Bonds and Broken Dreams (Amplifier 2) Read online

  “If he did, he didn’t mention it.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You never give me a straight answer.”

  “No. I always give you a straight answer, but you just don’t like it.”

  She stuffed the rest of the cookie in her mouth, presumably to stop herself from saying whatever she wanted to say.

  “Christopher isn’t obligated to share what magic shows him. Just as you aren’t obligated to share personal details about yourself.” I waited to see if Jenni Raymond would finally take the opening to accuse me of amplifying her magic without permission. But yet again, she didn’t. She also hadn’t asked me to amplify her a second time. And even against my own inclinations, I admired her for both those decisions. Jenni had stepped up when she saw Becca Jackson trapped in a witch’s circle, a victim of Silver Pine’s plan to force the Five into her service. And she hadn’t once complained about the consequences.

  “You talk about magic as if it’s … real …”

  “It is real.”

  “You know what I mean. As if it’s like an actual thing.”

  “It is an actual thing.”

  She snarled. “Like it’s a person or an entity.”

  I shrugged. “I talk about it like that when I’m talking about Christopher, because that’s what he feels, how he interacts with his magic.”

  “Seeing the future …” Jenni murmured, speaking into the depths of her mug more than to me.

  “Your future. My future,” I said. “Not his own.”

  Her head shot up. “He can’t see his own future?”

  “He can make guesses, based on what he sees of mine or … another Adept’s. But unless I, or someone else, helps him focus that sight, he can’t really control what he sees. The oracle cards help, though.”

  “So … sometimes he’s just as blind as we are?”

  I didn’t actually have an answer to that, so I didn’t bother continuing the conversation.

  Jenni huffed out a sigh. “The sorcerers didn’t linger in town long. A big black Mercedes stands out, of course, so it caught my attention when they pulled into the gas station off the highway. Then I picked up the scent of their magic. They asked for directions to your place from the owner, Donnie, and he wasn’t forthcoming.” She laughed. “Pissed them off. But no one is going to give directions to any strangers around here. To a business or hotel, sure, but not private property.”

  Something warmed in my chest — a flush of quiet joy, maybe. I smothered the reaction with another sip of tea.

  “They climbed back into the SUV and drove out to Riverside Resort, but it’s closed. Jake noticed them pulled over at the top of the drive during his patrol. Then they came back into town and checked into the lodge. From there, the woman, like, wandered around a bit, past the diner and Hannah’s shop. Then they climbed back into the SUV and slowly drove here.”

  “Slowly? Like stopping every now and then?”

  “Yeah. The woman would step out, then back in. Tracking you?”

  I nodded. “Maybe.”

  “But not by scent? Not like I can.”

  “No. Most likely picking up residual magic. But it’s interesting that it was Ruwa who was more receptive. I assumed Isa was magically sensitive, but then he didn’t seem to pick up that Christopher was a clairvoyant until he was in the same room as him.”

  “Ruwa is the woman? And Isa is Aiden’s brother?”

  “Half-brother. Yes.”

  “Her getup was interesting … the silk dress. When there’s snow on the ground. She has spells, then? That keep her warm?”

  “A rune, maybe. Since she’s a sorcerer.”

  Jenni nodded. “Right. Are they coming back?”

  “Isa said something about dinner tomorrow.”

  “Here?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so.” She smiled at me, lips twisted as if she might have been teasing.

  So I offered her a smile back. “Think they’d be scared to eat with me?”

  “Hell, yeah. And with Christopher. They’d be idiots not to be.”

  “They walked right up to my front door. Isa sat on my couch, sipped my tea. Touched my books.”

  “He touched your smelly books?”

  I gave Jenni a look.

  She grinned unabashedly. So the food and the companionship was easing the tension she’d brought with her into the house. It was an interesting reaction. I’d been glib earlier when she asked about my amplifying shapeshifters before her — but her reaction to my magic had been unusual.

