Warlock 3 - Preview Chapters

As I said in a previous post, I'm trying to chunk these so that there's little or no cliffhanger for you, so some of the previews will be three chapters, some four, some two, however I can best find a stopping point.

Chapter

Sam muttered under her breath for about the sixth time as she held about the tenth shirt up to see how it looked on me. “If I ever see the Patriarchy again, I’m going to commit some serious violence.”

Since the last time she’d seen the Patriarchy, Sam had blown a guy’s head off with a shotgun, I kind of didn’t want to know what she considered “serious violence.”

“I don’t disagree,” I told Sam, “but what does that have to do with which shirt I wear tonight?”

Sam grumbled and pulled a new shirt from the wardrobe — that was something about the cottage, it didn’t have closets, just free-standing wardrobes that the staff had moved out of storage for us. We’d decided to put those in the cottage’s upper rooms,

“They ruined your mauve shirt and it would have been perfect for tonight.”

Of all the things the Patriarchy had done — using a vampire to kill Katrina and kidnap me and Cassandra, inventing mana-draining blessed silver, and developing some kind of virus that would “end witches for all time” — ruining my shirt wasn’t at the top of my list for visiting violence on them, but Sam had her own priorities.

“I don’t see why,” I admitted, “but it’s not an option, so let’s hurry up? I’m supposed to meet Priscilla at six-thirty and we don’t just have to go downstairs now.”

Even with no plumbing and having to cover the cushions downstairs with sheets because the old leather and horsehair ones were musty and shedding things, we’d all agreed it was better to have the space. Everybody was okay with a little mustiness and having to walk back to the dorms for showers and toilets so long as there was room to cuddle all night.

“It shows — would have shown,” Sam said, “a willingness to commit. That you’re not just running around having fun, but are serious about her.”

“All that from purple?”

“Mauve,” Sam shook her head.

“I thought purple said I was taken or something?”

“Right — taken, which shows you’re ready and willing to commit.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t you think the willingness to commit comes along with, you know, agreeing with her mother to commit?”

“I’m really amazed you managed to dress yourself before you had me.”

I shrugged. “When you grow up with most of your clothes coming from a place whose name ends in ‘mart,’ you really don’t develop a fashion sense.”

“We really need to take you shopping.”

“Shopping?” Cassandra asked, looking up from her tablet.

She and Rachel were sitting on the upper-room’s single bed. The staff had moved one of those into each of the cottage’s second-floor rooms so we had places to go and rest without being in the bustle of the main room downstairs.

What we were going to do with the Murphy bed we’d ordered hadn’t been decided yet. We’d talked about putting it in one of the second-floor rooms as well, but Sam said there were a couple juniors who might want it for their dorm room next year — which meant we wouldn’t have to move it or put it together.

Honestly, we had enough work to do just refurbishing the cottage. Cassandra was making a list of everything we had to do and it was already long.

I had a feeling giving us a cottage this year hadn’t been entirely altruistic on Prima Rosethorn’s part — we had tons of work to do to make it truly livable, and then we’d be leaving it behind for the summer break. If we’d stayed in the dorms until the end of the semester, we’d have had all summer to fix the place up, before moving in. Putting us in one during the semester meant we either had to do the work at the same time we went to classes or live with it the way it was.

Cassandra’s list — okay, it was a spreadsheet, I allowed it because it had nothing to do with mana — had columns for priority, effort, how much could be done with magic, and who at the school might have appropriate magic for the task that we could beg, borrow, or barter for.

It was a very long list, including the bathroom, which was still just chamber pots, all of the paint and wallpaper upstairs needed to be replaced, the floors sanded and refinished, not to mention reupholstering all the cushions for the giant bed downstairs. The projected completion date was after we graduated.

“I’ll text Morgan later,” Sam said, “we can pick her up next weekend and hit the shops before we hang out at Melaina’s.”

Morgan had tried to get Alex and Karen to let her stay at a “friend’s” house on weekend nights, at least sometimes, but it had become a thing when Karen said she’d have to get permission from Morgan’s case worker — since Morgan’s was about as responsive as mine had been, and she’d want to talk to whoever Morgan was staying with anyway, we’d given up on that idea.

“What about Felicity?” Rachel asked.

“She’ll come with — nobody will notice her.” Sam pulled a blue shirt from the wardrobe and held it up to my bare chest, narrowing her eyes. “Yeah, this one.”

I sighed and took the shirt from her, slipping it on and starting to button it.

Sam stepped back and eyed me critically.

“What do you think?” she asked.

I shrugged. “It’s a shirt.”

“I wasn’t asking you — girls?”

“He looks nice,” Rachel said.

“Acceptable,” Cassandra said. “It’ll have to do until we can get him decent clothes.”

“Mel picked out these shirts,” I said.

“They’re not bad,” Cassandra said quickly. “Just a little out of fashion. Melaina probably has better things to do than keep up with that.”

“I’ll let Mihai know what the plan is so he knows he’ll be busy with us most of next Saturday,” Rachel said, pulling out her phone.

The Roma rideshare driver had become our regular driver on our weekend trips to the city. Rachel was taking care of scheduling with him and paying him, since we couldn’t guarantee getting a particular driver with the apps.

Since I was now attired properly — and I thought Priscilla would be more interested in me meeting her on time, rather than how I looked — I turned around and headed for the stairs.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

“On a date,” I called back.

I didn’t make it to the cottage door before the girls were clustered around me, getting their own shoes on and snagging their coats from the hooks in the cottage’s mudroom.

“You’re not coming on the date with us,” I told the witches as we made our way toward the residence building. “That was sort of the whole point, remember?”

“Of course not,” Sam said. “We just want to see the two of you off.”

*

The decision to move to the cottage instead of staying up in our rooms was one of the best ones we’d ever made, because if I’d been on the stairs when I caught sight of Priscilla, I’d have broken my neck.

