The Magician's Mistake (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 1) (5 page)

There were many ways to make spells, but if you were a witch, every spell began as a sort of recipe. Just as many sauces started with sauteed onions and garlic, so too a finding spell would always begin with this base. From here, the spell could be taken in different directions. We might make a divining rod to find the witch. We might place a homing on a pigeon that would find her.

“How about a finding map?” Kestrel said.

I nodded. That would do.

I took over stirring while he went to his bags and rummaged through it. He came back with a map of Seattle and unfolded it fully on the counter.

I closed my eyes and gathered the necessary raw magic to add to the potion. A witch spends her life finding and storing magic for when it is needed. Magic lives everywhere. In the air, in running water, and in all living things. I kept great stores of magic within me, far more than I had once thought possible. I drew sunlight and rain, revenge and resolution, from the deep wells of those specific magics within me. I took the different pieces of magic and braided them together in intricate and precise knots, tying them together in ways that strengthened and aimed them toward our finding spell. In centuries past, it would have taken me deep meditation and hours of focus, but now I only needed a couple of quiet minutes. When it was done, I flicked the magic into the potion.

It bubbled up in a satisfying way and turned a perfect shade of yellow.

Give me time to make a spell, and I will take any witch down. Attack me in the park, and I might survive, if I’m lucky enough to have a magician save me. I felt Kestrel come up beside me.

“Perfect,” he murmured. He snapped his fingers and a bright and blue magic fell from his fingers. “To push through any wards she may have set up.”

It incorporated nicely with the mixture, not creating any antagonizing fissures.

“Good,” I said, and kept stirring. “Time to find her.”

Kestrel nodded and hummed. He rummaged through the kitchen until he found a fine-meshed sieve. He made a scooping motion above the potion and filled it with the thick, yellow, soupy steam. Kestrel held it out toward me. “Ready?”

I nodded and murmured, “
Dod o hyd I
.” I focused on the memory of the witch’s magic, the feel and smell and sense of it as I ran my hand through the steam.

“
Dod o hyd I,
” Kestrel repeated and dumped it out on the map. It swirled across the grid lines, searching every inch of the city before making a circle around the north of downtown. The steam ebbed and flowed growing smaller and tighter until it ringed the Seattle Center.

The Seattle Center. And tonight was the full moon.

I felt the blood drain away from me, and I put a hand on the counter to steady myself.

“Too much too soon,” Kestrel said. “We could have waited, Morgan. We can make another spell tomorrow and find her. You’re in no condition to—”

“It’s not that,” I whispered.

“What then?”

“Some witch is holding a full moon ritual at the Seattle Center tonight. Lila said she was going. Whatever the witch is doing, she’s doing it tonight.”

We both looked out the window. It was dark out, but not yet late.

Kestrel had his phone out and was calling Lila before I could order him to do just that. He set it to speaker phone.

It rang and rang and rang.

When it switched over to voicemail, an old and distant voice spoke. A voice full of bitter hate.

8

The Hounds of Hell

“If you want your pathetic acolyte back, surrender yourself to me, Morgan.” The voice was ancient, malicious, and female.

Goose bumps rose across my arms and neck. My lips curled instinctively back into a scowl. I knew her, yet when I searched my damn memories, I could find no trace. She knew me, of that I was certain.

“Revenge,” I whispered. “This witch came to town for revenge. Against me.”

“You don’t recognize her voice?” Kestrel asked carefully.

I shook my head.

Kestrel let out a long, low sigh. “It seems you are her intended target.”

“No. I am ever the hunter, never the prey,” I said.

Kestrel hung up the phone and called Adam. It went straight to the wolf’s voicemail.

Kestrel frowned. “Adam always picks up for me. She must have Adam.” He sighed. “The witch must not know his connection to me, else she would have left me an equally nasty message.”

“So she knows you as well as me. Who is she?” I asked. Anger began to boil in my gut. He had kept information from me. He had put Lila in peril, by keeping his secrets.

Kestrel opened his mouth, licked his lips, and then shook his head. “I made a promise not to tell,” he said slowly. “A promise that is important to me, and that I will not break. But I will tell you this: this witch is cunning, but she is no match for Morgan le Fay. And I will be fighting alongside you. She stands no chance against the two of us.”

I glared at him for a long moment, cataloging all the spells I could throw at him to make him speak the truth. But there wasn’t time. I rubbed my forehead, already starting to plan for what I would need to save Lila. To stop this witch. To guard myself against any treachery Kestrel might be planning against me.

“We’ll swing by my store, and then get to the Seattle Center.”

Kestrel nodded as I marched into the other room where I found my cloak and zipped up my long leather boots.

The magician met me at the door carrying a black satchel at his side. We strode down the hotel hallway together, both fidgeting as we waited for the elevator to take us down to the parking lot.

“She won’t hurt them. They are her bargaining chips,” he said in the elevator. “She won’t truly hurt them until we show up. All she wants to do is make you suffer, not them.”

“So you say. I don’t have the luxury of having any information on this witch. I know not what she will do or why.” I glared at him.

He watched the elevator buttons and sighed. “Aye, lass. It is complicated.”

The elevator doors dinged open and he led me to his car, a dusty, black Impala with a spotless leather interior.

I barely had time to buckle my seatbelt before we peeled out of the parking lot. I prayed to any wayward goddess that would listen as he barreled through red lights and sped around blind corners. We arrived, at a screeching halt, on the upper level of Pike Place Market.

Stall-keepers were closing up shop in the early evening gloom. Hmong farmers carried bushels of wilted flowers and threw them in the dumpster alongside fish-heads and squid-guts. I walked with long strides past them, half-running, as they called out hellos to me.