  Jenni placed her plate and mug in the dishwasher. “I’m going to see if I can pick up their trail. I’ll report back.” She snagged another cookie and grabbed her jacket, moving a bit faster than was normal for her. Still human-slow by shapeshifter standards, though.

  “Be careful,” I said as she crossed through the kitchen.

  Her step hitched, and she glanced back at me. Surprised. She had a cookie clamped between her teeth as she shrugged on her jacket. She nodded, then took the cookie from her mouth. “I’m beneath their notice, right? Like with the black witch?”

  “Not anymore, Jenni,” I said quietly. “Cross paths with them and they will notice. Especially because they’ve seen you on the property.”

  She grimaced, then she lifted her chin. “Yeah, well … shapeshifters are naturally resistant to magic.” She hesitated for a moment. “Right?”

  “Right.”

  Jenni nodded, crossing through the hall toward the front door. I let her go. The shifter was many things, but ultimately she wasn’t an idiot about exposing herself to other Adepts. She had avoided Christopher and me for over three months when we’d first moved into town. Deliberately, it seemed.

  I quickly tidied the rest of the tea, taking another cookie with me as I went upstairs to write Aiden a note.

  Chapter 2

  I crossed into my bedroom, not bothering to flick on the light even though the cloudy late afternoon was steadily dimming and my curtains were partially closed. My gaze immediately flicked to my tall bureau, as it had every evening since I’d originally found the rune that Aiden had carved into it. And the luminous magical black rose made especially for me — then eaten by Paisley.

  The rune’s magic was currently dormant, and I had to tamp down on a swell of disappointment. As I did, idiotically, every time I entered the bedroom in the time since Aiden left. He’d been gone for almost five months. On his quest to somehow definitively prove that he wanted to be with me, build a relationship with me — but not only because he craved the magic in my veins.

  Every few days, I would find a letter hovering over the rune, caught in a delicate spiral of dark-blue sorcerer magic. Through those letters, we had gotten to know each other. Or, rather, Aiden had shared his own life while occasionally managing to coax a similar response from me. He offered me stories of his childhood, his current travels, his new obsession with gemstone-housed spells — such as the spells the gems set into the hilts of my twin blades were currently lacking — and his ongoing pursuit of all magical knowledge, in all forms, including written spells, historical texts, runed languages, and artifacts.

  I tugged his latest missive from my dress pocket. After much internal debate since receiving Aiden’s first letter, I allowed myself to carry his most recent note around with me through the day. But only until I’d replied. Then I tucked it in my top drawer along with the others. I wasn’t familiar or terribly comfortable with the emotions — or even, at times, the physical sensations — that came with being enamored of someone, as I was so obviously enamored with Aiden. So giving myself guidelines and assigning allowable behaviors made absorbing it all a little easier.

  I traced the edges of the inactive rune etched into the corner of my wood bureau with the fingers of my left hand as I unfolded and reread the opening paragraph of Aiden’s most recent letter.

  Emma. I see the forecast is calling for snow in your part of the wo
rld, and I find myself wishing that I was sitting by the fire watching the snow fall by your side. Instead, I’m heading to San Francisco in anticipation of finally tracking down the spellbook I’ve spent far too long in search of, away from you. At least I have confirmation now that the book isn’t just a myth. The collector in San Francisco is not known for his approachability. But I believe I’ve sourced another book he might take in trade. He also requires a blood tithe, of course. But there are few among the elder vampires who don’t.

  I closed my eyes, seeing the next line as if it were printed on the back of my eyelids.

  And, yes, before you ask, the spellbook is that important.

  I folded the letter, tucking it back in my pocket. Then I opened the top drawer of the bureau, brushed my fingers across the sheaf of letters neatly tucked next to my panties and bras, and extracted my writing pad and pen.

  Aiden’s notes were most often written on heavy linen paper, with a few dashed off on hotel stationery just to let me know where he was in the world. His lettering was substantial, inscribed with a thick-nib fountain pen and black ink.