Her long, chestnut hair was done up in a new style — one that seemed able to show off its own beauty while simultaneously enhancing everything else about Priscilla above the waist. A long curl laid on her chest, just close enough to the deep curve of her top’s plunging neckline to draw attention there without obscuring anything, the loose tendrils around her neck seemed to make that even longer and more elegant than normal, and framed her face in a way I was certain no artist on earth would be able to adequately capture.

Her top was a sort of brown-grey color, and she’d been facing away from the stairs when we came down, giving me a glimpse of the back before she turned. That was cut deeply enough that the waist of her tight, matching pants was almost visible before the folds of the top came together. Her back was completely bare from the neck down to those folds, and I had no idea how the thing stayed on her — probably magic.

Sam let out a low whistle.

“Down, pervert,” Cassandra whispered, but I noticed her own eyes were doing nearly as much staring as Sam’s.

“Wow,” Rachel whispered. “She’s really pretty.”

Priscilla lowered her eyes and flushed red.

“I didn’t know where you were taking me, so I hope this works,” she said.

I grinned — it honestly wasn’t the best for what I had planned, but it would probably be okay. I hadn’t expected her to make such an effort, and she thought we were just going out to dinner, not the surprise I had planned for her.

“It works,” I said. “In many, many ways.”

“So where are you taking me?” Priscilla asked.

“You’ll see,” I said.

“Oh!” Sam exclaimed. “That’s the good place!”

“Not the same place.”

“Hmph. Boring date, then.”

Priscilla gave me a questioning look, but I shook my head. “You don’t want to know.”

“What’s —”

“You don’t want to know,” Cassandra affirmed. “It’s best to ignore the freak’s comments.”

“Prude,” Sam said.

“Okay?” Priscilla said.

“We should get out of here before they decide to follow us and make comments all night,” I whispered to Priscilla who nodded quickly.

We started for the door, but Sam stopped us.

“Hey! Wait!” she called.

When we turned back Sam had her phone out and pointing at us.

“Say ‘third base!’” she said, snapping a picture.

“We’re not going to prom,” I said.

Sam stuck her tongue out at me and I shook my head, putting a hand behind Priscilla’s back to turn her toward the door before anything else happened. Her top’s plunging back ensured my fingers found only bare skin.

Priscilla didn’t seem to mind, though — she didn’t pull away and even seemed to slow a bit so my hand wound up pressing more firmly against her.

“Bye, kids!” Sam called out as we opened the door. “Have fun storming the castle!”

Priscilla snorted, then almost choked as Sam went on.

“And by ‘castle’ I mean Priscilla’s panties!”

I let the door close on Cassandra calling Sam depraved. I didn’t glance over to check, but I’m pretty sure Priscilla was as red as I was — especially since Sam hadn’t been quiet about it and we were getting serious stares from all the girls nearby who’d heard.

On the other hand, as the only warlock from the only open coven on campus, heading out all dressed-up for a Friday night with a witch who wasn’t in my coven, made things pretty clear to anyone who might think about it.

“You get used to her,” I assured Priscilla as we walked toward the driveway.

I checked my phone and saw that our ride was almost here.

“Have you gotten used to her?”

“Not really,” I admitted.

Priscilla chuckled.

Our ride arrived just as we reached the curb, so I opened the rear door and ushered Priscilla in, then went to the other side.

“We’re not going into town?” Priscilla asked when our driver turned the opposite way out of Willowmere’s drive.

I shook my head, hoping she’d like what I had planned. Given her outfit, it was clear she was expecting a fancy dinner or something, so I was having second thoughts — because what I’d decided on was the exact opposite of fancy. I had a sudden urge to change my plans, but decided to carry on, and I was glad I did because the timing worked out perfectly.

By the time our ride circled the outskirts of town, it was almost sunset and the sky had dimmed. Our destination turned on all its lights just as we were close enough to see.

“No,” Priscilla whispered, the corners of her mouth coming up in a wide grin.

“Is that a good no or a bad no?” I asked nervously.

It was a typical strip mall with far too much parking lot for the number of visitors it got, so they’d rented out a portion. The bright, vibrant lights of a traveling fair lit the sky in front of us.

“It is a fantastic no,” Priscilla assured me. “How did you know?”

“I asked Cassandra about you,” I admitted. “Was that okay?”

Most witches kept a bit of a lid on what their resonants were.

Priscilla nodded. “It’s kind of an open secret — Propes are pretty obvious.”

Cassandra had told me one of Priscilla’s resonants was Proprioception — she generated mana through movement, the bigger the movement the better, and I’d thought fair rides would be perfect for that.

“Thank you,” Priscilla said, smiling.

“It’s just a fair.”

“It’s you taking the time to learn something about me instead of just some generic dinner and dancing — I do love dancing, by the way.”

“I figured,” I said. “And I checked — they have a band playing later.”

Priscilla blinked a couple times, then leaned over and kissed my cheek.

Chapter

Priscilla not only loved fair rides, but she felt the same about fair food, and we spent the next two hours alternating between the two.

Roller coasters, even the little portable ones, and deep-fried cookies didn’t mix well for me, but the witch was unfazed, dumping a cardboard box scoured clean of every crumb of funnel cake into the trash while she looked around for what we should ride next.

“Oh! Can we play some games?”

That sounded like a fine idea, since it didn’t involve putting anything more in my stomach … or risk anything leaving.

We made our way to the midway, working through the crowd, surrounded by the flashing lights, rattle of rides, and scents of the various food booths, and I discovered Priscilla was a carny’s worst nightmare.

“It’s the Proprio,” she explained quietly after collecting another stuffed animal from a booth and handing it to a passing kid. “I always know … where my body parts are.” She grinned. “And how to make them do what I want.”

I didn’t think she was talking about just throwing darts at balloons, and I grinned back.

“Oh!” she cried looking forward. “I love that one!”

I followed her gaze and shook my head. “No way. No way you can do that — no one can.”

