I awoke from a bang!
“Farmer John’s Sausages!” I threw off the covers, waved my hand through the air, and sprang from my bed—all in one harried, dizzied moment. I hit the ground with a solid thunk, echoing the door hitting the wall and rattling off its hinges. A heavy boot landed on the hard wooden floor, and I popped up as streams of magic swirled through the air.
Before my spell was fully realized, the magic dissolved like cotton candy in the rain. Absolutely nothing remained in its absence—no intent, emotion, or residue.
Crap.
Reagan was back in town.
“White flag, white flag,” I yelled, waving my hands above my head.
“Your mom really has you trained not to swear, huh?” Reagan stood with her hands at her sides, decked out in head-to-toe leather and thick-soled black army boots. Dirty blond hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail and no eyebrows adorned her expressionless face.
I’d always thought she’d be a real beauty if she weren’t so jaw-clenchingly frightening. The no-eyebrows thing only made that worse.
“I mean, you weren’t even totally awake, someone barged in, and you yelled about some guy’s sausages…” Her bare brows pinched together, which was a very strange sight. “Ah. I get it. Sausages. Okay then, that makes it marginally better.”
I decided not to ruin my almost-cool factor by mentioning that I hadn’t been thinking of that kind of sausage.
“First things first—that was some shoddy spell work.” She shifted and I flinched. I couldn’t help it. She was one of the most unpredictable people I’d ever met in my life. “Were you even trying on that ward covering the door? It took no time at all to get through it.”
“I just learned that ward last week,” I said in a slightly higher pitch than I’d intended. “It is the most advanced ward I’ve ever seen. Callie and Dizzy can’t break it.”
“I’m not Callie and Dizzy.”
“Yeah but…you’re not anybody. There is no logical magical explanation for half the stuff you do.” Something I had learned firsthand when I was helping her with a situation in Seattle a few months before. I’d helped them take down a couple of mages who were protecting a summoning circle, and also helped dissipate that circle.
She held out a finger, and I readied myself for a blast of fire or something else surprising and horrible.
“That you know of,” she said. “You just started learning magic. How could you possibly have explanations for everything?”
“Okay, but…” I narrowed my eyes at her. “Following that logic, you shouldn’t be mad at me for putting together the best ward I could. I’ve just started learning magic.”
“Anyone can read a spell out of a book. With power like yours, that’s easy. And guess what else is easy? A counter-spell.” She leaned against the doorframe, a problem-solving stance, which meant she was less likely to attack me (at the moment). “What you need to do is get creative. You need to use your power in ways people don’t expect.” She crossed her arms. “I had a lengthy talk with Darius. He thinks you don’t go about magic like normal mages. That Rogue Natural mage you know—”
“Emery,” I said with a pained release of breath. It would be easier on me if his name would stop coming up.
“—said something to Darius about it. He seemed to think you were more like a witch than a mage, but with a crap-load of power.” Reagan tapped her chin.
“I just don’t understand how witches and mages are different,” I admitted. “Everyone acts like they’re so different, but when you drill down to the root, the only real difference is power quantity.” I paused, suddenly unsure of myself. Reagan was an encyclopedia of spells and magic. She could read, if not speak, multiple languages. I was confident this was something she’d know about. “Right?”
Reagan’s finger stilled. “Yeah. Well, and training. Mages get formal training, and witches work together in circles and kind of learn in a community.”
“Formal training like…school? Because my training isn’t formal.”
“Say that to Callie, I dare you.”
I pressed my lips together. No, I would not.
“Mages can visit the Realm, too,” she said, “whereas witches can’t.”
“That’s still just power quantity.”
“And with vampires, it’s just age.” She shrugged. “It’s a big enough distinction to create two separate groups. Anyway, you’re different. You shouldn’t just memorize a spell and then plaster it up on your door. That’s for Guild members. They’re drones. No, you should learn the spell, alter it in your weird way, and then string it up. That’s how you’ll be the best. Because here’s the thing…” She straightened up. “Before you came on scene, Darius thought the Rogue Natural was the most talented mage in the world—”
“Emery.”
“—but Darius doesn’t think so anymore. He thinks you’ll surpass the guy.”
“I doubt it. Emery is unbelievably adaptable. Everything I came up with, he could alter and enhance on the fly. He is worlds ahead of me and excellent at survival. I don’t even have the tools to be better than him.”
Reagan’s focus homed in on me, and the room stilled for a moment…before she made a sudden movement.