  I used a lined pad of paper and a blue ballpoint pen. It had taken me a week to answer the first letter. I’d found it waiting for me when I climbed into bed the evening after Aiden left. I’d spent those first seven days writing two or three lines, then critiquing my handwriting, my grammar, my inability to effectively convey my thoughts. On day five, I bought printed cards from Hannah’s shop, but then internally debated over what message each of the images on the separate cards conveyed.

  In the end, I had answered his initial three carefully articulated paragraphs, in which he’d requested to communicate with me in written form, with a single line.

  Aiden. I’m happy to hear from you. Emma.

  Though he had indicated that he thought messaging by rune would be more reliable than email, he mentioned only later that communicating by way of a rune that only he could trigger was also as private as any ongoing conversation between two people could be. Two people who were continually concerned about revealing too much of themselves to their enemies. Or even to each other.

  The conversations had ebbed and flowed after that. Longer letters interspersed with quick notes dashed off out of a need to simply check in with each other, but without anything substantial to report. I enjoyed those quick notes the most, as they often contained a single simple sentiment. Occasionally, I allowed myself to carry one of them in my pocket for more than twenty-four hours.

  Aiden had offered to discuss his father and his past in his second letter. But not ready to do so myself, I hadn’t responded directly. Instead, I’d gone into detail about the research I was doing into magical transference and binding spells.

  A week later, a spellbook had been delivered by courier, with Aiden indicating that he’d found it in a London bookshop. For me. He’d also included a book about magical husbandry for Christopher.

  I was careful about what I mentioned after that, not wanting the sorcerer to think he had to buy me gifts or do things for me constantly. But after answering one or two of Aiden’s questions, a tea he’d sourced in India appeared, then cinnamon from Indonesia. So he was determined to send me gifts, presumably seeing the exchange as part of his plan to slowly woo me, court me.

  But now, five months of long-distance wooing was starting to feel overly prolonged. Especially for someone who was accustomed to living her life through stolen moments — in between points of bloodshed and deadly conflict.

  I uncapped the ballpoint pen, jotted seven words halfway down on the pad, tore the page away from the binding, folded it, and set it over the rune. It would remain there until Aiden remotely triggered the magic he’d somehow embedded into the corner of my bureau. The letters were always collected overnight, meaning that wherever Aiden was in the world, whatever time zone, he always checked, either sending or retrieving a note in the late evening my time.

  This note simply read:

  Your brother is here. Looking for you.

  I thought about saying more, about detailing the conversation or mentioning Ruwa. But for the first time since we’d started writing, I was concerned that our letters might be intercepted somehow. And that idea made me feel vulnerable in a way that the uninvited sorcerer sitting in my front sitting room could never have accomplished on his own.

  Whether or not it was actually true, Isa had already indicated that he’d traced the gifts Aiden sent. And I didn’t even need to see them side-by-side to compare the similar tenor of his and Aiden’s magic. They were both Azars, and had both obviously been educated by the same masters, the same father.

  So I had no doubt that the complicated communication rune etched on my bureau — magic I had no idea how to construct or wield — was an Azar spell. Possibly passed down through generations.

  I made a mental note that if I didn’t hear back from Aiden within twenty-four hours, I’d ask Christopher to email him. Though knowing the clairvoyant, he might have reached out to the sorcerer already.

  Christopher was puttering around in the kitchen with something involving the mixer, eggs, and whole-wheat flour. I hoped it all might magically transform into the mushroom ravioli recipe he’d recently been trying to perfect.

  “Do you want me to cast cards?” he asked, not looking up from reviewing the meticulous culinary notes he kept in a black leather-bound notebook.

  I contemplated the question while crossing to the French-paned doors that looked out over the patio into the backyard. It was snowing. The flakes were small but plentiful. I didn’t like requesting readings from the oracle cards, forcing Christopher’s magic on command. But it was idiotic to not use all our resources when faced with an unknown sorcerer. Times two.