I’d been to a few fairs — they weren’t cheap, so my foster parents hadn’t taken us to them often, but if you limit everybody to one ride and they share a snack, it can be affordable fun — but I’d never seen anyone win the ladder-climb.

Climbing a ladder, how hard could it be?

Well, these ladders were rope with wooden rungs, and they weren’t propped against a wall or something — they were attached at top and bottom with a single rope, so they could spin completely around. The object was to climb to the top and press a button, and it looked deceptively easy — there were only eight rungs and you didn’t even have to climb all of them, just enough to be able to reach the button.

“Wanna bet?” Priscilla asked, grinning even wider.

Her grin told me I’d already lost the bet, but I could still have some fun with it.

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” I said, then grinned back. “I’ll bet you … a kiss.”

Priscilla laughed. “Oh, yeah? What do I get when you lose?”

“A kiss,” I said. “If I win, I get to kiss you; and if you win, you get to kiss me.”

“That’s a bet?”

“The best kind.”

“Why’s that?”

I shrugged. “No matter what happens, we both win.”

She laughed more. “I don’t know. I know what my kiss is worth, how do I know yours is just as good?”

“You’ll have to find out,” I said, “but I’ll tell you what — if you win and you don’t think my kiss is worth it, you can pick something else.”

“Pick what?”

“Anything — within reason.”

If it were any other witch I might not have made that offer, but Priscilla had already shown, more than once, that she could be trusted, and the twinkle in her eyes told me we were just playing. I figured whatever magic went into the witches’ promises, oaths, and other bindings would recognize our intent, along with my qualification, and not put me on the hook for anything bad.

Priscilla raised an eyebrow. “Anything?” I nodded and she grinned wider. “It’s a bet — pucker up, baby, because that is a stroll in the park for me.”

We headed for the booth — there wasn’t even a line, since everybody knew you couldn’t beat this thing. The carny watched us approach and nodded to me as we got close.

“Give it a try?” he asked. “Win a big one for the lady?”

I shook my head and pointed at Priscilla. “She’s up.”

The carny raised an eyebrow, but turned his attention to Priscilla. “Yeah? Okay — five to try, three for ten.”

Priscilla raised a hand to me with five fingers extended and I pulled five dollars out of my pocket to give to the carny, who shook his head and chuckled.

“Suit yourself,” he said, waving at the ladder.

Priscilla walked to the ladder’s base, slipped off her heels, rolled her neck and shook out her arms, then she shot me a grin and slowly climbed onto the first rung, bracing herself with both hands at the edges of a higher rung.

“That’s it,” the carny said. “Wide stance for balance.”

Priscilla’s stance wobbled a bit, but she got the ladder to still and took a deep breath.

“You’re trying to distract her,” I accused the carny. “Let’s not.”

The carny’s chuckle died off as his jaw dropped when Priscilla let go with one hand so she could twist herself to look back at us over her shoulder. I got the distinct impression the wobble had been both intentional and a setup.

“Just kidding,” she told us. “I don’t get distracted.”

The ladder didn’t wobble a bit.

Then she climbed the fucking ladder with one fucking hand, still looking back at us, doing a sort of one-handed pushup that ended with quickly moving her hand from one rung to the next.

“What the fuck?” the carny muttered.

Priscilla wasn’t done.

“I’ll take the pink one,” she said, nodding to one of the giant dogs this stall had for prizes.

If she’d turned back to face the ladder, she could have reached the buzzer with her free hand, but instead she did that push-up jump to free her hand from the rung, slapped the buzzer without even looking, then caught herself again. The ladder barely twitched, and she still wasn’t done, because instead of rolling off the ladder now that she’d won, Priscilla climbed back down the fucking ladder with one hand.

“Fuck me,” the carny muttered.

“Pink?” Priscilla said, dusting her hands off before sliding her heels on again.

“Yeah,” he said, retrieving one of the giant pink dogs. “Yeah, here.”

Priscilla took the dog from him. “Thanks.”

“You know you’re banned, right?”

Priscilla shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

*

“Nothing to say?” Priscilla asked, handing the giant stuffed dog to a little girl whose face lit up like a Christmas tree, but whose mother glared at us suspiciously as she dragged the girl away. I noticed she didn’t try to give the dog back, though.

“I’m speechless,” I admitted.

“What’s next?”

“Let’s take a little break,” I suggested, holding one hand on my still complaining stomach.

“Lightweight?”

“Guilty.” I looked around for some open seating and led the way.

“Oh! Can I have those while we rest?”

I looked where she was pointing, chuckling a little at how she’d spent the entire evening asking if she could have this or that treat or if she could go on whatever ride we were passing.

“How do you deep-fry lemonade?” I asked.

Priscilla grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the line. “Let’s find out!”

It turned out that you could stuff lemon curd inside a sweet roll, then batter and fry it, serving the balls after a roll in sugared lemon rind and drizzled with lemon icing. They came in pairs — Priscilla ate hers and one of mine.

After those were gone, and both little paper boats licked clean, we sat for a while, just watching the people going by and enjoying themselves.

“I could stay here forever,” Priscilla said. “Just take off with the fair and never look back.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “After I came into my power and started feeling how Proprio worked I was this close to running away to join the circus.”

I laughed.

“I’m serious!”

“Yeah? What act?”

“Pfft! Trapeze, what else? Swinging and flying a few times a day? Heaven.”

She was smiling at the thought, eyes distant, then the smile fell away.

“Can’t do that, though,” she said, then sighed. “Can’t do anything.”

“What does that mean?”

Priscilla shook her head, shrugging it away. “The typical … no, you wouldn’t know that, would you?” Another sigh. “So, when we’re kids and they find out what our resonants are going to be, they usually have us start doing something that’ll, like, support it, you know? Even though we can’t use the mana we generate yet, it sort of prepares us, I guess?”

