Prologue
On nights when nature defies its own rules, magic is most potent. The perfect time to find what she needs.
Armed with a worn leather foraging bag and a sharpening knife, Veda walks the old forest’s twisted paths, ready for whatever lies in wait. Ducking under low-hanging branches, she dodges bushes and trees, stepping over fallen boughs with the ease of years spent foraging. Veda doesn’t stop until echoes of her destination graze her awareness. After one final cut through thick foliage, the sound of the river’s current spills through. Veda emerges, exposed to the sky. The blue moon remains veiled behind clouds, casting an ethereal glow.
Beneath riverbank rocks, luminescent moss flourishes. Using her knife, Veda digs out only what she needs and places it into a small black pouch. Foraging is a twofold pursuit: It keeps the school’s supply closet full of otherwise expensive ingredients and satisfies Veda’s joy for the hunt.
She retrieves a lantern from her bag and whispers, “Lux.”
The Cosmos demand payment for every spell cast, and Mages’ currency is physical pain and suffering—a price many pay willingly. But Veda is lucky. The eye-shaped sapphire amulet around her neck glows, absorbing the cost as the lantern floats ahead, illuminating the path.
What has been lurking in the darkness turns her bones to ice.
Bloodred spider lilies aren’t native to Washington state, nor are they in season, yet they are in full bloom as far as she can see. Relief floodsher veins when the flowers don’t catch fire, but it does little to ease her fear. She tries to outwalk the prickly unease, heading downstream across slippery rocks, but anxiety clings to her like a vise.
A sudden storm of stirring winds and rumbling thunder charges the air like static fire. Veda searches for a path, a way home; the ticking seconds echo the rhythm of her heart. The sky opens, and rain turns dirt to mud, unearthing the sediments of her past. Taking root, fear blooms into petals of panic, driving Veda to run. Thin branches sting her face, but she doesn’t stop until the downpour suddenly eases. Moonlight finds her between the thinning raindrops, pushing away the darkness and revealing not only the path home but the flowers that followed her. Bloodred, and too close for comfort.
Trouble.
One
Veda rips from the root as many spider lilies as she can carry and throws them into her makeshift firepit. Drenched from rain and dirty from weeding, she watches the crackling flames turn to ash. Sunbeams filter through the forest, painting the trees with a smoky golden glow. The hushed moment lulls her fears into dormancy until they reignite with the realization that fire purifies; it doesn’t always destroy.
She extinguishes the last of the embers in favor of a trip back to her cabin for a hot shower, from which Veda emerges in a cloud of steam a short time later. She grabs a towel, noticing the welts on her brown skin from the trek through the forest. After gathering her thick copper-brown hair into a bun, she carefully spreads her arms in front of the mirror.
The Sanguis Curse slumbers in her blood. Fatal if not for the bewitching magic that keeps it sidelined, the curse feeds on her energy, growing stronger. For the past six years, purple bruises have deepened into angry clusters of raised skin. Black veins have branched like fractals, curving around her shoulder, inching toward her throat. Every avenue for a cure has ended in failure, meaning that, one day, the Sanguis Curse will consume her. But her curser’s blood fills a cyst on her ribs, a reminder of a mistake that damns the culprit to die with Veda ... if they don’t kill her first.
Wincing, Veda rubs salve on what she can reach. Magic activates at first touch, cooling her skin and easing the pain. It’s a temporary fixthat helps her get through each day. She hides her mortality beneath jeans and long sleeves to avoid the looks and questions, then swallows a pain elixir, another for nutrients, and makes oatmeal to combat the impending nausea.
She’s halfway finished eating when the blue gemstone sitting in a glass jar on the table pulses twice before glowing bright. Rendered obsolete by modern technology, lapis stone messages were once the only method of instant communication when secrecy was paramount. Ominous uncertainty knots her stomach. Veda picks it up. A shock of magic races up her arm as a familiar voice projects from the stone:
“Come quickly.”
It goes inert.
“Shit.”
Veda grabs a jacket and sets off.
Dense, tall trees create a canopy overhead, casting shadows across Veda’s path.
A breeze rustles the trees as chirping birds dart to and fro. Lined with ivy and fern, the uneven trail is a worn path of her own creation. The scent of rich, damp earth is calming, the atmospheric fog and steady drizzle, peaceful. Without a spider lily sighting, the walk is a perfect distraction.
Veda emerges into the pasture behind Weston Academy. She’s not fifty yards from the tree line when the first chicken scuttles past her feet. More follow, scattering across the field, pecking at the ground in noisy pursuit of critters. Their liberator, Peter Weston, waits by the gate, his fair skin flushed from time spent under the morning sun.
Peter is an intentional man. That he’s straying from routine puts Veda on edge—a tension he tries to ease with a crooked smile. With green eyes, tousled blond hair, and soft yet strong features, the tall,slim Seer is handsome in all the ways that count, and none that soothe her nerves.
“Who died?” Veda asks cautiously.
“No one.” His smile falters. “Oh shit. I only used the stone message because I thought you were already in the greenhouse without your phone. Sorry I scared you.”
“It’s fine.” Veda wants to relax, but the anchored unease in her bones won’t allow it.
Gaze sharpening, he gently tilts her chin to the side. “What happened to your face?”
“I didn’t want to waste the blue moon, so I went foraging.” She winces. “There werehundredsof spider lilies along the path about half a mile north of the cottage. I got spooked, it started raining, and I ran into a tree branch or five.”
“Tomorrow is the last day of March, but spider lilies bloom in late summer,” Peter muses thoughtfully. “It’s too much of a coincidence to ignore.”
