Trial by Fire (Covencraft Book 1) (17 page)

She paused. “Uh, thanks.”

“I want to take a look at the kitchen, if you prefer you can wait here.”

She ground her teeth together. “I’ll go,” she said mulishly. “But I’m gonna stand behind you so, you know, if something does happen - it gets you first.”

“Your concern is touching.”

She shrugged. “I’m just being honest.”

Paris tried to remember if he knew any anti-demon magic as he made his way to the kitchen, Jade right behind him, close enough for him to feel her exhale on his neck. He paused in the doorway and immediately felt what she had mentioned. A sense of wrongness pervaded the kitchen. It reminded him of getting carpets cleaned - the way the damp smell would linger for days or weeks afterward. It wasn’t strong, but with his magic it didn’t need to be. He could feel its otherness, pressing against his magic, worrying at his aura like a tongue at a sore tooth.

“Has anything changed since you were last in here?” he asked, not turning around, only angling his head slightly to speak to her.

He saw her shake her head out of the corner of his eye. “Nope.”

Paris turned and made his way back toward the sofa, waiting for her to take a seat. She stayed standing, crossing her arms over her chest. He gestured for her to sit.

Jade shook her head. “I need to be standing up right now,” she said simply, her face leaving no room for argument.

“Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”

“I told you. I woke up, he was there.”

“What did he say?”

She told Paris what happened, how the demon had strong-armed her, literally, into listening. How he’d implied Jade had been noticed by someone else in the Coven. How he’d been willing to offer her a deal for information.

How she’d turned him down.

Paris knew he must have looked visibly relieved when she said that. Jade had been watching him very carefully while she spoke and Paris got the impression that she was cataloguing all of his responses, filing each bit of information, trying to learn as much as she could without him speaking.

She ended with how the demon had disappeared, right in the same spot where the strange portal in her pantry had been dumping items onto the floor.

“So,” she said, her voice more steady and even. “Verdict?”

“Pardon?”

“What I need to know is this: does this kind of shit happens around here on a regular basis?”

He shook his head, “No. Not hardly.”

She gave him an incredulous look, her eyebrows arching up over her eyes. “Really? Because that demon made it sound like he already knew about another witch in a deal with one of his buddies.”

Paris frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“Because he said he couldn’t tell me the details of any other demon deals besides his own. That implied to me that there are other demon deals to know about. It’s why I think he was dodgy on the proof part of his argument.”

It made a certain sort of sense. Though it wasn’t concrete evidence by any stretch of the imagination, given how dangerous demons were to deal with, he was fine going on circumstantial evidence and taking any and all precautions.

“So, it seems to me like you’ve all been showing me this shiny happy coven life and suddenly it turns out, hey! Seedy underbelly,” she accused.

“It’s nothing of the sort. I’ve never heard of a demon deal first hand. I swear.”

She eyed him suspiciously and said, “I don’t believe you.”

He was surprised. She stated it so easily, so calmly. He opened his mouth to argue but she started speaking again before he had a chance.

“So unless you can tell me you’ve got a kick ass way to make this problem disappear,” she said, stopping to take a deep breath, “I want out.”

He was struck dumb for a moment. “Out of what?”

She gave him a look. “The Coven, you dumbass. If you’ve got some anti-demon mojo in your back pocket, then thumbs up! I wanna hear all about it.” She gestured with her own thumbs sarcastically. “If not, I’m done. I don’t want to be here anymore, I don’t want to learn anything else. I’m packing my bags, I’ll ride off into the sunset and you can all have a nice life or get sucked into a pit of flames. Whatever. Your choice.”

“You can’t just leave,” he stammered.

She rolled her eyes. “The hell I can’t. Listen, I lived for years without you guys and sure, it wasn’t all shits and giggles, but I did okay. So,” she said as she shrugged, “there were some fires, some weird shit, whatever. I think I have that worked out. You know, mostly. But this? This is nuts.”

He cleared his throat, knowing that he had to tell her the truth and desperately wishing he didn’t have to. There were bad times to tell people things and then there were
really
awful times to tell people things. This was a really awful time. Demons, veiled threats about other witches and now he was going to have to tell her the terms of the council. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.

“No, I mean, you really can’t just leave.”

Chapter 9

Jade narrowed her eyes at him. She had a sudden urge to say, ‘
Oh no you didn’t
!
’ to his statement that she couldn't just leave the Coven.

She could leave. She would leave.

She didn’t stay places against her will. Not anymore.

“Watch me,” she said coldly. She turned and, keeping her pace steady and calm, headed for the stairs. She would pack right that moment and leave.

“Jade.”

She ignored him, one foot already on the stairs.

“Jade,” he repeated, louder. “You don’t understand.”

“I don’t need to understand,” she said, halting her progress but not turning around. “You told me I didn’t have to stay. I’m exercising my right to leave now.”

“You can’t-”

She whirled around and stomped over to him, pointing her finger and jabbing it in his chest so hard it made her joints ache. “You don’t get to tell me what to do!”

“It’s not like that-”

“I don’t care what it’s like. I make decisions for me, you make decisions for you. That’s how my world works. Now, I don’t know what kind of bullshit you have going on here at your ‘coven,’” she said as she made air quotes around the word, snarling a bit as she did, “but you have no authority over me.”

“A witch can’t exist outside the Coven.”

“That’s bullshit. Henri told me there are witches who leave and you said,” she said, jabbing him with her finger again, “that I could leave.”