I nodded, trying to maintain an expression that wouldn’t say I was thinking about Sam’s mom locking a twelve-year old kid in their basement to … prepare Sam for Love, or whatever the fuck that psychotic witch had thought she was doing. And trying to prepare myself for whatever the fuck Priscilla’s mom might have done to her.

“So they put me in gymnastics,” Priscilla went on. The smile returned, but it was a sad one. “I was good at it — even without the Proprio being active.” She bit her lip. “Really, really good … I hit forty-two all-around at Regionals, and Coach said it’s time for Nationals, maybe even the National Team.”

“Like, against other countries?”

“Like the step before the Olympics,” Priscilla said.

“Wow.”

She nodded and chuckled. “And … that’s when I got pulled from gymnastics. Too noticeable, you know? Too much attention. Maybe I should have held back, kept the score down — get a couple more years in, but … I just couldn’t. I like to win.” She shrugged. “Probably wouldn’t have made the team, anyway.”

What do you say to that? Agree she wasn’t good enough? Or tell her she was and make her think about what she missed out on?

“I’m sorry.”

Priscilla shrugged. “I would’ve had to stop when I came into my power anyway.” She nodded back toward the carnival games and the smile returned. “Wouldn’t be fair.”

“Do you still do it?” I asked. “Just for fun, I mean?”

Priscilla looked at me out of the corner of her eye and the corner of her mouth rose.

“You asking if I’m … limber?”

I laughed and Priscilla did, too — her face lit up and I found myself staring at her.

Priscilla’s hair was an absolute mess from the rides, nothing like the finely coiffed construction she’d started the evening with, and she currently had three beads of sweat running down her face from all the exertion and excitement — but she was beautiful.

She caught my gaze and flushed.

“What?”

“You’re even prettier than when we left campus.”

“Ha! My hair’s a mess, if I was wearing makeup instead of glamour it’d be streaking down my face right now, and —” She pulled her top away from her body and looked at it. “— I have at least three different condiment stains on this thing.”

“Doesn’t change it. You look happy, and that’s a lot prettier than every hair being in place.” I grinned. “Or not dripping food on your shirt.”

Priscilla met my eyes, then looked away, biting her lip. I noticed she had a little bit of lemon curd on her nose, so I reached out, swiped it away, then licked it off my finger.

Priscilla’s own lips parted.

“If you keep this up,” she whispered, “I might have to lower the drawbridge.”

Then she buried her face in her hands and groaned.

“Oh, Goddess, I can’t believe I said that.”

I laughed. “I won’t tell anyone.”

Priscilla peeked at me through her fingers. “Promise? Especially not Samantha?”

I laughed more. “Yeah, I promise.”

“Is she always like that? Turning everything into sex, I mean?”

I nodded. “Pretty much.”

“Doesn’t she get frustrated, though?”

I didn’t think she was talking about the times I made Sam wait before ending her frustration.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean — talking about it and thinking about it all the time, then having to wait two weeks? It doesn’t bother her?”

“Oh.” She was talking about the typical Family coven “harvests” — one witch a night, for thirteen nights, then a ritual. “We, um, don’t really follow a schedule like that.”

“You don’t? Then when do you … you know?”

I chuckled. I found myself curiously okay talking with her about these things — and I thought the other girls would be too. There weren’t exactly any secrets within the coven, and Priscilla was supposed to decide if she wanted to join us, so she should know what she was getting into and how it might differ from what she’d come to expect.

“Well, we don’t have a schedule, really, but there are some preferences. Rachel likes mornings, because it lets her start her day, um, empty, you know? And Sam prefers evenings —” I didn’t think I needed to get into the reason for that being that Sam considered anything she was able to walk after a failure on my part.

“Mornings? How many mornings?”

“Um, all of them?” I shrugged. “I mean, sometimes we’re tired and just —”

“You harvest Rachel every morning?”

I winced. “We don’t really like that term, but, yeah.”

“But doesn’t that … I thought harvesting, sorry, whatever you call it, too early reduced mana generation.”

I raised my eyebrows. I hadn’t heard that before, but I doubted it would be an issue with our little dynamo.

“With Rachel?” I laughed. “I wish.”

“And Samantha every night? What about Cassandra?”

“She’s … adjusting.” Maybe there were no coven secrets, but that didn’t mean I needed to get into details.

“I bet.” Priscilla’s brow furrowed. “But … you can’t keep that up with a full coven…” She looked at me curiously. “Can you?”

I chuckled. “Probably not,” I admitted, “but I’m going to do my best to see that the whole coven is happy.”

“What about the mana loss?”

“I don’t care about that at all. I just want everybody to be happy. I kind of think if we can do that, the rest will sort of work itself out.”

Priscilla looked at me for a moment, biting her lip.

“I … I think I want my kiss now,” she whispered.

“Here I am.”

“What —”

“The bet was, if you win, you get to kiss me.” I made a come-hither motion. “Here I am.”

“Oh … you’re bad,” she whispered, but then scooted closer.

She leaned in, eyes not meeting mine, but lips parting. I gave her the last couple inches and leaned in as well.

Our lips met and all the sounds of the fair faded as my concentration narrowed to just Priscilla’s lips against mine and anywhere else that we touched. Her shoulder against my side, my arm going around her shoulders to pull her closer, and my other hand coming up to cup her cheek. Her hand rested on my chest and her lips parted in invitation.

Priscilla’s tongue still tasted of lemon and I have to say it was a much more enjoyable delivery method than deep-fried balls.

I slid my hand from Priscilla’s cheek to cup her neck and the back of her head, pulling her lips more tightly against mine, then worked to catch up with what that made her tongue do.

After far too short a time, the kiss broke, but we didn’t move far apart. Priscilla ducked her head and leaned it against my chest.

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” I said, catching my breath. “Good enough for the bet?”

Priscilla shook her head and whispered, “No.”

“Really? What do you want instead?”

She tilted her face toward mine again, eyes closed and lips parted.

“Another kiss.”

