to the split? And more importantly, what was it doing on the amulet? How did the amulet have anything to do with binding or Imbuing?
Ena knew that amulets worked by enhancing magic and spells, so the symbols on it likely indicated the intention of the enhancing magic. She ran through each symbol in her mind…
The triquetra, the magic of the three Covens. Ena knew one witch from each Coven was involved in the spell—it required their combined magic, and would enhance it.
The goddess symbol, representing Gaia. The amulet drew upon and enhanced her magic. And Iblis’s, too, since the horned god symbol was also on there.
And then the binding rune was used to…what? Bind the spell in place? She knew the magic of the spell wasn’t simply Imbued into the amulet, otherwise how was it keeping all daemons from accessing Gaia’s magic without them being near it?
So in all likelihood, the enhancing properties of the amulet were creating a much farther-reaching binding effect than was normal with simple Imbuing. The amulet was enhancing the binding effect, so rather than binding the spell into just one daemon who touched the object, it was binding it within each daemon in existence, using the enhanced magic of the three Covens, Gaia, and Iblis to do so.
Gaia, the power of that was…mind-boggling. No wonder she got such an eerie feeling when she held the amulet.
Ena looked around, finding the Archives mostly empty. She desperately wanted to discuss all this with Ty, but by her estimation, Turner wouldn’t be coming to escort her to the fighting ring for at least another hour.
Ena flitted around the Archives, flipping absentmindedly through books she’d read a dozen times already, and drawingsketches of the binding rune to bring back with her until finally, Gaia be blessed, Turner arrived.
He noticed her agitation right away. “You alright?” he asked, his fair brows crinkled in concern.
“Yes, fine,” she said. “I just… I think I found something, but I need to talk to Ty about it.”
Turner’s brows shot up in excitement. Gaia, the man really had no game face. The excitement exuded off him. “Really?” he asked. “What is it?”
“Not here…” she said. A few other daemons had come in since she’d made the discovery, and she didn’t want to risk talking about it in a public area.
The two of them packed up the books, surreptitiously returning Ty’s private reserves to Nial, before making their way back to Ty’s room.
Turner dropped her off, then left immediately to go find Ty. Ena paced the room a few times before settling in front of the trunk at the base of Ty’s bed. She opened it and rummaged around until she pulled out the small, unassuming wooden box that could only be unlocked with her magic.
Using her Knowing, she felt for the delicate metal mechanism within, and spoke.
{Clavis}
The small lock clicked, and Ena carefully opened the box to reveal the amulet.
The look of it always took her breath away—it was beautiful and terrifying at the same time, the feeling of it sending chills down her spine. And while part of her yearned to wear it—to touch it—another, wiser part didn’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole.
Just then, she heard male voices and the door swung open. She stood swiftly, blocking the view of the amulet, but luckily it was just Ty, Turner, and as a bonus, Steig had come too.
“I found him,” Turner said joyfully. “And we figured Steig should be here to hear this as well.”
“What about Lara?” Ena asked. She didn’t want to leave her newfound friend out of the mix.
“I’ll relay the information later. She’s got her hands full right now,” Steig said, in perhaps the least gruff response she’d ever heard from him. Maybe talking about Lara brought that out in him.
The three of them gathered around her expectantly, and it suddenly overwhelmed her with a sense of déjà vu as she remembered them doing the exact same thing weeks ago after she’d done the locator spell to find the amulet. How far they’d come now…
“Well, viper,” Ty said, breaking their silence and looking down to where she held the amulet. “What did you find?”
She lifted the box, holding it in front of her so they could all see. “The symbol, this one here,” she said, pointing to the intricate knot at the base of the amulet. “I think it has daemonic origins. It’s similar to the binding rune used in Imbuing. Do you all recognize it?” She pulled out the paper in her pants pocket where she’d drawn the angular binding rune.
“Yes,” Ty said confidently. “I’ve seen versions of this binding rune a hundred times. It’s even on your collar,” he said, reaching out to touch one of the runes at the edge of her collar, tucked behind her hair. “But how can you be sure it’s the same?”
“Well, I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I know this symbol isn’t used in Wiccan culture today, but before the split, witches and daemons intermingled a lot more, so it makes sense that their magical cultures did too. And besides, amulets enhance magic. If this one is drawing on the magic of Gaia, Iblis,andthe three Covens to enhance the binding rune, that would explain its ability to bind the spell within all daemons. And it explains allof the symbols, and that…that makes sense, right?” Ena asked, suddenly feeling unsure.