He took a small step backwards. “I should clarify. A witch cannot exist outside the Coven with their magic.”

She paused. “So? What does that mean?”

“You know of the Supernatural Council, yes?”

Vaguely, she thought. It was like a United Nations thing for supernatural creatures. There wasn’t really a lot of publicity about it and even if there had been, she hadn’t been interested. It was the same as any other government conglomeration from what she gathered - a lot of politics, red tape and double talk but nothing actually
happened.

“I guess. I know they exist and they have some kind of authority over all you freaks.”

“Us freaks,” he said, clarifying. “You’re a witch too.”

“Not by choice,” she said loudly. “And not for much longer.”

“The Council,” he said, his voice carrying over hers, “was informed of your existence when you started using unsanctioned magic.”

“It’s not like I was doing it on purpose.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said fiercely.

She was getting nervous. She didn’t like where this was going. Paris was obviously angry or upset or… Something. She didn’t know him well enough to be sure exactly what he was feeling but he was more worked up than she’d ever seen him in the short time she’d known him.

“We do not allow magic to be performed outside a coven.”

“Then I won’t perform it. I have control over it,” she argued, knowing that she was lying. She didn’t have control over it, not totally. She’d learned a lot in a really short time but it was like music lessons in a way. Learning to read music was a hell of a lot different from actually playing the piano.

Paris looked like he was having a hard time not shouting at her. His eyes were bright blue, brighter than she thought was possible and she wondered, not for the first time, if it was his magic that made them that way. “That’s not how it works. If a witch chooses to leave the Coven he or she is stripped of their power. We break their magic.”

She felt something twist in her stomach. Well, that was fine. She didn't care. She’d only found out about her magic. She could give it up.

It didn’t matter, she told herself.

She still found the words hard to say. “Fine. Take it.”

Paris shook his head, appearing… Distraught.

His voice was soft now, quiet and she was more uneasy than when he was almost shouting at her. “I don’t think I can.”

“I don’t want it,” she lied, knowing as soon as the words fell from her mouth that she didn’t mean them. “Just…” she flapped her hands, “Do it. Whatever it is.”

“I really don't think I can. Not-” His eyes were sharp and clear. Like with the demon earlier, she wanted to look away but couldn’t. “It’s messy work, breaking someone’s magic. There’s a lot of variables involved. My magic, your magic, the type of magic we both have. How powerful we are. You’re very strong, Jade.”

“I won’t fight it,” she said weakly. “I know that I’ve said that and I did anyway, but I didn’t know! I know more now. I won’t.”

“I’m strong but I don’t think I can break your magic. Not without… Hurting you.”

She felt a shock of fear go through her. “What do you mean, hurting me?”

Paris looked conflicted, his eyes never leaving hers, even as she took a small step backward. She glanced quickly at the door and his eyes tracked hers.

“I wouldn’t mean to. I don’t want to,” he said quickly. “But I don’t think I can break your magic without harming you. It might even kill you.”

She was struck silent and she couldn’t take her eyes off him as he met her stare. Her mind raced as she tried to put everything that had happened together in one, cohesive package she could study.

She held up her hands, as though she could ward him off. She jerked her thumb out, starting to enumerate her points on her fingers. “So you’re saying that you don’t have any anti-demon magic handy,” she eyeballed him waiting for an answer.

He shook his head. “None that I know of. But we’ll start looking immediately.”

“And two,” she said, interrupting him sharply. “I can’t leave. You won’t let me leave.”

“It’s not exactly that, but yes, I suppose-”

Jade cut him off again. “Because if I want to leave,” she said as she held up a third finger, “you’d have to take my magic. And you can’t do that without possibly killing me.” A fourth finger came up.

“Yes.”

“So get someone else,” she said harshly, curling her fingers into a fist.

“There is no one else!” Paris shouted and she felt a shock of cold brush over her, slightly painful in its intensity and it felt… Familiar. It hit her suddenly that she’d just felt a bolt of his magic. He appeared to be struggling for a moment, clenching his jaw and his fists. He took a deep breath.

“I don’t want to take your magic but if I let you leave the Council will send someone else and I… If they can’t do it, I don’t know what them trying would do to you. They could damage you terribly. We’re looking to see if there’s someone else more powerful, but I don’t know.”

That’s when it hit her that he’d known this was always a possibility. That she would want to leave and they might kill her breaking her magic. Logically, it made perfect sense that he’d already known and maybe everyone she’d met had known, but hearing him say the words, hearing him talk about plans that were made, knowing he’d thought this through… That was when she really
felt
the full impact of his words.

It felt like being kicked in the chest.

They’d lied to her. Not so much in their words but in their welcoming smiles and their friendly actions, all the while knowing this was a possibility and not telling her from the start.

And then she remembered the demon. It wasn’t like she truly forgot about him, but standing there, arguing with Paris, finding out that she couldn’t just leave, the demon had fallen to the back of her mind for a minute. He returned to the front of her brain with a vengeance. She thought about his words - half-told stories about another witch in the Coven who was
interested
in her, whatever that meant.

Given everything she’d just found out, she was going to assume it was a very, very depraved thing.

She’d been stupid. God she’d been so stupid to think that it would all work out. That she could be happy here. That maybe she’d finally found a place she belonged. Found some people who could maybe someday be a sort of family.

She was so fucking stupid.

It was her against… Everything. Everyone. It always had been. Ever since…