I tried to oblige, but we both jerked our heads up to look around as the sound of screeching metal and screams shot through the fair.

Chapter

“What the hell?” I said, looking around.

“Oh, no,” Priscilla whispered.

I followed her gaze and my stomach lurched.

The top gondola of the nearby Ferris wheel was dangling by one side, two kids desperately clutching at whatever they could reach.

My first thought as Priscilla and I stood, taking slow steps toward the growing crowd around the Ferris wheel, but still staring up at the dangling gondola, was to desperately go through what magic I had to help.

Strength would obviously help if I could get up there, but the maze of struts, girders, and cables left me wondering where to start. I certainly didn’t have enough telly to float the kids down. Couldn’t Command the fucking gondola not to fall, either, and whatever my Lust affinity was, I didn’t think making the Ferris wheel want to fuck me would help much.

“How are you at glamour?” Priscilla asked.

“Pretty good — Sam’s been teaching me.” Mostly so I could do my own fake ID when we went out.

“Can you maintain it at a distance?”

I nodded. “Yeah, for a while, at least.”

“Glamour me,” she said, starting forward.

“What?”

“Glamour me — the mundanes can’t see this, there’d be too many questions. Make me invisible or something. I can’t do both at the same time.”

I nodded, stepping forward as well and concentrating on Priscilla, sending out mana to envelope and hide her.

It wasn’t invisibility — glamour didn’t make things appear or disappear, it was more like manipulating the light — or soundwaves to glamour sounds. Things like scents couldn’t be glamoured at all because that worked differently. For visual glamours, it was imagining what you wanted people to see, then telling the magic to project that image. Making it so the watching crowd couldn’t see Priscilla was even easier than a fake ID, since I just had to, sort of, tell it to show what was on the other side of what I was hiding instead of keeping any particular image in my head — the distance, and Priscilla’s movement, made up for that, though, and I knew I couldn’t keep this up forever.

I hesitated a moment, then used my Command affinity, too, sending tendrils of mana into the crowd. There were far too many of them to control directly, but I wasn’t trying to do that — I just wanted to influence them, nudge them into accepting the glamour that hid Priscilla. Hopefully Priscilla would be too focused on the kids to notice — and, if not … more screeching metal made me stop thinking about consequences to concentrate on what I was doing.

I couldn’t even connect to the entire crowd, so I set up as many connections as I thought I could, then moved them from person to person.

Nothing to see there. You saw a trick of the shadows. Empty space and nothing more. Look away.

It wasn’t as effective as if I could give a verbal order they could hear, but Sam and I had been practicing. She was the only one I could really work on Command with — and she liked it.

I edged into the crowd that Priscilla was already through, and she was using her affinity far more than she had on the ladder-game, I thought.

No one saw her and she touched no one, ducking under pointing arms, sliding between people as the crowd grew denser, and finally reaching the base of the wheel after jumping over a stroller someone pushed into her path.

“Ma’am,” the carny running the ride was saying to a very distraught mother. “Help is on the way — I can’t bring them down. That might start them swaying and stress the other side of the gondola.”

Priscilla was already halfway up the tower that supported the wheel and moving higher.

“Bring them down! Bring them down!” the woman screamed, while the carny held tight to the ride’s controls to keep her from doing just that.

I moved closer to the ride’s loading platform, turning my attention back to Priscilla, who seemed to be dancing with the thing. She tiptoed along a beam, leapt to grasp a spoke of the wheel, swung twice to get some momentum, then got her feet near enough the spoke to push off and grasp a higher one.

In seconds she was at the top, crouched on the narrow side of the wheel and studying the situation.

Noah?

I jumped. Words appearing in your brain without going through your ears has that effect.

Priscilla? I didn’t know you had the … mind-talk thing.

A little — it’s … easier if I have a connection with someone and I have to be careful not to — never mind.

This thing is total crap and I don’t know what to do. One side’s completely gone and the bolts on the other are all rusted and now they’re twisted — I don’t think we have much time.

Can you grab the kids?

No — I don’t think so. If I grab them and they can’t see me, they’ll freak out and we’ll all fall, but now I’m up here and I can’t just appear out of thin air — everyone down there is shooting video … the Veil…

I know. Let me think a second.

What could I do? All I really had to work with here was Strength … could I catch them?

Another shriek of strained metal filled the air and the gondola jerked, twisting to hang even lower by its one good side.

Hold on, I told Priscilla.

You know that’s a stupid thing to say right now, right?

I quickly ducked toward the back of the crowd, casting a glamour on myself. I had to look like someone who could plausibly catch a kid falling from that height, so needed muscles — I kind of needed an image in my head to project and not had much time to think of one, so if I wound up looking like I was taking a break from chasing Sarah Conner to catch a couple kids, sue me.

The bigger question was, could I do this?

My mana reserves were still good, but I was juggling a lot — two glamours and multiple Command streams. I could already feel my concentration unraveling, the mana flow into those streams starting to become irregular with spurts and dips. My attention was too split, and the distance, as well as not giving verbal commands, made things even harder.

Adding Strength to the mix was going to be hard — unless I could cut something?

I eased off on Command, then dropped it entirely — Priscilla was already up there and it would take someone willing to believe she’d just appeared out of nowhere, and with a pretty strong will, to break that glamour now.

My own glamour set, and mana flowing through my limbs, I pushed my way through the crowd to the loading platform and looked up. I could almost feel the eyes and cameras on me as physical pressure and hoped my glamour would hold — I didn’t know what the witches had in store for someone who endangered the Veil, and I didn’t want to find out.

Drop them to me, I thought at Priscilla.

Are you serious?

I have Strength — do you have a better idea?

But the Veil?

There’s all kinds of videos online of people catching kids who fall out of windows and shit. This’ll just be one more.