  And honestly, Ruwa bothered me — and Jenni Raymond, apparently — more than Isa Azar had. I really hoped that my intense and immediate dislike of the female sorcerer had nothing to do with the fact that she’d once been Aiden’s lover — and was currently strikingly beautiful, as far as I understood such things. Jenni’s inherent dislike of her actually made me feel better about my own motivations. I’d never knowingly been jealous or envious of another person, and had actually shared Fish with the other three — the nullifier being the only one any of us could have sex with while avoiding magical ramifications. But unfortunately, there was always a first time.

  “It’s snowing again,” I said.

  “Just lightly.” Christopher scooped three cups of whole-wheat flour into the stainless steel mixing bowl, leveling each far more carefully than I ever did. Ginger snap cookies were always tasty, even with too little or slightly too much flour. And I never used flour to make anything else. “The main storm will hold off until Aiden gets here.”

  A smile spread across my face before I could tamp down on my reaction. I kept my back to the clairvoyant and my voice steady. “Did you see him or email?”

  “Email. But I doubt he’ll be more than twenty-four hours away. Less if he has access to any form of teleportation.”

  Teleportation was risky. Not everyone had magic that made them receptive to being shoved through time and space, then showing up at their destination the same person — inside and out — as they had been before the spell had been triggered. In my experience, it took a minimum of three powerful witches to move one attuned Adept. And an entire coven was more reliable. The Collective had kept several covens on their payroll for such castings, and rumors circulated among our team members that magical artifacts capable of teleportation existed. But in order to trigger, such an object would have to borrow a chunk of magic from its wielder, so only the most powerful of Adepts could use such an object — safely, at least.

  An alchemist capable of creating an artifact of that level would be practically as mythical as the device itself. Though if any Adept had access to such power, I wouldn’t doubt it would be an Azar sorcerer. Still, Aiden was a Myers, not an Azar. He had been so for many years, since trying and failing to kill the brother who’d just been sipping te
a in my front sitting room.

  “Emma? The cards?”

  I sighed. “It would be prudent.”

  “Yes. It would. But we don’t always agree to act on things, prudent or not.”

  I turned to look at him, then dropped my gaze to the empty kitchen table. A small white box was set near the chair that Christopher usually occupied. “You’ve already cast cards, haven’t you?”

  He chuckled. “Of course I have. But doing so with you in the room is always more interesting.”

  He was trying to tease, to feign lightheartedness. “Your sight is obscured?” I asked.

  He shrugged, dusting his hands on his jeans as he crossed to the table. He picked up the box, opened it, and tipped the deck into his left hand without offering further clarification.

  “That could mean that nothing untoward lies behind Isa’s visit,” I said. “That he means what he says. He’s simply here to speak to Aiden.”

  Christopher shuffled the deck, using a simple twist of his hands that grew more pronounced and dramatic as he locked his light-gray gaze to me. Grinning, showing off.

  “Thinking of a new career?” I asked.

  He laughed. “I could make us some good money if we had a local casino.”

  “We don’t need money.”

  He nodded, sobering. “I’m teasing, Emma. You provide for us. Thank you.”

  “Thank Fish too.” The nullifier had left a large bag of cash behind after I’d driven him out of the house last September.

  Christopher nodded, letting the conversation drop before I could get pissy. Or, rather, pissier.

  The clairvoyant’s power spread through the cards as he shuffled, edging them with a glow that slowly brightened. “Tell me what you want to know, Fox in Socks.” Christopher’s tone became remote, formal, layered with magic. “Mind, body, spirit? Head, heart, soul? Past, present, future?”

  He was suggesting a three-card reading, and the different possible ways to interpret the randomly pulled trio. “As you will, clairvoyant,” I said, speaking to his magic more than to Christopher himself.