Sylvia reached into her desk and pulled out a necklace, a dainty heart locket on a gold chain. “Do you think this is something your daughter would wear?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
Sylvia laid the necklace on the table, the clack of it against the wood echoing through the air. “Perfect,” she said. “As long as she’s wearing this, her pain should be severely diminished.”
Sylvia pulled out her caster and cut into her palm, and Katherine did the same, once again reopening the barely healed cut. Sylvia grabbed the necklace, her hand shaking—the telltale sign that she needed this. That she had waited as long as she could.
The two women clasped hands, the metal cold in the center of their grip. Mustache’s eyes lit up as Sylvia chanted in Latin, her words rushed and quiet: “Hic homo stultus est. Obsecro te hinc eum ut conquiescam.” It wasn’t a real spell—just gibberish Sylvia had memorized from aLatin for Dummiesbook—but ordinaries always appreciated a show. It helped convince them that magic was real, that what they were about to give up wasforsomething.
The light of the rune lit up their palms as Sylvia closed her eyes and began to actually perform the spell. Katherine kept her gaze on Sylvia’s face, watching the magic flood up into her skin, giving her pale cheeks a pink flush. It was like watching a dancer in their element—perfect,graceful, demure. Katherine had seen Sylvia do magic thousands of times, but she never tired of it. Their magics were kindred spirits, both born in the same chaos, both forced into a box that tamped them down into a shadow of what they once were, but Sylvia’s kept the fire it once had. Katherine’s had been put out.
The pain-management spell she was using was a Class 1, designed to help witches with headaches and turned ankles. Katherine’s job was to give Sylvia the raw magic she needed to take it up a few notches, to make it something that would have the staying power and depth to do what she promised.
Sylvia took her time doing the spell, building up the anticipation for a rapt Mustache. After a few more moments, the necklace glowed white between them. Sylvia let the chant build to a very official-sounding finish, then pulled her hand from Katherine’s, dropping the necklace onto the desk with a loud gasp. Mustache actually clapped.
He reached for the necklace, running his hand over the gold surface. “Damn,” he said. “I’ve had a twinge in my back for years, and now it’s totally gone. She’s gonna be thrilled.”
“Good. I’m glad to be able to help.”
“Really, thank you. Your guy mentioned payment?”
While all witches in a Noctis-signed coven were technically required to keep their magic a secret, most covens operated under the same terms. If their members heard of an ordinary with a problem that could be fixed by magic, they’d bring that information to their coven head. If the leader agreed, the ordinary was brought into the fold and their problem was taken care of. Selling select, non-harmful spells to ordinaries was something Noctis was willing to overlook, as it was a great way for a coven to bankroll itself without putting a massive financial burden on its members. Plus, favors always came in handy—being able to bypass city restrictions, zoning laws, and all of the other red tape ordinaries thrived on made coven life significantly easier.
Sylvia, of course, didn’t bargain for money—at least not exclusively. But Noctis and the other witches didn’t know that. Only Katherine did.
Mustache held his hand out for Sylvia, his face apprehensive but not scared. Sylvia, to her credit, was always up-front about what was goingto happen: what her services would cost, how it would feel, how that price would be pulled from them bit by bit. She gave them the terms, and they agreed to them. It was completely fair.
It still turned Katherine’s stomach inside out.
Sylvia cut into her unblemished palm, the trembling of her hands now even more pronounced. She made an identical cut on Mustache’s hand, then gripped him as she’d gripped Katherine. And just as she’d pulled magic from Katherine, she did the same to him. Except he didn’t actually have magic.
So she pulled his life force instead.
He knew what he was giving up—two weeks, taken off the end of his life. For a witch, life force—even an ordinary’s—was magic. Sylvia’s blood transformed his into something greater than it could ever be in him. That power replenished the stores of magic Sylvia had to spend every day to keep the coven running. For an ordinary, it was two weeks of their life; for Katherine and all of the other witches who relied on Aestas every day, it was salvation.
Katherine couldn’t blame Sylvia for taking the opportunity when it came. She might make the same choice, someday. When her power reserves were so low that she could only manage a fraction of the spells that she had once been able to. When there were still people relying on her, needing her to stand for them when no one else would. She wanted to believe she’d find another way, but she couldn’t say for certain.
Both of them had seen firsthand what it was like to be powerless and alone. Despite her reservations about Sylvia’s methods, Katherine understood Sylvia’s reluctance to go back to that.
The spell seemed to drag on longer than normal, seconds stretching like a rubber band as Katherine ground her teeth in fear that someone would somehow break in and see what Sylvia was doing. But finally, Sylvia released the ordinary’s hand.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“A little dizzy.” Mustache pushed up out of the chair, then immediately sat back down. “A lot dizzy.”
Sylvia chuckled, the sound like wind chimes. “That’s normal, don’t worry. It’ll fade in a moment.” She reached for her caster again, cuttinginto the skin of her palm with a smooth hand. “Rest while I perform the secrecy spell, then you should feel fine.”
She moved quickly with the secrecy spell, not bothering with the fake theatrics. The gold rune flared on her hand, then settled into Mustache’s chest as she pressed her palm against him. The secrecy spell was a key part of keeping magic under wraps—it would prevent Mustache from telling anyone what was done in this room, no matter how hard he tried.
If he pushed hard enough, his tongue would fall out. Not that he knew that.
The spell done, Sylvia reached into her desk drawer, pulling out a piece of gauze and passing it to Mustache. He took it and wrapped it around his hand before standing up. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m not dizzy anymore.”
Sylvia stood as he walked toward the door, coming around the desk and shaking his hand. “I’m happy to help.”
He ran a hand along his mustache, his cheeks flushing. “You wouldn’t want to grab dinner or—”
Sylvia reached around him, opening the door and giving him a light tap on the shoulder to push him into the hallway. “Have a good day.”