You know you’ll have to slow them, not just stop, right? It’s going to be … almost seven or eight thousand newtons, so like catching half a ton of kid, and their velocity’s going to be over twenty meters per second, so —

Yes. I interrupted her because now wasn’t the time for the details … and I didn’t understand a fucking thing about the details. Catch, slow, cushion, got it.

I realized the carny was talking to me.

“Dude, nice cosplay, but you have to get off the platform. Help’s on the way and —”

Another screech of tearing metal and Priscilla reached down and grabbed one of the kids, swinging him over the gondola’s safety bar and through the side of the wheel.

I shoved the carny back, careful not to throw him into a wall or something, and braced myself.

The kid was screaming along with the crowd, but at least he stopped with a loud oof as I caught him. I used my arms to slow him and let my legs collapse under us, crouching so low I slammed my ass into the metal platform and cushioned him with my body.

Not bothering to see if he was okay, I shoved him toward the woman I thought was his mother and jumped to my feet. She could handle his little fit about a ghost throwing him off the Ferris wheel. He’d either have a great story to tell girls on dates or pay off a future therapist’s house.

As soon as I was back on my feet, Priscilla grabbed the other kid, this one a little girl, and swung her through the wheel.

More screaming, I suppose that was to be expected, and I reached up, but the girl’s flailing made my catch awkward, with most of her weight hitting my right arm. I felt a tearing pain in my shoulder as I slowed the girl’s fall, then a painful twisting in my right wrist, but we thumped to the ground with as little damage to the girl as to the boy.

Go! Priscilla yelled in my head. I’ll catch up!

She was already moving down the wheel, giving an audible “Fuck!” and dodging out of the way as the gondola gave a final screech and started crashing through the wheel to the ground.

As that took the crowd’s attention, I forced my way through them, ignoring the shouts and hands reaching for me. I suppose they wanted me to hang around or something, but I had no intention of doing that.

Some started chasing me — I don’t know why or what they were thinking, it wasn’t like I’d done anything wrong — but I was faster.

The glamour on Priscilla became much harder to maintain when I wasn’t looking at her and as the distance increased, but it was only a few seconds before she told me she was on the ground somewhere safe and I could drop it.

That left me, and my growing entourage, because the ones following me were shouting to those ahead of me and pointing.

“Fuck,” I muttered, looking around for an escape and wondering why people thought they had to stop the guy who just saved two kids. Assholes.

I ducked quickly between two midway stands, cut behind one, and dropped my glamour, then reversed direction and stepped out from behind the booth, looking behind me as though someone had just run past.

“Where’d he go?” one of my followers demanded, coming to a stop beside me and looking around.

“Big guy?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“That way,” I said, pointing in a random direction. “He almost knocked me down. Asshole.”

*

For the ride home, Priscilla opened the car door for me.

She’d seen me wincing as we exited the fair. What mana I had left was starting the healing process, but all that had taken a lot out of me, especially the use of Command on so many people.

“Unbutton your shirt,” Priscilla said as she closed the car door.

“Hey! None of that!” the driver shouted.

“He hurt his shoulder on a ride,” Priscilla told the driver. “I’m just going to check it out.”

“Fine, but the pants stay on or I pull over, understand? There’s a hundred-and-fifty-dollar cleaning fee if you make a mess.”

“We’re not going to make a mess — just drive?”

The driver started doing that, but he didn’t stop grumbling.

Priscilla and I locked eyes and grinned, then she gestured at my shirt.

I winced as I tried, because moving my right arm was getting more and more painful. It felt like I’d done a lot more damage than I’d taken in the fight with the vampire.

“I’ll do it,” Priscilla said, quickly undoing a few buttons until the shirt gaped open, then slid one hand inside.

Her hand slid over my chest to cup my shoulder and the heat I felt wasn’t just because of her sliding her hand over my bare skin, a deep, penetrating warmth enclosed my shoulder.

“What —”

“Sshh.” Priscilla shook her head. “I need to concentrate. I’m not that good at this and I don’t have much left.”

“No drugs in the car!” the driver yelled.

“We’re not doing drugs, just drive, okay?”

The pain in my shoulder eased — it didn’t go away entirely, but it didn’t feel like it was hanging by a rubber band every time I tried to move my arm — and, as it eased, I became more and more aware of Priscilla’s hand inside my shirt, warming my skin with more than magic. Even more aware of her face, just inches from mine.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Priscilla whispered. “I said I need to concentrate.”

“Look at you like what?” I had more important things to think of than what expression I might have on my face.

Priscilla bit her lip. “Like you’ve got a spare hundred and fifty dollars to clean this guy’s car.”

I rolled my shoulder a little — it was feeling a lot better.

“Stop moving, it makes this harder.”

Something was being made harder, and it wasn’t taking any movement at all.

“So, um, what was all that about newtons per second and stuff back there?” I asked, trying to distract myself.

“What? Oh —” She shot a quick glance over her shoulder at the driver. “When you grow up … in the circus, you learn to calculate things like that. So you don’t, you know, rip your shoulder up and break your wrist.”

I started to shrug, but thought better of it. “Small price.”

“Give me your hand,” Priscilla said.

She glanced at my face, then flushed and turned away, because I was watching her hand leave my shoulder and trail fingertips across my chest for a lot longer than was strictly necessary.

“Just give me your hand,” she said, holding out her own.

That same warmth soaked into my hand and wrist from her touch and that pain eased as well.

“It’s not much,” she said, setting my hand in my lap and releasing it. Then sat back, let her head fall backward on the headrest, and closed her eyes.

“It feels a lot better, thank you.” My own mana probably could have taken care of it — Strength came with a bit of healing, like when the vampire had been pummeling me, but then I wouldn’t have had Priscilla’s hands on me — it was tempting to fuck up my shoulder again.

“That took a lot out of me,” she whispered.

My bad arm was farthest from her, which meant the one closest worked fine. I slid it around her shoulders and pulled her toward me — I’m pretty sure she was asleep before her head came to rest on my shoulder.