I jerked as though slapped. Magic ballooned in front of me, my reaction speed significantly faster after the last few months of study, but nowhere near as fast as hers. If she wanted to attack me, I’d have to jump from the window to escape. And she was so unhinged, she’d surely jump after me with a manic cackle. She had absolutely no fear.
Reagan finished scratching her chin—oops—and then waved her hand through the air. My magic fizzled away with little sparks and spits.
“How do you do that?” I muttered, not able to see the magic she used to counter my weave, and not able to get a whiff of intent when she did it. I was flying blind when it came to her. When I didn’t get an answer, though, I left it alone. The dual-mages could be prickly about my continuing to ask questions they weren’t ready to answer. Reagan was the last person I wanted to piss off.
But I wondered if Emery would know more about her abilities, since he’d traveled far and wide.
I wondered if he would ever come back.
I wondered if I’d stop thinking of him if I started punching myself in the face every time his name popped up.
Reagan crossed her arms and tapped her finger against her chin again. “I think Darius is trying to wind me up.”
“Wind you up?” I asked, reaching for my robe while keeping a wary eye on her movements.
“Irritate me. Get me agitated—sorry, I was in London and Ireland for a while. They talk funny.” Which she’d probably told them to their faces…and started a bar fight because of it. “He knows that if there’s a chance you could be pushed into becoming the best, I’ll make sure you reach your full potential. I mean, what else have I got to do with my time, right? I’m supposed to lie low. A hobby would be good for me, and you’d be a worthwhile hobby. But if Darius is just saying you’re the unrealized best because he wants me to push you, which will also push the Rogue Natural to be his best—”
“Emery.”
“—then Darius would be manipulating me to get what he wants. Which I do not take kindly to. If I find out he’s manipulating me, I’ll walk from this game. No questions asked. But then, maybe he thinks I’ll have a vested interest in you by the time I figure out he’s manipulating me, which would make it harder for me to walk.” She bit her lip. “Hmm.”
I rubbed my temples. “Sorry…what?”
Reagan fanned the air like she was trying to rid it of a bad smell, shook her head, and took a step back. “Vampires twist my brain up. It was so much easier when the most confusing part of my day was which pair of leather pants were cleanest. Bottom line, I hate getting involved in vampire politics. Helping you is cool. Helping him is not.”
“But…” I just could not get a grip on this conversation. “You and he are an item. You’re bonded, and Callie says that’s forever. Or until she kills him.”
“Yeah. I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” She rolled her eyes.
“Reagan, hello,” Dizzy said from just outside the door. “Oops, it seems you’ve misplaced your eyebrows again. I thought you’d moved on from those days?”
“My neighbor surprised me with a blowtorch,” she answered. “I got my hair covered in time, but my eyebrows didn’t make it.”
He tsked, and I didn’t know if that was because of Reagan’s slow reaction speed, or her neighbor thinking it acceptable to blast someone in the face with a blowtorch.
I knew she had a strange relationship with fire from when I helped her that time in Seattle, but I’d never gotten to delve further into it. Clearly, this wouldn’t be that time, either, because Dizzy had edged into my line of sight, his gaze taking in the damaged door. “Reagan, I thought you weren’t supposed to kick in doors in this house.”
“Oh yeah.” She grimaced.
Dizzy scratched the wispy gray hair on the top of his head. His red shirt was burned and torn in places, and his pants looked like he’d stolen them from a homeless painter. “Callie likes order and intact doors, you know that.”
“I do. That was my bad.”
“It’s not a strange rule, if you think about it,” Dizzy continued, still studying the door. “Kicked-in doors are very dramatic. You should only do that when the situation calls for it. Like busting in on the bad guys, or breaking and entering.”
“Well…” Reagan gestured at my room at large. “Technically I was breaking and entering. She had a ward up and everything. I didn’t knock or seek permission to enter. I just busted in. So at least that part of things lines up.”
He nodded. “That’s true. Okay, then.” He trudged past.
Reagan grinned at me, delighted with herself.
“Callie won’t be pleased she has to repair my door again,” I said.
The smile drifted off Reagan’s face. Score one for me!
“You have a package downstairs,” she said. “Callie thought you’d want to know.”
A shock of adrenaline coursed through me. I tried to bat it down. “Is it from my mother?”
Her eyes started to sparkle and a little grin wrestled her lips. “Nope. Anonymous. Postmark is from Ethiopia. It was delivered by carrier a half-hour ago.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. I was running before I could attempt any sort of decorum.
Only one person sent packages like that.
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