When I unlocked the door to Morgan’s Ephemera
and turned on the lights, I thought I’d been robbed. Then I remembered it was still a mess from the trolls. Never mind. Everything I needed, anything of true value, lay in the back room.

I walked across the room and stood before the shabby door tucked into the back corner of my shop. I uttered the words that would open the three spells that guarded the door as I touched certain spots on the door’s handle. It creaked open, and I entered the small, tidy white room.

Each wall lay covered in shelves crammed with spells from floor to ceiling. Some spells were housed in priceless emeralds and rubies, others were housed in a dented cup or a branch of salted drift wood. How many months and years of my life had I spent making these spells as I guarded myself against whatever vagaries the future might bring? I hadn’t used any of them in over fifty years, yet still I knew the precise spell that lay in each of them. I grabbed an oversized black purse that sat in one corner of the room, and threw in a rose-quartz orb bristling with lightning. I added a silence-spelled amethyst, a heavy oak branch for protection, three crippling marbles, and a red cloche hat that would reveal all magic to me when I wore it. Last, I pulled on my blackest gloves, with a different dark spell woven into each finger and thumb. As I left the room, I noticed there was a puddle of water on the ground. There must be some kind of leak in the ceiling.

I ran out of my store, barely stopping to close and lock the doors. I wanted to be at the Seattle Center already, finding and freeing Lila. My Lila. When I took her on at the store, I had only meant to help her. The echoes of too many people I had loved, long-gone and dead, moved through me. So many of them had been killed for their association with me. But not tonight. Not Lila, I vowed.

I raced up the concrete stairs of the market and rushed back to the cobble-stoned street where Kestrel’s car sat idling in the middle of the road. He sat there ignoring the long line of cars honking behind him. I jumped in. He drove like all the hounds of Hell were chasing us.

9

The Crossroads

Kestrel parked near the Opera House in a tow-away zone. He threw a small confusion spell over his Impala as we got out. “Where is this ritual taking place?” he asked.

“The opera house? Or the theater?” I guessed.

We walked side by side, matching our long, fast strides with each other’s. I put on my cloche hat and whispered “oleuo” so that any magic around us would be revealed.

It was dark and damp out, and no magic shone brightly. A poor soul here and there lay out on park benches or under eaves, wrapped up in blankets. They looked like glowing embers with their intrinsic life-magic shining through their torsos. A couple of old oak trees lay full of crows, shining like small Christmas lights. Crows had a way of gathering around trouble.

Then I spotted, past the fountain and the great green field, people moving in small groups, all in the same direction. They would have been invisible in the night’s gloom, but I could just make out their faint glow.

“There,” I pointed.

Kestrel squinted. “Mages?”

I shook my head. “Women. I think.”

We walked to them swiftly, keeping to the shadows as we neared.

They moved together in twos and threes. Arm in arm. Smiling and laughing. Some of them were middle-aged, wearing gray braids and flowing skirts. Others wore all black, with steel-toed boots and pentagrams silk-screened onto their hoodies. A woman passed by with a pointed hat. All of them headed toward the Center House.

“Interesting,” I murmured.

“What?” Kestrel asked.

“The Center House. It’s a large food court, but it’s also a crossroad. It used to be the city’s Armory during World War II, and all forms of military gathered there. Before that, the land was a meeting place for local tribes. I’ve always sensed the old powers of a crossroad there. In brighter days.”

“A good spot for sorcery,” Kestrel said.

I nodded and sighed as more women streamed by the spot where Kestrel and I crouched behind some laurel bushes.

“I can’t wait to see this full-moon ritual,” one woman said.

“So much fun. I’m going to ask for a prosperity blessing,” said another.

I flexed my fingers, feeling the spells in each finger. Where was the witch who meant these women harm? Where was the witch who had my friend and my amulet?

“I’ll slip in around the back,” Kestrel whispered. “I have a feeling these man-haters will not let me in the front door.”

I stood up straighter and narrowed me eyes. “They aren’t—”

He winked at me. “I know, love. Just wanted to get your Irish up. Look sharp in there. I’ll see you on the inside.”

Before I could inform him I was no one’s love, he was gone.

I stood, straightened my cloak, and then stepped into the stream of women, just behind four who wore long coats and spiky heels. I walked close enough to them that I would appear to be part of their clique, if anyone was watching. The best place to hide is often in plain sight. As we neared the open doors of the Center House, I saw a veil of magic that lay draped across the doors. It undulated purple and gray. When I passed through it to the inside, I felt a one-way barrier. These women could enter easily. Leaving would be a different matter.

It was crowded inside, with hundreds of women milling about, making concentric circles around the middle of the room where I glimpsed something metal. The lights were low. A sound system piped in Enya-esque music. Women swayed to it. Around the room, beside every exit, stood the Greenlake moms. They had bags that pulsed with magic. If the magical barrier did not keep these women here, then the witch’s henchwomen would, I assumed.

I stood watching the scene for a long moment, taking in the wide room, the darkened food stalls, and the tall, dark ceiling that led up to the open second floor. I then began to make my way to the center of the room. I needed to understand what lay there, before I acted. It felt like wading through water against the tide. Around me women hugged each other and chatted about their hopes and blessings for the full moon. I heard, over and over, how excited they were to be here, and how lucky Seattle was to have Jennifer in town.

“Jennifer,” I whispered. The name tasted as bitter as poison on my tongue. I pushed through the women slowly, toward the metal
…
cage? Yes a cage, at the center of the room. There were so many women surrounding it that I couldn’t see it well, even though I was much closer now.