I was tired, too. Between the mana I’d used and the fading of the adrenalin rush, it was all I could do to stay awake until we got back to Willowmere.

Priscilla’s head hung half-off my shoulder, so I couldn’t see her eyes — just the tips of her eyelashes sticking out and the tip of her nose and one side of her lips. Her breath washed across my chest and I was pretty annoyed at how short the ride home was.

“Priscilla?” I said, nudging her a little as the car stopped.

“Hmm?”

“We’re back — come on.”

She blinked her eyes open. “Oh. I’m good, I’m good. I can walk.”

I slid out of the car and she followed.

We walked to the dorms, but Priscilla paused as we were about to go through the doors.

“You’re in the cottage — you don’t have to come in.”

“I’d kind of like to make sure you get to your room okay.”

We went in and I followed Priscilla to her room. At the door she turned around and leaned back against it, smiling.

“That was fun — thank you,” she said.

“Even with the near disaster?”

She nodded. “I’m glad we were there.”

“Me, too.” I grinned. “Little miss super hero — what should we call you? Circus Girl?”

A finger poked one of my shirt buttons, playing with it.

“You going to be The Strongman?”

Our eyes met.

“You know,” Priscilla said, “you still owe me something.”

“Yeah?” I asked, leaning in.

“Yeah.”

I leaned in further, watching Priscilla’s eyes shut and her lips part, then changed direction and brushed my lips against her neck. Priscilla gasped and the corners of her mouth turned up. I pulled back, then brushed my lips against the other side of her neck.

“You know,” she whispered, “a second kiss might not be enough, either.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “My kisses are fantastic. It could take quite a few of yours to match one.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm hm.”

I ran my tongue along her neck, grinning as she gasped and shivered.

“Well, I always make good on my debts.”

“Yeah?”

“Get a room!”

Priscilla and I broke apart, laughing as one of the other girls walked by us, muttering under her breath.

As I grinned and leaned back in toward Priscilla, I felt a sudden buzzing in the back of my head, that quickly escalated to pain.

“Ow,” I muttered standing straighter.

“Your arm?” Priscilla asked, looking worried.

“No.” I didn’t shake my head because I was afraid it might fall off. “It feels like someone stuck a hand-mixer in my brain.”

“Shit,” Priscilla muttered, straightening to put her back firmly against her door and pulling as far away from me as she could. “Sorry.”

“What?”

“You swore an oath not to mark someone, right? Prima said you did at the start of the semester?”

“Yeah, but what does that have to do with it.”

Priscilla flushed a brighter red than I’d ever seen on her, even over stud fees. “I’m…” She glanced back at her door. “My roommate went into town tonight and … um, the drawbridge is, um, way down. We should probably call it a night — oath breaking leaves a mess.”

“Oh.” I took a step back and the buzzing in my head faded a little. I had to grin a little, though. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Priscilla bit her lip and looked down, then her face came up with narrowed eyes and she poked me in the chest. “But don’t get ahead of yourself — if I wound up only getting the other girls one date, they’d never forgive me. You have more work to do — I’ve got those spiky, grate-door things, too. Lots of them. This castle’s not anywhere near stormed.”

I chuckled, quickly leaning in to give Priscilla a quick kiss before stepping back.

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

I walked down the hallway.

“Hey, Noah?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t forget you owe me some dancing, too. Wait too long to pay up and I’ll start charging you interest.”

I grinned and went downstairs, leaving through the back doors closest to the cottage path.

The air was crisp and clear, with the sounds of insects just coming out after the winter.

It was at that moment in time, that I first regretted never learning to whistle. My walk would have gone well with a jaunty tune.

Chapter

“What happened?”

“Are you okay?”

“Are you hurt?”

“What?”

I was practically dragged into the cottage — no, I was dragged. Hands grabbed at me, running over my chest and back and legs.

“Ow.”

“You’re hurt!”

“What happened?”

“Where are you hurt?”

“Where you just grabbed me — shoulder, wrist, still a little tender. I’m okay, though. What happened?”

“The coven bond, dumbass,” Cassandra said, scowling.

The girls started leading me from the door to the giant bed, still touching me as though to determine if I’d lost any bits while I was out with Priscilla.

“Come and sit down.”

“Do you want something to drink?”

“Where’s your phone?”

“Okay, yes, thanks, in my pocket?” I tried to cover everything they were shooting at me.

“Which shoulder hurts?” Sam asked.

“The right on — ow!”

“Then why didn’t you answer your fucking phone?” Sam demanded, smacking me in the uninjured shoulder.

“What the hell? Can you at least tell me what’s going on?”

“Here,” Rachel said, holding out a can of soda still dripping from the cooler we kept them in while we waited on a fridge.

“Now, what happened?” Cassandra demanded once I’d taken a sip of my soda.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Things were going so well, then there was all this startlement and fear and pain.”

“You were watching our date through the coven bond?”

Sam flushed red. “Maybe?”

Cassandra sighed. “She was watching the bond. Rachel and I were minding our own business when all that spiked.”

“We were almost ready to call a car and come after you,” Rachel said. “Then things were okay again.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, “we tried calling and texting but you never picked up.”

“Oh,” I said. “I, um, put my phone on mute —”

“You muted us?” Cassandra demanded.

I had — well, not the girls specifically, but everyone. On the other hand, the only ones who called me were the girls, so I guess it had been a little specific.

“I was on a date,” I explained tentatively. “I wanted Priscilla to have my full attention.”

“I can’t believe you muted us.”

“Yeah.” Even Rachel was complaining.

“Um, guys?” Sam said. “I think, maybe, we need to give him a pass on that part.”

“Why? He muted us.”

“Do you want me texting him on your date night?”

Cassandra’s nostrils flared. “Fine.” She turned back to me. “You could have called us, though — to let us know you were okay.”

“We were worried sick,” Rachel said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I … didn’t think you’d feel all that through the bond.”

Cassandra narrowed her eyes. “You get a pass — only because it’s so plausible you really were that ignorant and didn’t know.”

“Thanks?”

I really hadn’t thought of it — the coven bond was new enough to me that I didn’t really know everything it did. We’d experienced some of those spikes with Cassandra and her fear reactions, but I hadn’t made the connection — I’d been a little busy, after all.

“So spill,” Sam said.

I took another sip and started to explain what had happened with the Ferris wheel.

“No, no, no,” Sam interrupted. “There were really good parts before all the bad parts, so we want the whole story from the beginning.”

Cassandra and Rachel were nodding, so I started over, beginning with the pretty normal stuff Priscilla and I had chatted about on the way to the fair, then Priscilla’s reaction to finding out where we were really going.

“You told me dinner!” Sam said. “You even mentioned a couple restaurants!”

“Yeah? If I’d told you I was taking her to the fair, would you have been able to keep it quiet?”

Sam said nothing, but Rachel and Cassandra were nodding.

I moved on to the fair itself and some comments about Priscilla out-eating me and winning all the midway games.

“Proprio burns a lot of calories,” Sam said, nodding.

“That girl was hard on carnies even before coming into her power,” Cassandra said. “I’m surprised they don’t have her picture passed around on some kind of banned list.”

“She did get banned after the ladder-climb,” I said.

“Surprised she made it that long,” Cassandra said.

“So we … ah, made a bet about the ladder-thing.”

“What kind of bet?”

“A, ah, kiss — if she beat the ladder she got to kiss me.”

“What if she fell off?” Rachel asked.

“Then, ah, I got to kiss her.”

Sam laughed. “So sneaky and manipulative, I love it!”

“We’d just finished the kiss and were starting another one when the Ferris wheel broke.”

“Wait? Second kiss?”

I nodded. “Priscilla had some, ah, doubts about whether just one of my kisses could measure up to one of hers — so I told her she could pick something else if it didn’t. She picked a second kiss.”

Sam laughed again. “What a missed opportunity — I’d have asked for —”

“We all know what you’d ask for,” Cassandra interrupted. “Pervert.”

I did my best to describe Priscilla’s climb up the Ferris wheel, eliciting some gasps from Rachel.

“You’re a hero,” Rachel whispered when I got to the point where I caught the kids, hurting my shoulder and wrist.

“Priscilla’s the hero,” I said, shaking my head. “I’d never have had the chance to catch them if not for her.”

I finished the story, getting some laughs about how I sent the guys chasing me off after dropping my glamour.

“And then we got home,” I finished.

“And then?” Sam asked.

“We got back to campus,” I repeated. “And here I am.”

Sam shook her head. “Nope. You were spamming Lust down the bond so much when you got back to campus that I’m surprised your pants don’t have a hole in them. What else?”

I sighed. “I walked Priscilla to her room and we kissed a little more.”

Sam started bouncing up and down. “In her room? Her roommate’s out, I saw her heading for town — what base did you get to? Did you see her boobs again?”

“Not in her room. Outside in the hallway.”

The bouncing increased, which rocked all the nearby cushions and surrounded me with three sets of jiggling breasts — a fine way to end an evening.

“She took her shirt off in the hallway? Is she an exhibitionist? How much is a ticket — ow!”

I didn’t have a chance to insist I’d never seen Priscilla’s boobs, because we were all staring at Rachel, who was staring at the hand that had just smacked the back of Sam’s head like it wasn’t attached to her body.

“What was that for?” Sam demanded.

“Um.” Rachel flushed red, not looking at us, then stood up. “I’m thirsty — do you want another soda, Noah?”

“That’s the third time this week she’s smacked me for no reason,” Sam muttered, as Rachel practically ran to the kitchen and the cooler there. “What’s up with her?”

I shared a look with Cassandra and decided I wasn’t the only one around here who was kind of dense about that sort of thing, because it was pretty obvious to me that Rachel didn’t want Sam looking at other girls — even though the two hadn’t really done anything. It was clear, though, that they both wanted to, and I was more curious as to why Rachel was perfectly okay with me being with all three of the girls, with ten more to come, but not Sam.

I settled in to a more comfortable position and took my laptop down from the ledge above the seating pit. Rachel returned with sodas for everyone and the girls huddled together at the end farthest from the fire, giggling and casting glances my way. I figured they were going over the date in more detail, probably matching exact moments with what they’d felt coming through the coven bond.

I stared at my laptop screen, not really seeing it, as I thought about the date, too. I’d really enjoyed myself and decided the girls were going to start getting one-on-one dates as soon as we could manage the time. It had been good to concentrate on one person, even for just a few hours, instead of constantly trying to balance things.

“I may not be high priestess, but that doesn’t mean you are, either!”

My head snapped up to find Cassandra standing, fists clenched, and glaring down at Sam, who was staring back, open mouthed.

I didn’t even have time to fully take in the scene, before Cassandra spun around and dashed up the stairs. A second later a door slammed.

“What the hell was that?” I asked.

Sam shook her head. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t. We were talking and then she started arguing about everything I was saying, then … that.”

“What were you talking about?”

Sam shrugged and looked at Rachel. “It started when I said how much Priscilla was missing out on, right?”

Rachel frowned, then nodded. “Yeah, you said that and I…” Rachel glanced at me, then lowered her eyes and bit her lip. “I agreed.” She frowned again. “You said the thing about Solstice and I think that’s when she started getting angry.”

“What thing about Solstice?”

Sam shrugged. “Just that it was cool how good you were at things when you’d only had, ah, practical experience since Solstice.”

I flushed, but it was nice to hear I was good at “things.”

“Yeah,” Rachel agreed. “That’s what started it, then everything became about who was first or who was in control. I don’t get it.”

“I don’t either,” Sam said with a sigh. “That girl’s got so much going on its hard to know what’ll set her off next. I’ll try talking to her later — I’m not pissed, so Harmony should help with it.”